Historical context
What do we know about this scene
On August 28, 1944, Prudential at 9 Napoleon Square was an important insurgent observation point. The building, captured on August 1 by the 164th platoon of the 1st company of the Home Army battalion "Kiliński", was distinguished by a white and red flag visible from many parts of the city. The German 600 mm Karl-Gerät 040 "Ziu" siege mortar, placed in the area of Sowiński Park, hit a skyscraper with a heavy shell. The steel and reinforced concrete frame tilted, but the building did not collapse. The moment of the explosion was photographed by Sylwester Braun "Kris" from the roof of the tenement house at 28 Kopernika Street. The Warsaw Museum describes the material as a sequence of six consecutive shots. The photographs became one of the most recognizable visual testimonies of the Uprising.