Pomnik Żołnierzy 1 Armii WP, Warsaw

This granite figure, Pomnik Żołnierzy 1 Armii WP, honours troops of the First Polish Army who died while fighting on the Eastern Front during the Second World War. The soldier is shown in uniform and helmet, gripping a machine gun across his chest; the statue reaches eight metres in height. Notice the dense, block-like carving around the weapon and the figure’s tightly held pose.

On the pedestal, a carved campaign sequence begins at Lenino in nineteen forty-three, continues through Warsaw, Kołobrzeg and Berlin, and closes in nineteen forty-five. That route turns the memorial into a compressed account of the army’s wartime advance. Xawery Dunikowski designed the monument, with collaborators Jerzy Bereś, Józef Galica and Józef Potępa, while Leon Suzin created its pedestal and setting.

A design competition had failed to select any proposal, so Dunikowski received the commission instead. His illness prevented the work from being fully resolved, and this became his final project before his death. The monument was unveiled on the twelfth of October nineteen sixty-three, chosen to mark two decades since the Battle of Lenino. Funded by the Polish Armed Forces, it remains a stark, physical memorial beside Andersa Street.