Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, August 1, 1994 TAG: 9408010071
SECTION: NATL/INTL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WARSAW, POLAND LENGTH: Medium
Cynical jokes, tales of brave youths felled by Nazi bullets and pleas for firm ties to the West are echoing through this capital as Poles mark the 50th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising.
Not as well known abroad as the equally tragic 1943 revolt in Warsaw's Jewish ghetto, the uprising against Poland's Nazi occupiers was a doomed attempt at self-liberation by its underground Home Army.
The 63-day uprising, dubbed ``Tempest,'' was launched Aug. 1, 1944, as the Soviet Red Army advanced toward the city.
But the Red Army halted on the Vistula river's east bank and watched while the Germans slaughtered the populace and razed the city. The insurgents lacked arms and ammunition because Stalin barred Allied planes from landing at Soviet airfields until it was too late.
More than 200,000 Poles, nine in 10 of them civilians, were killed. A city with a prewar population of 1.3 million had become an empty, lifeless pile of rubble in January 1945 when the Red Army finally marched in.
``Here and nowhere else, the Cold War between East and West began,'' wrote Hanns von Krannhals, a German historian who chronicled the uprising.
Today, Vice President Al Gore, British Prime Minister John Major and President Roman Herzog of Germany will join President Lech Walesa of Poland and most of the 6,000 surviving uprising veterans at commemorations.
Seeking reconciliation with the two powerful neighbors that have divided and conquered Poland for most of two centuries, Walesa invited Herzog and President Boris Yeltsin of Russia.
Herzog accepted, although confusing this uprising with the Jewish ghetto revolt. That prompted Poles to wonder aloud what the average German knows about Poland's World War II struggle and what that means for future relations.
Yeltsin said he was too busy to attend and was sending his chief of staff - although the invitation was made a year ago.
``This is an expression of anger toward Poland for its pretty forceful effort to join NATO,'' said Jan Nowak, who was a courier between the Warsaw insurgents and Poland's London-based exile government and later headed Radio Free Europe's Polish section.
Many Poles opposed inviting Herzog and Yeltsin. Opinion surveys show the populace fairly evenly divided.
Germany is now Poland's leading advocate in the West, and even many veterans do not object to Herzog. But during 44 years as a Soviet satellite, the uprising remained an enduring symbol of national self-determination.
Many who took part chose exile over returning to a country firmly in Stalin's grip. They want nothing to do with the Russians today, fearing resurgent expansionism and a continued Russian military presence in former Soviet republics.
``Did you hear that Yeltsin will, after all, attend the uprising commemorations?'' goes one joke making the rounds in Warsaw these days. ``He'll just be arriving late.''
by CNB