Poland Buys Rare WWII Uprising Postcards

A museum has acquired a collection of rare World War II-era postcards, stamps and letters from Polish insurgents who fought their Nazi occupiers during the Warsaw Uprising.

Included in the 123 items are postage stamps printed by insurgents with seals made from potatoes, and letters and postcards that describe the fighters' plight. Some of the letters had never been opened.

Jan Oldakowski, director of the Warsaw Uprising Museum, said Saturday that the museum bought the collection at auction in Duesseldorf, Germany, for the asking price of $280,000. The auction house could not immediately be reached for confirmation.

Germany offered to cover the cost of the collection, but Poland decided to purchase the items on its own, Culture Minister Bogdan Zdrojewski told TVN24 television.

Oldakowski said the museum was trying to track down people who wrote or received the mail. He said two people have already come forward.

"We hope that in a month when we open the exhibit of these mementos, those who sent and received them, or their relatives, will be with us," he said.

The museum houses exhibits from the 1944 Warsaw Uprising against the Nazis — a doomed revolt that is one of the most tragic moments in Polish history yet a source of national pride.

During fierce fighting, the insurgents — largely ill-armed teenagers — organized a postal service to help city residents get information to relatives who were often cut off by the street-to-street fighting that erupted in Warsaw on August 1, 1944, and raged for 63 days.

Some 250,000 civilians were killed in the revolt, which was waged in the hope of liberating the capital from the Nazis. Ultimately, though, it was crushed, the survivors were deported to concentration camps and the city razed.

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