COBI Warsaw Uprising 1944 Set 2057

COBI's Warsaw Uprising 1944 set is built from 35 blocks and contains three figures: a woman courier carrying a Polish flag, and two Home Army soldiers in improvised uniforms with white and red armbands and Polish emblems on caps and captured German helmets. Accessories include an MP 40, a stick grenade and a Mauser rifle, with stands for display. All uniforms and faces are printed.

The armband was the uniform

Look at what the two soldiers are wearing. Civilian clothes, a captured German helmet, and a white and red band on the arm.

That band was not decoration. Under the laws of war a combatant must be distinguishable from a civilian, and for an insurgent army with no uniforms the armband was the entire claim to being a soldier rather than a criminal. Wearing it was also an admission, in a city full of German patrols, that could not be taken off quickly.

Germany did not accept it. For most of the uprising captured insurgents were shot rather than taken prisoner. Only at the end, in the surrender negotiations of early October 1944, was the Home Army recognised as a combatant force and its soldiers granted prisoner-of-war status — which is why the uprising ended in a formal capitulation rather than a massacre of the survivors.

The woman with the flag

The couriers — łączniczki — were mostly young women and girls, and they carried messages, orders and ammunition through the sewers and across streets under fire, because the telephone network was gone and radio was scarce. Many were teenagers. It was among the most dangerous work in the uprising, and it is the reason the third figure in this box is not carrying a rifle.

What it cost

The uprising began on 1 August 1944 and was expected to last days. It lasted 63. Around 16,000 insurgents and between 150,000 and 200,000 civilians were killed, and Warsaw was systematically destroyed afterwards on Hitler's orders.

In the COBI range

Set 2670 is the captured Jagdpanzer "Chwat" and 2655 the captured Panther "Pudel", both from the same uprising.

Specifications

Pieces: 35 · Figures: 3 with accessories and stands