We spent part of the morning deciding what to do and where to go before returning to our apartment in Krakow. Wednesday we will travel to Gdansk. Thursday we have a tour planned and Friday we will return to Krakow. I booked the train and the tour and off we went to tour more of Warsaw.
One of the photos commemorates the Warsaw uprising. I remember learning about this but not to the point that it really made sense. It was August of 1944 and Poland had been occupied by the Nazi’s since 1939. As the Red Army approached, the Polish resistance felt that it was a perfect time to rid Warsaw of the Nazi’s and help the allies to victory. They also wanted to prevent Poland from becoming communist and being controlled by the Soviet Union.
Stalin decide to halt the Red Army from advancing on Warsaw and allowed the German forces to regroup and overwhelm the resistance. As punishment for the uprising, the German forces executed thousands and destroyed all of the buildings in Warsaw. Poland did fall into Soviet control and remained there until 1989. Warsaw was rebuilt, some of it very beautifully but one cannot miss the buildings that will forever have the look of government.
Graffiti is everywhere in Warsaw as it was in Krakow. This graffiti remains from the Cold War times. One of the few ways to protest communism was to deface its already bland government buildings. Much of it reminds me of the graffiti on the former Berlin Wall.
