Warsaw Accuses - Published by the Library of the Polish Embassy. New York 1945, first edition. A rare booklet published at the end of the war with initial photographs of the ruins of the city of Warsaw during the five years of German rule during World War II. Photographs of the city's treasures destroyed 'before and after', most of which have not been rebuilt.
First post-war documentation of the harsh sights of ruined Warsaw. The city which, more than any other European Cities in the war, was utterly destroyed for all its historical treasures. The booklet reviews the three severe attacks in which the city was thoroughly bombed during the war by the Nazis - the first shelling during the German siege in September 1939 - in which buildings were indiscriminately bombed - hospitals, schools, museums, ancient palaces, and residences. The second stage, during the German occupation during the war from the winter of 1939/1940 - systematic and planned destruction of the city after the occupation, in order to leave only what was called 'Old Warsaw' about which the Germans claimed to be German in nature - while systematically looting ancient art treasures of the city, and the third stage - the destruction carried out by the Germans in the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in September 1944 - the final liquidation of the ghetto while systematic shelling and the burning of buildings one after another. Each page in the booklet shows a photograph of a certain building or area in the city when it stood and next to it a photograph of the same place as it is in its ruins. There are also photographs of the city's citizens returning to it and working to rehabilitate it at the end of the war. In the first pages is an introductory chapter reviewing in detail the tragic fate of the city during these years.
The booklet designed by the Polish artist Teresa Zarnowerowna, one of the editors of the Polish constructivist avant-garde magazine BLOK from 1924-1926.
[44] pages. slight peeling of paint on cover. condition good - very good.
