Unseen Soundwalks: Warsaw Rising ‘44
Commemorating this year’s anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising, Culture.pl is publishing a series of 10 audiowalks, in both English and Polish, covering this important period’s most significant events.
The series is the second season of Culture.pl’s Unseen Soundwalks, a geolocative show about the history of invisible places on the map of the Polish capital. After the first season’s roam through Defilad Square in the heart of the city, the time has come to present the most important stories from occupied wartime Warsaw. This second season has been created in partnership with the award-winning Warsaw Rising Museum.
Unseen Soundwalks: Warsaw Rising ‘44 will be available as a podcast on most popular audio platforms, but the full experience has been designed for the Echoes geolocative app, where all the episodes will be available to visitors as they walk around Warsaw itself. In this way, they get to hear the stories about this fierce battle against the Nazi German occupiers in the very same places where they happened.
The production will be supplemented by special films prepared by the Warsaw Rising Museum, using contemporary and archival photos, as well as the soundtrack from the film Warsaw Uprising.
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List of episodes
1. The PAST building on Zielna Street
One of the most magnificent buildings of pre-war Warsaw. Built in the early 20th century, it was the first skyscraper in the capital. From the very beginning of the Warsaw Uprising, Poles fought several bloody battles to capture this building.
2. The barricade on Aleje Jerozolimskie
During the occupation, the street was an important transit route. It is no wonder then that in the summer of 1944, in the face of the approaching front, the Germans wanted to keep this strategic route under their control. When the Warsaw Uprising began in August, Aleje Jerozolimskie was under constant German fire, and crossing the street was a deadly undertaking.
3. The tank trap on Kilińskiego Street
On the morning of August 13th, what appeared to be a tank started moving towards Podwale and the labyrinth of streets in Warsaw’s oldest district, then an insurgent bastion…
4. Napoleon Square
Here we find ourselves in in Warsaw Uprising Square (sometimes known as Warsaw Insurgents Square), which used to be called Napoleon Square. The iconic Prudential tower building was built in the early 1930s. At 66 metres tall, it was the tallest building in Europe in 1944. It saw some of the most artillery and mortar shell attacks in the whole of the Warsaw Uprising, the first battles taking place minutes after it began.
5. The PKO building
On August 4th, the Germans bombed the Hotel Victoria on Jasna Street. The Home Army staff stationed there was transferred to the PKO building, where it remained until September. Today, the building is Warsaw’s biggest post office.
6. The Gęsiówka concentration camp
After the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto in the summer of 1943, the labour camp at Gęsia Street (today called Anielewicza Street) was transformed, on the personal order of the head of SS Heinrich Himmler, into a concentration camp.
7. Church of St. Stanisław on Wolska Street
After the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising, Germans stationed in Warsaw began to execute Poles, both insurgents and civilians, throughout the city. The most brutal crimes took place in the Wola district, where one church became a holding camp.
8. The Butcher of Warsaw
SS-Brigadeführer Franz Kutscher was transferred to Warsaw in the autumn of 1943 with the task of suppressing the Polish resistance. Immediately after he took office, the number of round-ups and public executions increased sharply. He quickly became a major target for the Polish underground, which took action to eliminate him.
9. Break out at the Arsenal
Polish insurgent Jan Bytnar, codename ‘Rudy’, is being held at the Gestapo headquarters. When the underground get word he’s to be transported to nearby Pawiak Prison, Commander Stanisław Broniewski gives the order to spring him from the prison van.
10. Bank Polski on Bielańska Street
Among the surrounding post-war buildings, this former bank might look a bit out of place. But look more closely and you will see that its walls are still marked with bullet holes and other scars from the Nazi occupation. The building was an insurgent redoubt during the Warsaw Uprising, but the Polish resistance movement was active in it long before...
Echoes App, photo: Echoes App Unseen Soundwalks: Warsaw Rising ‘44 is available on the Echoes app. It will also be available as a podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and most other podcast players. The Polish version of the series is coming soon.
