Michler's Palace

The term palace is colloquial, and the building was a townhouse (built in the eclecticism style) rather than formally a palace.[2][3] It was nicknamed in such a way because it stood out as a high quality, decorative construction amidst its more mundane surroundings.[3] The building belonged to Karol Michler, a merchant, miller and entrepreneur, who also had a small food factory in its vicinity, producing pasta and bread.[3] The factory was taken over by Nazi Germany following their invasion of Poland in 1939.[3]

During the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, the building was the site of intense fighting around August 4 and 5 involving the Parasol Battalion insurgent unit.[2] Insurgent poet Józef Szczepański, a member of the Parasol unit,[4] wrote a song (Pałacyk Michla) about those events, performing it in its vicinity on the evening of August 4.[3][5] The song, published shortly afterward in an insurgent newspaper, quickly taken up by the partisans, was performed for them by a popular singer Mieczysław Fogg, and later, became known across Poland.[3][6][7] On the next day the Germans captured the building, which, damaged in the fighting, was demolished shortly after.[2] The song has been called Szczepański's most famous song,[7] and its tune was based on an earlier, pre-war song by the Slovak composer Jan Šťastný.[7][8][9]

In 2007, a monument commemorating the building and the fighting that took place during the Uprising was unveiled near the building's former location on Wolska Street.[3]

• Siekiera, motyka
• Wola massacre