Sylwester Braun is the author of the most iconic Warsaw Rising photograph depicting the highest building in Warsaw hit by a German 600 mm shell. His extraordinary work remained unknown for many years to be finally first published in 1980s. He captured the tragedy of a fighting Warsaw. Joy of the Insurgents’ victories and the cry over the dead. We guide you through all these emotions in our newest 470 page album.
In the end of September 1944 at a square next to Mokotowska and Marszałkowska streets, somewhere near Koszykowa Street, I saw a group of people digging a well. Walking by I lifted camera to my eye and took a few pictures. One of the men turned back and said: “You’d better help us instead of doing silly things”. I felt awkward by his remark. Anyway, I just replied: “Who knows, maybe this photograph will be the only trace that you were digging this well”.
Sylwester Braun ‘Kris’, War reports from the Warsaw Rising, Warsaw 1983, p. 299
Even though the Warsaw Rising failed, the message of the Insurgents fighting for freedom has never got old. It is not about being ready to go and fight but to say ‘no’ to Evil. It is about us being sensitive to harm and injustice and acting to help others and the greater good. Today we look at the photographs of Warsaw that was demolished by Germans and we know that the tragic experiences have not destroyed the capital of Poland. Warsaw is reborn from the ruins even stronger than it was before. The outstanding pictures by Sylwester Braun “Kris” not only help us understand the past but also they truly reflect the unbeatable spirit of the City.
Sylwester Braun was a press war reporter in the City Centre and Powiśle districts. He would move around the city wearing his civilian jacket. His camera, always ready to be used, waited in his pocket. He did not look like the other reporters from the Home Army who were in uniforms wearing military boots, belts and side caps. Only his white-and-red armband proved that he was one of the Insurgents. He would also carry a document signed by one of his superiors he had to hand out to show that he was not a spy.
“Kris” would walk every day. He was searching, looking through the gates, climbing the stairs. He would talk and register. Leica was his inconspicuous ‘notebook’. He would run along the barricades and under fire. He would take pictures of the civilians and the Insurgents. We see the events he observed and the scenes someone asked him to immortalize. He would watch the fighting city from the roofs and document Warsaw that slowly turned into rubble. He created an urban landscape of the war.”
Wojciech Grzędziński
With time he would focus on the expressiveness of the people he photographed, as they transported the wounded, carried retrieved weapons, climbed up and down the rubble or fled to the shelters. The Insurgents and civilians captured by Braun’s camera were as if frozen in their gestures, moves or grimaces. Unaware or indifferent, their joy, exhaustion, fear or despair, all their emotions were saved for the posterity.
Philosopher Jackson Kiddard said that: “anything that has power over you is teaching you how to take your power back. Anything you fear is teaching you courage to overcome your fear”. That is where I find the timeless strength shared by the Warsaw Insurgents. They were soldiers who fought with arms in their hands, messengers, medical orderlies and photographers, whose cameras were a weapon of a different type. Despite five years of the war, its atrocities and persecution, despite their natural fear for their lives, they engaged in the fight for the Cause and the values they believed in. They stood together to fight for freedom as one community and said ‘no’ to totalitarian regimes. They were convinced that together they can change the world.
Jan Ołdakowski
The album has been published by the Warsaw Rising Museum and is available on sale now: https://sklep.1944.pl/pl/p/Album-Kris.-Fotoreportaz-z-oblezonego-miasta/516
