Warsaw

Warsaw, Poland
July 4 and 5

Kim, Sharon, and I are off on another adventure! We took off from Toronto on Sunday evening for our 9 hour flight to Warsaw, Poland. This adventure includes more than just the three of us though. We are meeting Tim, Arlyn, Calvin, and Abby in Poland. Tim, a pilot, has been working in Warsaw since the beginning of June and will continue to work there until the end of August. Fortunately for me, I was invited to travel around with this awesome (and very welcoming) family!

Our flight was smooth and thanks to Sharon’s connection to Matt, a flight attendant, Kim and I were afforded some perks of first class travel while we flew steerage, including some lovely wine! Our journey was easy and our arrival at Chopin International Airport was smooth. We were through security and out to meet Tim and Abby in no time. A short taxi ride from the airport to the condo where Tim has been staying and we had arrived.

Kim immediately unpacked and got completely organized. I crashed on my bed and woke up a few hours later. Tim, Kim, Calvin, and Abby had gone out to a local shopping mall. Sharon caught a wee nap also. Arlyn was reading.

When everyone returned, we got ready to head out on the town and find some lunch. We walked from our area of town, called Ochota, toward Vistula River. First impressions, Warsaw seems to have a lot of green space, which is lovely. We found a restaurant that featured a large outdoor BBQ and lots of outdoor seating and, unusually, a wooly mammoth decor.

After lunch, we walked toward a couple of large parks in city, confirming my first impression. One large park, Lazienki Park had an intriguing statue of Chopin with what appeared to be an oversized arthritic hand hovering over him. Tim said on Sunday evenings, a large grand piano is brought to the place beside the statue and a free, outdoor Chopin concert take place in summer time.

We continued walking through this park to the Old Orangery which featured some orange trees and statues. The building seemed to be a place that housed a gallery. Tim, Calvin, and I stopped for a coffee at the outdoor cafe nearby and then we all walked toward the water where we could hear the call of a peacock and saw a couple of peacocks, one who had decided to perch on top of the head of a statue.

There, a couple of men were feeding some extremely large carp some bread. We walked out of the park and found our way to public transit, where we hopped on a bus and made our way home for dinner and an early evening.

Tuesday, Tim was up early to head out to work. The rest of us rose at our own time to a beautiful day in Warsaw. Arlyn brewed coffee for everyone and we enjoyed our breakfast while reading and researching places to explore for the day ahead.

Kim figured out our itinerary for all of the sites we wanted to visit and we were off to the local bus stop. In Warsaw, tickets for the bus are purchased at a kiosk and then you simply validate them in the machine on the bus. The bus spits out your ticket with the message “wazny do” which I read as wanky do. Wazny do means “valid until”, wanky do means absolutely nothing at all but turned out to be a pretty good running joke for the rest of the day.

Our bus took us close to our first site of the day, the last remaining part of the old Ghetto Wall. The Warsaw Ghetto, established in the fall of 1940, was the largest of all the Jewish ghettos established in Nazi occupied Europe. Over 400,000 Jews lived in the 3.4 km2 ghetto. Of those, at least 250,000 were sent to the Treblinka extermination camp over the course of only two months in the summer of 1942. The remaining corner of the wall is about 3 metres high and made of brick. It was an imposing site even though it was a small section of the entire wall. There were small stones located around the wall, including one that was carved with the Star of David.

Our next step was to the Tourist Information Centre that was located on the main floor of the Palace of Culture and Science, originally known as the Joseph Stalin Palace of Culture and Science, it was a gift from Russia to Poland. It was built in the 1950s, was based on Russian plans, and used 3500 Russian construction workers.

After picking up some maps and information we went across the road to Costa Coffee for some lunch and refreshments. We took the tram to our next site, The Jewish Cemetery. The cemetery was founded in 1806 and houses about 250 000 graves. There is a memorial near the entrance of the cemetery that has a tiled menorah on the ground leading up to brick walls that have some poetry and an explanation for the memorial. Jack Eisner, founder and sponsor of the memorial dedicated it to the one million Jewish children who were murdered by Nazi Germany. Jack Eisner was the only surviving grandchild of 31 kids.

The Jewish Cemetery was hauntingly beautiful. Although in the middle of a city, the cemetery was rather peaceful and was under the cover of a tall and well established forest. We walked through crooked paths and by gnarly trees. Some of the stones had been there so long that nature was overgrowing them. Many of the headstones also had smaller rocks placed on them which we learned was a part of an old Jewish tradition that believes that a stone placed on a headstone would help ground the deceased person’s soul to earth. There were also beautiful lanterns located at the base of some of the headstones.

In the middle of the cemetery, there was a roped off section that was not filled with headtones. This area marked the mass grave of those Jewish people who had lived and died in the ghetto. This area was encirled with standing stones that were marked with a black stone line about three quarters of the way up. The land was unkempt and there were a few small poppies growing in this area.

We left the cemetery and walked toward a memorial to the Warsaw Ghetto Rising. The Jewish people of the ghetto refused to surrender any more to the Nazi German officer who would order them to be sent to the Treblinka extermination camp. As a result, the SS officer ordered that the ghetto be burned block by block. About 13 000 Jewish people in the ghetto were burned alive or suffocated as a result of the fires. The Ghetto Heroes Monument is located in an area that used to be the ghetto. It was built after World War 2, out of materials that were originally intended to be used by Germans for Nazi memorials.

We continued on our journey to our next site which was a memorial to the Warsaw Uprising. The Warsaw Uprising was the Polish resistance Home Army’s attempt to liberate Warsaw from Nazi Germany. The result of the efforts of the Polish people involved was the destruction of up to 90% of Warsaw’s buildings by the Germans. This memorial is made of bronze and is in two parts. One part depicts soldiers. The other part shows insurgents descending in to the sewer system which was used as a means of getting through German held territory during World War 2.

Our last site to visit for the day was The University of Warsaw Library Gardens. We walked by Old Town and headed toward the Vistula River to get to the university. The garden was located on top of the library. It afforded us with some beautiful views of the city and the river. We wandered around taking pictures and generally enjoying he tranquility of the garden.

By this time, six hours of walking and touring were taking a toll on our little group. A toll that even another ice cream would not fix! It was time to head home. We met up with a bus that took us that way. But first, we hit the local grocery store to pick up some fixings for dinner. A collaborative dinner was arranged of sausage, Greek salad, perogies, crackers, cheese, pickles, and raspberries.

Kim and I enjoyed an after dinner beer, Sharon a hot tea and we sat around reminiscing about our wonderful day in Warsaw and reading a planning for our next adventure to Gdansk. The taxi is booked for 7:30 tomorrow morning. All are tucked in bed as I finish this blog. And now, I too must sign off for the night and tuck myself in.