just like dresden, warsaw was almost completely demolished during the second world war. Eighty percent of the city was destroyed, as was most of the old city. and of course, the old city, like the old city of dresden, was completely rebuilt during the cold war. because it was easter weekend, almost everything was closed and my mom and i mostly just wandered around outside. but i found it an oddly freeing sensation, to not feel pressured to visit every single museum but instead to simply wander a city that is shaped, defined, rebuilt during and because of such terrible turmoil. poland had it hard. first the nazis bomb(arded) their way through the landscape and people of poland; then, the soviets took over immediately and embarked on similar tactics to completely undermine and crush the polish people.
poland is an extremely catholic country, even as its neighbors, the czech republic and germany, lose religious followers on pretty much a daily basis (especially considering the recent scandal rocking the boat over here on this continent). everywhere in warsaw, we found little shrines to the last pope, john paul II. mutti and i wandered into a church on saturday and watched poles standing in super long lines, waiting to get to the priest to confess. there may or may not have been a few "wow, so the eastern europeans are still waiting in lines" jokes from me...
easter sunday brought with it gorgeous weather, and we wandered the streets of the old city among throngs of polish people. unlike the germans of dresden, i noticed (and read in a little guide from the hotel) that the poles are very proud of their old city and actually do go there and not just because they work in the tourism industry. it is such a cliche tourist thing to only go to the--in this case 'pseudo--old parts of european cities. but on easter sunday, we were surrounded by native warsaw(ers) and so it felt less terribly touristy.
i really enjoyed warsaw, though its history is obviously terribly upsetting. in case you're wondering, the ghetto doesn't really exist there anymore. poland is a poor country and its history is particularly fraught; the poles themselves are certainly not guiltless victims, and many took part in fervent anti-semitism. but to end on a note of hope for the future (because i like optimism, ok?): there was something great about seeing the polish people walking around their city again, uncontrolled by curfews and foreign police. until the fall of the iron curtain twenty years ago, the poles had not had that simple freedom.
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