Powązkowska 80 - Żoliborz

         The mural was painted on the side wall of the several-storey-high pre-war tenement house in 80 Powązkowska street. Like the whole building, it's in poor state.
         The mural shows a big inscription: Gloria Victis (Glory to the Defeated) against the background of the city on fire. At the bottom of the composition you can see: Pamiętamy (We remember). On the left one can see an insurgent who is standing in front of the Pasta building, which refers to an iconic photograph taken in 1944.
         The tenement house in 80 Powązkowska street is the only remaining building from the side of Elbląska street. The buildings of the Powązkowska street were mostly destroyed in 1939 and 1944. The Powązki Military Cemetery (where the soldiers fallen during the Warsaw Uprising 1944 were buried and in the middle of insurgent graves there is an obelisk with an inscription Gloria Victis) is exactly opposite the building.
         The Powązkowska street has changed itself entirely. Before the WW II it was running towards the North Beyond the city borders. People were travelling by trams along this street. The final tram stop was situated beyond the Powązki Military Cemetery. In 1950s the signifant part of the buildings was destroyed due to the construction of the Babice airport. In the year 1971 this area was profoundly reconstructed and the tram line was done away with.
         Later, the street and its shape were changed once again because of the construction site of the Home Army route just beyond the Powązki Military Cemetery in 2001. This is how the historic street almost totally disappeared.
         Not far away from the tenement house with the described mural painting in Powązkowska street, just Beyond Aleja Armii Krajowej (the Home Army Avenue) one can find a plaque devoted to 21 residents of Warsaw who were shot by Germans on August 1, 1944.

compiled by: Maciej Janaszek-Seydlitz


pictures taken by: Maciej Janaszek-Seydlitz


translated by: Monika Ałasa