Warszaw this week.
Hitler's troops invaded Poland in 1939, and stayed for 6 years. Millions of polish people got killed, and many cities were hit hard. None were hit as hard a the capitol, though, which were bombed several times over.
Before WW2, 1.3 million people lived in Warszaw. At the time of the battle, this number had fallen to 900,000, and at the end of the war, only about a thousand people lived in the ruins of the city.
The city took the worst punishment, when the germans took revenge for the polish battle in 1944, which started on august 1st, 1944. The polish Home Army made a stand for 63 days. [\quote]
Of all the awards my father received during WWII and Korea the one he was most proud of was the Polish cross of Valour he received for leading the fighter escort to the supply drop on Sept 18, 1944.
40 years later I met the lady across the street, in my neighborhood in Dallas, who was a resistance fighter - and lived off of rats and chocolate covered cherries for two months. She broke down in our living room and cried when she found out my father had been part of the attempt to drop supplies to the resistance while the Soviets waited on the other side of the Vistula until the SS had rolled the Resistance up.
I will never forget a lady who could not have been five feet tall who was a sniper. I went to her funeral in 1990 to pay homage to a very brave lady.