To many people, particularly the Poles who survived it, the 1944 Warsaw Uprising ranks among the great and controversial epics of human history. It cost the lives of nearly a quarter-of-a-million non-Communist Poles. But it was also the first skirmish in the Cold War. Armed only with home-made or captured weapons, and outnumbered by more than three to one, the citizens of Warsaw held out for over two months against the German panzers. Their wish was to liberate their capital for themselves before the Russians came. But although the Red Army was only ten miles away, Stalin waited weeks before offering even token support to the beleaguered Poles, which, in the event, was too little and too late. The film marks the centenary this month of the birth of General Sikorski, the . wartime Polish leader. Narrator
BERNARD ARCHARD
Written and produced by PETER BATTY
(Images of War: Tuesday 7.40 pm)