Legia Warsaw Fans Commemorate Warsaw Uprising Anniversary with Striking Tifo

The tifo displays a German officer holding a gun to a boy's head.

Fans of Polish soccer team Legia Warsaw commemorated the 73rd anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising with a stunning tifo. 

A quick history lesson: The Warsaw Uprising, which began on Aug. 1, 1944, was a mission undertaken by the Polish resistance army to free the city from Nazi occupation. The mission was designed to coincide with the arrival of the Soviet Red Army from the east, but the Soviet advance was halted. That allowed the German army to regroup and crush the rebellion, killing more than 150,000 civilians and essentially destroying the city. 

Powerful message from Legia Warsaw fans #PowstanieWarszawskie pic.twitter.com/UEKB8y16pk

— Cantona’s Trawler (@cantonastrawler) August 2, 2017

[youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoif_TatOtU]

The tifo was displayed before Legia Warsaw took on Kazakh side FC Astana in a Champions League qualifying match. Notably, the sign refers to the perpetrators as Germans rather than Nazis. 

Legia won the match 1-0, but was knocked out of the competition because of a 3-1 first-leg defeat. 

Legia, which has a patriotic fan base that tends to lean right politically, has a history of honoring the victims and those who fought in the Uprising—in 2014, the club invited every living Uprising participant to the stadium as a VIP for free.