Kościół pw. Świętego Augustyna, Warszawa

This is St Augustine’s Church, a Roman Catholic parish church on Nowolipki Street in Wola, named for Augustine of Hippo. Its brick façade and lofty tower give it a deliberately medieval character: it is neo-Romanesque, a nineteenth-century revival of the round-arched language of Romanesque churches. Edward Cichocki and Józef Huss designed it, and building began in 1891.

Countess Aleksandra Potocka funded the project as a memorial to her late husband, Count August Potocki. The church opened for worship in 1896 and was consecrated in 1905. Notice the large rosette set into the façade above the entrance.

The tower was once Warsaw’s tallest, reaching 70 metres; its cross rises from a sphere that was painted black in 1959, before its earlier finish returned in 1995. Its survival carries the harder story. The church stood inside the Warsaw Ghetto, where priests Franciszek Garncarek and Leon Więckowicz helped Jews escape.

German forces later used it to store plundered property and as a stable. During the Warsaw Uprising, the tower became their observation post and machine-gun nest; fire then devastated much of the church. The intended demolition never came. By 1947, restoration had returned this landmark of the former ghetto to worship.