On a cold, sunny day in modern Warsaw, it seems hard to believe that the 1945 Warsaw Uprising ever happened. It seems hard to believe that an army drove a tank into this church and blew it up along with any Poles taking harbor inside. It seems hard to believe that this massacre wasn't enough.
A few days later, someone found it necessary to come back, diligently drill holes, methodically plant charges, and joyfully destroy the last of the walls left standing of this once beautiful church.
When the Polish resistance rose up in 1945 against Nazi occupation, they did so in anticipation that the Red (Soviet) army laying in wait just across the Vistula river from Warsaw, would help them. And if not them, someone, somewhere would come to their aid. But, despite appeals from Winston Churchill, only the British attempted to help and ultimately, without success. Thousands of Polish resistance fighters died and over a hundred thousand Poles were executed in the Uprising. After which, aided by German engineers, the German army systematically, maliciously, and without rational reason, destroyed building after building, until almost nothing was left standing in the aftermath of the war.
Certainly, the Poles thought to rebuild the capital of Poland elsewhere, to begin anew somewhere else. But, they didn't. They rebuilt Warsaw, one step at a time, one reconstruction project after another. That's a resilience I am not sure I have in me. I am not sure the U.S. does either.
The contrast between the darkness that lay over this city during World War II and the life that it exudes today is hard to stomach. One could hope that the world will never see evil proliferate and overshadow good to the extent that it did during the Warsaw Uprising, the Holocaust, and other unspeakable tragedies of WWII.
But, such hope has, is, and will be dashed over and over again.
To what end?
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