As this photo from Khrystene shows, the Germans quite literally left almost nothing standing when they left. Why? For the final 2 months of the war the men, women and children of Warsaw rose up against the Germans. More than 200,000 people died in 60 days, in a city with a pre-war population of 1 million (400,000 of whom were Jews, long since deported or killed in the liquidation of the Ghetto, by the time fighting broke out). 
Our walks took us past the memorials to the children of the uprising (above), killed carrying messages, and running errands, for the resistance, and the courtyard plaza Memorial (below). 
There's also an award winning museum, which we didn't make it to, although I will next time.But for me, the greatest tribute the Polish people could pay to their freedom fighters was to rebuild - and given that they were doing it in a communist state, under wary Soviet eyes and with limited finances, the fact that this city is so beautiful is perhaps nothing short of a miracle.The Westerners who said to me that Warsaw was 'nothing much to look at' are so wrong: this place has Polish grit and determination built into every brick and slap of mortar. See, and try not to weep, as you imagine all this being built, destroyed, and built again...
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