Warsaw Rebuilt from Paintings

In January 1945, Soviet soldiers entering Warsaw found a graveyard of rubble. The Nazis had systematically demolished eighty-five percent of the city, block by block, after the Warsaw Uprising. The Old Town — centuries of Polish history, culture, and community — lay in heaps of shattered brick and twisted iron. Survivors wept in streets they could no longer recognize. But the people of Warsaw carried a secret weapon: the paintings of Bernardo Bellotto.…