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Warsaw, August 1947
- selmnoo 13y agoI apologize for being nit-picky here, but please upload it somewhere other than Facebook. (It's just a personal policy to not visit Facebook and give them any data about me, and I'm sure there are others like me here).
- Mchl 13y agoIt wasn't the HN poster who uploaded these pictures. Here you go, mostly same content from another source: http://pokazywarka.pl/hi4dlh/ http://pokazywarka.pl/hi4dlh/
- guard-of-terra 13y agoWarsaw is happy to have any walls - Minsk was reduced to runis completely (you could say, bombed to be like moon ground).
- TrainedMonkey 13y agoWar is shit in general, when looking at pictures like that I really understand hippies.
- anovikov 13y agoNot true, a lot more in Minsk remained after a war with some 10% of the housing stock intact, with more damaged but inhabitable. Much like in every European city. I don't even say that almost all of the damage was done by the Soviets (there are pics of Minsk from spring-early summer 1944 where city is largely intact).
- giarc 13y agoInteresting if the original commenter will visit this link. Won't visit Facebook but will visit a random .pl link with a name that means nothing to those who don't speak polish.
- Mchl 13y agoFor his sake I even checked if the images in that page are not in fact hosted on facebook servers. Still... I'm pretty sure browsing facebook in incognito mode would be enough
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- kolev 13y agoIt doesn't seem like the world has changed that much in 60 years!
- lostlogin 13y agoYou need to look at a longer time frame. Humans are slowly, but surely becoming less violent. Way too slowly though. The below link is probably the most interesting thing I've stumbled across on the Internet, although this is in a different form compared to how I first found it. http://edge.org/conversation/mc2011-history-violence-pinker http://edge.org/conversation/mc2011-history-violence-pinker
- kendalk 13y agoQuark: "Let me tell you something about Hew-mons, Nephew. They’re a wonderful, friendly people, as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working. But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those same friendly, intelligent, wonderful people... will become as nasty and as violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon. You don’t believe me? Look at those faces. Look in their eyes." -- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Siege of AR-558 (#7.8) (1998)
- vacri 13y agoMeh, it's not particularly insightful: "make someone fight for their survival and they'll fight for their survival" is what that quote boils down to. A sci-fi race that doesn't fight for survival when pressed is usually depicted as an uber-pacifistic race.
- lostlogin 13y agoThe fascinating thing about the Second World War is that several countries weren't fighting for survival, but for victory and power. Surely the big winner was the US. However Britain was in it to win from early on, as survival wasn't really the issue. The richer you were, the better you fared, unsurprisingly.
- leoc 13y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_destruction_of_Warsaw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_destruction_of_Warsaw
- abat 13y agoTL;DR The city must completely disappear from the surface of the earth and serve only as a transport station for the Wehrmacht. No stone can remain standing. Every building must be razed to its foundation. —SS chief Heinrich Himmler, October 17, SS officers' conference Warsaw has to be pacified, that is, razed to the ground. —Adolf Hitler, 1944[2]
- lostlogin 13y agoThe appalling behavior of the Red Army and of the USSR in general at the time is briefly covered in the Wikipedia entry. Churchill in particular seems to have tried very hard to do the right thing.
- INTPenis 13y ago>Churchill in particular seems to have tried very hard to do the right thing. I'm not saying what's right and what's wrong but your sentence made me think of the age old quote "history is written by the victors".
- vacri 13y agoIt's worth noting that the UK was drawn into the war through the alliance it made with Poland in an attempt to contain German acquisitions - the UK was a friend to Poland with no real quarrel. 'Protecting Poland' was their call to war. It's not the greatest stretch of the imagination to consider the UK as doing right by Poland. The Soviets, on the other hand, had a desire for Polish territory.
- Kociub 13y agoThis is unfortunately not true. Great Britian declared war on Germany, but provided none support to Poland. This was also the case during the Warsaw Uprising. After the war has ended Poland has been sold by under the Russian occupacion. The polish fighter squadrons that took part in the battle of britain were not even allowed to join the wining parade. They were sent home to what was now considered an enemy state. The Brits may have done a lot of things, but most certailny not the right thing.
- Mchl 13y agoPictures like this one: http://pokazywarka.pl/hi4dlh/#zdjecie2341024 http://pokazywarka.pl/hi4dlh/#zdjecie2341024 It was a densely populated area before war.
- wuschel 13y agoVery interesting pictures. Most photographs I have seen have been taken in black and white, and show the destroyed city in 1944/'45. My family had many tragic memories of the ruins of Warsaw, for they were bound with the jewish ghetto uprising and the following uprising by the AK (armia krajowa, underround army). On another note, many cities still show signs of the destructive effect on war on the jewels of our civilizaton: The battle for Berlin also had a great toll on the city and its inhabitants, and the battle for Stalingrad (Wolgograd) had the worst effect on the population of the city: just left a single, half destroyed house and very few survivors were left. But many more civilian deaths and destruction of settlement took place during the war - the fires of Hamburg and Dresden, the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Blitz on english cities are well known, but the destruction of smaller settlements and villages are not mentioned that often. These were terrible days. We should be thankful for the peace we have.
- theklub 13y agoSadly these pictures remind me of parts of Syria right now.
- lostlogin 13y agoBritain's War Machine, a book by David Edgerton, set me off on some fairly disturbing reading when he stated that the British army's total losses for the second work war were less than those suffered by the USSR in the campaign to take Berlin. The sheer scale of the war on the Eastern front is absolutely titanic.
- znowi 13y agoBeing curious I looked up the numbers. UK death toll: 326,000 military and 62,000 civilian. Russia: 10 million each. "Absolutely titanic" is about right.
- ternaryoperator 13y agoWhile it doesn't compare to Russian deaths, 388,000 UK deaths is a staggering number in its own right.
- mdigi 13y agoBuilding from the first picture, The Prudential[0], looks pretty much the same right now[1]. I don't know if the actual renovation started already or not but hopefully it'll be turned into this[2]. [0]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prudential,_Warsaw http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prudential,_Warsaw [1]https://maps.google.pl/maps?q=mapa+warszawa&ll=52.235936,21.012814&spn=0.001873,0.004699&hnear=Warszawa,+mazowieckie&gl=pl&t=m&z=19&layer=c&cbll=52.236068,21.012911&panoid=V3KNU37Kbhr7NW-MWRExzg&cbp=12,202.96,,0,-31.5 https://maps.google.pl/maps?q=mapa+warszawa&ll=52.235936,21.... [2]http://www.bimarch.pl/cmsArchitectPortfolio/renderShow/id/6 http://www.bimarch.pl/cmsArchitectPortfolio/renderShow/id/6 Edit: wording. Edit2: I just remembered there is a movie showing Warsaw in 1935[3] and another one when city was destroyed in 1939[4]. I encourage you to visit Warsaw Rising Museum if you ever have a chance. [3]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5ea_396LPo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5ea_396LPo [4]http://www.miastoruin.pl/index_en.html http://www.miastoruin.pl/index_en.html
- zbraniecki 13y agolast time I visited Warsaw it was in much worse shape than on google maps photo. Hope it'll get into [2] soon :) p.s. I grew up really close to it - like a block away. Seeing photos of the streets around my block at the time when you could see horizon and ruins... frisson.
- justincormack 13y agoIt was pretty awful when I stayed there many years ago.
- cclogg 13y agoWhoa nice, are these scanned film photos? Wonder if there's any higher res scans.
- rokhayakebe 13y agoI love a few things in life more than the sight of old ruins. I also understand there is always a horrific, or at least sad, story behind each one.
- stiff 13y agoOn top of that over 200,000 children were kidnapped from Poland during WWII, most of which never returned: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_of_children_by_Nazi_Germany http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_of_children_by_Nazi_...
- amurmann 13y agoInteresting how many buildings were clearly hit by bombs, burned out and still didn't collapse into their own footprint as tall buildings are known to do.
- pchm 13y agoFor comparison, the same city in 1935: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5ea_396LPo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5ea_396LPo
- odiroot 13y agoAll these flat areas covered in rubble hills used to be housing estates (usually 5-6 stories high) in the Warsaw Ghetto. It was blown up, bulldozed, razed to the ground. As you may see, other parts of the city survived in a slightly better state. Born and raised in Warsaw I sometimes feel I'm literally walking on history. There are hundreds of commemorative plaques/stones everywhere you go in the downtown and neighbouring districts.
- valtih1978 13y agoThe nazi lesson is more important in the face of processes which happens today, on our eyes in Poland, in Baltic states and Ukrane (do you know that Nazi penetrate the official power in Ukrane, what would western countires do if somebody seized the official buildings or even attacked a policeman?). Today, Polish nazi do destroy the monument of the soviet solders, who liberated them, http://ru-facts.com/news/view/31587.html http://ru-facts.com/news/view/31587.html They do it on the formerly Deutsch land, that was generously gifted to the polish people by "the bloody dictator, Stailn", after Polish nationalists have siezed the western part of Soviet Union in 1920 and collaborated with Hitler to start WWII attacking the Checkoslovakia USSR allies in 1938. The burgeose-democratic Poland does not deserve being an independent country. Independent, it turns immediately into a nazi regime. Nazi hate Russians, hate communism. The modern Poland is a nazi country, as usually (american, capitalist puppet. Capitalists do raise the nazi to defend the capitalism from communists, not only in Poland but everywhere in the Europe and the Latin America also).
- jedrek 13y ago> Today, Polish nazi do destroy the monument of the soviet solders, who liberated them, http://ru-facts.com/news/view/31587.html http://ru-facts.com/news/view/31587.html You mean the Soviet soldiers that invaded Poland in 1939, killed 20,000 of its politicians, lawyers, doctors, scientists, artists, clergy, etc, then rolled through again 4 years later only to stay as a way to prop up the communist regime for the next 45 years? I assure you, "Polish nazis" are not the only ones who have a problem with what Soviet soldiers and officers did, nor do we care for the hundreds of such monuments spread all over Poland.
- valtih1978 13y agoIn 1939 SU "invated the Poland" is a complete nazi nonsense. SU has invateded its own territory, siezed earlier by the fascist Poland, after the polish government ceased to exist. So, it is hard to tell what you are talking about at all. Returning your territories from criminals is a right thing to do, especially in order to save the territory and people from the Gernam Nazi criminals. Stalin did the only right thing. > killed 20,000 of its politicians, lawyers, doctors, scientists, artists, clergy, etc, I do not know what you are talking about. It seems to be the nazi nonsense, similar to your first sentence.
- mxfh 13y agoGoogle Earth has historic aerial imagery of Warsaw for 1935 and December 1945. This helps to adds some sense of scale to the images of the destruction taken on the ground and enables direct comparison to the current city layout. http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2010/02/spotlight-on-historical-imagery-warsaw.html http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2010/02/spotlight-on-hist...
- gshubert17 13y agoThe Warsaw Uprising Museum commissioned a computer simulation of the destruction of the city, visualized as a view from an airplane flying over. It's another way to see the scale of destruction. Article and trailer: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jul/28/simulation-warsaw-second-world-war http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jul/28/simulation-wars... Film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH7UOB5hGHg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH7UOB5hGHg
- cpfohl 13y agoSlightly improved translation over the google translate version: In the summer of 1947 a group of American designers visited England, Czechoslovakia and Poland, in order to assess the post-war reconstruction progress. The photos are from their visit in August in Warsaw. The Group extended their visit to Warsaw by a few days to meet with the architects from the Capital Office of Reconstruction and reported that their work commands respect.