While strolling through the streets of Warsaw, one is bound to come across many reminders of WWII. In some areas, they seem to be around each corner. Sites of executions of Polish citizens and other atrocities are marked with monuments, plaques, sometimes a sculpture and usually fresh flowers and candles.
Growing up in my neighborhood of Warsaw, I was always aware that it used to be part of the Warsaw Ghetto. I knew where the Ghetto borders were since we studied that at school, but there were no markers or signs in any areas of the city. In the last decade, a concerted effort by the Jewish Historical Institute, the City of Warsaw and the Ministry of Culture, has been made to memorialize the City's Jewish population and its fate.
There are 22 markers along the borders of the former Warsaw Ghetto which was established by the Germans in 1940. Some of the markers are bronze letters that are embedded in the sidewalk indicating the location of the ghetto wall.
There are cement pillars with bronze maps with the outlines of the Ghetto and glass pieces with historical facts and photos. The texts give information on the specific area.
Some of the locations of the markers are:
ul. Chlodna corner of ul. Zelazna - this is where the infamous wooden bridge once stood
ul. Chlodna corner of ul. Elektoralna
ul. Chlodna 41
ul. Zelazna 63
1 Parade Sq.
and many others.
There are other signs of the Jewish past and present in Warsaw.
Synagogue that is now a children's theater in the Praga district.
Kosher Falafel in front of the Nozyk Synagogue
In 1893 Zelman and Ryfka Nozyk donated the land for the Synagogue which was built in 1898-1902. The Synagogue is the sole survivor of the Nazi occupation. The Germans used it as a stable and a warehouse. It was reopened in 1945 and fully restored in 1977-83. Warsaw had about 400 Synagogues before the German troops entered the city in 1939. As one of the final acts, the Germans blew up the Great Synagogue of Warsaw to mark their victory over the fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
This is a beautiful and majestic building standing proudly among apartment and office buildings. It is a very active Synagogue with regular and holiday services, and celebrations of many simchas.
During the services, the men sit on the main floor and women are seated upstairs.
The Nozyk Synagogue is near and dear to my heart, I married my dear husband here many years ago. Ours, happened to be the first wedding in the shul since the war.
There are three undisputed remnants of the Ghetto Wall. Two are right next to each other and the other one is on ul. Walicow and is part of a factory. To see the two that are pictured here, one must enter through ul. Zlota 62. A map of the wall shows the borders of the Ghetto and where this particular part was located.
The other, larger part of the wall is located just to the side through a courtyard. It cannot be entered through ul. Sienna (as some books say) due to an intercom system for residents of the building.
This is the larger part on ul. Sienna.
Monument to the Heroes of the Ghetto
The monument was erected in 1948 while Warsaw still lay in ruins. It symbolizes the heroic defiance of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943. The reliefs on the monument depict men, women and children struggling to flee the burning Ghetto and a procession of Jews being driven to death camps.
A stone marker at the border of the Warsaw Ghetto. It says:
In the year 1940, the Germans created a so-called Jewish district - Ghetto, enclosing behind its walls 450 Thousand Jews, whom they proceeded to murder between the years 1940-1943.
The next two people, while not Jewish, are greatly admired and recognized by the Jewish and Polish communities alike.
The sculpture of Jan Karski is by the front entrance to the Polin Museum.
Jan Karski was born in 1914, he was a diplomat who worked for the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. During WWII he became a resistance fighter. In January 1940 he began to organize courier missions with dispatches from the Polish underground to the Polish government in exile (at that time in Paris). He was arrested by the Gestapo and tortured severely but eventually rescued.
He continued his work. In 1942 he was twice smuggled into the Warsaw Ghetto by the Jewish underground leaders and also managed to get access to the transit camp for Belzec death camp. He began reporting to the Polish, British and U.S. governments in 1942 on the situation in Poland, especially on the conditions in the Warsaw Ghetto and the extermination of the Polish Jews. He even smuggled out a microfilm with information on the extermination of the European Jewry in German occupied Poland. Those were the earliest and most accurate accounts of the Holocaust. Karski met with many government officials in Europe and even had a meeting with President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He told FDR about the situation in Poland, thus becoming the first person to inform him about the Holocaust. According to Karski, FDR did not ask a single question about the Jews but inquired about the conditions of horses in Poland.
Karski met many other civic and government leaders in the U.S., who expressed their doubts as to his recollection of the facts.
Karski stayed in the U.S. after the war, became a citizen, studied at Georgetown University, received a Ph. D., and taught there for 40 years. He died in July of 2000.
The Irena Sendler Alley, is also at the front of the Polin museum on the other side of Jan Karski.
Irena Sendler was a Polish nurse and a social worker. She served in the Polish Underground in the German occupied Poland. Sendler was part of an organization called Zegota, Polish Council to Aid Jews and along with the help of other members, managed to smuggle 2500 children out of the Ghetto. She provided the children with false documents and shelter while making sure that their true identities will not be forgotten. Sendler kept a list of all the children names in a small jar hidden beneath a tree. She was eventually caught by the Gestapo, tortured severely at the Pawiak Prison, sentenced to death but managed to be smuggled out after some Zegota members bribed one of the guards.
A few years ago, I took my two sons to visit Mrs. Sendler in a Warsaw nursing home. She was a wonderful, gracious lady who spent a long time speaking with us and sharing her story. She told the boys about smuggling the kids out of the Ghetto, about the heartbroken parents who knew that this was the only possible chance of survival for their beloved children. She spoke about placing some of the children in potato sacs and some in coffins, some were scared and quiet, while others had to be sedated. She talked of one time when a child began to cry but the German guard did not notice it. The driver who worked with Sendler decided to get a dog and each time a child would start to make some noise, he would step on the dog's paw to make it bark. It worked well to muffle to sounds in the back of the truck.
Mrs. Sendler passed away in 2008. A tree was planted in her honor at the entrance to the Avenue of The Righteous at Yad Vashem.
My very good friend from elementary school lived in this building. Her apartment had very high ceilings, large rooms and an old fashioned ceramic tile oven.
Plac Grzybowski - The Grzybowski Square.
This church has been here since 1895 and during the January Uprising of 1863, the Russians executed Polish partisans in this square. This also is what used to be a neighborhood populated by a large Jewish community. There were many Jewish shops, mostly selling iron articles and a well known photography business. During the war, part of this area was inside the Ghetto walls which stood on ul. Graniczna. In August 1942, this part of the Ghetto was liquidated and all the remaining Jews were transported to Treblinka Concentration Camp. Following that, the Germans allowed the Poles to move into the empty buildings.
Some of the buildings were then damaged during the Warsaw Uprising '44 and the western part of the Square was burned by the Germans.
The Jewish Theater was built in 1966-1967 right by the square and the Nozyk Synagogue is next door.
Ul. Prozna is one of the few intact streets with tenement houses built between 1880-1900. This was the heart of once thriving Jewish community. In recent years, some of the buildings were to be demolished but an agency that protects historical buildings, urged the conservation officers to register the building as a historical landmark.
Ul. Prozna 10, was a building that housed the first telephone and telegraph exchange. In 1881 the International Bell Telephone, received concession from the Russian government to construct a telephone system in Warsaw.
The large photos on the building were part of an installation by Golda Tencer, called "I still see their faces", it commemorated those who perished.
Today, this building is mostly covered by a large construction fabric and scaffolding, while the one side of the street is completely renovated, but kept in the style of pre-war architecture.
More on Jewish Warsaw coming soon.
Joanna
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