This morning we walked from our hotel, Sofitel Victoria, to nearby Saxon Park home to numerous historic and religious icons as well as lovely gardens. As you look across the Park’s entrance, one views in the background the Warsaw skyline, Poland’s tomb of the Unknown soldier to the right back, memorial to Polish political leaders who died in an April 2010 plane crash in Russia to the left , and a cross honoring where Pope John Paul II said his first mass in Poland as Pope.
Behind the tomb of Poland’s Unknown Soldier are located lovely gardens and walking trails.
The Polish people have not forgotten their past. The Nazi reign of destruction is remembered as you walk the streets of Warsaw. Across from our hotel, two exhibits were on display...the first recognized the young Polish women who fought in the 1944 Warsaw uprising and the second, Josef Korczak, a Polish Jew, who refused to abandon 192 Jewish orphans and accompanied them to their final destination, Treblinka extermination camp.
We visited Holy Cross Catholic Church where Chopin’s heart is kept ( story unto itself), viewed Warsaw University, enjoyed people watching – family outings, weddings and gawking tourists including ourselves, as we meandered to the old town. Below is a picture of one the many “Chopin benches” that are located throughout old town Warsaw......using a cell phone app, the bench comes alive by playing one of Chopin’s famous musical pieces...technology at its finest.
Old town (Centrum) Warsaw was totally destroyed by the Germans during the 1944 Warsaw uprising. What you see is a city rebuilt by viewing old photographs and paintings. As you stand in a beautiful church, the marble column next to you is in actuality a wooden reinforced column decorated to look like marble. As you can see, the restoration has captured old Warsaw. I took many pictures...one shows Eisenhower standing in front of the only building left in the Old Town...all adjacent walls were destroyed...the next picture is today....remember most of Warsaw is a replica of the days before September 1, 1939.
Our next stop was the Warsaw Uprising museum....to describe what a visitor sees is beyond what I can type and what I feel. Poland was torn apart by two evil empires in 1939 when they were simultaneously invaded by Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. In June 1941, Germany broke its agreement with Russia and invaded it; Germany now controlled all of Poland. In 1943, the Jewish ghetto uprising lasted about a week and it was a rebellion by an oppressed people against their masters. In August 1944, Warsaw’s population activated its resistance movement and thus began a heroic but tragic struggle against their German occupiers. The Poles wanted the world to know that they were reclaiming their city, their country...not the Russians who had pushed the Germans out of Russia and were watching the destruction of Warsaw from the east side of the Vistula River. The Uprising Museum documents this monumental struggle.
The Russians entered Warsaw, claiming that they had liberated Warsaw and all of Poland. Then, over the next weeks, months, years, the Russians gathered up the resistance...the educated, doctors, ex-soldiers and eliminated them.... the Germans only had years to destroy Poland; the Russians had decades.
What I heard today reminds me of what happened to the Ukraine and is now happening in Syria. The World repeatedly says "never again", its actions speak otherwise.
As the day ended, the first and only rain during our tour occurred. We had our first group dinner at a lovely restaurant followed by a Chopin piano concerto. We headed back to the hotel to complete packing since tomorrow we are leaving Warsaw to begin our journey through Poland.
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