SOLO EURO: DAY 19-20 [WARSAW & BERLIN]
the next day was my only full day in warsaw and a pretty big one full of solemn attractions. i woke up pretty early and took a bus to the warsaw rising museum. it was not very busy. the only people at the museum this early were school children.
german bunker located outside of the museum.
in the summer of 1944, the polish underground resistance fought to liberate warsaw from german occupation. the uprising had very little help from the outside and was the single largest military effort taken by any european resistance movement during wwii. it lasted 63 days, and poles were eventually defeated even though there were promising beginnings.
donated polish resistance armbands
after a pit stop for coffee at a random costa located inside the world trade center (imagine me in my drab clothes surrounded by people in business suits) and a bus trip, the next stop was the mausoleum of struggle and martrydom.
the museum shows how polish patriots and freedom fighters were imprisoned by the nazis. strangely, it is located in the ministry of national education, a federal building. during wwii, the nazis used this building as a hq for the police forces. in the basement, there were rough jails where interrogations happened. those that were sent here were either freshly caught or from pawiak prison (the next stop).
the jails are mostly untouched. a year after the war, the polish government decided to preserve the jails as part of the museum.
the next stop was pawiak prison (c.1835). in the 1800s, it was used as a transfer camp for poles sentenced by russia and sent to siberia. in the 1930s-40s, it was first a gestapo prison and then a nazi death camp, but destroyed in 1944. polish home army members, political prisoners, and civilians were taken hostage in street round-ups and sent here. about 37,000 people were executed and another 60,000 sent to other camps.
the germans blew up the prisone in 1944. the gateway and the three detention cells (where part of the museum is located) are the original ruins.
this tree has an interesting story. since 1954, family members of the victims would place epitaph plates on an elm tree. the tree survived wwii, but eventually died from natural causes. a bronze copy that was made from a cast of the original tree along with copies of the epitaphs were put in its place. the original tree and epitaphs are located inside the museum.
the next few stops were all monuments.
pomnik bohaterow getta, monument to the ghetto heroes. this monument is located where the ghetto once stood.
i don't recall what this memorial is for, but i do know it is a jewish tradition to leave stones at graves. one reason i read is because stones are permanent, just like a memory. i like that.
after, i decided to have a little shelter from the rain and get coffee. i ended up going to caffe nero. like costa, they are a british export (and apparently in boston). here i waited the longest time for a quiche. it took 25 minutes just to warm the damn thing up, but the coffee was good and they played jazz. jazz is so lovely on a rainy day.
after, i visited the monument for the fallen and murdered in the east. it shows different religious symbols in a freight car. each track says a name of a camp, village, farm, or outpost of a gulag that the soviets forced poles to.
this was supposed to be the end of my day, but i a had quite a bit of daylight leftover. i decided to visit the katyn museum. i did not plan this location, because online it was so confusing find out where the entrance was.
to get to the museum, you have to go through skwer powstancow styczniowych, the january uprising square. there was a lovely fairy home.
in 1940, over 20,000 polish officers and intelligenstia were executed by russians near the katyn forrest in russia, but the term is now used for similar killings by soviets against poles in other locations. most of those killed were regarded as some of the most educated poles (civil servants, soldiers, lawyers, businessmen, etc). germans found the mass graves in 1943, but soviets denied they were responsible. in 1990, the government admitted partial guilt to the murders and the cover-up. the russian communist party still denies any responsibility.
the museum is housed in the warsaw citadel (c.1800s). it was built by the russians and in the 1930s was a prison.
inside of the museum is the evidence of the katyn massacre, including the personal belongings of those who died and the bullets that killed them. the museum is completely in polish, but google translate got me pretty far. as i have said in other posts. there are katyn memorials everywhere. i saw them in krakow, oswiecim, and berlin. when you exit the museum, you enter a memorial courtyard.
'our lady of katyn'
while exiting, i saw the largest slug i have ever seen.
some lovely dandelions.
on my way back i treated myself to some ice cream. i had some polish cash left and was trying to find ways to spend the rest (there was no point in converting it back to american dollars). on a whim i bough an amber bracelet and a bark carving of a face sold by a man at the old town wall (still 2 of my favorite purchases during my trip).
i walked down a few more alleys and then decided to find some food and call it a night.
i ended up eating at the same place as the night before. this time i got homemade chicken soup (my sniffles thanked me) and some compote. this was my first time having it, but its pretty much preserved fruit and spices in a hot drink. this one had apples, pears, plums, raisins, cloves, cinnamon, and honey.
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the next day was really my only day in the middle of my trip that would consist of a full day of travel. warsaw to berlin on the bahn is over 5 hours along (and ended up being longer due to delays). the first stop, coffee.
fair warning: this day was the day of many conversations with many lovely people that i met, never learned their name, and we went our different ways.
costa was the only chain i knew around.
i left early in the morning for the 45 minute walk towards the station and even got a little lost. i took a shortcut through ogrod saski (saxon garden), the old public park in warsaw. it ended up messing up my bearings, but at least i got some pretty pictures.
ogrod saski, saxon garden (c.1727)
the symbol of the warsaw uprising is everywhere.
i finally made my way to the station with extra time. the train situation was very confusing. when i bought my ticket, i bought it through bahn (a german company). when i got to the station i went to the platform that matched my train number, but the train that entered was not bahn, but from a polish company. i entered the cart anyways hoping i was right. also unlike the other trains, the seats were in carriages (not rows). luckily, i was assigned to the same carriage as a very nice polish lady that was fluent in both german and english. she explained to me that i was on the right train and that once we hit a border town, the staff would train to bahn staff (it was a partnership train). she also told me to take advantage of the polish side! once you hit the german border refreshments are not free.
the polish countryside....and my free tea (the mars bar and pretzels i paid for at the station). i also saw fields of poppies (my favorite)!
the polish lady mostly talked to another polish lady, but we did have a few conversations and she explained everything that was being said on the intercom (polish and german). she told me that she was from poland, but when she was young married a german man (against her family's wishes) and learned german that way. while she was in germany, she also learned english. now she splits her time in berlin and visits her mom regularily in warsaw.
she also explained her family history. her grandmother had actually been in a concentration camp for a while. when she was young, she was walking among the countryside scavenging for food when she was approached by german officers, but she did not have any id with her. the german officers deported her to a camp until her identity could be proven a few weeks later.
she also told me about the complexities poles have with germans and russians. full disclaimer: i understand this is a huge generalization, but these are her words, not mine. she said when she got married in the 80s, poles thought very differently about germans. it was only 40 years after the war and relations were way more complicated. her feeling now is that most of the perpetrators are dead and time has healed a bit more. the countries can get along. now with russia is a whole different story. poland was occupied by the soviets until the 90s so it is much more recent. also, the katyn massacre is still so engrained. she also said it does not help that people think poles are russians, including some russians. she said even if you speak polish, you can probably understand russian, but that she will never speak russian again. it was an interesting conservation.
this is the part of the carriage across from me.
it was a long ride, but the conversation made time go on. i also worked on a cactus cross stitch kit i bought during my first trip in berlin a couple weeks earlier (in the berlin mall). on a side note, i saw a young guy get kicked off the train and arrested. even though we waited at the border for a long time and was told the train would arrive in berlin 45 minutes late (we ended up only being 10 minutes late...witch craft).
i also met a young aussie who moved to germany for a job, but would travel around europe. she was very nice. she also told me thought she thought i had been traveling longer than i had. i thought that was nice.
the berlin train station.
even though this was the train station i had left from a few weeks earlier, i got so lost inside and decided to treat myself to a coffee donut at dunkin donuts. i finally figured out where my light rail was and returned to the hostel. i met a very nice korean girl who talked a lot, but it was welcomed. she asked if i would go with her to a club, but i'm boring. until she left, we talked a lot. we talked about traveling solo as females and the decisions we made in our lives and how that fits into the norms of out respected countries. she was very lovely. more on her later in the next post. anyhoo i think that's the end for this. only 1 more left!
and i actually have a song. i have known who the 1975 was for a long time and knew some of their singles, but they never stuck. in the last week, i have listened to pretty much their entire discography and man am i fan. their singles are not really my jams, but they do have some buried treasures. for this most i am going to choose the first song that really stuck. 'i like america & america ikes me' its a little different with the distortion, but it is my favorite song from their most recent album. enjoy!