Thousands evacuated in Polish city after half-tonne WWII bomb discovered

Several thousand residents of Wrocław, Poland’s third largest city, were evacuated after a half-tonne bomb from World War Two was discovered on a housing estate during construction work. Army sappers were called in to remove the device and safely detonate it at a military training ground.

“An aerial bomb weighing about 500 kg was found at a depth of about four metres” as workers were digging, said Marek Gwóźdź, spokesman for an army training centre for engineering and chemical-response teams in Wrocław.

The find was reported to local authorities yesterday. “After reconnaissance and consultations with the police, it was decided that the unexploded bomb would be removed on Thursday at around 10 a.m.,” Gwóźdź told the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

An area of 1,000 metres around the site was designated as a “danger zone.” The authorities provided buses to take residents of over 20 streets to safety.

“We first heard about the situation yesterday morning through local networks and then were informed by the police, who came door to door,” Anna Zielińska, a local resident, told Notes from Poland. She described the evacuation as “voluntary, but very well-organised, efficient and thorough.”

“We were told we should leave our homes this morning while they removed the bomb, and the local school and preschool were closed so people have had to take time off work,” Zielińska added.

“It’s been a big sensation and big event in the neighbourhood. People are not too concerned about a genuine threat, although some of the children are a little worried about bombs and what will happen to their pets.”

Army sapper vehicles involved in today’s operation (Tomasz Hołod/wroclaw.pl)

Finds of unexploded devices are common in Poland, whose territory was heavily bombed by invading German forces at the start of WWII and later by Allied forces during the subsequent German occupation.

Wrocław itself was part of Germany – and known by its German name of Breslau – before the war, transferring to Poland in 1945 as the country’s borders shifted westwards.

In 2020, sappers detonated a British 5.4-tonne air-dropped bomb, called a Tallboy, in a risky operation in the north-western Polish coastal city of Świnoujście. It was the largest unexploded ordnance ever found in Poland. Fragments of the device were later put on display at a museum in Szczecin.

Last month, researchers confirmed that they had located what is believed to be the wreckage of an American bomber in a lagoon on Poland’s coast. It crashed there during a bombing raid on a German factory in 1944.

Main image credit: Marek Gwóźdź/wroclaw.pl

Peter Kononczuk

Peter Kononczuk is senior editor at Notes from Poland. He was previously a journalist for Agence France-Presse (AFP) in London and Warsaw.