63 Days Gallery

The Warsaw Uprising lasted 63 days starting on 1 August 1944. We are posting a 63-day chronology of those days which will illustrate the many aspects of the fighting, daily life and the issues which arose during those days. Every day a new photographic upload will be made.

Day 63 - 2 October: Polish HIgh command agrees to a capitulation with the Nazi authorities. The Uprising ends.

Day 62 - 1 October: Evacuation of civilian population from Srodmiescie agreed with the Nazi authorities begins.

Day 61 - 30 September: Fighting ceases in Zoliborz.

Day 60 - 29 September: Capitulation talks continue.

Day 59 - 28 September: Fighting continues in Zoliborz and Srodmiescie. AK high command decides to continue talks with Germans regarding evacuation of population and possibly capitulation.

Day 58 - 27 September: London is told hunger is spreading . All that is left are stores of wheat. People are eating dogs.

Day 57 - 26 September: Mokotow falling. AK starts to evacuate the district with serious losses of insurgents and civilians escaping through sewers.

Day 56 - 25 September: One of the main photographers of the Warsaw Uprising and Polish Olympian, Eugeniusz Lokajski killed.

Day 55 - 24 September: Mokotow becomes the centre of the fighting but the German 9th Army admit they are making small progress.

Day 54 - 23 September: Water in the town centre is starting to be traded. The wells are being emptied.

Day 53 - 22 September: Czerniakow falls, no help coming from Russian and Poles on eastern side. Help to evacuate injured fails to arrive.

Day 52 - 21 September: The last Allied drops from Italy received in Warsaw.

Day 51 - 20 September: Gen Monter, AK Commander for the Warsaw District: Today we are standing in the face of victory. … The moment is approaching when the victorious and brave Red Army will deliver the last blow to the barbaric German. … Prepare yourself for further effort in the battle for Warsaw and Poland’s freedom.

Day 50 - 19 September: Heavy fighting in Czerniakow, insurgents and Berling soldiers rebuffed.

Day 49 - 18 September: American flying fortresses drop aid on Warsaw in a daylight sortie. Only about 20% of the drops fall into the insurgents’ hands.

Day 48 - 17 September: Augustus Browne, a Nigerian, had been fighting throughout the Uprising as the sole African AK insurgent. He survived the fighting and died in the UK in 1976.

Day 47 - 16 September: The Polish National Council in Warsaw appeals to Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin for continual drops of weapons, ammunition and food.

Day 46 - 15 September: The first soldiers of Gen Berling Army attached to Red Army cross the River Vistula and land in Solec and Czerniakow making contact with insurgents.

Day 45 - 14 September: Red Army drives Germans forces out of the eastern side of Warsaw from the district of Praga.

Day 44 - 13 September: The first Soviet supplies of food and arms are dropped on Warsaw. Germans destroy bridges over River Vistula.

Day 43 - 12 September: AK High Command tells London that the Soviet offensive seems to be yielding success and has the advantage over the Germans.

Day 42 - 11 September: Bor Komorowski sends message to the Soviet commander, Marshal Rokossowski asking him to make contact.

Day 41 - 10 September: The sound of fighting starts to be heard on the east side of Warsaw. This raises hope that the Red Army will take Warsaw.

Day 40 - 9 September: Food shortages and hunger are exacerbating. The basic meal is ‘Pluj zupa’, ‘spit soup’ made of cereal grain whose husks had to be spat out.

Day 39 - 8 September: Evacuation of civilians from the city centre starts. Only about 10% of the population leaves over three days.

Day 38 - 7 September: The Polish Red Cross is authorised to start talks with the German command on the possible evacuation of the old, sick, and children.

Day 37 - 6 September: The headquarters of the AK HIgh Command is bombed and new accommodation has to be found.

Day 36 - 5 September: The main fighting moves to Powisle in Srodmiescie.

Day 35 - 4 September: The electricity power station is bombed and ceases to provide electricity.

Day 34 - 3 September: Father Tomasz Roztworowski, an AK chaplain, who witnessed German war crimes in the Old Town, in particular in a hospital where he remained with the injured patients, manages to go into hiding in a cellar and only comes out after the final capitulation of the city.

Day 33 - 2 September: The last AK fighting units leave the Old Town and it falls to the Germans. Their policy of massacres and the forcible evacuation of survivors in this part of the city commences.

Day 32 - 1 September: The anniversary of the outbreak of the WW2, The AK-commander-in-Chief tells the Poles: A nation which wishes to live in freedom cannot be indifferent in the moments when its fate is being decided.

Day 31 - 31 August: In parts of the centre of Warsaw life still carries on relatively normally.

Day 30 - 30 August: The retreat and evacuation of AK forces, the injured, and auxiliaries from the Old Town starts.

Day 29 - 29 August: Great Britain and the United States issue statements acknowledging the Polish Home Army as an integral part of the Polish Armed Forces, hence, its right to treatment in accordance with international conventions on warfare and warning the Germans that any violations of these conventions will be prosecuted.

Day 28 - 28 August: Polish Red Cross calls on people to donate bed linen, blankets, underwear for the injured, as their hospitals holding these supplies have been burnt down.

Day 27 - 27 August: The pro-Soviet Armia Ludowa (People’s Army) newspaper publishes an article saying: No uprising which has been staged in Warsaw has had such united support from its population.

Day 26 - 26 August: AK High Command escapes the Old Town through the sewers to Srodmiescie as it is no longer safe to stay there because of the German onslaught.

Day 25 - 25 August: During the bombing the children’s author, Jan Pienkowski, then 8-years old, was sitting in the cellars, sheltering from the bombs. In one of those evenings an insurgent showed him paper cut-out techniques. These were the style he later used in his many and so characteristic picture books.

Day 24 - 24 August: A call is put out in the press asking for people to donate yeast. "The injured and sick need white bread. We need yeast to bake it and we don't have any".

Day 23 - 23 August: After capturing the Police Command Building on Krakowskie Przedmiescie Street, AK units released 8 priests and 50 civilians including children who were being held as hostages.

Day 22 - 22 August: Stalin replies to the letter of PM Churchill and US President Roosevelt: Sooner or later the truth about the handful of Criminals, who started the row about Warsaw aimed at taking up power, will become known to everyone.

Day 21 - 21 August: Heavy fighting to defend Cathedral in the Old Town. The nave, chapels and the vestry continually changing hands. The insurgents manage to maintain the defensive.

Day 20 - 20 August: PASTA bulding captured by insurgents.

Day 19 - 19 August: Warsaw is speaking: Listen! / Warsaw is speaking here / Take note in the tribune and Times / We have still not given up, do you hear? Poem published by unknown author. Attribution: Bundesarchiv, Bild 101III-Alber-096-32 / Alber, Kurt / CC-BY-SA

Day 18 - 18 August: German peace envoys bearing white flags hand a letter from commander SS General Erich von dem Bach to the Home Army commander calling on the Poles to surrender, promising them combatant rights or the city’s total destruction and its inhabitants' extermination.

Day 17 - 17 August: German forces capture the Haberbusch Brewery, the Poles loose as a result large stores of cereals, flour and sugar.

Day 16 - 16 August: Home Army issues instructions to save severely the use of water and start sinking wells following the closing of the waterworks.

Day 15 - 15 August: German anti-aircraft defence shot down three of 20 Allied planes bringing aid to Warsaw.

Day 14 - 14 August: Dr Strehl, Ujazdowski Hospital commander, negotiates with the Germans the evacuation of the Maltanski Hospital, saving the lives of over 200 bedridden patients. The SS Commander Dirlewangler had ordered the evacuation of the hospital. They were pushed in their beds to a hospital behind the Polish lines. German injured soldiers had been cared for in this hospital.

Day 13 - 13 August: In the Palladium cinema for the first time since the outbreak of WW2, a Polish film in a Polish cinema was screened. It was made by AK cameramen and producers.

Day 12 - 12 August: The German 9th Army war diary records the insurgents’ determination and adjustment to fighting in an urban environment. German forces control about 3/5 of the town, using all kinds of technical means, including new ones being tested. Photo credit: Paul Latawski

Day 11 - 11 August: The Polish Church authorities explain to the Home Army what prayers and hymns should be used at morning and evening mass and other services.

Day 10 - 10 August: BBC broadcasts British Government’s warning to the Germans that any military or civilians ordering or committing crimes directed at both AK combatants and non-combatants which break international law will be tracked down and appropriately punished.

Day 9 - 9 August: The first evacuees escaping massacres in Ochota and Wola arrive in Pruszkow transit camp.

Day 8 - 8 August: The first day Radio Blyskawica started broadcasting. It had been built and programmes prepared before the Uprising. Broadcasts were picked up across Warsaw, Poland and the UK. John Ward, an escaped British POW, broadcast in English, including messages to the British Government.

Day 7 - 7 August: The first day when the Field Post, Poczta Polowa, operated by Boy Scouts starts functioning. These post-scouts had trained throughout the occupation for this work learning where all the streets and passages were.

Day 6 - 6 August: Escapees from Wola and Ochota start arriving in the Old Town and Srodmiescie bringing the stories of the terrible slaughter with them.

Day 5 - 5 August: 350 Jews in Gęsiówka transit camp, located in the area of the former Warsaw Jewish ghetto, freed by insurgent group Zośka. SS Gen Erich von dem Bach arrives in Warsaw to take command of the Warsaw battle. He modifies discriminatory policy regarding civilians but massacres in Wola and Ochota continue.

Day 4 - 4 August: The first Allied air sortie leaves Italy to drop aid on Warsaw. The pro-communist People’s Army Command announces they are Fighting jointly with the AK. Poet Krzysztof Kamil Baczynski killed in the fighting.

Day 3 - 3 August: First reports of German forces using civilian population as human shields in front of tanks, to dismantle barricades and other crimes.

Day 2 - 2 August: First full day of fighting. Large parts of Warsaw in insurgents’ hands. People come forward to join and help fighting e.g. building barricades.

Day 1 - 1 August: Warsaw Uprising starts at W Hour 5.00 pm