Siege of Warsaw

The siege of Warsaw did not go well. The Poles fought valiantly and were severely punished for it. No surprise there. The Germans were not known for their qualities of restraint in WWII. But Warsaw serves as a non-Jewish reminder that they had a scorched earth policy for those they hated, and there is no way to easily move beyond that kind of hatred. They killed everyone in their way and they took all the things they valued from everyone, dead or alive.

So it took a lot of courage to fight that kind of opponent. Krakow just caved in, let the Nazis march in and take what they wanted, and the city started yet another life under an occupying force. Warsaw put up a fight, and paid in blood as well as being reduced to a city of rubble. The monuments to the people who resisted seem very Soviet styled to me--which is a good thing. The Soviets were very good at the propoganda thing. They exaggerated their good qualities as well as the evil qualities of their opponents, and while I am not always in favor of that approach, it is hard to exaggerate the inhumanity of the Germans in this scenario.