Boy Scouts join the battle

The Warsaw Rising was a struggle by the Polish resistance movement organization Polish Home Army (Polish: Armia Krajowa) to liberate Warsaw from Nazi German occupation during World War II. The Uprising began on 1 August 1944, as part of a nationwide rebellion, Operation Tempest. It was intended to last for only a few days until the Soviet Army reached the city. The Soviet advance stopped short, however, while Polish resistance against the German forces continued for 63 days until the Polish surrendered on 2 October.

In the course of the Warsaw Rising and its suppression, the Germans deported approximately 550,000 of the city’s residents and approximately 100,000 civilians from its outskirts, sending them to Durchgangslager 121 (Dulag 121), a transit camp in Pruszków set up especially for this purpose. The security police and the SS segregated the deportees and decided their fate. Approximately 650,000 people passed through the Pruszków camp in August, September, and October. Approximately 55,000 were sent to concentration camps, including 13,000 to Auschwitz.

The Armia Krajowa, abbreviated AK ( Army of the Homeland or more commonly known as the Home Army), was the dominant Polish resistance movement in World War II German-occupied Poland. It was formed in February 1942 from the Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Union for Armed Struggle). Over the next two years, it absorbed most other Polish underground forces. It was loyal to the Polish government in exile and constituted the armed wing of what became known as the "Polish Underground State".

Estimates of Home Army membership in 1944 range from 200,000 to 600,000, with the most common number being 400,000; that figure would make it not only the largest Polish underground resistance movement but one of the 3 largest in Europe during World War II, after the Yugoslav partisan army and Soviet partisans. It was disbanded on January 20, 1945, when Polish territory had been mostly cleared of German forces by the advancing Soviet Red Army.