Pomnik Kościuszkowców, Warsaw

Pomnik Kościuszkowców is a memorial to the soldiers of the Tadeusz Kościuszko Infantry Division who tried to reach the Warsaw Uprising. The huge cast-metal figure is a soldier gripping a submachine gun, his cloak swept outward as his free hand stretches toward Warsaw across the Vistula. That gesture gives the monument its urgency: the uprising was under way on the far bank when these troops entered the fighting.

By September fourteenth, nineteen forty-four, the division and the Red Army had driven German forces from Praga. Small units then attempted river crossings near Czerniaków and Kępa Potocka, hoping to assist the insurgents, but inadequate preparation and absent tactical backing doomed the effort. The sculptor Andrzej Kasten won the commission through a competition, and the monument finally opened in nineteen eighty-five after political turmoil delayed it.

The statue alone rises twelve metres and weighs forty-eight tonnes; the whole ensemble reaches beyond sixteen metres. Locals gave its raised hand a dry nickname: an order for five beers.