“Warsaw the Cty that Would Not Die”.
....page 109...Smithsonian Magazine, Nov. 1997 by Rudolph Chelminski

”In 1596 Sigismund III Vasa, king of the vast Polish-Lithuanian union, established his new capital in Warsaw. In the following centuries, siege after siege underlined Poland’s impossible geographical position on an indefensible plain with Russians to the east, Teutons to the west, Sweeds to the north and Austro-Hungarians to the south. Time after time, Warsaw was assaulted, taken, pillaged and subjected to the policies and edicts of its neighbors. But it was not until the very last assault, the one that started World War II, that the city met the full force of its tragic destiny.
Like Carthage in the Punic Wars, Warsaw was targeted for depopulation and destruction. Of all World War II’s martyred cities, Warsaw was the only one that was delibertly and scientifically leveled like a public works project.
Warsaw’s Golgotha began during a 28 day siege by the German Army in 1939, when shelling and bombing killed 40,000 civilians and 6,000 soldiers and flattened about 15% of the city.”