Warszawa - Saxon Palace / Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
Today I return to the Warsaw Uprising. I started talking about it this year on August 1st, however the Uprising would last from August 1, 1944 through October 2, 1944 when the Poles surrendered and the city (both civilians and military) were evacuated. The Germans then spent from then until January 1945 destroying what was left of the city while the Soviets sat on the other side of the river letting them.
The top photo shows part of the pre-war Saxon Palace (Palac Saski) a large palace built to honor the Saxon Kings of Poland (Poland, unlike most of Europe, had elected kings instead of a hereditary monarchy).
The Palace, like 80% to 90% of Warsaw, was destroyed by the Germans during the occupation. There still are the massive Saxon Gardens, however, the palace has not been rebuilt.
The only remaining part of the Saxon Palace that remains is the small archway in the bottom photo which has become the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The tomb houses the body of a young, unknown soldier from the Defense of Lwow (present day Lviv, Ukraine) during 1918-1919. The sides of the columns list various battles that Poland fought dating back to the 900s including the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.
As the photo on the postcard doesn't necessarily give the idea of how large the Saxon Palace was, the Palace is the large building on both sides of the colonnade in this photo located below the large, Orthodox Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. Below the colonnade you can see the Saxon Gardens and the large fountain in the circle.
