When we visited in 2009, the P/W image above the men, in Polish stands for the Warsaw Uprising, were all over the city. From August 1 to October 2, 1944 resistance fighters and others battled German occupiers for 63 days. Russian troops were in Warsaw on the other/east side of the Vistula River in a section of Warsaw called Praga. (See Warsawuprising.com) Over the course of 63 days, the resistance was crushed. Ten of thousands are dead. The Germans execute an additional 100,000 Warsaw citizens. All the rest had to vacate Warsaw as Hitler decided to level the city. All the time the Russians watched. Those P/W markers and monuments are all over Warsaw where people died or were summarily executed. Google Warsaw Uprising Museum. Using terminology from our books, Warsaw memorializes, teaches, and makes places for their dead/ghosts/memories and the struggles for freedom under Nazi occupation. It was quite traumatizing to see all of the memorials to their dead--and my dead as I am Polish-American. It was quite sobering and sad to learn about those histories. We visited the Uprising Museum and all of the artifacts and stories--we cried. It is a very large museum and gets the impact of war/death/suffering/annihilation across quite effectively. Was simply horrific viewing that history. (The photo was taken off web--a 68th anniversary reenactment.)
so just to clarify... you actually went here and saw the museum and memorial?
ReplyDeleteWow! I can only imagine what it must have felt like to visit such a place. I know this doesn't compare, but I want to visit Pearl Harbor and pay my respects to those that lost their lives and are still in the tombs of the ships under water. I know that it will be an amazing experience but very humbling and somber as well.
If you look at the holocaust statistics for Poland, it's pretty bleak. The Germans killed most of the professionals and journalists right away and put the less educated in work camps. The German destruction of poland's population is a huge reason that Poland resists population as a governmental driver for the EU.
ReplyDeleteMy maternal Grandparents were both immigrants to the US in the late 1920's - Grandmother from France and Grandfather from Poland. My Grandfather died long before I was born and I have been told he was a quite, reserved man. He was a pathologist and possessed a scientific, matter-of-fact sort of personality. My mother has not told me much about his life in Poland and I can only assume that he did not tell her much about it while he was alive. Needless to say, my Polish heritage is something I have never really been in touch with, which is a shame. Reading about these events/museums/memorials no doubt will be moving. I can only imagine what actually visiting that museum must have felt like.
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