Pope pays tribute to heroes of Poland's Warsaw Uprising

Published: 2004-08-02

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy (CNS) -- Saying he had lived through the late summer of 1944 with "a strong spiritual tension and with prayer," Pope John Paul II paid tribute to the heroes of Poland's Warsaw Uprising. At the end of his Aug. 1 Angelus address at Castel Gandolfo and in an earlier letter to the mayor of Warsaw, the 84-year-old, Polish-born pope praised those who, against all odds, attempted to liberate Warsaw from the Nazis. The pope told visitors gathered in the courtyard of his summer villa that he was living in Krakow, Poland, when members of the underground Polish Home Army launched their Aug. 1, 1944, attempt to claim the capital for the Polish government-in-exile. The uprising lasted 63 days before German troops, reinforced on orders of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, crushed the rebellion. Some 200,000 Poles were killed and the city was left in ruins.

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