The resolution was presented by the Speaker of the Sejm, Szymon Hołownia, and agreed upon with the Council of Senior Deputies, an advisory body consisting of elder statesmen.
The resolution honored the sacrifice of Warsaw's residents—men, women, and children—during August, September and October 1944.
"The Sejm of the Republic of Poland pays deep tribute to the heroes of this great uprising, both the soldiers of the Home Army and other military formations who took up arms against the German occupiers, and the civilian inhabitants of Warsaw who died, were wounded, and lost their possessions," the resolution said.
It also highlighted that the memory of the armed effort and sacrifice in the fight against imperialism has become the foundation of Polish collective identity in the postwar decades, despite attempts to falsify the history of the uprising during the communist regime.
The Warsaw Uprising began on August 1, 1944, as the largest armed action by an underground resistance movement in German-occupied Europe. Initially expected to last only a few days, the fighting continued for over two months as the well-organized but insufficiently armed resistance fought some of the Nazi army's toughest units.
The resolution reaffirms that "remembering the heroic effort of the Polish people in 1944 is a duty of the current and future generations."
The tribute comes amid historical context where the uprising, a culmination of five years of struggle by Polish underground formations and Polish society against Nazi occupation, was marked by limited support from the Allies and halted by a strategic decision by Josef Stalin not to advance the Soviet offensive on the right bank of the Vistula River. This led to the fall of the uprising despite the 63 days of resistance by the capital's residents.
Approximately 18,000 insurgents were killed, and 25,000 were wounded during the fighting. Civilian casualties were also massive, with some 180,000 killed, often in retribution.
The surviving residents, about 500,000 people, were expelled from the destroyed city, which went on to be almost entirely demolished by the Germans following the fall of the uprising.
(rt/gs)
Source: IAR, PAP
