{"id":1192,"date":"2018-08-01T09:32:40","date_gmt":"2018-08-01T13:32:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/poland.leonkonieczny.com\/blog\/?p=1192"},"modified":"2018-08-01T12:35:11","modified_gmt":"2018-08-01T16:35:11","slug":"kotwica-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poland.leonkonieczny.com\/blog\/?p=1192","title":{"rendered":"Kotwica and the Warsaw Uprising"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is “kotwica?” It is the Polish word for “anchor,” but it has a lot more meaning in Polish history–the kotwica<\/em> was a World War II emblem of the Polish Underground State and the Armia Krajowa<\/em> (the Home Army<\/em>, or AK). The kotwica<\/em> as an emblem was created in 1942 as an easily identifiable emblem for the Polish struggle to regain independence after Poland’s conquest and division by Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939. The initial meaning of the initials PW was Pom\u015bcimy Wawer<\/em> (“We shall avenge Wawer”). This was a reference to the Wawer massacre (26\u201327 December 1939), which was considered to be one of the first large scale massacres of Polish civilians by German troops in occupied Poland.<\/p>\n

So why am I writing about this today? There is a specific reason. The Warsaw Uprising<\/a> began on 01 August 1944 at precisely 5 PM. What? You don’t know about the Warsaw Uprising? If that’s the case you either (1) went to school in the US where the history of Poland is, at best lightly glossed over and\/or (2) you don’t read or follow my blog, as I’ve written about it a number of times:<\/p>\n