City of menace, like a coffin lid
thrown down an abyss as if
by a tempest's blow –
yet proud
as a black lion who takes long to die
wrote Baczynski on February 10, 1943 in a poem entitled ‘Warsaw’. Finally, after 63 days of super-human struggle, on October 2, 1944, the Poles agree to surrender under honorable conditions thus assuring to the insurgents the rules of the Geneva Convention. Three days later decimated units of the Home Army march out of Warsaw – into captivity.
