A Busy Friday in Warsaw: Part III - Visiting Jewish Heritage Sites

I knew that visiting Warsaw was important. What I didn't fully understand until I went was that visiting Warsaw would be so impactful.

The time I spent with a couple of our guide partners in Warsaw was really illuminating. Prior to visiting the city I had an intellectual sense of what to expect. The list of sites. The facts about what happened where. And of course my guides expanded on those topics as we moved around the city checking out the important points of interest. But what leaves an impression through visiting in person is the overarching theme of what is no longer there. What was destroyed. What was erased. That you need to imagine how things were. It's a difficult feeling to describe, but it can be profound. For a number of reasons it is distinct from visiting places that feature ancient historical sites (Athens, Rome, or one of my favorites, Plovdiv where the remains are arguably more organically, more casually encountered within your current day-to-day routine). The history in Warsaw is more recent. While the broad recovery has been dramatic, it is still a work in progress, moving at different speeds across the different parts of the city. Some of this anticipates a post I'll make about my Sunday tour through the Old Town and Praga, which in combination with what I experienced on this Friday tour really helped some things 'click' in my head.

My tour started with an orientation at Plac Grzybowski, where I got some context on what used to be there.

While there we also spent a few moments on Prozna, where I first learned about the main issue that impacts the redevelopment pace of damaged buildings in Warsaw, which is verifying ownership, navigating the official restitution channels, clarifying responsibility, managing implications for any tenants, etc. I don't pretend to understand half of it. But it's complicated and delicate. So while the various parties litigate and adjudicate, some buildings remain in limbo.

Our next stop was to see a section of the original Warsaw Ghetto Wall. I didn't take pictures at the time because I wasn't sure where we were headed. But thanks to Google Maps Street View I found the entryway. It's on an unassuming stretch of Zlota, maybe 1 - 1.5 blocks west of the Palace of Culture and Science.

(View facing east)

(You enter right under that red pin. Between two generic looking apartment buildings, through some miscellaneous small businesses in the modest storefronts along the street.)

Tucked back there is a plaque, map, and some of the original ghetto wall.

While there we also stopped in at Mi POLIN Mezuzah Center, which is somewhat hidden on one side of the entryway.

You can read more about what they do here. It's an interesting and poignant angle to emphasize the personal, individual stories lost within the overwhelming numbers of the holocaust.

It was at this point in the tour that we took a detour so I could pass by the Santander branch in hopes of getting a decent exchange rate on my MXN:PLN withdrawal. Think they still hosed me. But I took some vibe shots of the area during the detour.

After getting my złoty we looped back to the other side of the ghetto wall. An interesting aspect of these stops was seeing how normal life has evolved around the remnants. Apartment buildings on the other side. On this side you can only enter during hours when this language school is open. Otherwise the parking lot is secured and you cannot pass through.

(View from roughly this spot on Sienna)

We then hopped in the car -- and these tours in Warsaw tend to be a combination of driving and walking, as the city is big and the sites are spread out -- to check out the Chłodna street bridge. This is the spot where the footbridge connected the two parts of the Jewish Ghetto.

(Source: US Holocaust Memorial Museum)

Today it's marked by a wire 'bridge', which you can see if look closely.

There is also the marking in the sidewalk noting the former limits of the ghetto wall.

While we were there my guide pointed out the restaurant across the street, Restauracja Polska Czerwony Wieprz.

It seems to be a clever blend of tradition and theme/gimmick that generates fairly universal positive reviews. We ducked in for a quick look. I was there around 5pm on a Friday, so it was somewhat quiet, but still a few tables enjoying the atmosphere.

It's about 15 minute walk or 7 minute Bolt from the Warsaw Uprising Museum, so if you're in town for a few days or just in the area one afternoon, you could do worse than stopping through here for a late lunch.

Next we went to see the Umschlagplatz site and memorial. This was another site where one's abstract understanding of the facts is confronted with the tangible reality of what actually happened here:

The monument is subtle and somber when viewed from across the street.

We went for a closer look and also around behind an unassuming neighboring building where there is another section of original Ghetto wall.

Our time was running low, so we walked by the Milła 18 Memorial (aka, Anielewicz Bunker) on the way to the POLIN Museum, which I had already seen earlier in the day.

As you drive and walk around the Muranów area of Warsaw where the Ghetto once was you notice how normal and calm things feel now. It's mostly residential. Blocks of apartment buildings. Tree-lined streets. Not much in the way of retail or restaurants, except maybe on the margins. It felt quiet.

My guide took me to one more site that he wanted me to see, which I can only see in Google Maps as Mural w Bramie

We were at the Nowolipki 4 example.

Well done, well-maintained. I'm glad I saw it. And with that, my ~ 3 hours with Marcin were a wrap. He kindly dropped me off at Mysia 3, where the next and final post will pick up the rest of my Busy Friday in Warsaw.