Poland marks start of Warsaw uprising
AFP, Warsaw
Leaders from the United States, Britain and their wartime foe Germany converged on Warsaw yesterday to mark the start sixty years ago of a doomed Polish uprising against the Nazis in which the city was turned to rubble. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder arrived to make an unprecedented appearance by a German head of government at the commemorations, marking a further chapter in the reconciliation between the neighbours and wartime enemies. US Secretary of State Colin Powell and Britain's Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott also represented Poland's wartime western allies, accused of doing too little to help the insurgency, in which 200,000 Poles were killed. Powell, pointing to Poland's May 1 membership of the European Union and 1999 membership of NATO, promised Warsaw, a key US ally in Iraq, would not be left on its own again. "Poland will never be alone again as it was 60 years ago," he told a news conference. "The United States will always be with Poland." The 63-day uprising, launched on the stroke of 5:00 pm (1500 GMT) on August 1, 1944 by the non-communist resistance group, the Polish Home Army (AK), was directed militarily against the German Nazis, who occupied Warsaw at the time.
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