Modern-day Warsaw, Krakow, Prague, and Berlin appear like any other cities in today's worldwide spectrum. They all tout successful tourist industries, beautiful architecture, blossoming economies, and heartbeats that distinguish them as unique in their own regard. But what sets them apart from others, and unites these 4 cities as one, are their tragic connections to WWII's holocaust and the atrocities experienced by each. My own exploration, education, and reflection began in Warsaw...Walking through Warsaw today, it appears like any Eastern European city. Impeccable public transit, modern shopping malls, and new buildings flanked by socialist architecture of bygone days. But be careful...a tourist could easily flit around this city visiting Old Town, the Royal Walk, and Palace of Culture and Science and leave none the wiser to Warsaw's poignant past. But here in this now modern and beautiful city, the plight of the Jews was by far the most tragic.
Of the ghettos established by the Nazi regime, Warsaw's was the largest. Nearly 30% of Warsaw's population (~400,000 people) was forced into an area less than 3% the size of Warsaw. Conditions were difficult, disease rampant, and starvation and random shootings an everyday occurrence. Though buildings of the ghetto were mostly destroyed as Warsaw was "razed to the ground," the site of its Umschlagplatz (literally "reloading point") can still be visited today. Here, nearly 300,000 ghetto residents in just under 2 months (about 7,000 each day) were gathered, loaded on trains, transported to Treblinka death camp, and killed in gas chambers.
While some met their untimely death at Treblinka, the more influential and dangerous faced interrogation at Gestapo headquarters. The headquarters was located in the basement of Poland's current-day Ministry of Education building, and today appears much as it did during Hitler's reign. Bench rows set up like a train (flanked and one behind another) is where Jewish "conspirators" would sit for days not being allowed to sleep. During interrogations in the rooms nearby, music would play from a wireless radio outside the "train room" door. This would muffle speech, screams, and other sounds of torture and death from those awaiting the same fate. At the end of the WWII, 5.5 tons of cremation ash was found in the Gestapo headquarters building.
While often we hear about Nazi atrocities such as these in discussions of the holocaust, one thing rarely brought to life are the circumstances perpetuated by the Russians during the Warsaw Uprising (which I find to be just as cruel and inhumane as the gas chambers). Not to be confused with the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising which occurred a year earlier, this 1944 resistance movement intended to free Poland from Nazi control. Knowing the Red Army was within range to help liberate Warsaw, the Polish Home Army led attacks on their Nazi occupiers on Aug 1.
While the uprising intended to hold the Nazis in check for mere days until Russian help could come, the Polish defenders bravely fought until their eventual surrender 63 days later. The Russian Army, wanting Warsaw under their control, stopped at the gates and waited for months until Polish defeat. After all, it would be easier to control a defeated people than one which had succeeded. When the Russians final entered Warsaw, 85% of the city was destroyed.
What you see today in Warsaw is a symbol of strength. A city rebuilt, a city pride that can't be extinguished, and a city which remembers. It is our duty as visitors to remember, too.
*As usual, I thank wikipedia for historical background information.
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