Warsaw tour

The Royal Castle in Warsaw

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The Royal Castle served as the official residence of the King of Poland starting with Segismundo starting in the 16th c, before that serving a ducal palace since the tower was built in the 14th c.  The lower part of the tower still stands.  The Nazis destroyed the rest subsequent to the uprising of 1944.   Segismundo was Swedish and a Catholic in what was then a Protestant country, and his statue remains with us today at the top of the new column in the palace square.  The Nazis collapsed the original column, the remains of which sit at the side of the castle today.

The Poles rebuilt the palace and its sumptuous rooms starting in the 1970’s.   They did a superb job of it, and are proud of the accomplishment.  There is a substantial film about the works just as you enter, which the bossy guards make sure you see.  I’d never seen how they did the wall and ceiling appliques, which they showed in detail.  While it’s not the most impressive palace I have ever seen -Versailles, Hermitage and the Palacio Real in Madrid both outrank it – but there’s certainly much to be proud of with regards to the workmanship.

Royal Castle throne room

 

 

Royal Castle marble room

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In addition to the interior there is a good collection of paintings, including two Rembrandt portraits.  

Oak, 1742, Bavaria
Girl In Picture Frame
Scholar

 

WW2 in Warsaw

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July 30, 2018

Today we took our 3rd walking tour of Warsaw. In the first we went to various locations in the Stare Miasto, Old Town. The second was about Communist Warsaw, led by a woman who grew up during that era.  She had to stand in line for everything,  and witnessed the suppression and growth of Solidarity, leading to the downfall of the Iron Curtain.  This afternoon we took the tour of WW2 Warsaw. It takes you to the Jewish ghetto and the location of some of the sites of the uprising in October 1944.

Memorial to Jewish victims of the Nazis

The ghetto was set afire by the Nazis to defeat the 1943 uprising. Today its location is marked on the pavement- they speak to you of the nightmare the Nazis created. Rations were a mere 200 calories a day for Jews, and 500 for Poles. Jews were allowed no medicine. If anyone helped a Jew, the penalty was death for that person and the entire family.

Memorial to resistance fighters
Memorial to children who helped fight the Nazis.
Statues of resistance fighter entering the sewer system

The resistance used the sewers to move from several areas in and near the old town.  The sewers were in use at the time, unlit and required one to walk bent over.  Movements had to be in complete silence.  Eventually these were closed down by the Nazis.

In preparation for the 1944 uprising, the underground raised money for weapons and supplies by robbing a bank.  Money was transferred from the Polish central bank by armored car.  They raised the about $10 million in today’s dollars.  The uprising took a heavy toll on the city and the population.  The Nazis killed 200,000 people, destroyed about 90% of the old town and 65% of Warsaw as a whole.

The bank from which the resistance stole $10m. You can still see wartime damage to the brick

These two uprisings were the largest of occupied Europe.  The 1944 uprising not only hoped to help defeat the Nazis but to keep Poland out of Soviet hands, whose invasion of Poland made no friends in the county.  The result of the Yalta conference as well as their defeat in the uprising, while the Soviet army watched from across the river, led to post war deportations and murders by the Soviets and 50 years of bad governing.