In October 1939, a young Richard Pipes witnessed the Nazi German victory parade through Warsaw from the window of his family’s fourth-floor apartment.

It was then that his family knew they had to escape Warsaw, and Poland.

At the beginning of the war a number of Americans were also left stranded in the city. American film-maker and photographer Julien Bryan stayed to document the atrocities of war, appealing to US President Franklin D. Roosevelt to help the Polish people in a specially recorded message.

With thanks to:

• The Polish National Digital Archive, for providing the original recording of Julien Bryan’s appeal to the United States from Warsaw in September 1939 (Ref: 33-T-4470)
• Magdalena Stopa and Warsaw’s History Meeting House for the interview recording with Richard Pipes, who lived in the building on Chmielna 43 before emigrating to the United States at the beginning of World War II.
• Alicja Baczyńska, your audio guide, for help with acoustic mapping throughout the Unseen project.