In August 1944, armed with just a few guns and petrol bombs, the people of Warsaw rose up against the Germans. The cost - a quarter of a million Poles dead. Rula Lenska re-lives the Uprising through the eyes of the few remaining survivors, one a German soldier. Includes rare archive from Poland. Britain. America and New Zealand. Producer Julia Rooke

Polish-born actress Rula Lenska hears from some of the few remaining survivors of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising
Red Runs the Vistula 8.00pm R4

The second part of the title of this Archive Hour programme is The Story of the Warsaw Uprising. As presenter Rula Lenska explains, "It is one of the great tragedies of the Second World War and yet it is an event rarely talked about outside Poland." Back in August of 1944 the people of Warsaw rose up against the Germans: over 250,000 civilians were killed and most of the city was destroyed. This programme brings together rare recordings from Poland, Britain and America, as well as new interviews with a small number of former insurgents who so eloquently enable us to understand what it was like to feel both the rush of freedom and euphoria as Polish flags went up, and the utter horror once the massacre of Warsaw's citizens began. The SS told people to leave their homes. They were shot on the street and their houses were burned. It is heartbreaking to listen to people recall watching their families killed in front of them but this is a piece of history that should be remembered around Europe and not just within Poland.