Warsaw Uprising 1944 Exhibition - Cape Town

The exhibition was organised on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.
It presents the heroic and tragic 63 day struggle to liberate World War II Warsaw from Nazi German occupation. It was undertaken by the Home Army, the Polish underground resistance movement, the largest underground resistance movement of the war which numbered as many as 300,000 soldiers at its peak.
At the time the uprising occurred, Allied troops were breaking through the Normandy defenses and the Red Army was standing at the line of the Vistula River.

The documentary photography was exhibited in the Castle of Good Hope in Cape Town, the oldest surviving colonial building in South Africa. It was built between 1666 and 1679 by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) as a fort to defend its maritime replenishment station.

Four large halls were used to exhibit the four hundred images, the work of thirty photographers and Home Army war correspondents. Maps, descriptions and diagrams were also included in the exhibition.
Volunteers took care of the exhibition, guided visitors and handed out information leaflets.

Over 1,400 people visited the exhibition over a period of two weeks. These people were local and foreign tourists as well as residents of Cape Town, and were able to discover this little known aspect of Polish history, the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.