Warsaw Uprising Project

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Thanks to Gappa for this one.

Source: http://www.ceskatelevize.cz/ct24/kultura/281713-filmove-rozpoznani-polaci-hledaji-ucastniky-varsavskeho-povstani/ (and various others)

Hello everyone,

the Polish Museum of Warsaw Uprising started an unique movie project. Check this out:

 

 

You think this was a new movie trailer? No. These were digitally reconstructed and colorized authentic document shots from the real Warsaw Uprising of 1944. The Museum decided to show one of the most tragic stories of the war from a different perspective. At the same time, the Museum is looking for the people from those movie reels – already dozens of people, who remember the uprising, have been found based on these previously unreleased movie reels, shot by Polish cameramen during the event.

Polish historians combined this material into a one-hour movie, introducing the audience to actual lives and actual people and their fates during and after the war. This movie was introduced to various cinemas and a search for people in it began, with success. For example today, Aleksander Zubek is a 87 year old man, but he recognized himself on these pictures. As a 15 year old, he took part in Polish training, that was caught on a camera. Historian Katarzyna Utracka added that according to the estimates, roughly 30 percent of people in the movie died during the uprising and the movie is showing the last days or hours of their lives.

The uprising started on 1.8.1944 and 200 thousand Polish people lost their lives during the brutal nazi suppression.

23 thoughts on “Warsaw Uprising Project”

  2. Had Poland used Lorraines in the uprising, they would have easily kicked Germans’ butts.

  3. is there any event to mark this even in Warsaw? my girlfriend is from Warsaw and we go there this weekend?

    • The Soviets had made such large advances towards Warsaw, that they were being limited by supply lines, and vehicle maintenance requirements, which could if they overextended themselves presented the German with an opportunity. Napoleon said “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake”. and the German made a mistake in committing extra forces to the uprising. – Even so I agree with your statement, it was shameful that Stalin refused permission for Allied planes to land in Soviet territory after dropping supplies to the Polish. His aim was to crush all Polish resistance. The Katyn massacre tells us all we need to know about Soviet attitude to the Polish people.

  5. [QUOTE]: …………roughly 30 percent of people in the movie died during the uprising and the movie is showing the last days or hours of their lives.

    Not much to say after that……..

  6. I think this is a brilliant way to bring the story to a new audience. I imagine that the digital improvements and colourisation are to make it relevant to younger people and to give it an integrated look without the dissonant disjunctions between the different quality of material and cameras. The danger is that because it takes on the muted colour look of the movie “The Pianist” that it will be seen as an primarily an entrainment which will dilute its important message about history.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itR0-I9idXk

    I just hope that the original stock will be available in it raw digitised form

    • Alone the fact, that it is colourized adds a whole lot more “reality” to it. Black and White always looks like something out of our world even if you know it’s real stuff, so this is a big achievement in bringing the madness of WWII into our context. An ocher building collapsing, possibly burying several people underneath, after being bombed, is much more “Shit got real”, then a grey building collapsing after some light grey stuff happened.

    • Actually the movie sends shivers down the spine thanks to the colorization and digital processing of old movie reels.
      It really is worth seeing if you have a chance.
      There are some armored vehicles in it, also.

  7. “At the same time, the Museum is looking for the people from those movie reels – already dozens of people, who remember the uprising, have been found based on these previously unreleased movie reels, shot by Polish cameramen during the event.”

    Could you please change the word event to something less sterile(and more bloody accurate).
    Oscar awards is an event, Warsaw Uprising was a battle for liberation(not to mention the betrayal by east and west, destruction of the city and the massacre).

    And I do not have any connection to Poland or the Uprising whatsoever.

    • Both RAF and USAAF flew dozens of sorties from Italy, and numerous crew has been lost.
      The russians denied them access to polish airfields.

      • “I want to protest against the mean and cowardly attitude adopted by the British press towards the recent rising in Warsaw. … One was left with the general impression that the Poles deserved to have their bottoms smacked for doing what all the Allied wirelesses had been urging them to do for years past,. … First of all, a message to English left-wing journalists and intellectuals generally: ‘Do remember that dishonesty and cowardice always have to be paid for. Don’t imagine that for years on end you can make yourself the boot-licking propagandist of the Soviet régime, or any other régime, and then suddenly return to mental decency. Once a whore, always a whore.’” –-George Orwell, 1 September 1944

        Of course this is nothing compared to what Stalin did(knife in the back) but still.

        • “In the West, the story of the Polish fight for Warsaw with little support, and later the shock of Home Army soldiers as Western Allies recognized the Soviet controlled pro-Communist regime installed by Stalin was an embarrassment and thus the story received little attention in the West for many years.”

  9. Wow I want to see this! The colorized pictures make a cold shiver go down the spine…

  10. Thank you for showing this, Silentstalker. Warsaw Uprising is not well known, due to soviet propoaganda after WW2.