The event began at 2 p.m. with addresses by representatives of state authorities, followed by a call of remembrance and joint prayer. The participants then honored the underground heroes who opposed the German occupant with flowers laid at the Monument to the Polish Underground State and Home Army. Earlier that day, head of the Office of Commemoration and Struggle Adam Siwek similarly tributed the Union of Armed Struggle and Home Army CO General Stefan Rowecki at his memorial on the corner of Chopin Street and Ujazdów Avenue.

On 27 September 1939 in besieged Warsaw, Michał Tokarzewski-Karaszewicz set up the Service for Poland's Victory - an organization that would continue the fight underground. In December 1939, it was renamed the Union of Armed Struggle (ZWZ), and February 1942, the Home Army (AK). It grew to become one of the largest and most efficient resistance movements in German-occupied Europe, as well as the core of the Polish Underground State - which, along the armed wing, had political, judicial and educational institutions.