Poznan to Warsaw through Lodz

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

This was our last day in Poland and, as it was only (supposed to be) three hours from Poznan back to Warsaw, we decided to make a couple of stops along the way.

A short drive brought us to Gniezno, a small town with both national and religious importance in Poland.  In the tenth century, various regional tribes came together there to unite as Poles.  A royal baptism and the coronation of the first Polish king in the cathedral raised the town’s religious profile at about the same time. The cathedral’s centerpiece is the elaborate silver sarcophagus of St. Adalbert, a Bohemian missionary bishop who was beheaded while trying to convert less - than - receptive Prussian pagans.  A pair of outstanding twelfth-century bronze doors depicts the life of the martyred saint, and the cathedral also boasts a series of beautiful wrought-iron screens demarcating the side chapels.  Quiet Gniezno also has an attractive central square, which we enjoyed in a light morning mist.

That mist grew into a downpour once we were on our way to Lodz (pronounced woodge), Poland’s third-largest city, and our afternoon stop.  By the time we reached the Manufaktura, it was misty again, and we enjoyed walking around the former textile mill complex, which has morphed into an enormous shopping, entertainment, and office complex.  Part modern shopping mall like hundreds of others, part meticulous renovation, it really was impressive. 

We paid a quick visit to the old city center and then drove to the Radegast Station, just beyond the boundaries of the ghetto, where more than 200,000 European Jews were sealed off. Most of them eventually died, either from starvation or disease in the ghetto, or at extermination camps.  Radegast Station was their point of departure for the camps and it is now a quiet, very moving memorial to the dead.  In addition to displays depicting life in the ghetto and in the camps, there are thousands of pages of the original deportation lists.  Sitting on the tracks are three of the original cattle cars used to transport the suffering to their deaths.  When the Red Army liberated Lodz in 1945, only 880 Jewish survivors remained.  Despite all we know, all we’ve seen and read, it is still unimaginable…

More heavy rain, rural roadways, and lots of road construction slowed our progress back to Warsaw.  We were happy to call it a day and prepare for a long day of air travel tomorrow – Warsaw to Phoenix, via Helsinki and Chicago!  It’s been a great trip, and a real window on two countries’ amazing rebounds after disastrous histories.

 From Tom-Since this is coming to you from Helsinki we have made it this far. A bit of a hitch with our flight from Chicago to  PHX was probably fixed here, but we will see.

Poznan, Poland

Monday, October 15, 2012

We drove east this morning, headed back into Poland, and arriving in Poznan at noon.  Our apartment is right in the Old Town, on a pedestrian street just around the corner from the Stary Rynek, or market square.  I don’t know how we would have found it, or our designated parking lot, without our GPS.  As it has throughout this trip, it performed flawlessly finding each destination, and estimating our travel times accurately. 

We spent the afternoon walking through the Old Town, with its very pretty market square, home to the impressive town hall, the colorful  arcades of the fish sellers’ houses, and a beautiful array of decorated facades. 

 A short walk brought us to the Cathedral Island, the ecclesiastical district, bordered by two rivers.  Just a couple of doors down the street from our apartment is the parish church, originally founded by the Jesuits.  It’s over-the-top baroque interior could well be the definition of ornate.

Before I close for the day, I must write another paean to technology.  When we arrived in Poland two weeks ago, we switched out the SIM cards in our phones for inexpensive (about two dollars each!) cards for a Polish mobile network.  Thanks to them, we’ve been able to communicate via call and text with our landlords to arrange check-in times and procedures; we’ve also been tethered to each other, in case we became separated.  They even worked in Germany, which wasn’t supposed to happen – all in all, a great boon to smooth sailing.

Autumn in Berlin

Sunday, October 14, 2012

We covered a lot of ground on this lovely fall day in Berlin.  Having “mastered” the subway system(s) yesterday, we decided to layer on the buses today and, despite the fact that we had no good maps for them (or, perhaps, because we had no maps for them), the bus routes were easy to negotiate.

Because Tom wanted more photos of the Berlin Cathedral, that was our first stop, and we stayed for part of the Sunday service.  We were able to sit in the International Box, with simultaneous translation (in a Meryl Streep-like voice!) of the readings and prayers.  The cathedral is beautiful, with a soaring dome, beautiful mosaics, glowing brass candelabra, organ music, and fine soloists. The exterior of the building bore many gray “patches” that covered the bullet holes Tom remembered from his previous visit.

We continued on the top deck of a double decker city bus down Unter den Linden, past the Brandenburg Gate and Reichstag, and through the Tiergarten, with lovely views all the way.  Near the Zoo, we visited the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church.  The original church was bombed during the war, and some of the ruins can be viewed from the Memorial Hall, the original, beautifully mosaic-adorned vestibule, which contains photos and artifacts relating to the history and destruction of the church.  We also visited the new church, a beautiful contemporary space whose walls are constructed of blue glass tiles; the effect is striking.

As we were walking past the main entrance to the Zoo, police presence, blocked off streets, and music made it evident that something was about to happen.  We stopped long enough to see the leaders of the Berlin Marathon race by (far ahead of the pack we saw later!)  After a stroll and lunch in the Tiergarten, we walked to the museum dedicated to those who resisted the Nazis, both here and in other countries.  The care with which these stories are presented and documented again brought us face to face with modern Germany’s commitment to honor the best in its past, in the face of the worst.

In nearby Potsdamer Platz, we were wowed by the Sony Center, with its trademark canopy, “Mount Sony”, which is supposed to be reminiscent of Mount Fuji.  In its own right, it creates a great space, sheltering a lively plaza cradled by skyscrapers.   Back on Unter den Linden, we stopped at Bebel Platz at Humboldt University to peer through glass in the pavement down into the empty bookshelves, which serve as a silent reminder of the Nazi book burnings that occurred on that site.  Also on that square is the Catholic church of St. Hedwig, shaped like an upside down teacup and, like all Catholic churches in the city, it is set back off the street, a sign of their inferior status here.

The look of medieval Berlin is restored in a quarter known as Nikolaiviertel, centered on the oldest building in the city, the 13^th-centruy Nikolai Church. It’s a lovely, quaint area along the river, unlike any other we’ve seen here.

Our last sight of the day was also along the Spree.  The Eastside Gallery is billed as the world’s longest art gallery, and who would we be to dispute that?  It is actually composed of murals covering the longest remaining stretch of the Wall – almost a mile.  Artists from all over the world created their works in 1990 and have refreshed them every ten years since.  They are vibrant expressions of freedom , pleas for peace, and cries against oppression in many languages

Berlin has amazed us with its vitality, its amazing rebirth, and, repeatedly, the way it is using its past -- warts and all –as a lesson for its future.

Wall to Wall Berlin

Saturday, October 13, 2012

 

Once we (sort of) deciphered the varying lines and systems of public transport, we headed to the Berlin Wall Memorial, situated near the Nordbahnhof train station.  The station itself is part of the memorial, as it had been one of the “Ghost Stations” of the divided city.  Ghost stations were stops through which trains from West Berlin looped into the East.  They were not allowed to stop, street entrances were blocked and then “disappeared”; people eventually forgot that they existed.  As the tunnels and track systems were used as escape routes, they were eventually walled off.  Even the DDR guards were seen as likely escapees (after several of them made a run for it) so, as they monitored stations to prevent escapes, they, too were walled off in locked bunkers while on duty.  Emergency exits were sealed off, intensifying the danger for passengers, guards, and escapees, in case of fire or accident.  Above ground, we saw a couple of excellent films in the visitors’ center and walked among remnants of the Wall, guard towers, no-man’s land, and a memorial to each of those who died attempting to escape between 1961 and 1989.  It is so hard to imagine this city literally severed (along lines marked in the pavement), families separated, freedom denied – in our lifetimes…

Confident in our mastery of the subway, with only one course correction, we emerged at the famous Brandenburg Gate, symbol of the present vibrant city, and also of its divided past.  The Parisian Square, in front of the Gate, is a lively place now, with street performers, demonstrators, tour buses, and people walking freely back and forth through the barricade-free gate.

As we walked among the government buildings on the Platz der Republik, we heard a man yelling in the distance, right in front of the Reichstag.  It turned out that he was on fire, and soon fell to the ground, as passersby attempted to smother the flames.  After what seemed like an eternity, emergency vehicles arrived.  Judging by the fact that, when we returned to the area an hour later for our scheduled visit, the scene was still cordoned off and visually screened off, we feared the worst.   Another somber note…

 

After a walk along the Spree riverfront promenade and through of bit of the Tiergarten (Berlin’s Central Park), we passed through security for our visit to the Reichstag Dome.  This modern glass cupola sits atop the neoclassical Reichstag building, where Germany’s legislature meets. A GPS-driven audio guide provided interesting narration about both the panorama of the city below us, the government, and the building itself as we ascended and descended the spiral ramps to and from the Dome’s topmost viewing platform.

We ended the day at another site dedicated to another dark period of Germany’s recent history.  The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe was the first German government-sponsored Holocaust memorial.  Above ground, there are 2,711 gray monotone rectangular pillars of varying heights.  The narrow, gray brick paths between them undulate and it would be easy to get lost, both physically and in thought – if there were not so many young people running around playing hide and seek or mounting the pillars to take pictures or jump between them.  Perhaps on a school day…  Nevertheless, the displays at the Visitors’ Center, beneath the outdoor monument, were thought-provoking and heartbreaking.  The focus on individual testimonies and on specific families’ stories brought the horror that gripped a continent and took millions of lives home with great impact.

We walked to the train Potsdamer Platz, past yet more outdoor exhibits about the Wall which, for almost forty years, cut this plaza in two and left it a deserted no-man’s land.  Now, it’s akin to Berlin’s Times Square, an enormous, high-energy commercial, transportation, and entertainment center.

 The twentieth century was not easy on this city, but, as the profusion of construction cranes on the skyline and the life in the streets attest, Berlin is on the move.  Even so, the past is present everywhere in this city, as is the determination to face it and learn from it.