The story of this place
On 1 August 1944, as the Red Army neared the Vistula, the Polish Home Army launched an open revolt to liberate Warsaw before the Soviets arrived. For 63 days poorly armed insurgents — many of them teenagers — fought the Wehrmacht and SS through sewers and rubble while the Soviets halted on the far bank and the Western Allies could not reach them. Around 200,000 Poles died. In reprisal Hitler ordered Warsaw razed; some 85% of the city was systematically demolished. Opened in 2004 on the 60th anniversary, the museum recreates the uprising's sound and fury — a replica sewer, a B-24 Liberator, and the heartbeat of a city that chose to fight.