Warsaw has a great deal of interesting history, mostly associated with the Second World War. The city is beautifully lit up for the Christmas period.
We stayed in the the lovely Raffles Hotel while we were in Warsaw, very central and a real pleasure to come back to. Excellent breakfasts too, and the meal we had one evening was also very good.
We took a walking tour of the city with Walkative, the same people we had done a walking tour of Gdansk with. It was very informative and served as a basis for our own explorations.
The city really goes to town on illuminating the streets with Christmas decorations.
Raffles Hotel is actually on Krakowskie Przedmiescie, the Royal Way. Opposite is the historic Hotel Bristol, opened to paying guests in 1901.
At the south end of the Krakowskie Przedmiescie there is a statue of the astronomer Copernicus, who theorised that the earth rotated on its axis and all the planets revolved around the sun. This was hugely controversial at the time as the accepted belief was that the whole universe, including the sun and all the other planets, revolved around the earth.
Further up the street is the Church of the Holy Cross where the heart of the Polish composer Frederic Chopin is enshrined in a pillar. Chopin's mother was Polish, though his father was French and Chopin's body (apart from his heart) Is buried in Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris.
On the east side of the Royal Way is the University. The grounds were very peaceful when we walked through them to reach a pizza restaurant, Nonna. Excellent pizzas!
Further up the street, past Raffles, is the Presidential Palace, guarded by four stone lions. The equestrian statue is of Prince Jozef Poniatowski.
We had a really good meal at Delicja Polska Restaurant on Krakowskie Przedmiescie. Like the street the restaurant was also beautifully decorated for Christmas. Excellent goose pierogi to start followed by equally good guinea fowl with chestnuts, elderberry sauce and green pistachio, and duck confit with caramelised apple red cabbage and cranberry sauce, and a gorgeous chocolate fondant (shared!) to finish.
North of Krakowskie Przedmiescie lies the Old Town within the old city walls. It has been almost completely reconstructed after the Germans reduced it to rubble in the Second World War.
Castle Square is on the south side of the Old Town, site of the Royal Castle. The statue on the column in the square is that of King Sigismund III Vasa.
St John's Cathedral is just north of Castle Square, dating originally from the 14th century it was completely rebuilt after WW2. The Gothic facade rises to a gabled roof with brick piers.
The Old Town has some lovely streets with completely renovated buildings and is nice to wander around.
Old Town Square was decked out with coloured lights and filled with stalls, mostly selling food.
West of the Old town is the Field Cathedral of the Polish Army where there is a chapel dedicated to the 1940 Katyn Forest Massacre when 22,000 Polish military and police officers, border guards and intelligensia were murdered by the Soviet NKVD, on Stalin's orders.
Across the road from the Field Cathedral is a monument to the Warsaw Rising of 1944.
Marie Curie (née Sklodowska) was a remarkable woman and scientist. She and her husband Pierre together with Henri Becquerel were awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903 for their discovery of radioactivity. She won a second Nobel in 1911 in the field of Chemistry for the discovery of the elements Polonium and Radium, thus became the first person to win two Nobel Prizes. She was the first woman to be awarded a Nobel and the only person who has been awarded two Nobel Prizes in different fields of science.
Her family home is now a museum devoted to her life and achievements. It holds some of the lab equipment and instruments that they used and information on her family including there daughter, Irene Joliot-Curie, who was herself a Nobel Prize-winning scientist together with her husband Frederic Joliot-Curie in 1935.
Their second daughter, Eve, a pianist and writer, married an American diplomat who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1965.
Marie Curie's work during the First World War is not widely known. She took specially modified vans with X-ray equipment and, together with her daughter Irene, X-rayed wounded soldiers so that surgery could be performed more effectively. The X-ray vans came to be known as "Little Curies".
POLIN is the Museum of History of Polish Jews. It is a striking building designed by the Finnish architectural company Lahdelma & Mahlamak. The name refers to the legend of Jewish refugees fleeing persecution who heard the word "polin" - meaning "rest here" - in a forest.
The museum tells the story of the 1000 years of Jewish history in Poland.
The oldest written record of Krakow is in the tenth century accounts of a Sephardic Jewish merchant, Ibrahim ibn Jakub, who travelled from Cordova in faraway Spain. He mentions visiting the trading centre of Krakwa. Jews only came to settle in Poland after 1264 when King Boleslaus sent out an invitation to them to settle in his country.
The earliest mention of Jews in Warsaw is in 1414 with a community of 100-150 people, about 5% of the population. They were attracted to Poland by business opportunities.
The Christian idea that lending money for profit (i.e. charging interest) was a sin, meant that Jewish moneylenders, on whom there was no such restriction, were free to practice with certain restrictions. By the mid 15th century about 15% of Warsaw's moneylenders were Jews. They usually loaned very small sums for short periods at 10% interest which was allowed by the Church, though Christian moneylenders who practiced usury were threatened with eternal damnation.
In 1569 the Union of Lublin established the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It was one of the largest and most diverse states in the world and soon became home to Europe's largest community of Jews.
Cossacks were an autonomous community of warriors in eastern Ukraine, some of whom were paid by the Commonwealth to defend its borders. However, when there movements and numbers were restricted, they led a massive rebellion against the nobility, Catholic clergy and the Jews. In 1648 the Jewish population in the eastern part of the commonwealth was decimated.
In the late 18th/early 19th century the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was partitioned between Austria, Russia and Prussia.
In 1886 the first antisemitic magazine to be published in Poland, Rola, appeared, its declared intention to "encourage all to a legal and calm defence against Jewish exploitation". It quickly grew in popularity. By the time it closed, in 1912, it was one of many antisemitic newspapers.
After the First World War, in 1918, Poland regained independence. Prior to the second World War Poland was home to three and a half million Jews, the largest Jewish community in Europe. In the interwar years 140,000 left Poland for Palestine. They had already come under more restrictions such as a limit on how many Jewish students could be admitted to the University of Warsaw. During the 1930s virulent antisemitism was on the rise, pogroms destroyed Jewish businesses and homes.
The Second World War brought invasion by the Nazis and extreme antisemitism. 90% of the Jewish community perished during the Holocaust. 6,000,000 Jews from all over Europe were murdered in the evil Concentration Camps. The Jewish Quarter in Warsaw was transformed into a ghetto - POLIN now stands within this area.
A Judenrat - Jewish Council - was established by the Nazis to administer Jewish affairs. Adam Czerniakow was made head of the Judenrat by the Nazis in October 1939. The task, to carry out Nazi orders to the letter, was impossible for this man who wanted to ease the suffering of the Jews as much as he could. Within the Judenrat he had people who were not only dedicated and conscientious but also those who took bribes. Czerniakow kept secret notebooks in Polish detailing what he witnessed each day. Others collected as much evidence as they could of what the Jews were going through including diaries, letters and refugees' accounts, for after the war.
In 1941 German Forces marched into Polish territory occupied by the Soviets, breaking the non-agression pact with the Soviets.
Pogroms followed. In Jedwabne locals and others from around the town herded all Jews into the market square where they humiliated them, beat the, and finally burnt them alive in a barn.
Up to July 1942 around 100,000 people died of hunger and disease in the Warsaw ghetto.
In July 1942 the Nazis made a proclamation: "By order of the German authorities, all Jews living in Warsaw, regardless of age or sex, are to be resettled in the East". Adam Czerniakow did not sign the resettlement notice. On 22nd July official posters appeared announcing the "resettlement". The next day Czerniakow committed suicide.
Adults and children walked to the Umschlagplatz in the north of the city, close to the railway station. "Resettlement" was the Nazi euphemism for the chilling deportations to concentration camps and the gas chambers.
After the deportations only around 60,000 Jews remained, presumably those doing useful work.
The Jewish Fighting Organisation (ZOB) was established on 28 July, 1942, during the deportations.
In January 1943 Himmler ordered the deportation of all "unproductive" Jews. On the 18th January, when German forces entered the ghetto, they were met by armed resistance for the first time. After four days the Germans halted the deportations and left the ghetto, having already deported 4,500 Jews and shot 1,700 on the spot.
After the events in January the Jewish defence became more organised, preparing Molotov cocktails and grenades, learning to use weapons bought on the black market, constructing bunkers, organising observation points and breaking through attics and cellars of neighbouring houses to allow more out-of-sight freedom of movement and possible escape routes.
On the 19th April 1943 the Ghetto Uprising began when the Germans re-entered the ghetto.
Around 500 fighters of ZOB and about 260 fighters of the Jewish Military Union (ZZW) faced 2,000 German soldiers. After a few days of fighting the Germans began to set fire to the buildings and the people retreated into the bunkers. When the ZOB command was discovered in one bunker the Jewish leadership committed collective suicide.
POLIN has a vast amount of detail on the history of Jews in Warsaw and Poland, including up to the present day. It is a sobering place to visit.
Afterwards we went up to the Umschlagplatz where the Warsaw Jews were gathered for transportation to the Death Camps. The Memorial Site symbolizes the open railway freight cars which were used to deport the people. The walls are inscribed with 3,000 Jewish forenames representative of the 300,000 Jews who were sent to the Treblinka extermination camp from here.
Jewish men, women and children were marched here and collected in the road and on the pavements of today's Stawki Street. They waited to be loaded onto trains. Some 300,000 Jews were deported from Warsaw. Most did not survive.
On a suitably bleak morning we took the underground to the former ghetto for a long walk, exploring what was left.
Around 350,000 Warsaw Jews and 90,000 from other parts of Poland were herded into the ghetto.
On November 16th, 1940 the ghetto was cut off from the rest of the city, surrounded by a wall. In December 1941 the entire area west of Zelazna Street up to Wronia Street, between Leszno and Grzybowska Streets, was excluded from the ghetto, thus dividing it into two parts, the small and large ghettos. The only connection between them, from January 26 1942, was a wooden bridge over Chlodna Street .
During the summer of 1942 the Germans deported and murdered nearly 300,000 people in the gas chambers of Treblinka.
On April 19th, 1943, an uprising broke out in the ghetto. Until mid-May Jewish fighters and civilians died, either in combat or in buildings set on fire by the Nazis.
The most evocative remnant of the ghetto was a long stretch of wall, pockmarked by bullets.
The remaining Jewish people were murdered by the Germans in November 1943 in Majdanek, Poniatowa and Trawniki concentration camps.
Only a few survived.
For a wider history of Warsaw in the Second World War we visited the Warsaw Rising Museum. There are some amazing stories of very brave people.
On September 1st 1939 the Second World War began with Germany invading Poland to be joined by Soviet attacks from the east - there was a pact between the Germans and Soviets - on September 17th. On October 5th the last Polish troops surrendered. In the same month the Germans began gathering Jews in ghettos.
From the very first Poles were subjected to planned executions, deportations, displacements and persecutions. Thousands of Poles were imprisoned in concentration camps. They murdered many Polish scientists, closed scientific institutions, destroyed archives and libraries and demolished monuments. From December 1941 the Germans carried out mass murders of Jews in extermination camps.
In June 1941 the Germans invaded Soviet territory thus ending the pact between Germany and the Soviets.
The Polish Underground State came into being between 1939 and 1940. In February 1942 it became the Home Army. In 1943 it aided the Soviets in the "liberation" of eastern Polish territories in Operation Tempest. After a period of initial occupation the Soviets disarmed Home Army Units and arrested their commanders and political leaders.
The Soviets began their bid for Warsaw at the end of July. The occupying Germans ordered 100,000 people to report for fortification works, while on July 30th Moscow Radio appealed to the people of Warsaw to "Fight against the Germans!".
On August 1st 1944 at 5pm the Warsaw Rising began.
Over the course of two months the insurgents occupied parts of the city and there was intense fighting to maintain a grip. Again, this was an operation almost doomed to failure from the start. The Germans used heavy artillery, air forces and missiles called "cows".
The biggest problem was food and water for the almost 1 million insurgents and inhabitants. On the night of AUgust 1st Allied planes take off from Italy to drop 230 tons of supplies: weapons, ammunition and 45 tons of medicine and food. Stalin refused to make Soviet airfields available to Allied planes until September 10th.
Polish airmen serving with the RAF along with British, Australian, New Zealand and Canadian RAF personnel and South African SAAF airmen made the airdrops in extremely dangerous missions. Each 3,000 mile ten hour mission was without stops due to the Soviet refusal to allow them to land on their airfields. As well as bringing supplies the airdrops uplifted the spirit of the insurgents and civilians. Many crews that flew to Poland with help never came back.
The Warsaw Rising ended on October 5th, 1944.
More than 15,000 men and officers were taken prisoner and sent to stalags (German POW camps) and oflags (German POW camps for officers).
The Germans set about destroying Warsaw. All residents were expelled and the city plundered. The ravaged city was then destroyed by Vernichtungskommando, which systematically tore down surviving buildings. By January +6th 1945 they had blown up 30% of the city's buildings.
Warsaw and Poland suffered horrendously during the Second WOrld War. The Soviets and Germans treated the population with utter contempt
We took the metro across (under) the Vistula to Praga for a vodka museum tour. Our walkative guide had said it was a really nice area, quite different to the main city, but we couldn't see it.
The tour was very good, the guide excellent, describing how the distillation process reached Poland from Iberia and was used to distil spirits to make the alcoholic drink - it is older than the Russian development of vodka.
Polish vodka is made from ethyl alcohol distilled from one of six agricultural sources, five of which are grains: rye, wheat, barley, oats, triticale or potatoes. Potato vodka is slightly sweet with a creamier texture. To be called Polish Vodka all of the ingredients must originate in Poland and all stages of production must take place there.
Tamara vodka bottle, pre WW1.Potatoes were a popular source of alcohol production due to their high starch content, ease of storage and high yield.
At the turn of the 19th century vodka production was enjoying a boom time. At this time the current production process was formed: distilleries produced raw spirit, rectification plants cleared it, and the the final product was created in vodka factories.
At he beginning of the First World War the Russians prohibited production of spirits in the Kingdom of Poland and ordered the destruction of all supplies. In Austria-Hungary and Germany the state took over the spirits cartels. The plants of other alcohol producers were destroyed or dismantled to eliminate competition. Some 70% of 2,466 operating distilleries were destroyed.
At the end of the tour we tasted three vodkas, two grain and one potato, and we both preferred the potato vodka, Luksusowa. This is one of the oldest potato vodkas, its recipe developed in 1928 in the State Spirit Laboratory. Production started a year later in the factory which now houses the museum. It is made from the highest quality potato rectified spirit. This exclusive - in Polish luksusowy - spirit gives the vodka its name.
On our final evening we too a bus to the Wilanow Palace for the Royal Gardens of Light. It was very impressive, many tableaux created with different coloured lights, and a dynamic light show in the formal gardens set to music
There was a large area of colourful representations of Greek/Roman gods.
The final set piece represented the Wilanow roses in a rose garden, very beautifully done. The royal gardens were famous for three varieties of rose: Rosa damascena "York and Lancaster", Rosa gallica Officinalis and Rosa foetida "Bicolor".
