English: People salvage items from the ruins of their homes near the Vistula River after German air raids during the siege of Warsaw in September 1939. A young boy, Zygmunt Askienow, with his rescued pet canary among the ruins of his home.

In the words of photographer Julien Bryan,

"Not far from the center of town a bomb had hit an apartment house and exposed the first, second, and third floors. A boy was walking dazedly back and forth carrying the one possession he had found -- a canary in its cage. He walked up and down over a pile of stones and bricks. Under the pile there were nine or ten bodies, so the neighbors told us, not yet recovered." [Source: Bryan, Julien. "Warsaw 1939 Siege, 1959 Warsaw Revisited. p. 24"]

According to Smithsonian article from November 2010, Aksienow, who would grow up to be a coal miner, recalls that two large bombs had fallen near his family’s apartment building and “the street was full of broken glass, furniture and parts of human bodies.” A bird cage “blew out of a house, along with a window” and landed in the rubble. Aksienow picked it up, thinking that the canary it held—very much alive—might belong to his cousin Zofia, a neighbor. “I was a scared 9-year-old, out looking for some sign of the normal life I was used to”.