NOTE: PLEASE DIRECT QUESTIONS TO ME AT THE E-MAIL ADDRESS SHOWN BELOW OR INCLUDE YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS WITH YOUR COMMENT. THANKS. DIANE TANNER JDTANNER@A5.COM
On September 6, 2003, I left Peoria at 6:00 A.M. for Chicago (a 3-1/2-hour trip) where I waited at O'Hare Airport several hours before leaving at 3:50 P.M. on an 8-hour, 4332-mile flight to Frankfort, Germany. After a 5-hour wait it was a 1-1/2-hour, 557-mile flight to Warsaw, Poland.
Warsaw, with a population of about two million, has been capital of Poland since the 16th century. Located on the Wisla River and the Moscow-Berlin road, Warsaw in Central Poland has had many occupations and uprisings. It suffered almost total obliteration during World War II and underwent large-scale restorations when it was decided the capital status would remain with Warsaw.
Many of the Nazi assaults beginning in 1939 were against the Jewish community. As the war progressed and Hitler was infuriated by the resistance through uprisings by the citizens, he ordered complete elimination of the city with the surviving people driven out. At the end of the war, 850,000 residents - two-thirds of the city's 1939 population - were dead or missing. Rebuilding of the city took 10 years.
Our four-night stay in Warsaw was at Hotel Europejski, which opened on January 1, 1857. The hotel is in the center of the city along the main thoroughfare stretching from the Royal Castle in Old Town to the Wilanow Palace on the edge of the city.
After lunch and a chance to walk near the hotel, our program began with an introduction to the program and an orientation tour of Warsaw. Grazyna, who was with us in both Warsaw and Krakow, quickly assumed leadership of the 44 tour participants.
In 1939 Warsaw's Jewish population was 380,000 - one-third of the population. In May 1945 about 300 Jews remained. Only a few reminders of the Jewish presence remain in Warsaw, most of them in the wartime ghetto sealed off in November 1940 by the Nazis. Actually the Jews had lived in a much larger area in the city than the size of the ghetto. Four hundred fifty thousand Jews were restricted to the ghetto in 1940. By 1941 the number increased to more than 1-1/2 million. By mid 1942 one-fourth had died from disease and hunger. Warsaw had the largest ghetto in Nazi-occupied Europe.
The Ghetto Heroes Monument is made from granite blocks ordered from Sweden by Hitler in 1942 to construct a monument to the Third Reich's anticipated victory. The Ghetto Heroes Monument was unveiled in 1948 on the 5th anniversary of the Ghetto Uprising. The front of the monument shows the courage of the Jewish resistance, while the back depicts the helplessness of those forced to leave. In the center of the ghetto, the monument is in a small square surrounded by drab apartment buildings. Plans to build a major new museum dedicated to Poland Jewish history have existed since 1995 with little progress made.
The Monument of the Warsaw Uprising, seen from the bus, is a large metal structure depicting Home Army insurgents coming out of manholes in the street to attack the Germans and retreating to the city sewers. Plans near there for a permanent Museum of the Warsaw Uprising were announced in 1994, but the work has been held back by lack of finances. It was recently decided that the museum would be established at a former power plant which once supplied power to Warsaw streetcars. It is anticipated the opening of the museum will be on the 60th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising in October 2004.
As our bus ride continued buildings constructed over the post-war rubble were pointed out with the first usable floor of a building sometimes as high as the actual third or fourth floor.
The group walked through Lazienki Park, since the 1760's an English-style park with formal gardens. Designed for the last king, Stanislaw August, Lazienki Palace was built about 1800 in a beautiful location across a lake. Sounds of a concert could be heard coming from an amphitheater constructed for the king on a small island near the palace.
Our get-acquainted dinner was in a restaurant near our hotel. The Grand Opera and Ballet Theater and a new Citibank with a facade creating the look of Old Town Hall were beautifully lit on our walk from the restaurant to the hotel.
On Monday, September 8, following a lecture on the "History of Poland In Its European Context," we visited Warsaw's grandest palace. Wilanow began with a king's purchase in 1677 of a manor house and estate and a 20-year construction plan resulting in a country residence. Additional construction by monarchs and aristocratic families have turned it into a palace. During World War II the Nazis stole the art collection and destroyed the buildings and park. Eleven years of renovations after the palace became state property in 1945 were necessary. About 60 rooms of the palace are open, some being used as an art gallery. The collection includes more than 250 portraits, some of which are casket images intended to be interred but sometimes removed from the coffin before burial. One room was decorated in blue with white Delft tiles topped by a copper-domed cupola. The Queen's Apartments were impressive with outstanding porcelain, furniture, and wall decorations.
As the group was gathering after our visit, small bridal parties could be seen posing for pictures in front of the palace and in the palace gardens.
On our walk to Wilanow Restaurant for lunch, we passed the mausoleum of Count Potocki whose contribution of art makes up much of the current collection of Wilanow Palace. Across the street at the 18th-century St. Anne's Church, a funeral was to be held shortly. The mourners were carrying into the church their floral tributes, some of which were quite large floral sprays.
After returning to the hotel and some free time for exploring, we visited St. Stanislaw Kostka's Church, the parish church of Jerzy Popieluszko who was murdered by militant security police in 1984. This major event in Polish political life of the 1980's ensured his canonization. After the funeral, attended by more than 500,000 people, the church developed into a major Solidarity sanctuary and focus for popular opposition.
In the church facilities both dinner was served and a lecture was presented on "The Catholic Church in Poland Under Communism And In The Transition To Democracy."
On Tuesday, September 9, after a lecture on "Current Polish Economic and Social Problems," our tour of Old Town began. With traffic in Old Town restricted, we departed the bus at Castle Square on the south side of Old Town. Castle Square has a bronze statue of Sigismund III, the king who made Warsaw the capital. The original bronze statue placed on the column in 1604 was destroyed in 1944. The statue has been replaced, and the statue's base is a popular and convenient meeting place.
Nearby, St. John's Cathedral, the main city church, was a 14th-century structure built on the site of an earlier wooden shrine. Some of the bitterest fighting during the 1944 Uprising happened in this area. German tanks entered the church after destroying one side. After the war, much money was required to rebuild the cathedral in its original brick Gothic style.
A guidebook describes the cathedral as barren and cold. So much was destroyed during the war that churches were refurbished afterwards with an assortment of items from all over the country. The former primate of Poland, Cardinal Wyszynski, whose statue is near our hotel, is among several famous Poles interred in crypts.
At the Warsaw Historical Museum we watched a documentary, "Warsaw Remains," depicting Warsaw before, during and after World War II.
Still called Old Town after its reconstruction, the tight network of streets and alleyways has been changed from rubble to a complete replacement of the city. Some older residents claim the restored multi-colored tiered houses rebuilt to their 17th or 18th-century designs around Old Town Square are an improvement to those which were destroyed.
When US General Dwight Eisenhower visited Warsaw immediately after the war he was moved to comment, "I have seen many towns destroyed, but nowhere have I been faced with such destruction." The Old Town's inclusion on UNESCO's World Heritage List in 1980 perhaps best comments on the painstaking effort involved in the reconstruction.
While in Warsaw I do not recall hearing the following which I found on the Internet: "Unfortunately Warsaw's rise from the ashes was only achieved at the tremendous cost of other towns. Szczecin, largely untouched by the war, was coerced into demolishing many of its historic buildings in order to donate an estimated 27 million bricks to the Warsaw rebuilding program."
On the square is the Adam Mickiewicz Museum dedicated to the national poet. A statue of him is near our hotel. There are many outdoor cafes and souvenir stands. In the center of the square is a statue of Syrena, a mermaid and the symbol of the city. A legend says that Warsaw will continue to be free as long as the mouth of the mythical figure remains closed. The statue survived the city's earlier destruction.
With free time after lunch in Old Town, there was an opportunity to follow a long section of the city wall (in most cases rebuilt) with split-level fortification, ramparts, and watchtowers. An open pathway surrounds the walls. The 16th-century Barbakan (rebuilt) guarded the city's northern entrance and is a substantial part of the Old Town's line of defense. The fortress now attracts street artists and souvenir sellers. Across the Wisla River the residential and business districts of the city can be seen from a lookout point along the city walls. Just outside the wall is St. Jacek's, a Dominican church, with an adjoining monastery, the largest in Warsaw, which was used as a field hospital during the war sustaining heavy bombing.
Returning to Castle Square, the impressive former Royal Castle, home of the royal family and seat of the Polish parliament, is now a museum. Following dynamiting by the Germans in 1944, rebuilding of the 17th-century castle continued into the 1970s. In July 1974 the clock on the castle tower was started at the same time as it was stopped by the attack. The resurrected magnificence of the castle is important to Poles as a symbol of an independent nation. Private donations from Poles worldwide paid for the rebuilding. Hundreds of volunteers contributed their labor.
Today's palace is a replica, but many of its furnishings are originals as they had been hidden by employees during the first bombing raids. A popular tourist attraction, the castle is also a reception hall for visiting dignitaries and the site of exhibitions and concerts. After listening to descriptions of the Flemish tapestries and portraits of the royal families, it was an enjoyable stroll through many rooms with clear English explanations of the rooms' use and the artifacts on display. I took many pictures since frequently I was the only person in a room and reflections of a mirror displayed additional artifacts, not tourists. The postwar reconstruction was planned using archival sources in Dresden to rebuild each room.
Pictures in one room showed pre-war Warsaw in detail and had been used by the city's architects in the rebuilding of the city. The Royal apartments, including a chapel, audience chamber, bedrooms, and other rooms, are lavishly decorated. Reception rooms include the Marble Room with portraits of 22 Polish monarchs and the Ballroom, the largest and most sumptuous room in the castle.
The castle also contained the Houses of Parliament consisting of the Old Chamber of Deputies, the New Chamber of Deputies, and the Senate Chamber where the Constitution of May 3, 1791, was ratified. The present recreation was constructed on the basis of drawings of the room prior to its destruction. The royal throne is original. More tapestries and portraits decorate the walls of this historic site.
I stopped several times on my walk from Castle Square to the hotel. St. Anne's Church has only an original presbytery and a chapel dome from the church destroyed during World War II which was a Baroque-style building from the 18th century. The Mickiewicz Monument honoring the poet was unveiled in 1889. Next to it, the 17th-century Carmelite Church has a beautiful facade with a world globe.
Stone lions as well as soldiers guard the President's residence, Radziwill Palace, which was founded in the 17th century by the Radziwill family and rebuilt many times. The palace served as the seat of the Prime Minister after Poland regained its independence following World War I, but in 1939 it became a casino and rest house for German officers. The building survived the Warsaw Uprising and subsequent German leveling of most of the city with almost no damage. It has been a site for historic meetings, including the signing of the Warsaw Pact in 1955 and the 1989 Round Table talks between Solidarity and the Communist authorities that paved the way for Eastern Europe's first post-war independent government. Even before it became the President's residence the palace was the venue for many official meetings and state functions, including a dinner in honor of then President George Bush in 1989.
On the Warsaw University campus, Holy Cross Church has an urn containing Chopin's heart.
Across a large square adjacent to the hotel, a military guard of two soldiers is posted at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Beyond the tomb pretty and well-used Saxon Gardens has been a public garden since the 1800s. A royal palace there was destroyed in 1944 and not rebuilt. The tomb is all that remains. The park has over 100 species of trees, sculptures, a 19th-century fountain on the main pathway, and an old water tower.
Visible several times during our bus rides and at night from the hallway window of the hotel, the Palace of Culture is a Russian-built wedding-cake building like several I've seen in Russia. Many Warsaw residents want the building demolished. It contains offices, movie theaters, swimming pools, bookshops, and a casino. I didn't have enough time to visit the best part of the building - the 30th-floor viewpoint.
Dinner was at the Mazurkas Hotel after which we went to the Novotel Centrum Hotel, not far from the Europejski, where a concert of Chopin's music was presented in a ground-floor domed auditorium used as a concert recital hall. The hall is part of the John Paul II museum consisting of a collection of 400 paintings. In the early 1980's a wealthy family donated the paintings to the Polish church. Ranging from the 14th to the 20th centuries, the works are mostly religious in nature. There have been claims that some paintings are fakes. It was still an impressive sight as the paintings surrounded the pianist and the audience.
On Wednesday, September 10, we traveled to the village of Zelazowa Wola, the birthplace of composer and national hero, Frederic Chopin. The house where Chopin was born in 1810 is now a museum surrounded by large gardens. Chopin frequently returned to the village in his later life, saying it was his favorite place, even though his family lived there only one year after his birth. The house purchased in 1919 by the public's donations is a traditional country residence which has been restored to the early 1800's lifestyle and displays Chopin memorabilia. Chopin said his occasional visits there gave him contacts with the Polish countryside and the area's folk music traditions. Weekend recitals during the summer have a pianist playing the Steinway grand piano while the music drifts through open windows to the audience sitting outside.
We continued about 20 miles to Lowicz, which is known for its folk arts and crafts. A young couple whose property includes the ruins of Lowicz Castle prepared lunch for us in their wooden cottage. They had for sale a collection of regional landscape paintings and jewelry made of materials that had been dug out from the ruins. They have plans for the restoration of the castle but acknowledged they were limited by a lack of funding. Although we were not served turkey, the young couple is raising many of them. Allowed to roam the property, the turkeys soon followed those of us with the remains of apples.
We returned to the center of Lowicz and visited the local museum on the town square located in a missionary college which was rebuilt after the war. The upper floor has many regional folk items including pottery, furniture, and costumes of the styles still worn today on feast days. The museum also has in the former chapel Baroque art from throughout the country. At the back of the museum two old cottages with original furnishings depict earlier lifestyles. Nearby a collection of active beehives in very unusual containers drew our attention.
Also on the square was Collegiate Church, remodeled from a 15th-century structure into its current 17th-century style. A statue of Pope John Paul II, formerly Archbishop of Krakow, was near the church. A funeral procession of mostly walkers passed through the square.
In Sromow we visited a private crafts museum founded by a skilled artisan and passionate crafts collector, now deceased, with a very talented family who has continued the tradition. After passing through a garden with gnomes and other characters, we saw in two buildings animated historical scenes and village life including a country wedding, a pageant of kings, a Corpus Christi procession, the four seasons of life on a farm, and others. The characters are carved from wood and electrically animated so the flip of a switch brings the scene to life. Other exhibits include paper cut-outs, regional costumes, folk painting, decorated wood chests, and embroidery. A collection of old horse carts and carriages fills one building.
Dinner was served outdoors inside the castle ruins. We were welcomed by the local folk band who played during our meal. A mother and her daughter dressed in typical folk dress showed us the techniques of paper-cutting. Following a farewell cannon shot, we returned to Warsaw.
As we walked from the bus drop-off site in Warsaw, we heard music which was the presentation of the "Requiem" in the open square just beyond the hotel near the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. A temporary stage had been erected with musicians below the level of the singers who performed the masterpiece in remembrance of the events of September 11, 2001, in the United States.
Comments
Add a comment