Hello from Poland!!!
This morning we left about 8am and caught the metro to Belarussky Vokzal to get the train to Sheremetevyo airport. Random fact: all the main train stations in Russia are named after the place they take you to! So this station has trains that go to Belarus (hence Belarussky), Kievskaya goes to Kiev, Ukraine (wouldn't be going at the moment though!!) and Leningradsky goes to St Petersburg (formerly known as Leningrad).
Anyway, we got the airport train for 40 minutes and found our gate at the airport. Flew with Aeroflot to Warsaw in Poland. Aeroflot have a bad rep but the flight was good! The staff were nice and we got lunch on only a 2 hour flight! We left at 11.45am and then landed at 11.35am - howwww you may ask? We changed timezone again! So we are now 8 hours behind Melbourne once again, just like in Norway!
Got a taxi from the airport to where we are staying right in the heart of old town and it didn't even cost $10! Everything is so cheap here!! We met our host, Anna, and walked up to our apartment. No lift and five flights of stairs - aaah! Going to get fit here! The first thing I noticed when we walked in is that there is no air conditioner. Today it was 30 degrees. So I don't think I'll be getting any sleep!! See how we go. The apartment is in a fantastic location, right opposite the Warsaw Royal Castle. We have a fantastic view of the square and the castle! The wifi works while hanging out the window, so have a laugh picturing me hanging out while posting this!!
We headed out and first enjoyed the square. Then we went up a view tower and soaked in the view from another angle. In both Warsaw, mostly all the beautiful old town buildings were bombed and destroyed by the nazis in retaliation to an uprising by the Jews in the ghettos. But the Polish people did such an amazing job restoring these that you would still believe the area was 200 years old instead of 50! As a result, unesco has granted the old town world heritage status. I can't even begin to imagine how life went on here after 85% of the town was obliterated by bombs. But today the town is really beautiful once again, they've done a magnificent job restoring everything.
After this, we got a taxi to a Jewish cemetery. I've obviously learned a lot about the holocaust and WWII at school, but it's completely surreal being somewhere where so much of this history took place. At the start of WWII Warsaw had a population of 1.3 million people (380,000 of whom were Jewish). After the war, only 500,000 of these people were alive due to the concentration camps, starvation, disease and bombings. Before the nazis invaded Poland, some Jewish people lived in areas called ghettos. When the nazis invaded they made all Jews live in these ghettos, fenced them off and locked them in. There were terrible and crowded conditions in these, and they were sort of waiting bays before they sent them to concentration camps. 360,000 Jews from Warsaw were herded into the ghetto here with 90,000 Jews from other cities. Over time, the ghetto was made smaller and conditions worsened. 100,000 Jews died of starvation here, while 300,000 were sent to Treblinka.
The cemetery we went to was mostly pre-war Jewish graves and I am amazed the nazis didn't destroy it. We meandered through leafy green trees and looked at many gravestones. There were also memorials from people whose families had been murdered by the nazis though. One particularly touching tribute was of a woman who had pretended to be Christian to survive the holocaust so was therefore buried as a Christian, but whose body had been exhumed and moved to the Jewish cemetery later on. Her name was Blima and a sign next to her grave asked people to pass her story on, so I am passing it onto you! There were also various monuments, one that really touched me was to the children that died during the holocaust. The man who had it erected was 1 of 31 grandchildren, but the only one who survived. Reading things like this gives me goosebumps. It's going to be a very tough week emotionally I think. As I said before, it's so surreal being here knowing all of this happened.
After the cemetery we walked to the Museum of the History of Polish Jews. My guidebook said it would open in 2012 (guidebook was written in 2011) but when we walked in we were advised it doesn't open until later this year!!! So instead we went and looked at the Ghetto Uprising Monument. This is to commemorate those who rose against the nazis and locked them outside of the ghetto, fighting them for three weeks. Unfortunately the nazis gained control once again and threw a gas bomb into the ghetto, killing all the survivors. Tmro we will see the only remaining part of the ghetto wall. We walked through the streets where the former ghettos were erected. My hairs were standing on end just thinking about it. Then after a few blocks we reached Umschlagplatz, the railway terminus where Jewish people were sent off in cattle cars to Treblinka and Auschwitz. More goosebumps, more hairs standing on end. I hate to think how I'll feel when we are actually AT Auschwitz... The monument listed 3000 Jewish names, trying to commemorate as many people as possible. The shape of the monument mimicked the shape of a cattle car.
After this we walked back through the old town and bought some groceries. Heading back it was so windy that one of our shopping bags flew down the street! We got it back though. We made it back to the apartment just in time for a colossal downpour to begin. The accordion and laughter from outside quickly turned to screams as people ran for cover!
One more thing - as much as the Russian people were nicer than I expected, I hadn't realised how much I had missed a simple smile until I got here. It was so nice to finally be smiled back at! As our taxi driver put my suitcase in the boot I thanked him and smiled, and he shot me a huge smile back! Never take smiles for granted everyone!! Haha.
Tonight if the storm clears we are going out for dinner and a walk in old town! It looks as if it is hopefully!
Love to all
Claire
Xoxox
PS: Hanging out the window didn't work so I'm down sitting in the square using the public wifi. The breeze is lovely, the accordions are back and the atmosphere is amazing :) the last picture is my view from where I'm sitting on some steps.
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