British historian Professor Norman Davies is to be honoured today by the Union of the Warsaw Insurgents of 1944. Davies' recent book 'Rising 44' about the Polish capital's battle against Nazi occupiers has been of seminal importance in opening up the subject to debate.
For many years the Warsaw Uprising was confused outside Poland with the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943. In Soviet Poland both risings were taboo subjects and no appropriate monument was allowed to be constructed in honour of the 1944 insurgents until after 1989.
The Warsaw Uprising was eventually crushed by the Nazis. Meanwhile, Russian forces spectated the demise of their Polish allies from the southern bank of the River Vistula.
The question as to whether the Rising should ever have been launched was an incendiary issue from the very day that the first order was given to attack. Poles remain divided on the subject.
Over 200, 000 Varsovians lost their lives in the conflict, and the Nazis took revenge on the insurgents by razing the Polish capital to the ground.
Professor Davies, the West's most distinguished historian of Poland, received overwhelmingly favourable reviews for his book, which has now been published in a Polish edition.
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