So, here I am in Warsaw, and it's raining again. No , correct that, it's not raining, someone has turned on a tap and a river is pouring down out of the low grey sky...the clouds are so low that even the top of Stalin's Wedding Cake is shouded in cloud, and that's not high!
My first full day in Poland's capital was spent....wasted....searching for a launderette. I found the address of one on the internet, located it on the map, and off I went. It was a long way out of the centre, right to the end of one of the bus lines, then about half an hour's walk...then I discovered that the address wasn't a house number on a street, it was the number of a tower block on an estate...so I spent another half hour wandering around until I found block 21! The place had been closed down gfor some time....no one had bothered to remove the web site! Out of the only 4 launderettes I could locate in Warsaw I had to choose the one that was closed (maybe they all were!).
This is a strange city, it appears to be the usual mix (as in most cities) of historic centre and more modern outskirts....then, as you walk the streets and read the information you come to realise that this is in fact a facade, a giant con-trick (or if you prefer, a giant historical reconstruction).
90% of the city was razed to the ground by the end of WW2. What we see now is the result of detailed reconstructions based on old plans of the city and paintings by artists like Cannaletto. It's not until one looks closely at a detail and sees the date inscribed that one realises just how successful this has been...
It certainly has the feel of an old city...especially in the tourist heart, where the castle and the surrounding old squares would fool anyone unaware of the history of the place.
On the flip side of this, there are some remarkable examples of modern architecture, none more so than the new University Library.....this is a building I could live with in any city. Inside there is a giant green passageway throught the building, full of plants and light (in this case, light is everywhere, much of it natural light, the architect made full use of light wells and other devices that bring daylight into the heart of a building. What is even more remarkable is that outside the building there is a park (not so remarkable?) that starts as something quite ordinary (if rather beautifully lanscaped)and then continues up the walls of the library itself...
and onto the roof of the building....
.....open to everyone, this garden is a delight, and offers glimpses into the library itself.
Actually, there is a kind of irreverence that exists around some of Warsaw's most prestigeous (academic) buildings. Part of the National Library is housed in the former Krasinski Palace, outside which a herd of brightly coloured Pegasi graze...
And the Collegium Nobilium (the first school for the sons of the nobility, and now the acadamy of Dramatic Arts) has a giant hand perched over it's door!
This is in marked contrast to the "Socialist Realist" monumental works left over from the communist era...chunky earnest heros of the working class immortalised in stone or concrete...
...although noticably, the female figures are a little less in touch with reality as they're all draped in classical greek style robes!
By Wednesday the skies were once more clear, so I took myself off to the park ...well, one of the parks, there must be well over 20 parks in Warsaw itself, not counting those that run into the city from the outskirts. The one I vsited was Park Praski, site of the Warsaw zoo. I had no intention of visiting that particular establishment, but discovered that as an advertisment for the zoo, one of the exhibits is actually situated right on the public highway, with nothing between the public, cars and trams but a small wall and a ditch.
People stop as they walk by, throw all sorts of "food" to the bears, although I noticed very little rubbish in their pit (either vandalism hasn't reached the level of that in the UK or there is a high level of respect for the animals...I suspect the former). The bears themselves seemed bored by the whole thing.
A little further into the park I was extremely happy to discover one of the animals I'd been hoping to see in Poland...not in a cage, but living in the trees and every bit as human firendly as our grey ones...
...although I was extremely frustrated by the attitude of those people passing through who thought it was OK for a small child to keep chasing one of these creatures until it was terrified and desperatly trying to hide (the child was preventing it from reaching a tree).
Since the demise of the Communist State many monuments have sprung up around the city, to those killed in the East, the Katyn Forest dead, the Heroes of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944
But it's also very interesting to see that the story of what happened to the Jews of the city in the years before that is something the Poles would prefer to forget. At the outbreak of war 30% of the cities population was Jewish. At the end it was 6%, and of those most were chased out in the Communist purges of 1968. There is now only 1 functioning Synagogue. The Jewish Historical Institute keeps it's doors locked until a visitor identifies themself ( the signpost to the Institute had been torn down...one of the most blatant acts of vandalism I saw in the city).
The Warsaw Ghetto itself was totally destroyed and a vast housing estate was built in it's place by the Communist authorities, so the Ghetto monuments exist in the middle of a quiet residential area, but whereas there are numerous signposts to the other monuments, it would be difficult to find these ones without help. The Ghetto memorial itself is built from the stones the Nazis had intended to use for their vicory monument.
As one walks along the streets of the Ghetto memorial walk there are large blocks of stone set into the pathway with the names of some of the heros of the Ghetto, people who by their own lives made a difference to others.
The memorial to the leaders of the 1943 Ghetto Uprising is in many ways more impressive in it's simplicity,
But the most chilling was the memorial at the site of the railay loading platform, where people were packed into the cattle trucks that took them to Treblinka.
I'm still not sure of my own emotions around this place, I know that when I first saw it all, I wanted to cry but whether that was for the personal sense that here was all the memorial that much of my family would ever have, or whether it was in simple response to the horror of what went on here...and out of respect to those people who stood up and let theier lives have meaning in spite of it all, I don't know. Maybe it was a mixture of them all. What I do know is that shortly after I had my feelings about Warsaw's attitude to this part of it's history confirmed.
There is one small corner of the Ghetto still standing, unreconstructed and derelict this half a street stands as a silent reminder of what the Ghetto must have been like for all those thousands of souls crowded into it's restricted space.
The walls of this street have been partially covered with sepia portraits of some of the people who lived and died here. It is bleak, but beautiful, and perhaps a more fitting monument than the formal ones. And yet...as I was taking photographs I was approached and interviewed by a camera team. In just a few months this quiet corner is set for a complete change. The city of Warsaw has decided the buldings are dangerous and out of keeping with the neighbourhood, so they are to be "tastefully" renovated and given a new life as offices and cafes. The street won't be destroyed, it will be carefully "preserved". Perhaps it is fitting that life should continue as normal in this tiny corner of what was once a prison in all but name, yet I think something very important will be lost when that happens, and I don't think that what will then be lost can be replaced.....but as someone I met recently ( here in Poland) said " here it has to be swept under the carpet, if they can pretend it didn't happen they are happier" Perhaps the Poles have enough to cope with, with their own recent history of occupation and "Heroic Resistance"so that to envisage the same happening to another people within their own cities is too much for them to bear. I don't know, but here in Warsaw, the history of the Jews sits very precariously alongside that of the Poles.
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