My visit to the Radegast Station Holocaust Monument (Łodz, Poland)

I had plans to cover a lot of ground during my Saturday in Łodz. One thing I wanted to make sure I saw was the Radegast Holocaust Monument. It's roughly 3 miles outside the city center and I didn't know how long it make take me to do everything else on my list, so I decided to head there first. Ordered a Bolt from the train station. Took a couple of vibe shots while waiting for the car to show up.

The location now feels modest. It is set back on an elbow-shaped side street, maybe 300m from route 72 that runs east-west across the northern part of the city. The entrance is a somber, simple brick structure with what at first looks like a chimney on top.

I thought that might have been some reference to Łodz's industrial history. But Gemini tells me it is the Column of Remembrance, and symobolizes lives cut short.

The weather was appropriately grey while I was there. And I had the place virtually to myself.

(Not sure what that bus was doing parked nearby, but it was not any kind of group tour visiting the site.)

It was just me and the two people who parked their bikes out front.

Viewing things through my travel advisor prism, I noted that the entrance was easily accessible.

As you walk through the tunnel the different sections illuminate. I imagine it's largely a function of smart design for energy savings. But it also serves to guide you through the chapters of the location's grim history.

Out back is a station house and rail car, which you can peer into. The simplicity of the site is powerful.

There is some additional information provided out back. And the view toward the entry is haunting. Imagining the last view of those being shipped off to Chełmno or Auschwitz.

You could easily spend 45 minutes here reading everything provided. I stayed between 15-20 minutes, which was plenty to make an impression.

My experience taking the train from Warsaw to Łodz

The next few posts will cover my full day in Łodz. I got there at 10:20am and left at 8:27pm, so 10 hours covering as much ground as I could. But it all started with the train ride.

Last year Judy and I relied on the trains as our primary mode transportation, including the major legs from Krakow to Wrocław and Poznan to Gdansk, as well as some locals, like visiting Malbork Castle and checking out Sopot. So I felt pretty comfortable with taking the train to Łodz for a day trip.

Started smoothly enough with a bus to Warszawa Głowna where I quickly found the departures info and my designated platform.

Took a couple of vibe shots. What you would expect from a major train station.

Also found this allegedly helpful screen that suggested where you could expect your wagon to stop along the platform. Nice idea. Maybe eliminate the last minute scramble from one end of the platform to the other when you see your wagon number whizzing by you.

Well, I was in Wagon 7 and I lined myself up at edge of sector 2 & 3 and I don't think that's where the wagon ended up stopping.

But then, I also wasn't sure of anything once I boarded the train. Found seat 75 and it looked nothing like what I expected. It was one of those configurations of 4 seats facing each other around a table set in between them, which I knew I did not book. Hmm. Now what? The train was not full so I kind of wandered through a couple of cars until I found another seat 75. I sat down there. I was a little puzzled because, naively I guess, I was not expecting multiple seat 75s on this local train to Łodz.

After about 5-10 minutes the ticket taker came around, scanned my ticket, and told me I was in the wrong car. She pointed off in the direction I should look for my seat, and off I went. What I ended up learning this day -- and who knows if it's a univerally relevant lesson or just was the method in place for IC 1906 that morning -- is that while the wagons can have various numbers on them, only one of those numbers is actually correct.

e.g. this is not wagon 13, it's wagon 7 ...

... and this is not wagon 2, it's wagon 6 ...

... and I guess the number on the LED screen within the car should have been a clue, too?

End of the day, I got there. It's a short, comfortable ride that drops you in a nice looking train station. Clean, small platform area.

Clean, quiet waiting area at entry level.

Note well: the toilets there are coin-op - bring some small złoty change if you want to be able to use them

Snagged a shot of the dramatic entryway as I waited for my Bolt. Next post will focus on where that Bolt took me to start the day of sightseeing in Łodz.

A Busy Friday in Warsaw: Part IV - Evening Walkabout in Śródmieście & Frascati

After my afternoon tour focusing on the Jewish heritage sites across Warsaw, I had a couple hours to explore and familiarize myself with the downtown area that lies south of the Palace of Culture and Science, below the big east-west boulevard of Jerozolimskie. Mostly looping around what you can see here:

My starting point was Mysia 3.

I wanted to check out this seemingly cool retail cluster because they have a MUJI store. MUJI was not on my radar until last fall when I stumbled into one in Helsinki. I found it interesting to browse and also came back with some nice chocolate that Judy enjoyed. So I figured I'd swing through this one to see what's what. It was quite a bit smaller than the Helsinki location. And while I was tempted to pick up a journal, I resisted. I had kept myself to carry-on only for this trip and space would be at a premium when heading home. The journal wasn't so must-have that it made me buy it on day 2 of 12 day trip. I did feel compelled to take pics of these guys, though.

I hadn't eaten anything since the disappointing quesadilla from Elektrownia, so I meandered back toward my apartment and ... enjoyed another chicken sandwich from McDonald's.

Fueled up, my walkabout began in earnest with the objective of getting a sense of the Śródmieście area, which is where some important hotels are located and where you find something of a 'restaurant row' along Pozńanska.

Took a couple of general vibe shots ...

(PURO Hotel Warszawa Centrum)

Took a couple obligatory shots ...

And snapped a couple restaurant shots ...

(Señor Lucas Taquería)

(Prodiz Warszawski)

I was moving quickly, barely stopping to frame the shots so most were a little blurry and useless. But if I ever find myself back in Warsaw with Judy, some of the restaurants I'd want to try in particular (in addition to the two above) would be Viva Tango and Česká Kozlovna.

I had an early-ish train to catch in the morning, so I wrapped it up by ~10p. Next post in the queue will cover my day-trip to Łodz.

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.