back...Opening of the exhibition "Children's traces of the Warsaw Uprising"

On 1 August 1944, at 'W' hour (5pm), the Home Army and other underground organisations took up arms against the German occupiers. Approximately fifty thousand insurgents fought to liberate Warsaw. Among the participants in the Warsaw Uprising there were also children and young people under the age of eighteen. Many of them gave their lives for a free Poland. “In the Łódź cemetery on Ogrodowa Street there is a grave of fifteen-year-old Basia Nazdrowicz aka Squirrel, who was killed in the Uprising,” explained Dr Ireneusz Piotr Maj, director of the Museum of Polish Children – Victims of Totalitarianism, in connection with the exhibition "Children's Traces of the Warsaw Uprising" prepared by the Museum staff.

The 80. anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising is an opportunity to present the latest exhibition of the Museum of Polish Children – Victims of Totalitarianism, entitled "Children's Traces of the Warsaw Uprising”. The exhibition depicts the tragic fate of the youngest insurgents.

“The exhibition takes a closer look at the subject of the youngest participants in the Warsaw Uprising and the children who lived through the nightmare of war together with the adults. Among other things, the little insurgents witnessed German atrocities in Wola, Ochota, the Old Town and other districts of Warsaw. They either directly or indirectly participated in the fighting and suffered from air bombardment and artillery shelling,” said Szymon Nowak, an employee of the Museum's research department.

Many of the children of the Warsaw Uprising were killed, injured, orphaned or maimed. The survivors emphasised that the traumatic memories of the war hadstayed with them forever.

"There were 15 of us together with an older nurse (I can't remember her name). The girls were aged 15-18. I have to say that the girls had a very brave attitude, the kind of attitude that a Girl Scout should adopt. First the Germans brutally began to execute the doctors before our eyes, usually shooting them in the back of the head. And so one by one they came to us. They ordered us to move forward a few steps and shot at us in groups. I stepped forward together with everyone, singing the Polish anthem. At the sound of gunshots I fell down, and next to me the girls with their heads shattered. (...) Lying in a position with my legs tucked up, I experienced everything, I heard the whole tragedy to the end," as we can read in the Memoirs of Wanda Łokietek-Borzęcka, who survived the German atrocities in the St. Lazarus hospital.

(Ludność cywilna w Powstaniu Warszawskim tom 1. Pamiętniki. Relacje. Zeznania. Część pierwsza (Civilian population in the Warsaw Uprising volume 1.Memoirs. Relationships. Testimonies. Part One), Warsaw 1974, pp. 251-252).