Warsaw Uprising vets to meet Polish president
PR dla Zagranicy
Victoria Bieniek
29.07.2018 08:30
Veterans of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising will meet Poland's president on Sunday ahead of the 74th anniversary of the start of the insurgency on August 1.
Polish insurgents. Photo: The Warsaw Rising Museum
During the meeting President Andrzej Duda is expected to award medals to the WWII fighters and people who work to keep the memory of the uprising alive.
The head of the Warsaw Rising museum, Jan Ołdakowski said the annual meeting was a special one because it expressed gratitude to the insurgents "for risking their lives for their homeland".
Warsaw Uprising veteran Leszek Żukowski said the meeting was mutually important, for soldiers who are able to meet the country's leaders, and for the leaders who can meet the last surviving soldiers.
The bloody WWII insurgency resulted in the death of some 18,000 fighters and up to 200,000 civilians.
The insurgency lasted 63 days before being put down by better equipped and more numerous German forces.
The uprising was the largest military operation by any resistance movement in Europe against the continent's Nazi German occupiers during World War II. (VB)
Source: IAR