After Protest, Madonna Shows Clip of Warsaw Uprising at Concert

Responding to critics in Poland, Madonna showed a World War II-era newsreel about the Warsaw Uprising against the Nazis during her concert on Wednesday in the city on the anniversary of that 1944 revolt, Agence France-Presse reported. Thousands of fans applauded as the two-and-a-half minute film played.

The city authorities had asked Madonna to screen the film after the Youth Crusade, a Roman Catholic group, started a petition to halt the concert and gathered more than 50,000 signatures. The group argued that it was inappropriate for Madonna to perform during the Polish capital’s annual remembrance of the doomed 63-day uprising against Nazi occupiers, in which an estimated 200,000 civilians died.

But the Youth Crusade’s objections went beyond questions of decorum during the remembrance, as they also accused Madonna of promoting homosexuality, pornography and of “attacking the Catholic faith.”