The Uprising and the Ghetto

Sunday, July 19, 2015

It worked!  It is still dim in our room at 7:15 am!  Of course, the rain that is beginning to fall may be a contributing factor.  We take our time getting ready this morning, as we are still feeling the effects of yesterday.

Our "breakfast station"

Right across the street from home

We set off around eleven and take a circular route, planning to see as many of the monuments to the Poles and Polish Jews who suffered here.  We’ve got our maps and Ricky Ticky and water.  What can go wrong?  Absolutely nothing!

We head off to our first stop, which is a remnant of the old Ghetto wall, marked also by bricks in the sidewalk.

The ghetto was divided into a larger and smaller section.
Together they covered 759 acres. At one point, thirty percent of the population of Warsaw was Jewish. Today we didn't even see a single Jewish shop.

On our way to the Warsaw Uprising Monument we see a group of protestors outside the Chinese Ambassador’s resident/Chinese Embassy.  They are from Falun Gong.  We’ve seen them before in Sweden, where they were also protesting their persecution in China.  The government has labeled them a sect and outlawed their existence.  The embassy grounds are extensive and we later see their “backyard” with a couple of pagodas.

The Uprising Monument is located in a plaza adjacent to the Supreme Court building, which is heavily guarded.  We’ve noticed that lots of places have guards and we think some of them are privately hired.

Across the street is the Krasinski Palace, which was burnt down during the uprising and rebuilt after the war.

These directional signs are quite helpful!

They're all cell dishes!

 After that we see the Monument to Ghetto Heroes, which is adjacent to the new Museum of Jewish History.

The Museum of Jewish History

Jan Karski, professor at Georgetown and
author of The Secret State

Someone brought him fresh flowers!

On, now, to the Jewish Cemetery on Okopowa.  This old cemetery was damaged during the war, with German tanks running over many of the graves.  While parts of it are new, the most interesting, and heartbreaking, are from the war years and before.  There are numerous monuments which have been erected by family members in remembrance of those who died in the Holocaust or were forced to live in exile.

You can see the reflection of a man tending a grave.

Interesting bug

New graves

Holocaust survivor

More memorial plaques

Memorial to many different families and
to fighters during the dreadful war years.

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When we leave it is nearly three o’clock and the hunger pangs are more than a little noticeable.  We happen upon a mall (shudder) but there must be someplace to eat inside.  Marilyn is willing to settle for a coffee shop with ready-made sandwiches but I convince her to ask the Info lady about a real restaurant.  She and the gentleman with her agree that the restaurant upstairs has great food, so we pass the pianist who is very talented and take the flat escalator (no steps!) up to the  - are you ready? – the Viking (Wiking) restaurant, which is a buffet.  We both select the mixed, sauted vegetables and the spinach “cake” but I have to have a salad, too, and another bottle of water.

Such unusual ceiling decor!

Miixed vegetables - mushrooms, onions, red peppers, carrots, yellow peppers and zucchini
Spinach "cake" with layers of spinach, cheese, carrots (?), mushrooms and a light dough
Salad - peas, cucumbers, lettuce, HBE in a light cream sauce.

He played a mix of classical and popular music.

What a clever use of wasted space for advertising!

What a good choice we made!  Talk about yummy!

Thus fortified we are ready for our last couple of stops.  First is the place where the Jews were forced onto the railroad cars, the Umschlagplatz Memorial.

There are memorials everywhere in the ghetto.

From there we find the memorial to those who were killed in one of the hundreds of bunkers all over the ghetto. They were surrounded by the Germans and none escaped.

Our last stop will be the Memorial to the Fallen and Murdered in the East.

 On our way home we pass a long wall covered with murals reminiscent of those in Belfast and Gdansk!

Up those 73 steps once again and Marilyn uses Google maps to determine that we have walked about SEVEN miles today!  I think we did more yesterday! We’re either going to be in marvelous shape or dead by the end of this trip!

We are so beat and full, and it is supposed to rain this evening, that we decide not to try to go out for dinner;  but, instead, to finish up everything, pack, and go to bed early.  We’ve put some extra change in the parking meter and have until nine o’clock in the morning to move the car.  We’re thinking of putting everything in the car, adding some more money, and treating ourselves to breakfast at a nearby restaurant, probably Freta 33, which was recommended on Trip Advisor.  We deserve that!!