Day 18 - Jewish Ghetto and Warsaw Uprising Memorials

Touring Jewish Ghetto and Memorials

Woke to rain outside our window but the towels draped over the window facing east gave us more time in bed with only waking at 7:00a instead of much earlier. The plan is to continue blogging and getting ready for the day as we wait for the rain to stop and the sun to shine for pictures. It WILL happen.

And we're off!

Here's the route if you want to map our walk of 7 miles round trip today including a 1/2 mile inside the cemetery.

Our hostel Dom Przy Rynku is a 40-bed hostel which houses children from dysfunctional families during the school-year week and renting out rooms when the children aren't here to raise money for its work. 

A piece of the Ghetto wall and markings on the ground delineating the location of the wall.

The 759 acres that the wall surrounded to house 450,000 Jews during its highest use.

above pictures: Our hostel, Rynek Nowego Miasta 4 to Ghetto Wall Remnant (Swietojerska &  Nowiniarska),

Falun Gong is a religious order which is not recognized in China and are called a sect. They are fighting for the right to be recognized as a legitimate organization and stop being persecuted for practicing qi gong.

above, Falun Gong protest in front of the Chinese Embassy on ul. Bonifraterska,

To escape the Nazis, they went through the sewer canals and came up behind German lines.

Krasinski Palace is located across the street and honors the fallen airmen and sailors.

above Warsaw Uprising Monument,

Ghetto Fallen Heroes Monument

Candles and stones left to honor and remember those who died.

Monument of Ghetto Heroes,

Remnant of the ghetto wall at the south end of the Zydowski and Powazkowski Jewish Cemeteries.

Symbolic graves of the Holocaust Victims

The ancients who are still barely standing. 

Graves crushed by Nazi tanks

Author Janusz Korczak cared for many Jewish children during the war. When they were taken from him to be sent to Treblinka, the Germans offered him his freedom. He declined and stayed with these children he loved and died with them in Treblinka.

Jewish Cemetery (Powazkowski),

Spinach cake with grilled vegetables at the Wiking restaurant in the Klif mall.  Nice cafeteria style with air conditioning and being able to sit and relax for a spell.

My feet were burning and my hips a little sore. So nice to sit down for lunch but so horrible to have to stand up and continue walking afterwards. We were determined NOT to give in to a taxi but walk our entire round trip.

Wiking cafeteria

Enjoyable ambience for the entire mall.

A revolving entry door using some space for advertising

Klif Mall on Okopowa for lunch,

Umschlagplatz railway station used to send thousands of Jews to extermination camps.

The first names of those who passed through this staging area on their way to death.

Umschlagplatz Memorial,

Several hundred bunkers were built inside the ghetto as hiding places. This was the largest of the ones that the Nazis located and over a hundred resistance fighters perished when it came under fire and they had no means to escape.

Enlarge to read the inscription

Inscription continued.

bunker monument (ul. Mila and Zamenhofa),

Runs in the center of the street on Konwiktorska

The Polish eagle and flag

Monument to the Fallen and Murdered in the East, and home again via a street with an interesting mural.

Wall mural "achtung, achtung"

Translation: "ALWAYS we give blood for you Warsaw"

We made it! Feeding the parking machine for tomorrow morning until 9am since parking tickets begin at 8am if you haven't paid in advance. Back in the room, we decide to climb the 73 steps to our room, the 44 steps up and down to the shower, and then stay in! Dinner will be a coffee and a ITG bar for each of us.

Tomorrow will be feeding the meter so we can have breakfast before heading out to Czestochowa in the morning...the holiest place in Poland...on our four hour drive back to Krakow.  Looking forward to two days of R&R before our final few days in Prague.