The ashes of Gen. Tadeusz Bor-Komorowski, the military commander who launched the ill-fated 1944 Warsaw Uprising against the Nazis, were buried Saturday in the homeland he fought to free.
About 3,000 veterans of the 63-day uprising as well as Warsaw residents and officials braved 99-degree heat to honor Bor-Komorowski as the silver urn bearing his ashes was placed in Powazki Cemetery.An honor guard of uprising veterans in World War II-era helmets and uniforms stood at attention and a three-round salute was fired as Bor-Komorowski was laid to rest among his fallen comrades.
Bor-Komorowski died in exile in London in 1966 and his remains were brought to Warsaw for reburial Thursday as part of ceremonies marking the uprising's 50th anniversary that culminate on Monday.
The general's Aug. 1, 1944, call-to-arms launched a desperate effort to liberate Poland by the country's underground Home Army after five years of Nazi occupation and as Soviet troops neared the capital.
Stalin held his troops back, though, and they watched from the east bank of the Vistula river as the Germans slaughtered civilians, then razed the city. More than 200,000 Poles, nine in 10 of them civilians, were killed.
After capitulating on Oct. 2, 1944, Bor-Komorowski was taken prisoner by the Germans. He never returned to Poland, settling in London and becoming active among Polish emigre circles.
The insurgents were loyal to a London-based exile government, so by letting the Germans quash them, Stalin hastened his aim of cementing Soviet postwar domination of Poland. Not until 1989, united by the Solidarity movement, did Poland regain real independence.
"General, your great dream has come true," President Lech Wal-esa said in a letter read at the cemetery. "Five years ago we won back our free and independent Poland, we are masters of our own house now."