Warsaw, the capital of Poland is a “jumble” of architecture with lots of ugly communist concrete, restored Gothic and modern glass and steel. Like Berlin, the city has had a very tumultuous past. Warsaw has suffered the worst history could throw at it, including 90% of the city’s destruction during World War II. On Monday morning, we took a walking tour of the most popular part of Warsaw, Old Town. Old Town is “sort of” Warsaw’s historic center as it has been totally rebuilt after WW II. While quite charming with lots of restaurants and cafes, Old Town almost has a “Disneyesque” feel to it. Everything seems too perfect on all of the outside facades of the building. There even were simulated fragments of broken plaster with bricks showing through on some of the buildings!
When standing at Castle Square (the main square) in Old Town, you have a perfect view of the national stadium which was opened in 2012 for the World Cup qualifying matches. The roof of the stadium can be open or closed so that games can be played in all weather. During the qualifier game between Poland & England, it began to rain…then downpours! The field became so flooded that the game was postponed. The sponsors later explained that they “forgot” to close the roof. Now the stadium is referred to locally as Warsaw’s “Swimming Pool”!
Frederic Chopin is without a doubt the most famous composer from Warsaw. The “Chopin Trail” in Warsaw consists of many places and memorial plaques. We found it interesting that 14 multimedia benches that play Chopin’s music are placed around the city in specific locations that were meaningful to the composer. By pressing a key on each of these black stone benches, you can hear Chopin’s music. An interesting fact about Chopin is that upon his death bed in Paris, he requested that his heart be buried in his native country – Poland. (He knew that his body would stay in Paris.) His heart was secretly smuggled by his sister back in a jar of liquor and buried in Warsaw.
In Castle Square sits the King’s Palace. It was obviously destroyed during WW II and the government set out to rebuild it. Warsaw, overall, was rebuilt in 7 years after the war. After 20+ years of arguing over the style of the palace, one architect finally came up with a solution: They used all of the styles that the palace had enjoyed over its long history. The result is that the large center courtyard has a different style from various periods on each of the 4 walls. It looks very odd.
We took a late afternoon tour of the Jewish Ghetto, that really doesn’t exist as it was bulldozed by the Nazi’s and the Russians (after the end of WW II) saw the area as a place where they could quickly add housing (some apartment buildings were built in as short as 2 weeks). In 1939, over 370,000 Jews lived in Warsaw comprising almost 1/3 of its population. Other than NYC, Warsaw had the largest concentration of Jews in the world. As the Nazi’s progressed on their anti-Semitic campaign, they moved all of the Jews from Warsaw and many surrounding towns (including towns in Germany) to one area – Warsaw’s Jewish Ghetto. The daily calorie requirement for Poles was 2000; but it was only 300 calories a day for the Jews! In a few short years, over 100,000 Jews died in the ghetto from malnutrition, disease and other issues. Eventually, another 400,000+ died when they were transported to the extermination camps. After the war, only 1000 Jews were left in Warsaw. Today, there are around 4-5,000 in the metropolitan area of over 3,000,000 people. It was a very heartwrenching tour for us.
