Operation Ostra Brama (lit. Operation Gate of Dawn) was an armed conflict during World War II between the Polish Home Army and the Nazi German occupiers of Vilnius (Polish: Wilno). It began on 7 July 1944, as part of a Polish national uprising, Operation Tempest, and lasted until 14 July 1944. Though the Germans were defeated, the following day the Soviet Red Army entered the city and the Soviet NKVD proceeded to intern Polish soldiers and to arrest their officers. Several days later, the remains of the Polish Home Army retreated into the forests, and the Soviets were in control of the city.
There are some controversies involved in determining the result of the battle. From the Polish point of view, while the German defeat constitutes a Polish tactical victory, the ensuing destruction of the Polish units by the Soviets resulted in a strategic defeat, especially considering the goals of Operation Tempest. From the Soviet point of view, the operation was a complete success, as both the Germans and the Poles loyal to the London government suffered a defeat.
Read more about Operation Ostra Brama: Plans For Uprising, Combat Operations
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“An absolute can only be given in an intuition, while all the rest has to do with analysis. We call intuition here the sympathy by which one is transported into the interior of an object in order to coincide with what there is unique and consequently inexpressible in it. Analysis, on the contrary, is the operation which reduces the object to elements already known.”
—Henri Bergson (1859–1941)