Pianist, The

How was it that Poland’s neighbor, the Soviet Union, did not help the Poles resist Hitler’s invasion? Because Joseph Stalin (the Soviet leader) and Adolf Hitler (the German leader) had reached an understanding: Stalin would do nothing if the Nazis attacked Poland.

President Franklin Roosevelt was informed at the start of the German invasion. He made a few bedside notes at 3:05 a.m. on the morning of September 1, 1939. There was nothing that FDR could do, however. The United States was not yet involved in World War II.

Less than a month after the city was surrounded, Warsaw surrendered on September 28, 1939. (Scroll down 80% to view a videotape of the fall of Warsaw.) Soon German troops were parading through the city. It would be more than five years before they left.

In the meantime, Hitler was not content to merely occupy Poland. By the following year, Warsaw was a divided city as all Jews were ordered into a part of town soon known as the “Jewish Quarter.”

It is better known today as the Warsaw Ghetto.