Memory of the World; 2012 - unesdoc - Unesco

Europe which, in the words of the Nazi commander
Heinrich Himmler, would ‘give a terrifying example
for all Europe’.
The Germans cleared large sections of the city of both its
civilian populations and its buildings, especially after the
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943 and the Warsaw Uprising
of the following year. Demolition squads systematically
burnt and destroyed houses, schools, churches, libraries
and especially historic buildings and cultural monuments,
while the citizens were killed or shipped out, usually
to concentration camps.
In May 1945 the Warsaw Reconstruction Office began
recording the scale of the physical damage to the city,
68 percent of which was destroyed, a figure that rose to
80 percent in the Old Town. The Reconstruction Office
employed 1422 staff including engineers, technicians
and other builders to assess the condition of surviving
buildings, plan the rebuilding of infrastructure and detail
methods of restoring historic complexes and monuments.
The statue of Christ carrying his cross from the Church
of the Holy Cross which was destroyed by the Germans
and rebuilt after the war. �
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