POLAND : WARSAW - History
Warsaw is notable among Europe's capital
cities not for its size, its age, or its beauty but for its
indestructibility. It is a phoenix that has risen repeatedly from the
ashes. The city probably grew around a castle built in the 13th cent. by
a duke of Mazovia . In 1413, Warsaw became the capital of the duchy of
Mazovia. After Kraków burned, Warsaw replaced it (1596) as Poland's
capital. Warsaw grew rapidly as a commercial and cultural center,
despite frequent invasions and pillages. It fell temporarily to the
Swedes under Charles X (1655-56) and Charles XII (1702), was occupied by
the Russians in 1792 and 1794, and passed to Prussia in 1795.
Liberated by Napoleon I in 1806, it became (1807) the capital of the
grand duchy of Warsaw (see Poland ) .In 1813, however, the city fell to
the Russians, and in 1815 it became the capital of the nominally
independent kingdom of central Poland,
German forces took the city in 1915, during World War I. In November
1918, it was liberated by Polish troops and proclaimed capital of the
restored Polish state
The Second World War began when Germany invaded western Poland on 1st
September 1939. In the course of the September Campaign Warsaw was
severely bombed and in the course of the Siege of Warsaw approximately
10 to 15% of all the buildings were destroyed. In 1940 the Germans
isolated the Jewish ghetto, which in 1942 contained about 500,000
persons. In reprisal for a Jewish uprising (Feb., 1943) in the ghetto,
the Germans killed an estimated 40,000 of the Jews who had survived the
battle. When Warsaw was liberated (Jan., 1945) by Soviet troops, only
about 200 Jews remained.
After the war, Boleslaw Bierut's puppet regime, set up by Stalin, made
Warsaw the capital of communist People's Republic of Poland, and the
city was resettled and rebuilt In 1955, the Warsaw Pact established the
now-defunct Warsaw Treaty Organization , the Eastern European
counterpart to NATO.
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