All language subtitles for Dan.Cruickshanks.Warsaw.Resurrecting.History.2015.1080p.WEBRip.x264-CBFM

BELL CHIMES

It's Easter in Poland's capital,
Warsaw.

The people gather to commemorate
the crucifixion of Christ...

and the resurrection.

I haven't been back to Warsaw
since I lived here as a child.

I was seven
when I moved here with my family.

My father had a job in the city.

It is of course strange to be back.

I'm sure much has changed,
but also much, to me, seems the same.

It is, in a sense, like coming home.

What is certain though, to me,
is that what I saw here,

what I felt here as a child has
had a huge influence on my life.

I'm going to explore my memories...

..the memories of the city...

..and the memories of its people.

Warsaw was victim of one
of the most atrocious

crimes of the 20th century,

when Hitler's Nazis tried to wipe
it off the face of the earth.

No city in modern history
has endured such appalling

devastation and loss.

No city has had the courage

and willpower to rise up
from the ashes...

and to rebuild the past.

We're now used to intolerance
and to attacks on beauty and culture.

The Poles, in their courageous
recreation of their lost city,

the regaining of their lost beauty,
are an inspiration for all of us.

Warsaw is the city that came
back from the dead,

in the most miraculous
of resurrections.

In the summer of 1956,

the Cruickshank family sailed
eastwards on MS Batory.

We were heading for a new
home in Poland.

At the age of seven,
this was my first adventure abroad.

It was all because my father, Gordon,
had a job as a journalist

with the London Daily Worker,
a communist newspaper.

Now that idea seems unusual,
outlandish even.

After all, we were
going behind the Iron Curtain to

Warsaw at the height
of the Cold War.

It was a decade or so after
the end of the World War II,

which had left the city devastated.

I was last here in Warsaw
almost 60 years ago,

I was very young, but I have been
back many times in my imagination.

I think about it an awful lot.

My memory is that the city was
almost still a smoking

ruin from the war.

This is the stuff of my dreams,
you know.

Absolutely amazing experience.

There are things I'm now noticing,
these great statutes which,

for a child, would have been
terribly attractive

and should be burnt into my memory.

And for a child of seven,
it was utterly romantic.

I loved it. I loved the ruins.

It was a trip into the dark
recesses of my mind,

a trip into what was one of the very
dark places of Earth in the 1950s.

I'm on my way to the Old Town
of Warsaw, where we used to live.

It dates back to
the mid-17th century,

but had been almost
levelled during the war.

When I was last here, most of it
had been recently rebuilt.

HE LAUGHS

This is amazing.
Walking back into my own childhood.

This is the market place, the market
square - the heart of the Old Town.

This is where I grew up.

I often think about this space.

A wonderful, mellow atmosphere
the buildings have, antique

and ancient in feel.

Charming, these astonishing moments.
Stabbing memories. Laser-like.

Suddenly little things I've forgotten
for nearly 60 years come back.

I remember being entranced
by the Old Town.

The bold colours, yellow ochre.

And, of course, the vivid,
Baroque detail everywhere.

It's hard to believe that
most of this was meticulously

recreated just 60 years ago.

Amazing - I remember those,
the putti with the goat,

and naughty little boys,

naughty fellows with their baskets
of grapes, Bacchanalian scene...

musical parade, tambourines.

Now, the thing is...to work out
exactly where I lived.

I've got here, as it happens...
It may seem strange that

I should keep such things, but I
didn't - my mother did, or my father.

It's my exercise book from school,
when I went to school in Warsaw.

Here it is.

"5th of September 1957."

It's a mathematical problem
that I had to solve then.

I fear... I don't know,
I think I got it right.

But here we are, look.

"Swietojanska",
which is St John's Street.

Number 33, flat two.

Swietojanska, St John's Street,
number 33/2, first floor.

That's our living room
and our kitchen up there.

What a lovely building.
What a lovely place to live.

This is my door.

BUZZER

Ah!

Oh, the staircase.

Ah, well, there you go,
number two.

As on my school exercise book.

Good heavens. OK. Ah.

HE KNOCKS

HE LAUGHS

It's bizarre. Um. Ah!

Hello. Ah, hi,
my name is Dan Cruickshank.

I used to live here.
Many, many years ago.

OK.

The new tenant of my old home
is Bert Coslow from Texas.

Can I just look through the window?
Please, go ahead.

'It's a moment I've
dreamt about for years.'

Well, well, well, well, well.

Now, I made a series of drawings
from this very window.

You made this from this window?
From this window.

And how old were you? Well, I was
seven, I was about seven years old.

It's quite good for a
seven-year-old. Oh, is it?

Thank you. You can clearly see,
looking at this, to me there is

no doubt in my mind what's
being portrayed.

I suppose what enthralled me
was, of course, that these

are things calculated to really
engage children.

I mean, the lion over there.

And this sort of dragon finial
at the top. Yeah.

And, of course, the amazing clock.

And then the view in
to the square itself.

And these are very interesting
drawings, I can say that myself.

It's such a long time ago, isn't it?
It's hardly me.

But the detail, the loving detail,

the observation does suggest
the beginnings of my passion

for architecture, which becomes the
ruling thing of my life.

Seems to be, seems to be that
the foundations

are certainly here in 1957.

Clearly, this drawing,
this view from here,

through this window, of this space,
is where it all starts for me. Yeah.

Something big has changed
since I was last here.

The old market square has
a happy-go-lucky atmosphere...

not the muted,
solemn place of my memories.

You see, the scene I just walked
past, the chap in the wheelchair

with no legs, that's it,
that's what I remember. Amazing.

Damaged people, physically damaged
people from the uprising,

from the war.
Mentally damaged people.

And here is a chap sitting there,
as if it was 60 years ago.

That was very odd.

As a seven-year-old,
I didn't understand how

dreadfully Warsaw had suffered
during the Second World War.

I was fortunate not to witness
the death and destruction.

But there were reminders
of it all over the city.

Shrines commemorating
the victims of the war.

It was a city risen from the ruins,
a city mourning the dead.

It went far beyond the destruction
that might be anticipated in war.

In fact, Warsaw was
the victim of a war crime almost

unprecedented in history, a crime
premeditated by the Nazis

even before the war started.

Hitler set out to eradicate
Warsaw and annihilate its people.

The damning evidence is to be found
at the Institute of National
Remembrance,

which holds records of
Nazi atrocities against Poland.

Hitler's intentions were clinically
laid out in a series of plans

named after Friedrich Pabst, the
Nazis' "Chief Architect for Warsaw"

This set of plans...is chilling...

shocking.

They detail the near total

obliteration of Warsaw

and its replacement by a smaller town

for German settlers and officials.

They're dated. Here we have
the 6th of February, 1940.

And culminate with
a proposal for its destruction.

This is why it's chilling.

A rather lovingly detailed
and created model of the old city

of Warsaw, in the 17th century.

And then here we see its replacement,

removal, by this rather
banal looking -

architecturally banal looking -
German settlement,

Really depressing, really depressing.

But also another detail so revealing.

The parts of the Old Town,

of Warsaw's Stare Miasto,
are left in place, because

the Nazis had perceived within
the fabric of the Old Town

some Germanic qualities.
They wanted to keep the Old Town

because, in a sense,
preserving it suggested that

the Germans were here before.

It justified their...

determination to annexe Poland

and to create this Germanic
settlement on the site of Warsaw.

This is, of course,
an attack on architectural history

and on architectural beauty.

But the bigger thing is it reflects
Hitler's and the Nazis' hatred

of Poland and the Poles.

To destroy Warsaw was to destroy

Polish pride, Polish identity,

Polish hopes for the future.
That's what this is really about.

Poland's descent into hell
began with the German

invasion on 1st September, 1939.

It caused the outbreak
of World War II.

Wanda Traczyk-Stawska lived through
the horrors of Nazi occupation.

It would be almost five years
before Warsaw fought back,

when the Polish home army tried to
drive the Germans out of the city.

The uprising, which started on
the 1st August, 1944,

lasted 63 days.

The Poles exhibited great heroism
and self sacrifice.

But, in the end, the Nazis crushed
them with shocking brutality.

Wanda was one of many women who
took up arms against the Nazis.

How do you feel now, 70 years on
or so, from the uprising?

Do you feel it was
doomed from the beginning?

Was it worth
the destruction of Warsaw?

But the consequences were appalling,
as Hitler ordered

Warsaw to be razed to the ground.

This computer graphic reveals

the enormity of the destruction.

The Old Town,
one of the centres of Polish

resistance during the uprising,
was systematically destroyed.

Historic buildings, including
the castle, were set ablaze

and blown up with high explosives.

The Jewish ghetto, the largest
in Nazi-controlled Europe,

had been levelled in 1943 and its
population virtually wiped out,

either in the city
or extermination camps.

By the end of the war,
nearly 90% of Warsaw lay in ruins.

But this was not
the end of the nightmare.

The Poles had been encouraged
to rise up by the Soviets,

who were closing in on Warsaw.

But then they stood by
and let the Nazis destroy the city

and undermine Poland's
battle for independence.

They had plans of their own.

The human cost of the uprising
was huge.

The population of Warsaw had been
crushed by the brutal

and vengeful Nazis.

Around 200,000 people had died.

And now they faced a future under
the yoke of the Soviet Union,

which had betrayed them
in their hour of need.

The future of Warsaw as a capital
city hung in the balance.

All hope of Poland regaining
its independence was finally dashed,

as it passed from one totalitarian
overlord to another.

It became a Soviet puppet state, led
by a hardline Stalinist government.

By 1956, the regime had arrested
250,000 Poles

regarded as "traitors"
for fighting to establish a free

and independent nation.

20,000 died in prison and 3,000 were
executed...

their fate kept secret.

Given what we now know, it might seem
shocking that it was

my father's communist convictions
that brought us to Warsaw.

Gordon Cruickshank is the
correspondent here
for London Daily Worker.

In 1957, he was interviewed
by Christopher Chataway for the BBC.

What proportion of the ordinary
people do you think are really
communists?

I would say that the vast
mass of the Polish people,

to my mind and from my experience...

..support a socialist economy.

That is to say they don't want
landlords back,

they don't want private ownership of
factories and industry back at all.

My father was not
alone in his beliefs.

Like many, he'd become a communist
in the late 1930s to fight fascism.

And, despite the brutal
reality of Stalinism,

he still believed that communism
could help build a better world.

Back in 1945, Poland's Stalinist
government had taken

the decision to rebuild
Warsaw as the capital.

But they weren't
interested in the old city -

they had a vision
for a socialist utopia.

They built a state of the art
transport network,

with brand-new trams to replace
the ones destroyed during the war.

I remember being frightened
of trams as a child here.

There weren't trams in London.

I was particularly
fearful of the junctions.

I saw an accident at a junction,
which of course confirmed that

I was right to be fearful of these
frightful devices, these trams.

Um... Ah, I press the button
to get on.

Ah, here we go, this is lovely.

We're going down this great avenue,

the great Stalinist avenue
in reconstructed Warsaw.

Each side are these neo-classical
blocks, clad with stone mostly.

This was, of course, the Soviet
vision for the new Warsaw.

Oh, look,
there's the Palace of Culture.

'The Palace of Culture and Science -
Russia's gift to Warsaw -

'looks down on the Polish capital's
National Day parade.

'The Poles are a determined people
and their capital is rapidly

'regaining its position as one
of Europe's most beautiful cities.

'And it's not only their buildings
that look good.'

The Palace was completed in 1955,

so, virtually new
when I arrived in the city.

And, even as a young child, I soon
learned that the people of Warsaw

did not like this unwelcome gift
from the Soviet authorities.

They regarded it as a cynical
and calculated imposition,

and hardly a gift as it was largely
paid for by the Soviet exploitation

of Poland's natural resources.

And, architecturally, there were
already seven towers like this

in Moscow,
called Stalin's Seven Sisters,

so, for the people of Warsaw,
this was no more than a Soviet brand

burnt into the soul of their city.

At 231 metres,

it's still Poland's tallest building

and, love it or loathe it,
it has become THE symbol of Warsaw.

The rebuilding of Warsaw after 1945
was a complex business.

Very quickly, two parallel visions
started to emerge.

One was for the creation
of a typical Soviet-style city

with straight boulevards -
you can see one over there,

lined with stone-clad
apartment blocks,

for the official families, I suppose.

And concrete-built
housing estates over there,

rather grim, for the workers.

The other vision was inspired
by Warsaw history,

for the recreation of the Old Town.

And you can see the Old Town
over there, ultimately recreated,

characterised by low-rise
red pantile roofs,

a dash of exotic colour.

That vision was driven by
the people of Warsaw.

The loss of the beloved Old Town
to Nazi barbarity was intolerable.

It had to be recreated.

A great wrong had to be put right.

As a seven-year-old boy, I wasn't
aware of this clash of styles -

the gargantuan Stalinist edifice
that touched the sky

versus the quaint 'old' houses
and beautiful square

which I loved.

What I didn't know then was that
rebuilding the city had been

one of the most daunting
reconstruction jobs in history.

In January 1945, it must have felt
like the end of the world in Warsaw.

The man who led the campaign
to convince the Communists

to rebuild the past was
Warsaw architect Jan Zachwatowicz.

I've come to visit
his daughter Krystyna,

who, as a teenager, had fought
in the Warsaw uprising.

Your father's spontaneous reaction
was to rebuild the city

because it represented
their identity, their pride,

but this had to take place
within a changed world -

the world of a new communist regime.
These things had to be reconciled.

How did your father find it
possible? Was it difficult?

Did he have to persuade
the new authorities

to recreate the historic quarter?

This was Warsaw's year zero.

But the people needed more
than just memories

to bring the past back to life.

With the city so utterly flattened,
they needed something more tangible

to go on.

Plans, paintings or photographs.

I've come to a Warsaw peep show,

which is not what you might think
it is, despite appearances.

It is in fact the Fotoplastikon -

a remarkable institution
that survived both World Wars.

It is now an invaluable
time machine

containing photographs of Warsaw
before its destruction in 1944.

Oh, well, that's lovely.

That is, I suppose, a late 19th
century, exotic, Edwardian scene.

They're 3D. It's amazing.
Oh, this a fantastic image.

This shows the Castle Square.

Now we get insight into
the cosmopolitan and rich

and romantic life of Warsaw
before the destruction.

This is 1895.

Here's a lovely...

big avenue.

looks like Paris.

Oh, the famous steps
Of the Old Town.

A narrow alley of steps.
Not much has changed.

I can probably see myself
walking through that, actually.

This is a fantastic document

to inform the reconstruction.

Essential...that's the sort of
essential information needed

to rebuild the city after the war.

Not just information,
but architectural detail,

which was essential, but also,
in a sense, I suppose,

they encapsulate memories of the
city as a lively, romantic place -

a place with a Parisian quality.

You can fully understand
why the people of Warsaw,

having lost their city, they also
lost the life that went with it.

So it was to recreate, of course,
the architecture

and also, as far as possible,
to recapture and recreate the life

lived within the theatre
of the ancient architecture,

this historic architecture.

Amazing vignette, amazing little
time machine back to what had been

a lost and much regretted period
in the history of the city.

The photographs were a good start,

but the architects delved
further into the past

for a more picturesque muse.

A superb collection of paintings
of Warsaw in this room

were made in the late 1770s

by an Italian artist
called Bernardo Bellotto.

But he tended to use the name

of his more famous artist uncle -
Canaletto.

As a court painter to the king,

he produced 26 cityscapes
for the royal castle.

The second half of the 18th century

was the era
of the Polish Enlightenment

when the nation was at the height of
its prestige, power and prosperity.

These paintings contain lots
of lovely detail, of course,

therefore perfect to use for
the reconstruction of Warsaw.

But there is also, I must say,
a lot of poetic license.

The artist is creating
an ideal vision of Warsaw

and contrives to make it look,
occasionally, rather like Rome.

Why not? The model.

So this, in a way,
is a dream of Warsaw -

a late 18th century dream
of Warsaw.

Warsaw as it ought to have been.

Well, certainly as far as
Bellotto was concerned.

Look at this.
It is absolutely wonderful.

Almost photographic, but not quite,

because things have been
slightly manipulated

for the most powerful
visual architectural effect.

A bit like how Canaletto
made London look like Venice.

Perfectly understandable.

In the grim 1940s,

Bellotto's magical images
were far more real,

more compelling than reality.

They captured the beauty
of the lost past.

Bellotto's paintings alone were not
enough to rebuild the lost city.

Precise, technical drawings
were needed.

Miraculously, plans of the old town,
drawn by architectural students

before the war, also survived.

They were smuggled out of the city
after the uprising under the noses

of the Nazis and hidden in a church
in the coffins of monks.

Here are copies
of some of the drawings.

They're a wonderful quality.

These are really good and informed
architecture students.

They knew their classical details.

Here is the elevation of the block
of buildings opposite me

in the Market Place.

You can see, here they are,
drawn in the 1930s

as they were before destruction

and then as recreated.

And much of that recreation is
based on, inspired by, informed by,

this drawing.

Then there are wonderful details.

For example, one of the houses
opposite is shown in some detail,

there it is,
with that interesting door.

And then there are drawings
of windows and doors.

This one dated 1932.

There's another thing to be extracted
from studying these drawings.

Some of the buildings as recreated

don't exactly correspond to
the 1930s surveys.

They've been tweaked.

Some later details, for example,
19th century doors or shop fronts

were not reconstructed.

Instead, the architects returned
to the world of the 18th century.

So one can see mostly shops
and ground floors

and some windows, as shown here,

are distinctly different
from the recreation,

which is to say, therefore,
that the Old Town of Warsaw

is not an absolute replica
of what was destroyed in 1944,

but a very spirited,
very moving return

to a sort of 18th century ideal.

The plans were the key
to reconstructing the Old Town.

But there was still a terrifying
amount of work to do.

The people didn't want
a Disney-style theme park.

It had to be faithful to the past

so the Old Town became
a huge research laboratory.

Archaeologists sifted through rubble,
salvaging what details they could.

Everybody played their part
in an inspiring grassroots movement

to save their history
and rebuild their past.

Among them was Irena Dawozianska.

As I walk around
the old Market Square,

I try to spot architectural details
that were salvaged from the ruins

or those that were recreated
from scratch.

Memories flood back.

All the charming details
that I sketched as a boy.

Even with all my years
of experience,

I am, at times, hard pushed
to spot the difference.

Among the few buildings to survive
the war, damaged but not destroyed,

was the city museum.

It's a place I loved as a boy.

I long to return
so I meet Anna Zasadzinska,

who works for the museum, which
is currently closed for repairs.

Before the war, the three houses
that we can see in front of us -

the three in the centre -
were bought by the city,

just to create a city museum there.

Are they about the only ones
that survived

in the whole of the Old Town?

There were five in total
that survived

and three of them
we're just seeing now.

Out of many, many hundreds,
five is heartbreaking, isn't it?

90% of the buildings
were destructed.

Oh, gosh.

It must have been very hard
to have lost so much.

But then the reconstruction
is very good, isn't it?

Exactly.

Because after the 60 years, the
Old Town really looks quite old.

Exactly. That's good.
That's exactly right.

It's developed a pattern of age.
The materials have weathered well.

I mean, because, presumably,
the materials that were used -

good stucco, good bricks -

it's aged, it's weathered
very convincingly.

Do you like it? I do. I love it.

Anna, thank you very much.

OK. Up I go.

You're going to stay here. Very wise.
Good luck. Thank you.

Oops.

When I see scaffolding,
my spirits soar.

This group of three houses
that survived the war

gives me the chance to compare
the old with the new.

Now, here we are.

This is one of
the authentic elevations

and it's very exciting to be
so up close to it.

Erm, lovely.
Ah, there's the Moor's Head.

We know this is new,
recreated since the War,

but very well done.

The original is in the museum now.

The key thing is to look at
the materials.

Of course these buildings...

are rendered with lime render,

not, of course, not cement.

And this is a patch
of original treatment.

A soft, undulating, sensuous surface.

Lovely to touch.

So important to get that right
in the repaired buildings.

Looking around, one can see that
mostly in the early '50s,

lime render was used.

That's the great key to giving
repaired or recreated buildings

an authentic, artistic feel.

Almost 60 years since I last
came here with my school,

I've been given privileged access
to go inside.

Let's have a look.

'Like outside, the interiors are
a happy marriage of what survived

'in place, what was salvaged,
and what was recreated.'

Oh, my goodness me. Look at this.

God, this is wonderful!

I mean, some must be repaired,
but mostly it seems authentic.

I had no idea of the quality.
It's just not facades that survive.

This is an entire historic building.

'It was down to a stroke
of good fortune

'that these interiors survived.

'The houses had been fireproofed
just before the war.'

Oh! A huge staircase. Look at this.

A wonderful face,

but not enough wear and tear
as the centuries.

So a brilliant piece of recreation,
I suppose,

but, my goodness me,
it's thoroughly done.

Oh, look, a lovely bunch of grapes.

So one knows we're in the world
of good wine. Feasting.

So up to the bedroom level,

originally, the family level.

I'll go through...and along.

Oh...oh! Good heavens.

They're full of treasures,
these houses,

completely amazing,
unexpected discoveries.

A miraculous survival.

Biblical scenes
on this painted ceiling.

Look at it.

I had no idea this was here.

Early 18th century, I suppose.

A...picturesque scene.

A ruined castle, a chap crossing
the bridge with his cow.

The colours now muted, of course.

But isn't it amazing it's here,
this ceiling?

That it survives at all.

The epicentre,
this heart of darkness,

this mouth of hell in late 1944,

everything being consumed by fire,
set by these vengeful Nazis,

yet, in some magical way,
this fragile ceiling of timber,

with these biblical scenes survived.

Good heavens.

While the people of Warsaw tried
to put the horrors of the Nazis

behind them, they lived under
the shadow of Stalinism.

But when I arrived here in late 1956,

the tide of Soviet oppression
seemed to be turning.

Stalin was dead
and all over Eastern Europe,

people were rejecting rule
from Moscow.

The political killings
had stopped in Poland,

but people were still struggling
for a brighter future.

My father, Gordon, was posted here
to report on the momentous changes.

He used to meet fellow journalists
in the bar of the Bristol Hotel.

Wiener Schnitzel.

This was my treat as a child
in Warsaw.

A Sunday treat. Lovely.

I've got articles in front of me
written by my father,

published in the Daily Worker.

October, 1956, headline:

"The Warsaw Way To Socialism.

"These stirring pictures of the great
mass movement that swept Poland

"a week ago have come to us
from our Warsaw correspondent

"Gordon Cruickshank.

"The enthusiasm and happiness
written on their faces

"as the changes become known

"give hope for the future
of a democratic socialist Poland."

Pictures here of smiling people,
clapping people.

There's a picture here
of my father taking notes.

The objective reporter.

My father loved Poland,

he loved Warsaw, he loved the Poles,

because of their spirit,
because of their resilience.

And, also, here he saw a nation that
was a communist socialist state.

Socialism and communism
with a more humane face,

more humane than that associated
with Stalin and the Soviet Union.

But history had horrible things
in store.

Things started to go wrong
and, by 1958, this newsletter,

headline on the front page:

"Gordon Cruickshank Quits Daily
Worker And The Communist Party.

"Cruickshank disagrees with the
party's fundamental political line,

"and in particular with its attitude
to the treatment of Jews

"in the Soviet Union."

For my father, any...

form of anti-Semitic behaviour,

any racism, was intolerable,
impossible.

He believed in a world of equality.

He'd supported the idea
of communism for decades

but had to give it all up
on principle.

The fact that...

he had to resign from the party must
have been just absolutely appalling.

Appalling for him,
appalling for anybody whose life

had been dedicated to an ideal
and the ideal crumbles.

What do you do? Gosh.

The weird thing is that as a child
I was not aware.

He did protect me,
protect the family

from what must have been
terrible, terrible turmoil,

turbulence of mind.

Gosh.

In the end, of course, it all,
sort of, in a way...

came to nothing.

The world he supported
and hoped he would see triumph

crumbled and was swept away

or, worse than that,
worse than that, of course,

it was...

revealed to be rotten
under the Soviets, under Stalin.

Coming back here after so many years
has allowed me to fill in the gaps

in my memories.

There's still one
that stands out, though.

It's of the biggest bombsite of all.

It was at the end of my street.

What I didn't know was that
it signified a hole in the heart

of the rebuilt Warsaw.

It was the site of the city's
grandest pre-war building -

the Royal Castle.

For years, it was a step too far
for the Communists to embrace

the glories of Poland's royal past.

But the people fought long and hard
to get their castle back.

Finally, their dream came true,
and work started in 1971.

The story of the reconstruction
of the castle

is one of the most heroic stories
in a city of heroes.

It was paid for with money collected
from Poles throughout the world,

with some money deposited in a box
on the site.

You might think that
after 25 years or so,

there wouldn't be much left
to rebuild.

But Warsaw had planned for this day
as far back as 1939.

The castle had been seriously
damaged by German bombs

during the invasion in September
of that year.

Curators and architects
risked their lives

salvaging the treasures
of the castle.

Within three weeks, 80% of what
survived had been carried off

to safe storage in the vaults
of the National Museum.

But, even after Nazi occupation
of Warsaw,

the work continued with panelling,
fireplaces,

fragments of plasterwork and doors
being carried off,

but they had to be clever.

Sometimes, the doors would be used
to carry off rubble,

the rubble disguising
the historic door,

and then the door put in storage.

But the post-war politics of Poland

meant it was 30 years before
these fragments were reused,

in the last great stage in the
reconstruction of historic Warsaw.

The castle enjoyed its apogee
during the 18th century

under King Stanislaw August.

It's my first visit here

and the vainglorious portraits of
the King and the lavish interiors

show why a communist government might
balk at the idea of rebuilding it.

It's the very stuff
that inspires revolutions.

Like all buildings, the Royal Castle
has had its ups and downs.

And, in a nation like Poland,
with such a turbulent history,

these ups and downs
have been very extreme,

so it makes sense, in the recreation
of the castle's interior,

to commemorate those moments
in the history of the nation

when Poland has been at its most
prosperous and most independent.

Rebuilding the castle
in all its 18th century finery

was a huge challenge because
it was a work of art in itself,

with the most elegant
neo-classical interiors,

renowned around the world.

This is one of the great 18th century
royal rooms of Europe.

And the world was shocked

when it was virtually destroyed
by German bombing in 1939,

and now it lives again...

..bright and sparkling...

..as good as the day it was
first completed in the 1780s.

Wonderful, isn't it?

The reconstruction was
an extraordinary labour of love.

Teams of conservationists and artists

worked painstakingly to salvage
what they could

or else recreate details
from old photographs.

This is the Royal Chapel.

It's a splendid neo-classical
design of the 1770s.

It contains eight columns,
six of which are old.

How on earth they survived
buried amongst the ruins,

I've absolutely no idea.

Also, a lot of those rosettes
are old as well.

Here, old work and new work has been
very skilfully integrated

to recreate a most wonderful thing.

It's as if the war never happened,

the horrors of war never
befell this place.

I suppose that's just the point.

Goodness me, look at this.

What's really exciting
about the castle

is the way its brilliantly recreated
interiors, sumptuous and gilded,

so convincingly evoke those days
of Poland's power and glory

when, in the 18th century, Warsaw
was one of the world's great cities.

This is the throne room
and it's almost overwhelming.

Behind me is the throne

and its display of Polish eagles
made out of silver bullion.

The originals were looted in 1939
by German soldiers,

but, incredibly, one of these eagles

was found in 1991
in the United States

and that was brought back here
and copied to reproduce the others,

giving the whole thing
a sense of utter authenticity.

Of course, it shows that
recreating the past

is a never-ending journey.

The reconstruction of old Warsaw
raises many big questions,

especially today.

It works aesthetically, but was it
ethically the right thing to do?

To ponder this,
I've come Lazienki Park.

It's an enchanted place.

I can see my younger self here,

playing hide and seek
with the statues.

It's all neo-classical
pomp and opulence.

No wonder the Germans occupied
the Palace during the war.

They did their damnedest
to destroy it before they left.

After the war, the Palace and gardens
were rebuilt like the Old Town.

The large scale of the reconstruction
of the Old Town

and its meticulously
correct detailing

was unprecedented in the 1950s.

Then, the prevailing
architectural philosophy

in approaching the reconstruction
of war-damaged historic towns

was to be truthful and to rebuild
in a generally modern manner.

That approach was rooted
in 19th century theory

represented very well by the art
historian and theorist John Ruskin,

who, in the mid-19th century
wrote that it was impossible,

as impossible as to raise the dead,

to restore anything that had been
great or beautiful in architecture.

But, of course, recreating the dead

was exactly what the people of Warsaw
wanted to do.

They wanted it to appear that
the war and the Nazi barbarity

had not happened.

What the Poles wanted to do
was to recreate it as a vital,

total work of art.

Fast-forward 70 years and
World War II is a distant memory.

Poland is now a member
of the European Union

and Warsaw has become a boom town,

with high-rise buildings
dominating its 21st century skyline.

The latest is called the Spire.

When completed, it'll be the city's
second tallest building,

after the Palace of Culture.

Warsaw's resurrection is miraculous.

70 years ago, nearly 90% of the city
had been destroyed.

A place of despair and desolation.

Now, as you can see, it lives again.

In a world where history is once
again under attack from extremism,

there is much we can learn
from Warsaw.

A revived confidence in the future

is expressed through
the new architecture.

Old buildings have been reconstructed
with passion and verve.

Is it possible
to bring back the dead?

Yes, if done with commitment,

with determination and with love.