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A seriously damaged long block [27] of the Ghetto has been preserved as a museum of its past life. The enlarged black and white portraits of its former inhabitants are affixed to the dark brick walls of a row of five story buildings.
Those “Polish leaders” are remembered in the unknown collective of “The Heroes of the Warsaw Uprising Monument” in a square just outside the Old Town. On the corner of this square is the Field Cathedral of the Polish Army with the “Katyn Chapel -Mausoleum,” to the right of the altar, which “commemorates the martyrdom of 21,857 Polish citizens -war prisoners and captives” in 1940 by “the order of the highest authorities of the Soviet Union” in the Katyn forest in Russia.
The Red Army, however, stayed put in its camp in Praga just across the Vistula River. The uprising lasted two months. Hitler was enraged and ordered revenge. Warsaw was totally destroyed.
The specific names of “about fifteen thousands” Army officers and policemen, and 3435 more “Polish citizens” are engraved on the two walls of the Chapel.
The man who gets most credit for Poland regaining its independence after those 123 years is Marshal Jozef Pilsudski, who was the first President until 1922 and then from 1926 to 1935, as Prime Minister or as the military leader, virtually the de facto ruler of Poland. I heard more than one Pole refer to Pilsudski as the “most important person” in their country’s history. Admiration for him was suppressed until the fall of the Communist regime. It was only then that a Pilsudski statue was erected, at the entrance to Warsaw’s Lazienki Park.
The reconstruction of the Old Town has been so faithful that it has won a place on the UNESCO World Heritage List. This was made possible because the planning to “revitalize” the Old Town had begun before WWII and the plans then made, along with some original drawings and photos, had survived. I saw one such photograph taken in 1774 of the main street, Krakowskie Przedmiescie, on display in situ. Except for the animals roaming the street then, the reconstruction was accurate.
General Dwight David Eisenhower, then the Supreme Allied Commander is shown visiting the ruins of the “Old Town Marketplace” on September 23, 1945, said “I have seen many towns destroyed, but nowhere have I been faced with such destruction.” What we see now has been built from scratch.
Here the notable monument was the house where Marie Sklodowska was born in 1867. She left for Paris after 24 years to study, marry Pierre Curie and take his name, win the Noble Prize for Physics with him in 1903, and the Noble Prize for Chemistry eight years later all by herself. She was the first woman to win a Noble Prize and the first person to win two. Her birthplace is a museum.
... with their Barbican, a semicircular tower. Through the Barbican and beyond the wall and it moat we entered the New Town, so called because it was established later, in the 1500s.
The Square attracted tourists of all stripes, including the definitely non-Catholic Hari Krishna followers.
Its Market Square is lined with magnificent Baroque and Renaissance buildings, with a bronze statue of the Mermaid of Warsaw in the middle, “the emblem of the city,” as our guide said.
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