Before the war, Warsaw was the vibrant, diverse capital of Poland, with its 1.3 million people featuring Europe’s largest Jewish community of over 350,000 residents (about 30 percent of the city's total population). My maternal grandparents were from Lublin, Poland about 173 km from Warsaw, and I was fortunate to visit there in 2017 and again in 2019. Ever since I first visited Lublin, I wanted to visit Warsaw to take a closer look at Jewish life both before and after the war. Last July, on my way to the 2026 Lubliners Reunion, I spent four days exploring the city.
Warsaw was nearly
destroyed during World War II. Heavy bombing devastated much of the city during
the German invasion in September 1939. What remained was demolished after the
Warsaw Uprising, the 1944 the military revolt by the Polish Home Army to free
Warsaw from German occupation, leaving nearly 85 percent of the city in ruins.
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| Reconstructed Old Town in Warsaw |
Museums and a Concert
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| Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews |
Our first morning began with a visit to the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews located in the former Warsaw Ghetto area. The museum is set in a park with monuments of wartime heroes, including the large Monument to the Warsaw Ghetto Heroes commemorating ghetto partisans, a bronze bench commemorating Jan Karski, a Polish diplomat who informed Allied leaders about the extermination of Jews during the Holocaust, and a black granite monument honoring ghetto underground archivist Emanuel Ringelblum.
Opened in 2014, the Polin (Hebrew and Yiddish for “Poland”) Museum chronicles more than 1,000 years of Jewish life in Poland. Each of eight galleries represents a different period from medieval settlers through the golden age of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth to the destruction and rebirth of the community after the war. Among other things, I learned that Ashkenazi Jews who make up the majority of Jews in the United States and a large portion of the worldwide Jewish population, migrated eastward from Western Europe beginning in the 11th and 12th centuries to escape persecution. They were offered protection and were welcomed by rulers who needed their economic, commercial, and literacy skills. The Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth of 1569-1648 became home to the largest Jewish community in the world.
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| Monument to the Warsaw Ghetto Heros |
An interesting exhibit at the Museum recreates a street scene
with shops and a cinema from the years between the two world wars, where we
learned about contemporary Jewish culture, political movements and Yiddish
literature. The largest exhibition in the museum covers the Second World War
and the Holocaust. The Holocaust (1939–1945) gallery focuses on separation,
life in the shadow of death, and the destruction of 90% of Poland's Jewish
population.
Later that day we visited the Warsaw Rising Museum dedicated
to the Warsaw Uprising in August to October 1944. Not to be confused with the
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943, the Warsaw Uprising by the Polish underground
resistance intended to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. Polish
casualties were catastrophic, 200,000 Polish civilians were killed, mostly from
mass executions. After fighting for 63 days with little outside support, the
Polish Home Army surrendered to the Germans in October1944. Through multimedia exhibitions, we learned
about the 63 days of fighting, the lives of soldiers and civilians, and the
destruction of Warsaw. Most chilling were photos of demolished Warsaw in spring 1945.
After the surrender, the Germans deported the remaining civilians
from the city to transit camps outside of Warsaw and later relocated them for
forced labor or to concentration camps. Fewer than 1,000 residents remained in
the city, and very few structures were left standing. The Russian Army took
over the city in January 1945 and began the Communist occupation of Poland for
the next 40 years.
That evening both Kirsten and I were ready to lighten the
mood and enjoyed attending a piano concert featuring the music of Polish
composer Frédéric Chopin. Held at the Fryderyk Concert Hall in Old Town, its
nineteenth century-inspired interior contributed to the Chopin experience. Even
the pianist, a diminutive older gentleman, looked straight out of central
casting with his pristine tuxedo and wild gray hair. He played gracefully and
brilliantly through a ballade, scherzo and waltz. We thoroughly enjoyed the
hour-long concert with sparkling wine served at intermission.
Warsaw Today
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| University of Warsaw |
Żagiel (the Sail), featuring sweeping, curved glass walls inspired by an eagle’s wing to symbolize freedom and Warsaw's dynamic post-war rebirth.
Today, the Jewish population in Warsaw is a tiny fraction of its population before the war. Warsaw’s active Jewish Community is estimated to be between 3,000 and 5,000 members, with about 10,000 people identifying with Jewish heritage or culture. The only remaining synagogue is the Nożyk Synagogue. Under the Russian occupation, the synagogue was closed in 1968 by the Communist authorities as a part of a wave of anti-Semitism. Jews were “dezionized” from their workplaces, and many were even stripped of their citizenship and told to exit the country for good. Although damaged during the war, the synagogue was repaired and reopened after the war as a place of worship and a gathering space.
It felt surreal walking the streets of central Warsaw when a
mere 80 years ago the city was in ruins and hundreds of thousands of its residents
had perished. Yet, one can only wonder, “what if …”
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| Sculpture commemorating Poland's Solidarity Labor Movement in the 1980s |
