CAPTURED WARSAW

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20056, 30 September 1939, Page 16

CAPTURED WARSAW

CITY OF BLOODSHED SOME FAMOUS BUILDINGS Warsaw, the chief town of the province of that name, and the capital of Poland, which has surrendered to the German forces after a most heroic struggle, had a population of about 1,100,000. It has the distinction of being one of the most Jewish cities in. the world. According to German figures there were as many Jews in Warsaw as in the whole of the Reich. It stands on a terrace above the Vistula, on the left bank of the river and above the confluence of the stream with the Narew and the Bug.

It is supposed that a castle stood on its site 1000 years ago, but its written history began 700 years back and from that we know it to have been a city of many alarms. Charles Gustavus, of Sweden, took it ill 1655 and kept it for a year. The Poles then retook it, but in the war against Charles XII of Sweden, Warsaw underwent martyrdom again and was captured in 1702. It was freed by the peace which followed. In 1764 the Russians took it in the manoeuvres which led to the first partition of Poland. In 1794 they captured it again after a bloody assault on Praga In 1806, now a Prussian town, it was occupied by the troops of Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1809 the Austrians seized it and held it for a few months. After each of these two occupations it became independent once more. In 1813 the Russians were back in possession, and in 1830 the city flamed up in open revolt, being captured by® Russia after great bloodshed in the,"

following year. Mass deportations followed. There was another bloody insurrection in 1863, with the Russian rule enforced by executions, banishment to Siberia, and confiscations on an unprecedented scale. The very name of Poland was expunged from the writen records at this time. In 1906 there was more trouble, and in 1915 the Germans swept into the city and ironically made it the capital ol a Polish State without power. When the German army was disintegrated in 1918 the Poles became masters again.

The city has had many fine buildings and public gardens, and the former royal castle on Sigmund Square was the central point of the life of Warsaw. It is now reported that the historic edifices have been destroyed. These included an elegant little palace built in gardens about ‘he Vistula, the Church of St. Anne, the palaces of the Zamoysk family, the eighteenth century town hall, the old mint, the Krasinski Palace, and many antique buildings in the old town.

In the suburb of Praga, which is o.i the Russian side of the “demarcation" line, was the Namiestnikovsky Palace, which was used as Government House by the Russians and which was built with the idea of '■bowing hostility to anything foreign. The Grand Theatre has been celebrated for its ballets; the University, sup Dressed in 1832, was restored' in 1894.