| Original caption: “Nazi Legacy – A Catholic church is virtually the only structure left standing in this 1945 scene of the Warsaw Ghetto, where twenty thousand Polish Jews died in an uprising against the Nazis in 1943. On Thursday, Polish Government officials will conduct a ceremony at a monument in the former ghetto in memory of those who died. When the ghetto was set up in 1940, more than four hundred thousand Jews were herded inside its walled-off confines.” Kościół Swięty Augustyna w Warszawie (“Church of Saint Augustine”), on Nowolipki Street, was the only building in the area of the Warsaw Ghetto left standing by the Nazi Germans after the uprising of April 1943. The history of the church goes as far back as the 1880s, when the city administration ceded rights for a plot of land with an old residential house and a small yard facing Dzielna Street for the sake of building up a catholic cathedral. The construction was donated by Countess Aleksandra Potocka (March 26, 1818 – January 6, 1892), a former lady-in-waiting of Franz Joseph I (August 18, 1830 – November 21, 1916) of Austria’s family. Soon after the death of her husband Count August Potocki (1806-1867), Potocka devoted her late years to charity for the city of Warsaw. Potocka commemorated the 25th anniversary of the passing of her husband by funding the construction of the church. Countess Potocka acquired ownership of 2 adjusting plots of land at Nowolipki. She funded the construction, which cost 300,000 rubles and took 4 years. The Nazi German Generalgouvernement established the Warschauer Ghetto, officially Jüdischer Wohnbezirk in Warschau (“Jewish Residential District in Warsaw”) in November 1940. Kościół Swięty Augustyna w Warszawie was within the boundaries of the “little ghetto” and placed out of bounds for its Polish Catholic parishioners. But 5,000 mekhes were crammed into the Ghetto. Kościół Swięty Augustyna w Warszawie was closed to outsiders, but the Carmelite Kościół Narodzenia Najświętszej Maryi Panny (BVM – “Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary”) and Kościół Wszystkich Świętych (“All Saints Church”) continued communion services until the Aktion of July 1942. The priests of Kościół Swięty Augustyna w Warszawie lived outside the ghetto and commuted to the church with permanent passes. After some time, however, they were forbidden to enter and the services in the church ceased. As early as in the summer of 1942, on the heels of the mass deportations, the Nazi Germans turned the premises of the church into a warehouse for looted possessions, furniture in particular, and later used the building as a stable. Disregarding the shut-down of the church by the Nazi Germans, 2 men of the cloth of Kościół Swięty Augustyna w Warszawie went along attending to the parish. For 2 years, Father Leon Więckowicz or Więckiewicz (June 26, 1914 – December 4, 1944), and Father Franciszek Garncarek (September 14, 1884 – December 20, 1943) gave aid to the Jewish population of the Warsaw Ghetto, including smuggling some of the residents beyond the barbed wire and concrete walls, right up to the liquidation of the ghetto in Spring 1943. Father Więckowicz was later arrested for his sympathy for the Polish and Jewish people killed: he was initially imprisoned in Pawiak prison and finally died in Konzentrationslager Gross-Rosen in 1944. Father Garncarek was summarily executed on December 20, 1943, advocating for Poles, who were also about to be shot. Schutzstaffel SS-Gruppenführer und Generalleutnant der Polizei Jürgen Stroop (September 26, 1895 – March 6, 1952) directed the reduction of the Warsaw Ghetto over 4 weeks during the largest act of resistance by Jews during the Holocaust. He had his men burn more than a 1,000 buildings in the Ghetto; piles of bricks, estimated by the Nazi Germans at 20-2 1/2 1,000,000, looked like an “ocean of ruins.” Dominating the vision of destruction was Kościół Swięty Augustyna w Warszawie’s 70 meter (230 foot) bell tower, the highest point at the time. As early as August 5, the 5th day of the Warsaw Uprising, the bell tower was damaged in the course of the Polish attack on the neighboring Gęsiówka prison. The SS would intentionally set the roof of the cathedral on fire and its better half, including the house of a vicar and a parish house, burned down. The plans to blow up the church were never put into practice. Auxiliary Bishop of Pińsk Karol Niemira (October 28, 1881- July 8, 1965) fled to Kościół Swięty Augustyna w Warszawie when the Soviet Red Army took control in 1939. He remained at the church throughout the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. He smuggled Catholic Poles – mekhes (“converts”) that were identified as Jews by the Nazis – as well as Rabbis and children out of the Ghetto, right up through the uprising. He was arrested by what he thought was the Geheime Staatspolizei (“Gestapo”) but was probably the Sicherheitsdienst (SD – “Security Service”), during the uprising but returned to the church by May 1943 to continue rescuing others. As far back as September 1943, the Germans herded together more than 4,000 forced Polish laborers to the ruins of the former Warsaw ghetto for the benefit of extracting scrap metal and bricks. The major portion of the area had been regarded between 1940 and 1942 as the “large ghetto” now laid in ruins. The Nazi Germans used it as an observation point and a machine gun nest in August 1944, as the Armia Krajowa (“Polish Home Army”) rose up to also be slaughtered. As the war ended, Kościół Swięty Augustyna w Warszawie happened to be 1 of the few remaining buildings and the highest point of the Muranow district. Many photographers came to the ruins, most notably Robert Capa (October 22, 1913 – May 25, 1954). The restoration of the cathedral would take 6 years and would be generally finished by 1953, though the territory was reduced to make space for new urban development. In the 21st century, Kościół Swięty Augustyna w Warszawie is still a historical fixture in Warsaw, but is no longer the tallest point. This photo is by Associated Press photographer Henry Griffin (May 19, 1916 – August 22, 1992). Griffin accompanied American Ambassador Arthur Bliss Lane (June 16, 1894 – August 12, 1956) and his wife, Cornelia Thayer Baldwin Lane (March 20, 1892 – November 18, 1994) with United States Army officers as they inspected the wrecked city of Warsaw. The entourage visited the former United States Embassy; its “shell splattered” walls were all that remained. Griffin flew in an aircraft over the area of the Warsaw Ghetto, and the only recognizable landmark was Kościół Swięty Augustyna w Warszawie. | |
| Image Filename | wwii0764.jpg |
| Image Size | 632.79 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 2000 x 1500 |
| Photographer | Henry L. Griffin |
| Photographer Title | ACME |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | October 13, 1945 |
| Location | |
| City | Warsaw |
| State or Province | Warsaw |
| Country | Poland |
| Archive | Kenyon College |
| Record Number | 2014.1.113 |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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