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60th Anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising
The Forgotten Soldiers of WWII
Documentary about Polish Revolt Against Nazi Occupation

“Warsaw Rising: The Forgotten Soldiers of World War II” tells the story of the Polish resistance and its 63-day battle against the Nazis, a battle fought while the Western world celebrated the successful Allied landings at Normandy. CNN Presents offers an unflinching look at how a country known as the “first ally” was abandoned in its hour of need.

In the summer of 1944, an underground army of ordinary citizens in Warsaw rose up against their Nazi occupiers in the belief that the D-Day invasion in the west and Soviet advances in the east gave them a chance for freedom. Underground fighters, many of them teenagers, fought with homemade weapons against a heavily fortified German army.

They believed the fight would last for only the few days until the Allies could come to their aid. Instead, they fought for 63 days alone. “There was a sense of frustration and injustice that was quite, quite strong,” said Zbigniew Brzezinski, whose relatives lived through the Nazi occupation in Poland.

When the Poles most needed Allied help, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin refused to let his troops cross the Vistula River to aid the Poles in liberating Warsaw. And Poland’s other allies, the United States and England, were reluctant to force the issue with Stalin. Unknown to Polish leaders and citizens at the time, Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill had struck a deal with Stalin, ceding him control over Central Europe in return for his help fighting the Germans.

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CNN correspondent
David Ensor
in a Warsaw sewer

In the end, the Nazis slaughtered the Polish resistance and razed Warsaw. More than 200,000 people died. Half a million were driven out of the city. More than three quarters of the Underground Army had perished; many of the survivors ended up in Soviet prisons. Yet the story of this tragic loss received little attention.

“The story of the Warsaw Rising was largely forgotten,” said Kathy Slobogin, managing editor of CNN Presents. “For the Allies it was an embarrassment, and for the Soviets it was inconvenient. The Allies didn’t even invite Underground soldiers to the post-war victory parades. There was no official monument to the fighters in Warsaw until 1989. Through ‘Warsaw Rising,’ we are hopeful the world will start to remember.” In the words of those who survived it, “Warsaw Rising” relates remarkable stories of heroism and survival against the odds. A young tank commander captures a German tank and with it liberates a concentration camp, saving the lives of several hundred Jews slated for death. An Underground soldier and a female Underground courier recount the tale of their 20-hour trek through the sewers below the streets of Warsaw, walking through a river of human waste to escape the Nazis overhead. The survivors of this little-known tragedy of the war finally tell their story.

“Warsaw Rising: The Forgotten Soldiers of World War II” was reported by CNN correspondent David Ensor and produced by Kathy Slobogin. Brian Rokus was field producer. Cliff Hackel was the editor.