Marek Edelman, Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Commander, Memorial and Theory

Jewish Ghetto Heroism and Survival:

A View of One There

Protest is the Easier Route: Marek Edelman

The war memorials in Warsaw are graphic, realistic, scene-focused, as though a sculptural snapshot were capturing the event. Here, there are two settings:  One, here,  German soldiers searching, approaching, on the alert. In the setting to the other side, a little nearer, people on the street at the sewer openings, helping each other down, a woman with a child, an elderly person, families, trying to disappear into the labyrinth beneath.  What is missing from the memorials is the lines of people going to the trains, being herded, many staying in line, some other struggling.

Marek Edelman was one of the Jewish commanders, of the Jews in the Ghetto at the time of their Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 1943-44, against the Germans. He was 24 at the time.

Dr. Edelman had this perspective, among others, as to survivors - are those who did not fight back, to be criticized; and only those who actively fought back, to be praised. 

He believed that it is more difficult to go quietly to one's death, than it is to die shooting. The active fighter is not more heroic than those who submit. See Obituaries, New York Times, October 3, 20009 at A19, ://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/03/world/europe/03edelman.html/


Memorial, Warsaw Uprising, WWII, Warsaw, Poland

He survived to practice cardiology, live in Lodz, join the Solidarity free labor movement as a health care consultant, and the subject of the book, "To Finish Before God," written in 1976 by Hanna Krall, telling her his story.

Other survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto mass murders and their circumstances have been documented, see ://www.holocaustsurvivors.org/cgi-bin/data.show.pl?di=record&da=encyclopedia&sf=entry_name&sv=Warsaw%20Ghetto%20Uprising/; and http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005069/.  Their stories are in books, documents, film.  See ://www.life.com/image/72197612/  Some criticize the acceptance of the victims as they were sent to their deaths. Why no forceful acts against the Germans, except for the few who did rebel.  The answer is not easy to find. When there is no choice, what is heroism.

Poland's Black Madonna and the American South. Spread of Cultural Heritage. Colonial America and Forward

Cultural Vestiges - 

Immigrants and Slaves, Contacts and Ideas

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Who emigrates.  1) People under pressure, or 2) People just adventurous, or 3) People with few other optionns; or 4) People forced to.

What do they take with them, if they can. What do they take in mind, heart or hand, that ends up in the household of their next family, or down the road, the next intermarried family. What loss of tradition is there, when the story connected to an object is lost. The question arises in the context specifically of the book, "The Secret Life of Bees," by Susan Monk Kidd, now a film.

Jasna Gora, Monastery, exterior, Black Madonna, Czestochowa, CZ

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There, a cultural vestige of Poland, a picture of the Black Madonna at Jasna Gora, appears as central to a Black family, descended from slaves. How did it get there? We speculated that there could be connections with Polish Roma other either enslaved or immigrant groups in the South. There is also a Sara-La-Kali role figure. See FN 1. See The Fodder Site, Mixed Origins, Clues to Religions, Cultures.

Here we look at other Polish connections that could have brought knowledge of the Czestochowa Black Madonna, at Jasna Gora, to American Blacks and others. Inconclusive. Surely others knew of the Black Madonna, if that one book family did. How widespread at our colonial times was that iconic painting of the Black Madonna?

1.  Polish settlers have been here from earliest colonial times.

This "Info Poland" site says that Poles came to Jamestown, Virginia, in 1608, as skilled workers in glass and in "pitch and potash burners," brought by the London Company, see http://culture.polishsite.us/articles/art39fr.htm/. A second large group came at the time of the American Revolution, and more between 1800 and 1860.

Prominent Poles in our Revolution:  Pulaski, and Kosciusko.

2.  Poland has Gypsies, and Gypsies began immigrating to America early on. Were some Polish immigrants also gypsy?


That site does not mention Polish Roma as immigrants, but this one, "Roma People" at Crystalinks, at ://www.crystalinks.com/romapeople.html/ mentions that the largest group of Gypsies in Germany are Polish Roma, in connection with the spread of Roma churches; so we know of broad ranging Roma populations in Northern Europe, who could have come here.

Crystalinks, "Roma People, Gypsies", at ://www.crystalinks.com/romapeople.html/ affirms Roma immigration to the United States in colonial times, especially in Virginia and Louisiana. 

Some groups are like Roma in lifestyle, but not of Indo-Iranian heritage.

They could have blended in more easily.

There are other groups in Northern Europe with similar lifestyles as Roma, but are not Indo-Iranian, but are "white Gypsies" according to this site, "Roma Peoples" at://www.mlahanas.de/Greece/History/RomaPeople.html/.

These are known in Germany as the Jenische, or Yeniche (France), or Jeniche; in Norway and Sweden as the Tatere or Tater (perhaps deriving from Tatars, or Tartars?); and Travellers, in Ireland (see "What is an Irish Traveler" at ://www.slate.com/?id=2071456 - they believe the derivation to be from pre-Celtic minstrels, displaced, and refer to them as "white gypsies"); and Travelers with various names also are in the United Kingdom and America; as quinqui or mercheros in Spain. See also Gypsies, Roma, Romani.

For an 1889 account, see the "Full Text of the 'Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society.' " in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, at ://www.archive.org/stream/journalofgypsylo01gypsuoft/journalofgypsylo01gypsuoft_djvu.txt/. Scroll down to the Polish gypsy stories. Do a search for pol and get the Poland and Polish references. Stories, language matters.

3. We find no direct evidence that Polish Roma were enslaved in Poland, as the Roma had been in Romania, England, Scotland, Spain, other areas. So a theory of American slave groups including Polish gypsy slaves may not hold.

4.  Do Poles include as gypsies these "white gypsy" groups. Did these, rather than the Indo-Iranian branch end up within the broad cultural mix of peoples from immigration, or hired on ships from earliest colonial times, and live now in the South and Appalachia in particular. There is a group there, descended from many ethnic groups, including, some say, Roma.

These are the American Melungeons. Need to find out if they have Catholic backgrounds? What kinds of icons might they have?

5. One Black Madonna, at least, ended up in a rural town in South Carolina

Or was it North Carolina?. Still, why did Hollywood change the icon in the film to kitsch,  from that great art on the book's cover. Why offer the film's paltry modern swoopy figure, instead of Art, is beyond us, unless it is to deny the ancient tradition.
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FN 1 See Gypsies, Roma, Romani: Melungeons, Parse for American Gypsies. There may also be another connection with a cultural religious role figure, this time, Gypsy - and the Roma Sara-La-Kali, see The Fodder Site, Mixed Origins, Clues to Religions, Cultures.

The Sara-La-Kali connection: patron saint of the Roma, perhaps shown in the painting at Gdansk Cathedral,  an affinity for a female intermediary, worship of one for aid and succor and protection and endurance, is possible - an easy move from that by proximity, and intermarriage, even if not common enslavement, to the slave world Black African female goddess figures?  See both at the Cathedral at Gdansk. If you have more information, or can correct our understandings, we invite you.

As we look at that Black Madonna, where else did it go.  See Switzerland Road Ways, Gran San Bernardo Pass and find it at the monastery at the summit of that ancient pass.  Did it come that way to Poland eventually.  We are trying to find that story.

The Lie in Photography - Selective Representation. What does cropping do?

Photography and the Intentional Omission.
Cropping to Suit the Purpose

The Travel Photo Tells the Story
The Photographer Wants to Tell

Look at the lovely travel photos all over the internet. Cropped, changed, angled.


Does everyone do it - crop out the clothesline from the ancient magic well photo. The lie of cropping. Pretending the past is present.  That technology is not everywhere.  That people everywhere wear comfortable, not necessarily traditional clothes.  Still, do we aim for only photograph national dress. This time, we did not aim for national dress. National dress sets people apart from each other, makes one group - the curiosity one - an object, not really a fellow human.

So:  Here is an actual ordinary group of pilgrims at Czestochowa, the famous Jasna Gora Monastery where the Black Madonna can be seen in the sanctuary. They are not on their knees, not in babushkas (we barely saw any babushkas, just on a few elderly women), and laughing enjoying each other, and in jeans.

Like us. No national dress, nothing other than people. That also is the message here.

Polish tourists, Czestochowa, Poland, at Jasna Gora Monastery.

I could have waited for more picturesque, stereotyped national dress-wearing people, or all in babushkas, to unroll from a bus.

But this is the reality we saw all over - a modern, regular Poland. We saw little "national dress" anywhere - just in ceremony or celebrations.

See the photos on Images for Poland.  Read the blurbs. Imagine yourself there. How much is a sham. a sales product to sell you on something. The photographer - including me - crops some things out, focuses on others. Of course. We have a story we want to tell. A reality photo would be this instead: point and click with a wide lens. No changes. Are our photos representations to illustrate a point, using selective content, approach, message. Suspect.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh wrote,

"To write or to speak is almost inevitably to lie a little. It is an attempt to clothe an intangible in tangible form; to compress an immeasurable into a mold. And in the act of compression, how Truth is mangled and torn."

 See www.news24.com/News24/On_this_day/On_this_day/0,,2-1602-1492_2121379,00

That thought applies also to photography, painting, or copying. All art is to lie, a little, a lot. So, consider photos as art, expression, and not your reality necessarily.  Someone has tinkered.

1. Current application:

Even our photos - these are in themselves sometimes little lies if we screen out the phone wires; or choose the one individual in traditional dress, from the hundreds of blue jeans. And tout the one showing what we want to illustrate, and crop out the reality otherwise. All for the picture. We appreciate the problem, and try to crop only to leave out wires, or someone's behind.  Aesthetic. But also selective.

2. Is an unretouched reality "better" than carving out particulars for a planned illustration.

It depends on the purpose of the illustration. Look at the unplanned illustration her, the ladies above. One fine part of this tourist group - see back row, second from right,is someone in a bright jacket. There, on the lady's head, is that splendid shade of henna - impossible, really -but gloriously red, sometimes even orange, hair, that is indeed common in Poland for ladies of a certain age.  Even here at home, for our Polish neighbors whose grandmother has come to live with them.

And it should be.

The hair color we saw so much was jarring at first - see it everywhere on the heads of ladies of a certain age - but then it became familiar. It does make the viewer - and probably the wearer - feel more cheerful. I began to see it as wonderfully impudent, fun, I-like-me-like-this, not attempting to fake natural color in order to deny the getting older process. Instead it is a look-at-me delight, perking up a whole face. Why have gray on top when you can have RED and FUSCHIA.

Indeed.

Like our ladies in the red hat societies, but not wearing hats. Good for them. Rick Steves in one of his guidebooks put me on to the henna. I believe he said that it had to do with what dyes were or were not available during past decades. So I noticed - second from right here, back row, but the color is not caught on camera at all. Trust me. Bright henna, even fuschia, is indeed splendid.

Musicians, Polish banquet, Jasna Gora, Poland (hotel).

And here is some nod to costume - the band at an event at the hotel. A large bus arrived with tourists to see the Black Madonna. Going to Jasna Gora is a fun thing.

America the New Poland. Poland as Mirror and Teacher. Abuse by Lobby and Veto.

How Can America Be Like Poland
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Ask Those Who Tell the Ethnic Jokes;
And Sniff and Turn Away

Poland is an unlikely teacher, many would think. Yet, look at our current events. Is Poland instead a mirror. Look at what is happening, that Poles know are devastating:

• One. Accessibility of the US to outside invasion, with technology and economic-financial tools, even if not ships or ground armies of soldiers or paratroopers, that Poland knew.
  
• Two. Abuse of the population by giving in, by a government compromising with an eye to the benefit of those in power, rather than the survival of the citizenry. Is that a fair assessment? Maybe not. Hard to say. Could any nation have done more than the Poles on their flat land without fortresses, than the Poles did and died for. Perhaps not. Geography as destiny?
  

Poland, sheep herding

How is that applicable to the United States, an ocean away.

1. Barriers and Non-Barriers.

Look at how Poland was affected by its particular geographic accessibility - there its geography, flat, resource and agriculture-rich, clocks, shepherds, rivers, flatflatflat, easy to invade. No place to hide.

The Polish vast plains merge with the Russian steppes. Some hills, but hardly "mountains" that we saw.

America's coasts. We have geographic barriers, but invasions of countries these days take place economically, and otherwise financially. That is us.

2. Those in Power First.

See how Poland was abused by its own government. It evolved so that the powerful, most-resourced families, accepted the financial rewards of doing as outsiders wanted - foreign interests, like lobbyists from surrounding countries. So, in the parliament known as the Sejm, the nobles were representing really their own patrons - whether German, Austrian, Russian, Ukrainian even. And benefiting all along, to the detriment of a developing sense of nation. They were owned.

Is that us. That is us. How are our lobbyists different: citizens here, yes, but interested not in the country but in the profits of their sponsors. Who really control decisionmakers. Who has inside tracks. We can't even get names. Just like Poland.

3. Poland's history - the insurmountable veto.

Look at the devastating effect of the veto as it evolved in Poland, so that any individual in that governing house, throughout its history, seeking self-interest over the group, could stop any collective improvement action by a mere and arbitrary "no." Look at old Poland. We do have a difference here - when it comes to action, it takes 60% to overcome a presidential veto. But we still have the veto. Ok so far.

The issue will be if one voice in a Senate, depriving the whole of a passing vote, should be enough. We need a process to go around if that is what it comes to. A graduated voting system so there is not a stalemate. How can any one voice, whether vice-presidential, presidential, or industry at the megaphone, bar consideration of a common good, not private profit. Just like Poland.

To avoid: The power of a ruling group by a single vote to block adoption of measures. Try a graduated voting system. First, second, third efforts, with the first at the 60%, the second at 57% to block, and the third at 55% to block.

Poland is interesting.

5. Recognize the heritage of our immigrants whose country flowered centuries before ours. In the 16th Century, we were not. They were blooming.

It does not take deep, elitist research to learn. Go to the library and get out a simple book: "The Polish Americans," in the Junior High section, part of a series on the Peoples of North America, with a preface by Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

6. Open up. Is a new approach to be feared, or watched, and waited for. We have not suffered on our own soil from invaders. They have. Resistance to oppressors, there - communism: Labor unions and Lech Walesa at the Gdansk Shipyard.

Gdansk Shipyard, PL, Labor Union Revolt Memorial,

Gifted cultural leaders: Jan Paderewski, 1918 or so. Get fine arts back in the schools, seriously.

Jewish-American vets, World War I, protesting treatment of Polish Jews. That is WWI. Teach about the Holocaust.

German troops invade Poland, WWII, and nobody elsewhere does anything.

Westerplatte, Gdansk, PL, Tank Memorial, Russian invasion WWII

In 1775, Poland as a mere "plumcake" to be divided by the surrounding European, Russian and Eastern European powers.

The 16th Century - Poland's Golden Era.

Poland's Parliament, the "Sejm" - spellings vary - gave huge powers to individual noblemen, and interests, to the detriment of the whole.

How else was Poland victimized?

5. Respect Poland's history:

• The Church turned militant, for its own commercial interest (amber, resources, land).
  

See the Teutonic Knights, especially Conrad von Thuringen, grand master of the Teutonic Knights, 13th Century we believe, monks turned soldier, and persuading for economic benefit under the guise of religion.

• No doubt religious dogma also accompanied the force, but it was force nonetheless. Poland had long been Christian - converted centuries before Roman Catholicism broke from the larger Christian Church - nonetheless, kill those who did not convert the extra step. Wonderful. Here is Malbork Castle, and the Grand Masters.

Malbork Castle, Poland, Grand Masters, Teutonic Knights

• Rightful Positive Status. Poles assisted us.
  

Look at our Revolutionary War, and the European Generals assisting, including Polish Tadeusz Kosciuszko.

Others:

Edmund Muskie, filmmakers, writers -

Isaac Bashevis Singer - and political advisor and writer,

Zbigniew Brzeznski, baseball's

Carl Yastremski, who are we to talk light bulbs?

Can we, any more than could the ordinary Poles of the past, uproot the special interests, the ring of grabbers. Look closely at Poland, divided, taken, and even dissolved for a time. No independent borders at all.

Up to us. We the Sheeple. Good image. If nobody speaks up for the country, we lose it. Poland the role model, the example, our mirror?

Exhausting. Pass the pierogies, and there is nothing like a warm, fresh plate of buttery Polish pierogies on a raw waterfront late afternoon, with a good Polish brew, at Gdansk, prior to a nice nap before going out for a supper somewhere.

Visit Poland. It is us.

Children of the Holocaust - Diarist Rutka Laskier, 'The Polish Anne Frank"

World War II Diarists
Rutka's Notebook

"Holocaust Diary of a Fourteen Year Old," see Rutka Laskier's diary entries reviewed at ://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,277875,00.html/ See another review of Rutka's Notebook, A Voice from the Holocaust, copyright 2008 reserved to Yad Vashem et al., at ://www.jewishmag.com/119mag/rutka/rutka.htm

1. Rutka Laskier - Hers is another valiant name to add to the list of those children who memorialized their experiences in WWII in diaries. See ://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2007/06/05/2007-06-05_moving_diary_of_polish_anne_frank_unveil.html
The diary had been known, but is now just released. The author or compiler of this work, "Rutka's Notebook," is Aron Heller. Not sure which role best describes.

2. Background. Rutka was the same age as Anne Frank. Rutka lived in a middle sized town, Bedzin, Poland, northwest of Krakow, not far from Auschwitz. Most of the Jewish population of Bedzin had lived there since the middle ages. Jews comprised about half the total population. She wrote in her diary beginning in 1943. The Germans had conquered Poland in 1940.

Auschwitz PL, fence with rose memorial

Deportations to labor and death camps had begun. As in other towns, a preliminary step was to move the Jews to another section of the town, or its outskirts. Rutka agreed with a friend, Stanislawa Sapinska, that Rutka would hide the book under the apartment's stairs where Stanislawa could find it, as Stanislawa did, after the war. Stanislawa kept the book for 60 years, only then revealing its existence.

3. Adults only. Our regret is the editorial choices of layout and color - the book is not appealing visually or as laid out for children to read. It already looks old, dated. This edition is well done, but for grown-ups. It cries out for a companion version that would be true to the original in content, but one that a child could not pass by without opening, and once open, reading.

4. Need a companion volume for children, young teens. The photographs, the layout: all are the dingy tan-sepias that an adult appreciates as conveying age and reverence. There are similarly toned photographs from the period that show pre-war Poland, Bedzin, and the families, as well as others, but will a child want to stay with it. Still, particularly memorable are the children of Auschwitz photographs, the town, the "JUDE" patch.

5. Meet Rutka: Here she is at 14. Like any bright, deeply feeling, attractive young person, "regular" family, like your neighbor, but more perceptive than most. She loved reading, interest in faith, witness her increasing fear of Germans, exuberance and mood changes with normal life, becoming more intense with maturing, boys, then despair with the "selections" taking place, people herded, separated, families divided as to destination - work, death, unknown, or even home again to await another selection.

Auschwitz, barracks, guard tower

Beatings, shootings, a baby bashed in as she watched, an escape and run back home, and her family also there, labor camps for adults 16-50, more people moving into their apartment so her family has just one room, grayness, steady stream of fear on faces, more people pushed into the ghetto, food rations reducing, then the human boredom of nothing to do on a particular day in her room, then, last entry April 24, and Rutka subsequently gassed and burned at Birkenau, a section of the larger complex at Auschwitz. Auschwitz also had ovens.

6. Additional writings by Rutka. Keep these in the young person's volume.

Poland, High Tatras Mountains, near Zakopane

Rutka visited this lovely area, and wrote about it. There are also undated fragments of stories found with the diary, one about Zakopane, the area long a vacation-ski resort in the High Tatra mountains (lovely black and white photo, whose?); and one about winter season, the ghetto, brutality, and then a wedding with a bride in tears. After that, a section on the lives of the father, Yaacov Laskier, 1900-? He survived the holocaust. All other family members were killed.

Do note the listing of other child diarists from WWII, pages 86-89.

7. Bifurcate, bifurcate. Back on edition: For children, present just Rutka. Add some details in the back, but do an edition that is intended for children. Those are the ones who may well know nothing of the holocaust. Please do not dilute Rutka with everyone else, or all the other historical details. A child with an interest can go to this full edition and find out all that. We finished the book, and still thought, where is Rutka?

Background on the holocaust from other diarist children's perspective - see

• Auschwitz, Poland, Poland Road Ways, Auschwitz, Petr Ginz;
  
• Amsterdam, the Netherlands and Anne Frank ("The Diary of Anne Frank"), Netherlands Road Ways, Anne Frank; and
  
• Prague, Petr Ginz, Czech Republic Road Ways, Petr Ginz. He also died at Auschwitz.
  

How better to teach our own children about these events, except through the eyes of other children who lived it. History, hope, hopelessness in our failings to the death. Then again to hope.

Warsaw Uprising - Escapes and Deaths; Memorials. The Sewers in WWII

The Escape Envisioned
The Last, Hopeless Descent into the Sewers

We live in a visual age. Young people, we hear, read less. Watch more.

Go to Poland, then, and see World War II.

See monuments like stage sets, but more moving because they are based on reality.


Memorial, Warsaw Uprising, Sewers Escape, Warsaw, Poland

The world's sewers. Stories of escapes, history, burial grounds, FN 1. But sewers also were life-giving for those escaping pursuers, and death-traps for those cornered.

Warsaw's sewers. August 1944. A means of getting from one separated district to another, some extremely narrow in diameter. The sewers then became a major evacuation route toward the end of the month, and the Germans still did not realize. When they did, they filled the sewers with gas, mines, gassed the tunnels, set fires with gasoline. See ://www.warsawuprising.com/paper/sewers.htm, Here are people going down, a soldier in front, a woman and baby at the left, at the back. This is part of a composite memorial, with the memorial to the Warsaw Uprising behind. See this site for stories behind the major Polish memorials. ://www.cyberroad.com/poland/jews_ww2.html

The Jewish population of Warsaw at the outset of WWII was 1/3 of the total population. One in three residents was a Jew. By the end, there were almost none left. See seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/travel/2002189092_holocausttour27.html

Under the cities. Sewers.
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FN 1 We forget the true life and death battles that sewers represent. Never forget. We joke now about sewers, and are entertained by stories about them. They have found their way into film and on stage. In Paris, think "The Phantom of the Opera." Or "Les Miserables." People lost there, Nazis, Resistance, burial places during the French Revolution and other times. See ://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/europe-asia-pacific/11020481.html. See this overview site for a touristy look at cities these folks found that offer tours of their sewers, used through the ages for escapes (walkways and bridges to conquer the wasteways). In Paris, see how clean it all is - that is the miracle of modern clean-up stations. See www.ooze.com/sewer/howto.htm; and ://www.ooze.com/sewer/theplan.html The site gives admission fees, and exactly where to locate the entryway. Brussels - see ://www.thestar.com/comment/columnists/article/263298

Warsaw Rising - The New City, Architecture to Meet the Times

Old Warsaw Is Hard to Find
Vestiges Are There

Warsaw, Poland; city street

Old Warsaw. Hard to find.

The devastation of the culture and the city itself, was profound.

The Jewish population of Warsaw at the outset of WWII was 1/3 of the total population. One in three residents was a Jew. By the end, there were almost none left. See seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/travel/2002189092_holocausttour27.html

See it now - the main square, a hub.

Warsaw, Poland, main square, reconstructed

The reconstructions give a hint of old city life, but with a botox overlay. How to reconstruct in the old manner, without the money, the time, to do so. Minimalism results, understandably.







Warsaw, Poland, market square

As in any other European city or town, there are the cafes, the umbrellas, the street musicians, the carts with wares.













Warsaw, Poland, murals, apartments

Modern apartments, with murals, decorative, interesting, on the outside.





Warsaw, Poland; elegant, modern building complex

Or in other areas, buildings modern with fine, clean lines, shapes in color. Reflections of older buildings across the way. Architecture to meet the times.

And interspersed, markers for the old places, memorials for the Warsaw Uprising, the sewers, soldiers and people.

No block area is totally one thing or another, and that is as it is.

Warsaw and Irene Sendler. WWII. Saving the Jews, the Targeted.

Warsaw. The Ghetto. Holocaust. A people allowed to be overrun. Is that accurate? Images of death apparently keep some people away from visiting there. Even contemporary factory smokestacks can echo crematoria of World War II. The images are The heroes and heroines still coming to light.

So: Read about heroism in those circumstances, and perhaps you will go.

1. 2007, book about the Warsaw family, the Zabinskis, Antonina and Jan, at "The Zookeeper's Wife," see the Washington Post review at ://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/13/AR2007091301895.html; Earlier published, in 2007: "The Zookeeper's Wife" - by Diane Ackerman, see ://www.dianeackerman.com/work1.htm. But that site does not even give us the name of the family at that Zoo where so many Jews and others targeted were hidden and passed through to other places from the Ghetto in some degree of safety. It is at another review that we learn that the family is the Zabinskis, and the wife is Antonina. The International Herald Tribune at ://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/07/arts/idbriefs8A.php.
and

2. 1993. Read about Oskar Schindler, and the film made of his saving many through his factory worker shield program, "Schindler's List,see ://www.auschwitz.dk/Schindlerslist.htm. Read the full list of names there. Do it. Then it comes alive and off the celluloid.

3. 2008. Now, add Warsaw's Irene Sendler, who died recently, and who saved 2,500 Jewish children, getting them out of the Warsaw Ghetto. See ://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1948680/'Female-Schindler'--Irene-Sendler,-who-saved-thousands-of-Jewish-children,-dies.html.

Why is only the man, Schindler, given fame. This does not minimize his contribution, but he was a man of means; he actually walked and talked with Nazis as equals. These others, regular folk. And, he was a man, the others, women, alone or in partnership saving others.

Nonetheless, appreciate the heroism of the Poles, in their flat land, money restricted, open ports, no natural barrier to invasion, defending, undercutting the invaders. No more light bulb jokes. About anyone. Ever. Promise? They are lies geared only to make the powerful feel better.

Warsaw - Zygmunt and the Main Square

Warsaw - Damage

Warsaw, Poland; reconstruction ongoing

Everyday Warsaw first, then the fantasy.

Here, reminders of the devastation of wars in the 20th Century, in buildings still shattered on one floor, renovations beginning on another.

Then reconstructions of a glorious more distant past, with the full Old Town area nearly completed. Warsaw's history is at www.e-warsaw.pl/miasto/historia.htm. A handy timeline is at www.iexplore.com/cityguides/Poland/Warsaw/History

Anne Morrow Lindbergh wrote somewhere that writing is a lie because it compresses a totality. That is also true of photographs. Go to that history site, and see Warsaw now. Looks like New York. Then see these jolly photos, and read this post: focusing on the past. Just like a lie, isn't it? Warsaw is more than its Old Town. Still, as a tourist:

Here is the Old Town, and
Warsaw, Zygmunt, or Sigismund, Column

Zygmunt, or Sigismund. In 1526, he led his people to many glories but died heirless. He is still remembered.

His column here was elevated here in 1644. This is the Old Town, in the main square. Scroll down to "monuments" at this site: www.warsawvoice.pl/view/5478/.










And, in the Old Town, spirited music in everyday dress, not some costume, and we liked that.



Warsaw, Poland, street polka

Visit big cities on holidays, if you can do without the museums for that time. Traffic is down, festivities are up.

Dan holds the Polish flag - he is not lip-synching - because this is Constitution Day, May 3.

This commemorates two May 3's -- one in 1791 - see ancestry.com/learn/library/article.aspx?article=1132. There were tragic subsequent events, after that hopeful time in Polish history. It was partitioned and invaded multiple times.

The second May 3 is in 1918 - the old Poland had disappeared from maps until it was reunited with many of its old boundaries on May 3, 1918.

Wroclaw - Square: House of the Seven Electors; Dietrich Bonhoeffer; Black Madonna

Wroclaw, House of Seven Electors

The House of the Seven Electors in Wroclaw's main square shows fresco-type paintwork dating from 1672. The electors refers, we believe, to the Holy Roman Empire's system of these seven electing in turn the Holy Roman Emperor, see ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince-elector. See also ://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Electors. Wroclaw had been the German city of Breslau.




Memorial, Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran, a Protestant theologian, who was born here, and who was executed for opposing the Nazi regime. See ://www.eni.ch/articles/display.shtml?06-0081. This is in front of St. Elizabeth's Church.

Black Madonna, Copy from Gdansk

We recall this as being in St. Elizabeth's Church, but have to check notes. It is the same as we had seen at the Cathedral in Gdansk, but different from the Black Madonna at Czestochowa. Look at the robes and patterns on the various Black Madonnas. It can be hard to tell which is an original.

Wroclaw - Hussar Armor - The Winged Cavalry

The Winged Hussars

The Winged Cavalry

Wroclaw, Poland, Winged Hussar, Winged Cavalry, armor

The armor of the Winged Cavalry, the Winged Hussars.

Here is a history of Medieval Poland, and scroll down to the "combat" section for the Hussars. ://www.gallowglass.org/jadwiga/SCA/slavic/med_poland.html. This set is from a church in Wroclaw.

This site says that Mel Gibson is filming about the siege of Vienna, where the winged cavalry pushed back the Turks (Ottoman Empire) and kept Europe from being conquered, as the Balkans had largely been conquered. See ://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php/mel-gibson-shoot-movie-viennas-447188.html

The site says that the motto of the Winged Hussars was this: "Love of homeland is our law." Get your own equipment here: ://www.polishhussarsupply.com/contact_us.html. See earlier post on Hussars here at Poland Road Ways, Polish Hussars.

Wroclaw - Facades, towers, gables. History in architecture.

Wroclaw - the old "Breslau" - is one of the oldest cities in Poland, with early dates to the 9th Century, and its University and tourist sites keep the town square active.

It fills up fast toward sunset.

The town began on two islands in the River Odra, with Ostrow Tumski now attached/ filled in.

Piasek Island remains, and is a fine place to stay - with its old monastery area, and then walk to the Old Town.

Large parts of the town are partially restored, partially new concrete or other modern structure, so it varies from block to block,. It does not offer the botoxed uniform look of reconstruction under a budget that plagues many towns. We liked that.

The Town Hall has Gothic gables.



During WWII, some 70% of the city was leveled. Its historical rulers include Bohemia, Austria and Prussia.

Swidnica - Silesia

Swidnica: not far from Wroclaw, on the way south back to the Czech Republic. The main square (or "Rynek") in Swidnica -is a place for carnivals as well as serious statuary. Here, inflatables going up, booths. Many towns have brightly painted buildings, and this town is enjoying some fame for its creative use of street lights.

See the town's Plague Column at ://www.lighting.philips.com/in_en/project/urban/market_square_swidnica.php?main=ro_ro&parent=1&id=in_en_project&lang=ro.


The town also is a World Heritage site for its Peace Church, timber-framed, constructed after the 30 Years' War (1618-1648). See http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1054.

Sopot - Baltic Sea Resort, and the Amber Trade

Sopot is not far from Gdansk, and as a settlement, dates back to the 5th Century BC - it has been a resort for centuries, with baths and fine architecture from many eras. The area people here from 400 BC-30 AD -were Celts. Those that we now associate with Ireland and other parts of more remote Wales and sections of Great Britain. Celts apparently were most everywhere, from here to Italy and the Balkans.


Read about the whole history, and see vintage photos at ://www.sopot.net/historyofsopot.htm://archaeology.about.com/od/baterms/qt/baltic_amber.htm

Duke Sambor I in 1180 gets credit for establishing a Cistercian Abbey there. Read about Cistercians and their white robes with a black apron overlay, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cistercians; and their literal approach to the Rule of St. Benedict, at www.newadvent.org/cathen/03780c.htm; and the Rule at ://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02436a.htm and we stop looking back with that.

The Amber Trade. Sopot was situated to take full advantage of Rome's demand for amber, as well as other people's. The Sopot coastal area was and is a source of amber, and it found its way to Rome and places in between on established trade routes.

The amber trade itself dates back thousands of years before, with evidence from 8000-4000 BC. See ://www.khulsey.com/jewelry/kh_jewelry_amber_mining.html. Now, that's old. There is a long spit of land at Poland and Lithuania known as the Amber Coast. Storms pull up the fossilized resin that is amber, from the ocean floor, and dump it on the beaches where, in some areas, amber riders on horseback would come with their amber-nets and scoop it up, and amber divers would scrape it off the sea bottom. Early amber workshops in Gdansk: 10th Century. A Beach Master was in charge of guarding the beaches, and amber theft was a capital offense. All this at the khulsey site. Do see the pictures there.

The amber trade was not just an economic boon. The traders carried culture, ideas. See archeological discussions at://archaeology.about.com/od/baterms/qt/baltic_amber.htm.

Sopot - A Day at the Beach, and the Crazy House

Sopot, Poland, Beach

Aah. Off with the shoes. Just leave the car. Go!








Sopot, Poland, swans, dock

Sopot is known for its pavilion and long long dock (what are those called, the really long ones out into the ocean?), and see all the salt-water-loving swans.







Get the bennies. Splay out there and enjoy.

Sopot, Poland, sunbathers

Some on the beach itself had freed themselves of top clothing and left only underwear. No problem. Just enjoy.











This looks like the day after the night before, but it is for real, and on the main shopping street at the Baltic Sea resort at Sopot- the "Crazy House."

Whose? This particular shot arrived in one of those huge email-spam-ha-ha mailings, a photo with no attribution at all, and a million people on the list. Fair use!We may well be the only people on the list who know where it was from, and can vouch for it - Sopot! Sopot! The building, a tourist-gimmick. Here is another angle, if you are feeling down: http://my.opera.com/gog5/albums/showpic.dml?album=341572&picture=5120883. And another. See://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_wacky_building.htm.

Money to build fancy houses? Sopot knows how.