Warsaw, Poland — Taylor Swift is telling fans traveling to her Warsaw concert on Thursday not to panic and expect to hear loud sirens in the afternoon in honor of a major World War II anniversary.
The Polish capital is holding celebrations to mark the 80th anniversary of the start of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, a 63-day uprising carried out by Polish insurgents after five years of brutal Nazi German occupation. The entire city stops and alarm sirens sound every year on August 1st, at the exact time of the afternoon when the revolt was launched.
“For people coming to the show on August 1st, don’t panic if you hear the sirens going off around 5pm. It will be the 80th anniversary & planes!” Swift’s “The Eras Tour” posted on social media.
Thousands of ticket holders, many of them coming to Warsaw from far and wide, will be at or near the stadium at that time for the evening show.
A Polish news website, Onet, also published an “important message to all Swifties attending the concert” explaining the meaning of the day.
“We ask that you remain calm and do not panic. In this way, every year residents pay tribute to the heroes of 1944. Those who were already outside the stadium at that moment, please remain quiet and stand up.”
Swift will perform three consecutive nights in Warsaw starting Thursday.
On August 1, 1944, poorly armed young city residents rose up against the German forces that had brutally occupied their nation for five years, fighting them in the streets of the capital for more than two months. The Soviets were approaching in their westward march against German forces and the Poles were hoping for help.
The Germans, with their professional army and superior weaponry, killed 200,000 Polish fighters and civilians and razed the city to the ground in revenge.
Germany in recent decades has many gestures of remorsehelping to promote reconciliation.
Poles, however, remain resentful of the Soviets for allowing the killing when they could have intervened.
Today, the uprising is remembered by Poles as one of the most important moments in a long history of struggles for independence against Russia and Germany.
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