Krakow, Warsaw and Home

It's a balmy fall day, probably the prettiest we've experienced to date, with temps in the mid-60s and perfect weather for a long walk around Warsaw. The capital of Poland is another eastern-European marvel: totally leveled (this time by the Germans during their exit), most of the period buildings have been painstakingly rebuilt using rubble from the originals. Since this includes palaces as well as medieval cathedrals, it's rather impressive.

Monuments and statues abound, particularly for hometown heroes such as Frédéric Chopin and Karol Wojtyła, later known as Pope John Paul II, really a native son of Krakow. In that city, his history and pre-sainthood is a major industry. There's even a life-sized statue (along with many sculptures and chandeliers) created in salt several hundred feet underground at the Wieliczka Salt Mines. The commonly held belief here is that John Paul's ministry, focussing on his travels to bloc countries, was the initial impetus for the downfall of Soviet domination.

But back to Warsaw, or at least en route to same. We made a lengthy stop at a holy Catholic shrine comparable to Lourdes or Fatima: the Black Madonna of the 14th C. Jasna Góra monastery.


The image, painted with tempera on canvas, is so sacred that it is often "dressed" in an ornate covering, with just heads and hands peeking out from the adornments. Thousands of pilgrims, some walking barefoot several days to get to the shrine, converge daily for round-the-clock masses in either Polish or Latin. The faithful believe the portrait has direct palliative properties; a large collection of wooden crutches, discarded over the centuries, is displayed.

Warsaw is a city that deserves at least a week of exploration. There are so many museums and historic landmarks in this crossroads town. Easily the most interesting and moving locale was the 1.4 square mile area of the former Jewish ghetto, where some 100,000 died of starvation and from which 250,000 were deported to the Treblinka extermination camp. It is also the site of the Ghetto Uprising in 1943. The last 50,000 fought to their deaths before the ghetto walls were torn down. This is a monument to that defiance:


The city is completing a modern museum complex detailing the history of the 3,000,000 Jews of Poland prior to the war (about 12,000 now live in the country), which will be opened next year.

So this has been a mixed bag of travel experiences, some dazzling, some disturbing beyond measure. I'm glad I've had the opportunity to visit this part of Europe, within a few hundred miles of the shtetls where both sides of my family created their homes. I don't envy the hard life they endured, but have a better feel for what it meant to be part of the culture and community that was once part of western Russia.

For now, the journal is closed.