Poland, the Energizer Bunny of Eastern Europe

6369 This is the side of the monument memorializing the Ghetto Uprising in Warsaw.  Only three of the figures are armed,  The man in the center has a German grenade, the girl on the right has a rifle as does the second figure from the bottom on the left.  I can't tell if it's a man or a woman.  They have determined looks on their faces and are showing strength of character in their poses.  Proud people ready to go down fighting.  We certainly could use more people of that type in our county and the need will be getting greater as time passes.

6381 The Royal Castle at the Royal Plaza entrance to Old Town Warsaw.  A pretty austere Gothic building.

6395 Old Town Square, Warsaw.  See what I mean about antique postcard coloring.  The place is jam packed with cafes and has artist's booths down the center between them.

6424 Diana in front of Marie Curie's house.  The mural shows two genies spiraling out of the test tube in the child's hand.  White for Polonium and yellow for Radium, both first identified by Marie.

6470 This is Diana with Professor xxxx, our pianist at the Chopin recital in the music publishing house concert hall.  He just signed the CD of his music we bought.

 

June 23 –Warsaw, Poland.  Today we are heading out of town to see Wilanów Palace the residence of Polish King Jan Sobieski.  This place has survived all the changes in Polish fortunes from large kingdom to non-existence to revival and both WWI and WWII intact.  It is worth noting that at one time the Polish Kingdom stretched from the Black Sea to the Baltic Sea and went from that status to not existing at all prior to WWI.  After WWI, in some great part due to the efforts of the US and its president, Woodrow Wilson, Poland was reconstituted.  This is quite a roller coaster ride for a nation to take.  This building saw it all and stands as a testament to Polish resilience.

 

Wilanów Palace was built in the last part of the 17th century.  Later owners enlarged it and added to the gardens.  It's characteristic of a baroque country residence in that it's built between an entrance area and a garden in the back.  It's distinctive in that it merges the European style seen in France and Austria with Polish style construction.  Both the exterior and interior include symbols and crests that recall the Sobieski name with an emphasis on his military victories.

 

King Jan helped design the building and was assisted by his librarian in the areas of the symbolism to be used to honor the royal family.  The motifs around the structure emphasize the king's support for the arts and sciences. 

 

The most important artists from Poland and abroad helped to decorate the interiors.  Painters, sculptors, stucco decorators and others were brought here to work.  One of the advisors was very interested in China, which accounts for the excellent collection of Chinese porcelain and other arts of the country. 

 

The palace inventories had works of the great contemporary and old masters, like Rembrandt, Pieter van Laer, called Bamboccio, Anthony van Dyck, Ferdinand van Kessel, Raphael and others.  The rooms had treasures of silver and gold that were looted during WWII and never recovered.

 

The palace gardens have been pretty well maintained and are still very attractive.

 

On our drive back into town we stopped at Lazienki Park to see a statue of Frédéric Chopin the famous Polish composer.  He was born and grew up here in Warsaw.  His piano compositions are some of my favorites.  Looking on from the side is a bust of Franz Liszt another composer and pianist.  It's appropriate that the Hungarian Liszt should be here.  He was wildly popular in his time and many of his concerts included Chopin's works. 

 

We drove by several embassies including the somewhat sterile glass box of the USA before arriving at the monument to the Warsaw Ghetto.  It's a two-sided memorial.  On the side facing the street the relief commemorates those from the ghetto who died in the death camps.  It's a sad sight, people with heads bowed, clutching belongings and children trudging toward their fate.  One man, in the center, carrying a Torah, has his head raised, looking upward and his arm outstretched as if asking, "Why?"  Like I said, it's a sad sight. 

 

The reverse side is no happier but it does give you a better feeling.  It's dedicated to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.  As the ghetto was emptied the last people inside it knew what awaited them and decided to go down fighting.  Poorly armed and mostly untrained they managed to repel German units, including those with armor, initially.  But, as they knew from the start, it was a futile effort.  I have to say that going down fighting is more acceptable than just letting them have their way unimpeded.  I'm pretty sure that if I were facing certain death there'd be some small, if final, satisfaction is taking a few of them with me.  In the end they all died anyway but I'm sure they were not just trudging along, heads down wondering why.  The relief on this side shows strong, proud men and women, poorly dressed, standing tall and looking straight ahead, willing to face their deaths with dignity and honor.  I'd seen a copy of this memorial at Vad Yashem in Jerusalem in 1982.  When I saw the original here I clearly remembered seeing the copy 31 years ago.

 

From the monument we drove to Old Town Warsaw for a walking tour of the old city.  It should be noted that much of Warsaw was destroyed during WWII.  Most of old town has been restored or reconstructed.  The Royal Castle is no exception.  Great pains have been taken to get it right when they rebuild and I have to say, it looks great.  It stands on Castle Square, one of the entrances to the Old Town.  It's made of brick in the Gothic style and is very plain, the only exceptions being the tower at the center for the front façade and the two at the corners.  The copper tops of these towers have a decidedly Russian onion dome appearance.  Not exactly, but close. 

 

In reconstructing Old Town they used original masonry and stone when possible.  You can tell which parts are original because most of them are damaged in some way, pock marked by bullets or shrapnel, scorched and chipped they add an air of authenticity to the look of the area.  For some reason many of my photographs of the area have a 1920s postcard look to them.  The colors of early printing were too uniform and pastel to be realistic.  Yet, totally untouched, that's exactly how they look in these pictures.  Odd.

 

One place of note in the area is the home of Marie Sklodowska Curie, the discoverer of Radium and Polonium.  Everyone knows the story of her boiling pitchblende to find radium and the toll that took on her health.  Before the discovery of radium she isolated Polonium and named it for her native land of Poland.  It was probably named like that because Poland did not exist as a nation when she did it.  It was during the period of dissolution I was talking about earlier.  Way to go Marie!  There's a fanciful mural on the front of the building that commemorates both events.

 

Our last visit of the afternoon was to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  It's set in a small portico, all that remains of the Saxon Palace.  The palace grounds are now a park and the tomb of the unknown is guarded by two soldiers who are formally changed every couple of hours with a full regalia change at Noon every day.

 

This evening we are going to a piano recital of works by Fredrick Chopin.  It will be in the intimate concert hall of a music publishing house.  The building it's in is one of those which has survived since Chopin's time in Warsaw.  Our pianist is a Professor of Music at the Warsaw Conservatory of Music.