Warsaw, Poland:

This Polish capital since World War I was the first Polish city to officially receive the full force of the Luftwaffe. The bombing began on September 1, 1939, and by September 27, German armies had captured the city. The Germans knew that Warsaw would be the center of the Polish resistance, and they planned to destroy the city, starting with the Jewish population. They herded 500,000 Jews into a small ghetto, and over 300,000 of these inhabitants were sent to concentration camps. In 1943, German troops attacked the ghetto and killed all of the remaining inhabitants. In 1944, as the promise of Soviet liberation neared, the city rose up against the Germans. Following this uprising, the Nazis systematically annihilated the city before it was liberated by the Soviets in January 1945. Of the original population of over 1 million, only a handful over 150,000 survived the war. Once the city was rebuilt, it became the capital for new Communist government in Poland.

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