Warsaw Uprising Monument: The Hour Called W
Why is it significant?
Walk around the great bronze until you face its larger half: a knot of soldiers charging out from under a toppling slab of concrete, helmets, rifles and torn coats, as if a wall had just collapsed behind them.
Key Facts
| Place | Warsaw Uprising Monument: The Hour Called W |
|---|---|
| Address | Plac Krasińskich, 00-207 Warszawa, Poland |
| Geo Coordinates | 52.24940, 21.00580 |
| Part of Walk | Sixty-Three Days: The Warsaw Uprising of 1944, from Krasiński Square to Złota Street |
| Generated | Generated |
Walk around the great bronze until you face its larger half: a knot of soldiers charging out from under a toppling slab of concrete, helmets, rifles and torn coats, as if a wall had just collapsed behind them. A few steps away, a second, smaller group is climbing down into the ground through an opening in the pavement. Those two scenes, attack and descent, are the whole story of the Warsaw Uprising in two pieces of metal.
The monument was unveiled on 1 August 1989, the forty-fifth anniversary of the day the fighting began. The sculptor was Wincenty Kućma, the architect Jacek Budyn. Why so late? For decades the communist authorities treated the Home Army, the underground army loyal to the Polish government in exile in London, as an embarrassment at best and an enemy at worst. Many of its veterans were imprisoned after the war. A monument with their faces became possible only in the year communism in Poland began to fall.
The Uprising began at the hour the Home Army called W, five in the afternoon on 1 August 1944. Its commanders expected to fight for a few days, as the Germans retreated before the advancing Red Army. Around forty thousand insurgents went into the streets, and only a fraction of them had a firearm. They held out for sixty-three days. Around sixteen thousand insurgents were killed or went missing, and somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 civilians died. The Red Army, meanwhile, halted on the far bank of the Vistula and did not cross in force.
Every year at exactly five o'clock on 1 August, sirens sound across Warsaw and the city stands still. Trams stop, drivers step out of their cars, people freeze on the pavement for a minute, and red flares burn on this square. Look for the sign you will meet all day, on walls, on plaques, on lapels: a letter P whose foot opens into an anchor. That is the Kotwica, the symbol of Fighting Poland.
The smaller bronze group is heading for something real. Walk to the corner of Długa street, beside the square, and then along Długa towards the classical palace at number 7.