Expulsion of civilians in January 1945 The
Warsaw Uprising was launched by the
Polish Home Army on August 1, 1944, as part of
Operation Tempest. In response, under orders from
Heinrich Himmler, Warsaw was kept under ceaseless barrage by Nazi artillery and air power for sixty-three days and nights by
Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski. In 1944, a large transit camp: (
Durchgangslager, or Dulag) was constructed in
Pruszków's Train Repair Shops (Zakłady Naprawcze Taboru Kolejowego) to house the evacuees expelled from Warsaw. In the course of the Warsaw Uprising 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
Dulag 121 Pruszków. 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. They included people from a variety of social classes, occupations, physical conditions, and ages. Evacuees ranged from infants only a few weeks old to the extremely elderly. In a few cases, these were also people of different ethnic backgrounds, including Jews living on "Aryan papers".
Looting and destruction of buildings , 8 September 1944 After the remaining population had been expelled, the Germans began the destruction of the remnants of the city. Special groups of German
combat engineers were dispatched throughout the city in order to burn (
Brandkommandos) and demolish (
Sprengkommandos) the remaining buildings. According to German plans, after the war Warsaw was to be turned into nothing more than a military transit station. By January 1945, between 85% and 90% of the buildings had been completely destroyed; this includes up to 10% as a result of the
September 1939 campaign and following combat, up to 15% during the earlier
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, 25% during the Uprising, and 40% due to systematic German demolition of city after the uprising. and the
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, 1945. Material losses were estimated at 10,455 buildings, 923 historical buildings (94%), 25 churches, 14 libraries including the
National Library, 81 primary schools, 64 high schools, the
University of Warsaw, the
Warsaw University of Technology, and most of the city's historical monuments. Those estimates were later raised to $45 billion and in 2005, to $54.6 billion (all equated to 2004 dollars). The official estimates do not include immense losses of private property, which are of unknown value since almost all of the pre-war documents (such as insurance values of private collections) have also been destroyed, but are considered between double and triple the official estimates (which are based on documented losses only while for example, the National Library's list of pre-war property lost estimated to be 1% of its collection since Germans destroyed all archives too).
Burning of libraries Bible'', one of the books burned by the Germans in October 1944. During the German suppression of the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, around 70 to 80% of libraries were carefully burned by the
Brandkommandos (burning detachments), whose mission was to burn Warsaw. In October 1944 the
Załuski Library, the oldest
public library in Poland and one of the oldest and most important libraries in Europe (established in 1747), was burned down. Out of about 400,000 printed items,
maps and
manuscripts, only some 1,800 manuscripts and 30,000 printed materials survived. Those libraries had already suffered in September 1939, when they were bombed and burned. The collection originally consisted of 250,000 items. The library and the museum were founded in
Rapperswil, Switzerland, in 1870 as "a refuge for [Poland's] historic memorabilia dishonored and plundered in the [occupied Polish] homeland" and for the promotion of Polish interests. The greater part of library's collections, originally 20,000 engravings, 92,000 books and 27,000 manuscripts, were deliberately destroyed by the Germans in 1944. This resulted in the disappearance of many valuable old books and scrolls among about sixteen million volumes from National Library, museums and palaces burnt indiscriminately by Germans in Poland during World War II.
Scope of destruction ==Gallery==