Thread by @JoKingScholar

“Poland will be great or she will not exist at all"
— Piłsudski

#BeLikePoland 🇵🇱

@JSaryuszWolski @visegrad24 @Tash_Witk @D_Tarczynski @PatrykJaki @andrewmichta @dominikacosic @PolishEmbassyUS @arekmularczyk @jakubiak_marek @michalrachon @CecilieHolter @ron__PL @AgainstRevisio1

#OTD, Sept 23, 1939, due to heavy artillery fighting Polish Radio @thenews_PL stopped broadcasting. Before this happened, listeners could listen one last time to a #Chopin concert performed by Władysław Szpilman.

#WWII #WarsawUprising #PolishHistory #History #Poland

Broadcasting the program was no longer possible without electricity from the Powiśle Power Plant. The damage was too extensive to allow for ongoing repairs. The audience had to say goodbye to the radio.

Apart from Szpilman's concert, radio receivers from Warsaw could listen to President Stefan Starzyński's speech. Unfortunately, the disc with the recording did not survive.

"The artillery was firing heavily, I thought it was on purpose. I was a little scared. Straszyński, who was setting up the microphones in the studio, wanted to place the piano closer to the window, I asked him to go further..."
#PolishHistory #WarsawUprising #history #WWII

"...He said: "It does not matter, Mr. Władysław. If you believe in God, please pray, because shall a shrapnel hit us, there will be nothing left anyways." And so I played Chopin, for half an hour"

— Szpilma recalled years later in a radio interview
#PolishHistory #WarsawUprising