The collection of 100 German photographs taken in Warsaw after the Warsaw Rising between October 1944 to December 1944.
In the summer of 2024 our Museum received a collection of 100 photographs taken by a German soldier between October to December 1944. The story where they really come from is still to be uncovered. We only know where the copies come from, namely they were printed in Częstochowa in the end of 1944. It is also known that five copies of the whole collection were prepared in secret from a film that one of the German officers brought to be developed only for him. One copy of the entire collection was given by the owner of a professional photo studio, where they were being developed, to his friend Jan Antoni Szymczewski.
Szymczewski had been employed by the Polish Railways in Łódź before going underground once WW2 broke out. He was sheltered by his sisters in Częstochowa and was neither caught by Germans, nor forced to work for the wartime German controlled Railways - Generaldirektion der Ostbahn. After WW2 Szymczewski showed these photographs on many occasions to his grandson, Mirosław, who donated them to our Museum in 2024.
The photographs were taken between October and December 1944. Firstly, we may see a series of photographs (20 in total) that show the civilians and Polish Insurgents who are being deported from Warsaw after the end of the Rising. The remaining photographs portray Warsaw that was destroyed as a result of the fighting and German bombing of the city. Among the identified buildings there are: the Wawelska Redoubt (Reduta Wawelska), The Three Crosses Square, Napoleon’s Square, The Grand Theatre Square, The Arsenal, Central Railway Station (detonated by Germans in late autumn 1944).
The photographs in this thought-provoking album depict deserted and demolished capital of Poland. It is a valuable addition to the meagre iconographic documentation that shows the last moments of the German occupation of Warsaw. It should be pointed as well that a non-intentional but powerful emotional portrayal of the Varsovians emerges from these photographs. The people, who would be coming back after the war, if ever, to a city that was wiped off the face of the earth.
