WHAT HAPPENED DURING THE WARSAW UPRISING?

The Warsaw Uprising saw an estimated 50,000 young Polish men and women take up arms against the Nazis occupying the city.

The insurgents, known as the Home Army, were aiming to oust the Germans and take control of Warsaw before it was ‘liberated’ by the advancing Soviet Army. It was expected to take only a few days, but lasted two months.

The bloody 63-day battle, which broke out on August 1, 1944, saw some 18,000 of the insurgents killed and another 25,000 injured in the struggle against the well-armed Germans.

Commanded by General Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski, the Home Army had managed to gain control of most of Warsaw within three days.

But the Germans sent in reinforcements and forced the insurgents into a defensive position by bombarding them with artillery and air attacks over the course of two months.

Without Allied support, the Home Army was split into small and disconnected units and was forced to surrender when its supplies ran out on October 2.

By the time the uprising ended, some 180,000 civilians had also been killed in German bombings and executions.

General Bór-Komorowski and his forces were taken as prisoners and the Nazis then razed the city. They also expelled around 500,000 remaining residents, sending some to the Auschwitz death camp.

The revolt held up the westward advance of the Soviet Red Army, which waited across the Vistula River for its end.

Despite the Home Army's resistance to the German enemy, Soviet forces under the command of Josef Stalin were ordered to hang back and allow the Germans to crush the uprising.

This meant that pro-communist Polish leaders, who were in exile in London, would face no resistance when they returned to Soviet-occupied Poland.   

The Warsaw Uprising was the second major show of resistance against the Nazis in Poland - in April 19, 1943, the Warsaw 'ghetto uprising' began after German troops and police entered the ghetto to deport its surviving inhabitants.

Jewish insurgents inside the ghetto resisted these efforts, and manifested the largest uprising by Jews during the World War and the first significant urban revolt against German occupation in Europe. 

By May 16, 1943, the Germans had crushed the uprising and deported surviving ghetto residents to concentration camps and killing centres.