Since 1596 Warsaw has been the capital of Poland. In Polish Warsaw (“Warszawa”) literally means “belonging to Warsz”—a 12th-13th-century nobleman who owned land in the Mariensztat district. Warsaw was home to Europe’s largest Jewish population—around 337,000 in 1939, and 445,000 by 1941. When Germany invaded Poland on September 1st 1939, the Nazis quickly surrounded the capital city and launched a deadly blitzkreig that claimed many lives and destroyed buildings. The Germans were now in control of the country and in November 1939, an edict issued by Hans Frank, the Governor General, decreed all Jewish men, women and children over the age of ten had to wear a Star of David armband to identify themselves. All Jewish shops had to be similarly marked with a Star of David, and severe restrictions were placed on the Jewish population. Further laws limited the amount of money Jews were able to withdraw, with strict rules on buying produce, letting and owning property and travel. In March 1940, groups of Polish gangs launched a series of violent attacks on the Jewish population—stealing money, gold, food, clothes and anything they could find of any value. These attacks lasted for eight days until the Germans intervened. In February 1940, the...

Warsaw

The Treblinka uprising put a stop to the Holocaust’s second deadliest camp.

Warsaw, Poland, Office, Larry Oltmanns (Skidmore, Owings and Merrill) & AZO, 192m with spire, 159m roof, 2006

June 26, 2019 We met our driver at 6:30 AM for transportation to the Krakow John Paul II Airport. We had a short flight to Warsaw--about 40 minutes--and were picked up by Kasia and a driver who drove very, very, very fast. We left the airport and headed straight to the Treblinka Extermination Camp, completing what is usually a two-hour drive in an hour-and-a-half. Needless to say, I was a little on edge when we arrived. Treblinka was a Nazi extermination camp from July 1942 until August 1943. In that 14-month period, around 800,000 Jews were killed in its gas chambers. About 300,000 were from Warsaw, and the other half million were from all over Europe. In addition, 2,000 Roma people, whom we would call gypsies, were also killed there. Overall, Treblinka was the second deadliest Nazi camp after Auschwitz. Besides the gas chamber deaths, many of the inmates who worked in the penal camp portion, either in the gravel pit or cutting down trees in the forest for the crematoria, also died. In the three years the camp was operational, about half of the 20,000 laborers died from hunger, disease, overwork (over 12 hours/day of exhausting labor), and excessive punishment. Most of those who lived were evacuated to other camps when Treblinka was liquidated, and many died in those camps. Treblinka was divided into two parts. Treblinka I was the labor camp opened in September 1941. The workers were mostly Polish civilians who were arrested at will and sentenced to work for at least six months in the gravel quarry, which supplied material for road construction.Conditions were horrendous. Treblinka II was the extermination camp, one of three Nazi camps specifically built to facilitate mass murder. We started our tour at a bare-bones visitor center looking at maps, seeing a few artifacts, getting background information, and watching three short videos. There were not a huge number of barracks built at Treblinka like there were in Auschwitz. Only 1,000 prisoners were in the camp at a time. Everyone else who arrived was herded straight from the train to the gas chamber without even being recorded. None of the gas chambers remain at the site. The Nazis tried to destroy all the evidence of what happened here, dismantling everything. They even plowed the ground and seeded it with grass and flowers before they left. Treblinka I At first, the bodies from both parts of the camp were buried in mass graves, but when the Nazis realized bodies could be used as evidence against them, they had prisoners dig them up and burn them in huge cremation pits that can be seen in the reproduction below. There were no crematoria here like the ones at Auschwitz--just open pits of burning bodies. Treblinka II For many years after the war, not much was known about this camp, but interviews with survivors and witnesses, aerial photographic analysis, excavations, and other investigations slowly began to reveal the story. Perhaps the most famous survivor of Treblinka, a Pole from Czestochowa named Samuel Willenberg, was part of a group assigned to sort through the belongings of the victims. He told researchers about a fake "hospital" known as Lazarett. The building hid an execution pit into which victims would be shot or thrown in alive. Willenberg wrote: By the way, Willenberg was part of an armed revolt in August 1943 and succeeded in escaping the camp about a hundred others. He made it to Warsaw and was part of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. Quotes from other survivors: One of the gas chamber floor tiles with the mark of a Polish manufacturing company is on display: When we finished there, we headed down the road to Treblinka II, the extermination camp. I still can't get over the huge disconnect between this idyllic Eden and the hell of 1942-1943. I am having a hard time even going through my photos and writing this post. If you can't read the print below, it says [misspellings are theirs]: "There was here a Nazi extermination camp. Between July 1942 and August 1943 more than 800,000 Jews from Poland, USRR, Jougoslavia, Czechoslomakia, Bulgaria, Austria, France, Belgium, Germany, and Greece were murdered. On August the 2nd 1943 the prisoners organized an armed revolt which was crashed in blood by the Nazis hangmen. In a penitenciary labour camp at a distance of 2 km from here the Nazis murdered an estimated number of 10,000 Poles between 1941 and 1944." Those words are engraved in stone in English, Russian, German, Polish, Hebrew, and French. In his trial in 1970, Franz Stangl (the camp commandant who had fled to Brazil after the war and was eventually tracked down by Simon Wiesenthal) was asked how many people could be killed in Treblinka in a day. He replied: "According to my estimation, a transport of thirty freight cars or with 3,000 people was liquidated in three hours. When the work lasted for about fourteen hours, 12,000 to 15,000 people were annihilated. There were many days that the work lasted from the early morning until the evening. . . . I have done nothing to anybody that was not my duty. My conscience is clear." Stangl was sentenced to life in prison and died of heart failure six months later. A warning in concrete that we are now entering the oboz zagłady--the extermination camp. At this point, our guide Kasia pretty much leaves us to experience Treblinka on our own. One thing about Treblinka is that it is off the beaten path and much less known and/or publicized than Auschwitz. Where Auschwitz was crowded and we had to join a tour in order to go inside, Treblinka is almost empty. The silence is eerie. To our right are concrete blocks that mark the train tracks that took prisoners to within a few hundred yards of to the gas chambers. A cobblestone path runs parallel to the tracks. Our guide told us that the path is covered with rocks to intentionally make the way hard and uncomfortable for visitors. We notice what looks like caution tape strung between trees to keep tourists from going into the forest. And while it might indeed serve that purpose, as we approach . . . . . . we see that it has names written on it. We assume these are some of the victims. The ribbon might also represent the two rows of barbed wire fences that surrounded the camp. The inner fence was covered with tree branches to keep curious eyes from seeing the activities happening within. We come to the area where the trains would have stopped to unload their human cargo. It was here that a few prisoners were pulled out to be workers, and the rest were told to remove their clothes to prepare for "disinfection" before they were herded naked down a path sarcastically named Himmelfahrtstrasse by the Nazis--the Road to Heaven--a path that ended at the gas chambers. Rock pillars are evenly spaced like sentries on one side of the symbolic tracks. We emerge into a large clearing. Eleven large rocks stand guard. Each has the name of a country engraved in Polish on its front. From left to right: Macedonia, Greece, Austria, Germany, Bulgaria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, France, Yugoslavia, Belgium, USSR. These are countries whose inhabitants' ashes are scattered in this strange place. Ahead of us we see a large stone memorial surrounded by thousands of irregular greyish-white stones. From afar, the stones look like old, falling down tombstones. A marker tells visitors this is "The road of death leading to the gas chambers." Treblinka opened with three gas chambers, but by the end there were as many as ten, and some sources say fourteen. Unlike Auschwitz, where the Nazis used the gas Zyklon B (hydrogen cyanide) to kill their victims, the gas chambers here were filled with carbon monoxide from engine exhaust that traveled through pipes from an army tank into the room. Among the first victims were 245,000 Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto. We turn from the ominous warning to walk towards the 26-foot-tall granite tower that looms over everything else. There is a crack that runs down its middle and a slab on top. Our guide says it represents Jerusalem's Wailing Wall. Close to the tower is a stone with the emotional, desperate, resolute plea "Never Again" inscribed in Polish, Hebrew, Russian, English, French, and German. A mass of contorted, skeleton-like bodies is carved into the front and sides of the top slab. We walk around to the back . . . . . . and see a seven-arm menorah. The traditional Hanukkah menorah has nine arms. This version is a "temple menorah," the kind used in the temple in Jerusalem and the symbol of Judaism long before the Maccabean Revolt. This is the menorah found on the coat of arms of the modern state of Israel. Propped against this back wall is a fresh-flower wreath in the shape of a Star of David with Hebrew writing on the ribbon. At the very peak of the killing period, as many as 17,000 people were killed each day. Now 17,000 stones of varying sizes and shapes surround the center monument. They are placed are in five different circular areas--the burial sites for the victims' bodies and later for their ashes. The stones represent the cities, villages, and districts whose citizens lost their lives at Treblinka. There are so many. Most are unmarked, as anonymous as the 800,000 dead. SO many--one day of genocide. There are wide, grassy gaps between the groupings, like the fields between towns or oceans between countries. Pits of black basalt, a rock created in the furnace of a volcano, mark cremation pits. Small, white "remembrance stones" are balanced on top of the pieces of basalt. The ribbon bearing names of some of the dead encircles the field. I read the names on the stones. Three hundred of the 17,000 identify a city or village from which the Jews arrived. Many of them are places I have never heard of. But here and there I come across a place we've been, a name that's familiar, and my heart aches. Among all the stones, only one bears the name of a person: Janusz Korczak. Beneath his name is the name "Henryk Goldsimit," which was his real name, Janusz Korczak being his pen name. Beneath those names are the Polish words i dzieci, which translate to "and children." There is probably no greater Polish hero of the death camps than Janusz Korczak, a Polish-Jewish educator, pediatrician, and children's author. He was the director of a Warsaw orphanage that became part of the Warsaw Ghetto. In August 1942 he was notified that the 192 children in his care were being transported to Treblinka. At that time he was offered sanctuary by the Polish underground, but he refused, saying he must stay with his children. One story says that when Korczak arrived at the railway station, an SS officer recognized him as the author of his favorite children's book and offered to help him escape, but again Korczak refused. He said he must stay with his children. The train took Korczak and the children to their deaths. At first, we are alone in this graveyard. Eventually two or three more people join us, but we walk quietly, not calling out to each other, speaking in low voices when we need to communicate. It is a record-setting day of heat, almost 100° F. The heat intensifies the heaviness we feel. Here and there I see timid bits of color, and I remember that the Nazis seeded this place with wildflowers after they plowed it under, but someone says those were lupines. These are not lupines, but rather the typical wildflowers that grow among weeds. A Venezuelan flag is tied to a post, and I wonder what the story is. This place is bursting with stories. I notice a lone sign and walk over to see what it says. We have been walking around for a while, and it is time to move on to the other half of the camp, Treblinka I, the work camp. It's about a mile walk down a road that was named "the Black Road" by the prisoners because of the horrible things that happened here. We pass the gravel pit, which looks quite benign--again, a huge disconnect from what occurred here 75+ years ago. I guess the land has had some time to heal, and I'm glad about that. Some things remain in Treblinka I. For example, this was the site of the "magazyn," or a storehouse used to store tools used by inmates. A sign in another spot notes that there was a "barrack for the sick" that no longer survives, but that imaging has revealed part of the foundation underground. People sent here didn't receive medical care. The majority were executed if they didn't recover quickly on their own. Saul Kuperhand, a Treblinka survivor, wrote, "One barracks to which none of us wanted to transfer was the quarantine bloc. By no stretch of the imagination did that barracks constitute a hospital or clinic. Rather, it was a vestibule to the crematorium." The kitchen cellar remains. The diet of the prisoners usually consisted of 1/2 liter of watery soup or porridge for breakfast; 1 liter of watery soup for lunch (made from potato peels, turnip, or cabbage); and a cup of black "coffee," 10-20 g of bread, and occasionally a small bit of margarine or marmalade. A sign near the well has this quote from another survivor: "They find a grenade on him . . . . They were to take him to the abattoir but he jumped into the well. The Germans begged him to get out. They lowered a chain with a plank for him to sit on. He stayed there for several hours. They pleaded with him and promised to exonerate him . . . . They lifted him out. He confessed and got a guarantee that he would be pardoned. They lay him down and chopped him up with an axe, while he was still alive." Incomprehensible. On the other side of Treblinka I is another monument--three or four rows of crosses. A red rock memorial erected in 2014 notes that these are "In memory of Roma and Sinti murdered by the German occupiers in the forced-labour camp and in the extermination camp during the Second World War. Pain and suffering of the victims took that land, which hides the ashes of thousands of innocent people. We bend our heads over your martyr's death." After the anonymity of the stone graveyard, it is almost a shock to see names of the dead written on these crosses. Of course, there are just a few hundred, not even close to the 10,000 or more who died in the labor camp, but still, it is almost a relief to see that some of the dead are named. At a 2010 interview in his apartment in Tel Aviv, Treblinka survivor Samuel Willenberg said, "I live two lives, one is here and now and the other is what happened there. It never leaves me. It stays in my head. It goes with me always." Willenberg died February 19, 2016, three days after his 93rd birthday. We walk back to the car, knowing how lucky we are. READING Our guide Kasia told us that her grandmother's best friend and children, who were Jewish, were killed at Treblinka. When Kasia learned more about them and their story, suddenly the Jews became "her people," and she started to study Jewish history, Jews in Poland, and Treblinka. I think reading the stories of the individuals who are associated with Treblinka is an important part of the experience. The Nazis did everything they could to wipe them out, to make them "non-people." We have to fight against that. The Last Jew of Treblinka: A Memoir by Chil Rajchman Only 160 pp. long, this is a quick but horrifying read about a camp that existed primarily for the murder of Jews. The only way to survive even a few hours open arrival was to be selected from among the “cargo” to perform one of the needed functions related to the camp—cut off the hair as the prisoners arrived, sort the clothing and belongings, pull the teeth of the dead, bury the bodies—and then unbury them when it was decided to burn them to remove evidence, etc. How anyone could come out of this ordeal with any shred of sanity is beyond my understanding. When Rajchman arrived in Treblinka as part of the Warsaw Ghetto liquidation, he was one of the "lucky" ones selected to cut the hair off women on their way to the gas chambers, pull the gold teeth from dead bodies, and burn corpses. He was part of the Treblinka Revolt in 1943 and managed to escape. Originally written in Yiddish and published in 1945, the book was not published in English until 2011. King of Children: The Life and Death of Janusz Korczak by Betty Jean Lifton This book was recommended to us by our tour guide. It is the biography of the only man named among the 17,000 stones in the Treblinka II memorial. The back cover of my copy reads: "Known throughout Europe as a Pied Piper of destitute children prior to the onslaught of World War II, he assumed legendary status when on August 6, 1942, after refusing offers for his own safety, he defiantly led the orophans under his care in the Warsaw Ghetto to the trains that would take them to Treblinka." Meticulously researched, this book is an interesting, though sometimes plodding, look into the life of a rather quirky man whose own early traumatic childhood and young adult experiences greatly influenced his work. The section about the Warsaw Ghetto was heartbreaking. It was almost as bad as life at Auschwitz as far as starvation, freezing, and cruel treatment goes. The author is herself a psychologist and a leading advocate of adoption reform. King Matt the First by Janusz Korczak Of the many children's books Korczak wrote, this is his most popular and the first to be translated into English. In fact, it is said to be as popular in Poland as Peter Pan was in the English-speaking world. There is much for adults in the story as well as it is a transparent allegory of political and social events in Poland. The book tells the story of a child prince whose parents die, making him the king at a very young age. Refusing to give up his power to adults, he enacts many reforms, particularly those that involve children, and including giving children chocolate every day and sending the adults back to school while the children take over. Some of his reforms work and some do not, and in the end he is overthrown and exiled to a desert island. At times I loved the "turning of the tables" and the creative solutions King Matt came up with, and at other times I was tired of what seemed entirely nonsensical. Children, however, might be delighted by that nonsense. A book on my nightstand that I will come back to review after I have read it: Surviving Treblinka by Samuel Willenberg From Amazon.com: "The author describes his experiences at the Treblinka death camp, explains how he and a small group of prisoners escaped, and recounts his life as a fugitive in Warsaw." The photo on the right is Willenberg at a 2013 visit to Treblinka.

Old Town in Warsaw - UNESCO heritage site

June 26-28, 2019 After flying to Warsaw from Krakow, we spent most of the first day at Treblinka and then checked in to "Stone Steps Apartment," which acted as our base in Poland's capital city for the next two days. The apartment is at one end of the charming Old Town Market Place, a square that is the oldest part of Old Town Warsaw. The square almost made it through the war, but immediately after the Warsaw Uprising, which began on August 1, 1944, and lasted 63 days, the Nazis completely decimated the city, systematically burning or blowing up every single structure in Warsaw, including private homes, churches, and historically significant buildings. By the time they were done, 85% of Warsaw's historic center was gone, along with 150,000 of the city's citizens who were killed in the suppression. Old Town Market Place, with its roots in the late 13th century, was obliterated. The arrow below shows the location of Old Town Market Place: Here is the square from a different angle. (These photos are from information stands that are placed around the Old Town district of Warsaw.) Eisenhower visiting Warsaw's Market Square. Photo from Wikimedia Commons These are photos of other areas of the city that our guide had: Some believed the remains of the city should be left as a memory of the war and that the Polish capital should be relocated. However, in one of the most moving stories of post-war Europe, this city square and surrounding Old Town buildings were meticulously rebuilt by locals during a five-year period ending in 1952. They salvaged what they could from the rubble and used 22 historical city landscapes painted by Italian artist Bernardo Bellotto in the late 1700s and other historical documents and photographs to reconstruct their beloved Warsaw. While many were employed in the reconstruction, it is said that the entire population of the city, and indeed of the country, contributed labor and materials. And how was this massive building project funded? The sole source of financing was donations made by mostly Polish people to the Social Fund for the Rebuilding of the Capital (SFOS). In 1980, Warsaw's Old Town was selected to be part of UNESCO's World Cultural Heritage List. Our view from the front steps of our apartment was this: Compare that photo to this one from 1945. The tallest three-window level on the left of the above picture is the re-creation of the three-window level below. Photo from Wikimedia Commons On our second morning in Warsaw, Bob took this photo: Here's my panoramic shot of the square: Warsaw is indeed an extraordinary city with extraordinary people. Well, as you can guess from the pop-up umbrellas sprinkled around the square, the ground level of the buildings is a mixture of restaurants and shops, and the upper levels are apartments and offices. After some trouble connecting with the landlord, we finally got the key and found the right address. I could hardly believe this was where we got to live for the next few days! Our apartment, up a flight of stairs, matched the building's exterior: beautiful and well-maintained. The view from our bedroom window was of a side street that leads to the central square of Old Town: Why, yes, that is a Polish pottery shop just across the sidewalk from our apartment. I spent a fair amount of time in that shop before we left Warsaw. My purchases were sadly restricted because of lack of sufficient luggage space, but I did manage to bring several pieces home. But I digress. Everything about our accommodations was perfect--except the fact that our rooms were unbearably HOT. As I mentioned in my last post about our visit to Treblinka, it was a day of record-setting heat, with temperatures reaching almost 100° F--extremely unusual for this area of Poland. Because it was so unusual, the apartment did not have air conditioning. There was an oscillating fan, but it was definitely not enough. At 9:45 PM, it was still 87° outside, and it felt at least that hot inside our apartment. While the temperature did not drop below 80° until the early morning hours, the good news was that the temperature was almost 25° lower the following day, and our second night in the apartment was deliciously cool. After we checked in and got ourselves settled, we headed out to find some dinner. Two of our criteria were that the restaurant be nearby and cool. Restauracja Romantyczna, one of the restaurants in the square, seemed to fit those requirements. (We asked the waiter for the coolest spot, and he took us to the bar in the basement.) Besides, it was rated #8 in Warsaw by Yelp. It was a romantic setting (in spite of being in a bar). Fresh flowers graced not only the table, but my beet salad as well: For my main dish, I enjoyed delicious pierogi filled with wild boar and venison: . . . but Bob was not impressed by his venison carpaccio, rating it only a 3 out of 5 . . . . . . which was the same rating he gave his pork knuckle: Oh well. Ice cream after dinner at a little shop nearby helped satisfy our needs. In fact, there was ice cream after just about every meal we had in Warsaw. (We had a lot of needs to satisfy.) Here is a sampling of the dozens of ice cream shops we saw: Besides ice cream, another notable landmark outside our apartment in the city square was this mermaid statue. You would never confuse the Mermaid of Poland with Copenhagen's Little Mermaid, although one legend says they are sisters who got separated in the Baltic Sea. According to Wikipedia, "There are several legends about the mermaid. The city's literature and tour guides say the mermaid decided to stay after stopping on a riverbank near the Old Town. Fishermen noticed something was creating waves, tangling nets, and releasing their fish. They planned to trap the animal, then heard her singing and fell in love. A rich merchant trapped and imprisoned the mermaid. Hearing her cries, the fishermen rescued her. Ever since the mermaid, armed with a sword and a shield, has been ready to help protect the city and its residents." Don't mess with this lady. She'll take your head off. On our first full day in Warsaw, our guide took us to eat lunch at a restaurant that a Polish friend in the States recommended: Restauracja Zapiecek. It was so good that we ended up eating dinner there as well. Here we are in the restaurant with our stellar guide, Pawel--truly one of the best guides we've ever had. More on him in future posts. Here is a view of the restaurant's interior. How could we not get what "our Grandmothers recommend"? Both Pawel and I ordered #4. Pawel instructed me to put a dollop of cream cheese on each pierogi. These fruit-filled pierogi are considered a main course in Poland, but for me it was like being allowed to have dessert for lunch. It was outstanding, and I'm sure the taste was enhanced by the beautiful Polish pottery the pierogi were served on. Bob had about six different kids of savory pierogi. The best were the ones filled with mushrooms and some others filled with local cheeses. Bob also ordered white sausage--denser and more flavorful than the German weisswurst. The food was so good that we couldn't stop talking about it. By dinner, we were ready for a second visit and another go at the menu. This time I ordered potato pancakes smothered in mushroom sauce, a dish I had several times in Poland and which never disappointed. At Restauracja Zapiecek, however, this dish was beyond all the others. It was incredible. In my notes I gave it a 10+. I didn't write down a rating for Bob's pork ribs. I'm sure they were good, but there's no way they were as good as my dish. Later in the afternoon Pawel also took us to Cukierna Pawlowicz, a donut shop. A donut shop, I thought. Huh. Not what I associate with Poland. How good could it be? Actually, pretty darn good. Based on Pawel's recommendation, we had a rose jam-filled donut and a wild blueberry-filled donut. They far exceeded our expectations. It didn't hurt that they were so fresh that they were still warm. Pawel said there are often lines a block long at this shop. This donut shop is a place we likely would not have found on our own. Having a guide who understood our love of good food made Warsaw an even more fun destination for us. READING: I think my love and admiration for Poland began fifteen years ago when I read Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw. At 635 pages, it is a commitment, but Norman Davies has written an amazing history of one of the most anguishing events in modern history, the courageous, desperate, and ultimately disastrously unsuccessful attempt by the Polish underground to overthrow the Nazis, who had Warsaw in their horrible claws. Davis begins by giving critical background about the four key populations involved: the Allies, the German occupiers, the Russians, and, of course, the Polish people. Part two covers, day by day, the 63 days of the uprising and the crushing response, including the shameful failure of the Allies and the Russians to fulfill their promises of aid, which cleared the way for the subsequent takeover of Poland by the Soviet Union. The final section describes in detail Hitler's merciless revenge after the rebels were defeated. This is a book that will make you question your view of the morality of war, and specifically of some of our own country's choices in World War II, but it is also a tribute to a people who risked everything for freedom. When they lost everything, the few who were left ultimately rose again to rebuild their beautiful country.

Warsaw - Heritage and history, synagogues, museums and areas - Warsaw: the name alone evokes the martyrdom of the ghetto following the April 1943 insurrection. Events here shall remain firmly fixed in the conscience

The photographs show Warsaw destroyed in the aftermath of World War II.

June 26, 2019 We met our driver at 6:30 AM for transportation to the Krakow John Paul II Airport. We had a short flight to Warsaw--about 40 minutes--and were picked up by Kasia and a driver who drove very, very, very fast. We left the airport and headed straight to the Treblinka Extermination Camp, completing what is usually a two-hour drive in an hour-and-a-half. Needless to say, I was a little on edge when we arrived. Treblinka was a Nazi extermination camp from July 1942 until August 1943. In that 14-month period, around 800,000 Jews were killed in its gas chambers. About 300,000 were from Warsaw, and the other half million were from all over Europe. In addition, 2,000 Roma people, whom we would call gypsies, were also killed there. Overall, Treblinka was the second deadliest Nazi camp after Auschwitz. Besides the gas chamber deaths, many of the inmates who worked in the penal camp portion, either in the gravel pit or cutting down trees in the forest for the crematoria, also died. In the three years the camp was operational, about half of the 20,000 laborers died from hunger, disease, overwork (over 12 hours/day of exhausting labor), and excessive punishment. Most of those who lived were evacuated to other camps when Treblinka was liquidated, and many died in those camps. Treblinka was divided into two parts. Treblinka I was the labor camp opened in September 1941. The workers were mostly Polish civilians who were arrested at will and sentenced to work for at least six months in the gravel quarry, which supplied material for road construction.Conditions were horrendous. Treblinka II was the extermination camp, one of three Nazi camps specifically built to facilitate mass murder. We started our tour at a bare-bones visitor center looking at maps, seeing a few artifacts, getting background information, and watching three short videos. There were not a huge number of barracks built at Treblinka like there were in Auschwitz. Only 1,000 prisoners were in the camp at a time. Everyone else who arrived was herded straight from the train to the gas chamber without even being recorded. None of the gas chambers remain at the site. The Nazis tried to destroy all the evidence of what happened here, dismantling everything. They even plowed the ground and seeded it with grass and flowers before they left. Treblinka I At first, the bodies from both parts of the camp were buried in mass graves, but when the Nazis realized bodies could be used as evidence against them, they had prisoners dig them up and burn them in huge cremation pits that can be seen in the reproduction below. There were no crematoria here like the ones at Auschwitz--just open pits of burning bodies. Treblinka II For many years after the war, not much was known about this camp, but interviews with survivors and witnesses, aerial photographic analysis, excavations, and other investigations slowly began to reveal the story. Perhaps the most famous survivor of Treblinka, a Pole from Czestochowa named Samuel Willenberg, was part of a group assigned to sort through the belongings of the victims. He told researchers about a fake "hospital" known as Lazarett. The building hid an execution pit into which victims would be shot or thrown in alive. Willenberg wrote: By the way, Willenberg was part of an armed revolt in August 1943 and succeeded in escaping the camp about a hundred others. He made it to Warsaw and was part of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. Quotes from other survivors: One of the gas chamber floor tiles with the mark of a Polish manufacturing company is on display: When we finished there, we headed down the road to Treblinka II, the extermination camp. I still can't get over the huge disconnect between this idyllic Eden and the hell of 1942-1943. I am having a hard time even going through my photos and writing this post. If you can't read the print below, it says [misspellings are theirs]: "There was here a Nazi extermination camp. Between July 1942 and August 1943 more than 800,000 Jews from Poland, USRR, Jougoslavia, Czechoslomakia, Bulgaria, Austria, France, Belgium, Germany, and Greece were murdered. On August the 2nd 1943 the prisoners organized an armed revolt which was crashed in blood by the Nazis hangmen. In a penitenciary labour camp at a distance of 2 km from here the Nazis murdered an estimated number of 10,000 Poles between 1941 and 1944." Those words are engraved in stone in English, Russian, German, Polish, Hebrew, and French. In his trial in 1970, Franz Stangl (the camp commandant who had fled to Brazil after the war and was eventually tracked down by Simon Wiesenthal) was asked how many people could be killed in Treblinka in a day. He replied: "According to my estimation, a transport of thirty freight cars or with 3,000 people was liquidated in three hours. When the work lasted for about fourteen hours, 12,000 to 15,000 people were annihilated. There were many days that the work lasted from the early morning until the evening. . . . I have done nothing to anybody that was not my duty. My conscience is clear." Stangl was sentenced to life in prison and died of heart failure six months later. A warning in concrete that we are now entering the oboz zagłady--the extermination camp. At this point, our guide Kasia pretty much leaves us to experience Treblinka on our own. One thing about Treblinka is that it is off the beaten path and much less known and/or publicized than Auschwitz. Where Auschwitz was crowded and we had to join a tour in order to go inside, Treblinka is almost empty. The silence is eerie. To our right are concrete blocks that mark the train tracks that took prisoners to within a few hundred yards of to the gas chambers. A cobblestone path runs parallel to the tracks. Our guide told us that the path is covered with rocks to intentionally make the way hard and uncomfortable for visitors. We notice what looks like caution tape strung between trees to keep tourists from going into the forest. And while it might indeed serve that purpose, as we approach . . . . . . we see that it has names written on it. We assume these are some of the victims. The ribbon might also represent the two rows of barbed wire fences that surrounded the camp. The inner fence was covered with tree branches to keep curious eyes from seeing the activities happening within. We come to the area where the trains would have stopped to unload their human cargo. It was here that a few prisoners were pulled out to be workers, and the rest were told to remove their clothes to prepare for "disinfection" before they were herded naked down a path sarcastically named Himmelfahrtstrasse by the Nazis--the Road to Heaven--a path that ended at the gas chambers. Rock pillars are evenly spaced like sentries on one side of the symbolic tracks. We emerge into a large clearing. Eleven large rocks stand guard. Each has the name of a country engraved in Polish on its front. From left to right: Macedonia, Greece, Austria, Germany, Bulgaria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, France, Yugoslavia, Belgium, USSR. These are countries whose inhabitants' ashes are scattered in this strange place. Ahead of us we see a large stone memorial surrounded by thousands of irregular greyish-white stones. From afar, the stones look like old, falling down tombstones. A marker tells visitors this is "The road of death leading to the gas chambers." Treblinka opened with three gas chambers, but by the end there were as many as ten, and some sources say fourteen. Unlike Auschwitz, where the Nazis used the gas Zyklon B (hydrogen cyanide) to kill their victims, the gas chambers here were filled with carbon monoxide from engine exhaust that traveled through pipes from an army tank into the room. Among the first victims were 245,000 Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto. We turn from the ominous warning to walk towards the 26-foot-tall granite tower that looms over everything else. There is a crack that runs down its middle and a slab on top. Our guide says it represents Jerusalem's Wailing Wall. Close to the tower is a stone with the emotional, desperate, resolute plea "Never Again" inscribed in Polish, Hebrew, Russian, English, French, and German. A mass of contorted, skeleton-like bodies is carved into the front and sides of the top slab. We walk around to the back . . . . . . and see a seven-arm menorah. The traditional Hanukkah menorah has nine arms. This version is a "temple menorah," the kind used in the temple in Jerusalem and the symbol of Judaism long before the Maccabean Revolt. This is the menorah found on the coat of arms of the modern state of Israel. Propped against this back wall is a fresh-flower wreath in the shape of a Star of David with Hebrew writing on the ribbon. At the very peak of the killing period, as many as 17,000 people were killed each day. Now 17,000 stones of varying sizes and shapes surround the center monument. They are placed are in five different circular areas--the burial sites for the victims' bodies and later for their ashes. The stones represent the cities, villages, and districts whose citizens lost their lives at Treblinka. There are so many. Most are unmarked, as anonymous as the 800,000 dead. SO many--one day of genocide. There are wide, grassy gaps between the groupings, like the fields between towns or oceans between countries. Pits of black basalt, a rock created in the furnace of a volcano, mark cremation pits. Small, white "remembrance stones" are balanced on top of the pieces of basalt. The ribbon bearing names of some of the dead encircles the field. I read the names on the stones. Three hundred of the 17,000 identify a city or village from which the Jews arrived. Many of them are places I have never heard of. But here and there I come across a place we've been, a name that's familiar, and my heart aches. Among all the stones, only one bears the name of a person: Janusz Korczak. Beneath his name is the name "Henryk Goldsimit," which was his real name, Janusz Korczak being his pen name. Beneath those names are the Polish words i dzieci, which translate to "and children." There is probably no greater Polish hero of the death camps than Janusz Korczak, a Polish-Jewish educator, pediatrician, and children's author. He was the director of a Warsaw orphanage that became part of the Warsaw Ghetto. In August 1942 he was notified that the 192 children in his care were being transported to Treblinka. At that time he was offered sanctuary by the Polish underground, but he refused, saying he must stay with his children. One story says that when Korczak arrived at the railway station, an SS officer recognized him as the author of his favorite children's book and offered to help him escape, but again Korczak refused. He said he must stay with his children. The train took Korczak and the children to their deaths. At first, we are alone in this graveyard. Eventually two or three more people join us, but we walk quietly, not calling out to each other, speaking in low voices when we need to communicate. It is a record-setting day of heat, almost 100° F. The heat intensifies the heaviness we feel. Here and there I see timid bits of color, and I remember that the Nazis seeded this place with wildflowers after they plowed it under, but someone says those were lupines. These are not lupines, but rather the typical wildflowers that grow among weeds. A Venezuelan flag is tied to a post, and I wonder what the story is. This place is bursting with stories. I notice a lone sign and walk over to see what it says. We have been walking around for a while, and it is time to move on to the other half of the camp, Treblinka I, the work camp. It's about a mile walk down a road that was named "the Black Road" by the prisoners because of the horrible things that happened here. We pass the gravel pit, which looks quite benign--again, a huge disconnect from what occurred here 75+ years ago. I guess the land has had some time to heal, and I'm glad about that. Some things remain in Treblinka I. For example, this was the site of the "magazyn," or a storehouse used to store tools used by inmates. A sign in another spot notes that there was a "barrack for the sick" that no longer survives, but that imaging has revealed part of the foundation underground. People sent here didn't receive medical care. The majority were executed if they didn't recover quickly on their own. Saul Kuperhand, a Treblinka survivor, wrote, "One barracks to which none of us wanted to transfer was the quarantine bloc. By no stretch of the imagination did that barracks constitute a hospital or clinic. Rather, it was a vestibule to the crematorium." The kitchen cellar remains. The diet of the prisoners usually consisted of 1/2 liter of watery soup or porridge for breakfast; 1 liter of watery soup for lunch (made from potato peels, turnip, or cabbage); and a cup of black "coffee," 10-20 g of bread, and occasionally a small bit of margarine or marmalade. A sign near the well has this quote from another survivor: "They find a grenade on him . . . . They were to take him to the abattoir but he jumped into the well. The Germans begged him to get out. They lowered a chain with a plank for him to sit on. He stayed there for several hours. They pleaded with him and promised to exonerate him . . . . They lifted him out. He confessed and got a guarantee that he would be pardoned. They lay him down and chopped him up with an axe, while he was still alive." Incomprehensible. On the other side of Treblinka I is another monument--three or four rows of crosses. A red rock memorial erected in 2014 notes that these are "In memory of Roma and Sinti murdered by the German occupiers in the forced-labour camp and in the extermination camp during the Second World War. Pain and suffering of the victims took that land, which hides the ashes of thousands of innocent people. We bend our heads over your martyr's death." After the anonymity of the stone graveyard, it is almost a shock to see names of the dead written on these crosses. Of course, there are just a few hundred, not even close to the 10,000 or more who died in the labor camp, but still, it is almost a relief to see that some of the dead are named. At a 2010 interview in his apartment in Tel Aviv, Treblinka survivor Samuel Willenberg said, "I live two lives, one is here and now and the other is what happened there. It never leaves me. It stays in my head. It goes with me always." Willenberg died February 19, 2016, three days after his 93rd birthday. We walk back to the car, knowing how lucky we are. READING Our guide Kasia told us that her grandmother's best friend and children, who were Jewish, were killed at Treblinka. When Kasia learned more about them and their story, suddenly the Jews became "her people," and she started to study Jewish history, Jews in Poland, and Treblinka. I think reading the stories of the individuals who are associated with Treblinka is an important part of the experience. The Nazis did everything they could to wipe them out, to make them "non-people." We have to fight against that. The Last Jew of Treblinka: A Memoir by Chil Rajchman Only 160 pp. long, this is a quick but horrifying read about a camp that existed primarily for the murder of Jews. The only way to survive even a few hours open arrival was to be selected from among the “cargo” to perform one of the needed functions related to the camp—cut off the hair as the prisoners arrived, sort the clothing and belongings, pull the teeth of the dead, bury the bodies—and then unbury them when it was decided to burn them to remove evidence, etc. How anyone could come out of this ordeal with any shred of sanity is beyond my understanding. When Rajchman arrived in Treblinka as part of the Warsaw Ghetto liquidation, he was one of the "lucky" ones selected to cut the hair off women on their way to the gas chambers, pull the gold teeth from dead bodies, and burn corpses. He was part of the Treblinka Revolt in 1943 and managed to escape. Originally written in Yiddish and published in 1945, the book was not published in English until 2011. King of Children: The Life and Death of Janusz Korczak by Betty Jean Lifton This book was recommended to us by our tour guide. It is the biography of the only man named among the 17,000 stones in the Treblinka II memorial. The back cover of my copy reads: "Known throughout Europe as a Pied Piper of destitute children prior to the onslaught of World War II, he assumed legendary status when on August 6, 1942, after refusing offers for his own safety, he defiantly led the orophans under his care in the Warsaw Ghetto to the trains that would take them to Treblinka." Meticulously researched, this book is an interesting, though sometimes plodding, look into the life of a rather quirky man whose own early traumatic childhood and young adult experiences greatly influenced his work. The section about the Warsaw Ghetto was heartbreaking. It was almost as bad as life at Auschwitz as far as starvation, freezing, and cruel treatment goes. The author is herself a psychologist and a leading advocate of adoption reform. King Matt the First by Janusz Korczak Of the many children's books Korczak wrote, this is his most popular and the first to be translated into English. In fact, it is said to be as popular in Poland as Peter Pan was in the English-speaking world. There is much for adults in the story as well as it is a transparent allegory of political and social events in Poland. The book tells the story of a child prince whose parents die, making him the king at a very young age. Refusing to give up his power to adults, he enacts many reforms, particularly those that involve children, and including giving children chocolate every day and sending the adults back to school while the children take over. Some of his reforms work and some do not, and in the end he is overthrown and exiled to a desert island. At times I loved the "turning of the tables" and the creative solutions King Matt came up with, and at other times I was tired of what seemed entirely nonsensical. Children, however, might be delighted by that nonsense. A book on my nightstand that I will come back to review after I have read it: Surviving Treblinka by Samuel Willenberg From Amazon.com: "The author describes his experiences at the Treblinka death camp, explains how he and a small group of prisoners escaped, and recounts his life as a fugitive in Warsaw." The photo on the right is Willenberg at a 2013 visit to Treblinka.

Poland's capital of Warsaw is a really cool city, with a fascinating history and hip vibe. Here are reasons why you should visit Warsaw!

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A photographic highlight selected by the picture desk. On 17 January 1945, Warsaw was liberated from the Germans by the Red Army and the 1st Polish Army. They found a completely devastated city. 2,000 Jewish survivors were found in underground hideouts. However, only 174,000 people were left in the city, less than six per cent of the prewar population

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The photographs show Warsaw destroyed in the aftermath of World War II.

We continued our Walk through Warsaw alongside these old brick walls that enclose the Okopowa Street Jewish Cemetery, established in 1806. Covering 83 acres, it is one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in the world. A map of the Ghetto and dedication plaque are affixed to the gate. The cemetery has over 250,000 marked graves and an untold number of unmarked graves. The section closest to the entrance has been more or less restored. I recently learned about giving tzedakah, or money for the poor, from one of my Jewish friends. I think that is what is represented here, along with a few books to indicate that an educated person is buried here. A lion is a symbol of Judah, the tribe of the Jews. Here are a few of my favorite crypts/mausoleums--I'm not sure what to call them. Some of the carvings are illustrations of Psalms. I think this one is Psalm 137. There was a big building project going on. Pawel told us that it is a mausoleum for Jewish soldiers who fought in the Polish army during World War I. It was planned in 1938 and the foundation was laid, but then the war came, and after the war the Soviets came, and they definitely did not want the memorial. Just this year or last year the Polish government decided to finish it. There were two roped-off areas that are mass graves of Warsaw Ghetto victims. The Nazis were afraid of disease, and so they actually buried some of the dead. A semi-circle of upright stones prtially surrounds the burial site. Each rock has a black stripe across it that resembles the stripe on a rabbi's talith, or head-covering. Pawel told us that the rabbis are sitting around the graves to pray to God to forgive the dead for violating the rules of a Kosher burial. In the 1800s, there were sections for women, men, children, married, single, pregnant, etc. With the growth of Reform Judaism, there was more integration. At the beginning of the 20th century, they began layering the graves. There are some places with as many as 13 layers. When a new layer is made, the stones are laid flat and a minimum of a meter of dirt is put on top before a new tomb is begun. Jewish tombstones always face east-west, with the feet buried near the stone. This was a cemetery for the wealthy, and they could afford nice markers. This is a hero's monument for Adam Czerniaków, who was the head of the Jewish Council in the Warsaw Ghetto. He swallowed a cyanide pill in July 1942 rather than aid in the deportation of Jews from the Ghetto to Treblinka. He left a note for his wife which read, "They demand me to kill children of my nation with my own hands. I have nothing to do but die." He left another note for other members of the Jewish Council that read, "I can no longer bear all this. My act will prove to everyone what is the right thing to do." Did you know that the man who created Esperanto, the most used international language in the world, was a Pole? Dr. Lazardo Ludoviko Zamenhof (1859-1917) is buried in this cemetery. An interesting fact about him: He was nominated TWELVE TIMES for the Nobel Peace Prize but never won. Twenty-five to thirty Jews are still buried here each year. Remember the pediatrician who gave the hospitalized children morphine so they would not know they were being shot? She is buried here. So is Marek Edelman, the last surviving leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. He escaped the Ghetto and the following year took part in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. After the war, he stayed in Poland and became a respected cardiologist. Lech Walesa attended his funeral. Edelman asked to be buried next to this monument representing the "Bund," an early 20th century Jewish socialist party that opposed the Zionist movement. Edelman was a prominent member of the Bund before the war, and he ultimately convinced the Bund to support the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and then led the doomed effort. This photo of Edelman and his wife was propped against the base of the memorial. I wonder who placed it there? Memorials on the base. This plaque was in the pavement in front of the memorial. A Polish stonemason very popular before World War II, Abraham Ostrzega was well-known for his burial monuments that reference Jewish traditions as well as the art of ancient Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, and Greece. Sadly, Ostrzega died in Treblinka in 1942, and many of his works were destroyed during the war. However, there are some that continue to draw attention to the graves of the wealthy in this cemetery. His monuments are easy to find because they are marked by an orange sign on a black iron post. While they show a human form, most are "geometrized," or relatively abstract. For the most part, Ostrzega abided by the orthodox Jewish prohibition of clearly depicting a human face in art. I believe this is also a monument carved by Ostrzega, based on the orange-tipped post next to it.. At first I thought those were pineapples flanking the engraved stone, but they look like they could be parrots. Maybe they are stylized Polish eagles. Another Ostrzega marker stands next to the stone of Wacław Wiślicki (1882-1935), a member of the Polish parliament. Wiślicki is credited with the saying, "If it's so good, why is it so bad?" I would love to take daily walks in this cemetery. Imagine the stories that are buried here. The cemetery did not fare well during World War II. There were mass executions here and the burial of residents of the Warsaw Ghetto as well as non-Jewish Poles. In retaliation for the Ghetto Uprising, the Germans blew up all of the buildings in the cemetery, including a synagogue. The front line of the Warsaw Uprising passed through the cemetery, and then the Communists intended to build a road through the middle of the cemetery, but never got around to it. Renovations of the cemetery didn't begin until the 1990s. I wonder if part of the reason for that is that there were no Jews left in Warsaw to take on the project. I'm guessing these walls were part of that renovation. Pieces of broken tombstones are mixed in with unmarked stones, similar to what was done in Krakow, but with a more modern look. Some intact stones must have been separated from the graves they marked, and how would you know where to put them back up? Or perhaps they were created by surviving family members. These people died in Treblinka, so this marker was made sometime after the war. The first words on this marker Kamien Krzyczy, mean "stone screams," which refers to Habakkuk 2:11, "The stones of the wall will cry out . . . ." Beneath the names are the words "Murdered in Treblinka, and other people from their families." Here is a memorial for a man killed at the Katyn Massacre, which is where the Soviet Union murdered 22,000 Polish officers and intelligentsia. Lekarz = "doctor." A sign near the cemetery entrance/exit reads: "This 'house of eternity,' as the cemetery is often referred to in Hebrew, is a monument of gravestone art, of Jewish art, and Jewish presence in Warsaw. Its value as a record of Polish Jews is incalculable because the material heritage of the Jewish community was almost totally destroyed during World War II." This was, again, an overwhelming experience. There are so many graves, but too few of the descendants of the dead are left on earth to care for individual graves or provide general upkeep. The horror of the camps casts its shadow everywhere and far back into the past--here, back to the Jews who were first buried in this cemetery in 1806 and now lie alone and forgotten, all their descendants gone.

In 1944, the Nazis brutally quashed Warsaw's courageous rebellion against their rule as the Soviets looked on. On the 70th anniversary, some Poles are asking if the Warsaw Uprising was self-defeating heroism.

Barbican - part of the medieval defense construction, an important component of the city's fortifications, usually in the form of a round.

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gallery wrapped canvas, office prints, travel art, giclee posters, retro travel posters, art prints, warsaw poland print

A tribute to the Polish insurgents who fought in the failed attempt to end their city's Nazi occupation.

We continued our Walk through Warsaw alongside these old brick walls that enclose the Okopowa Street Jewish Cemetery, established in 1806. Covering 83 acres, it is one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in the world. A map of the Ghetto and dedication plaque are affixed to the gate. The cemetery has over 250,000 marked graves and an untold number of unmarked graves. The section closest to the entrance has been more or less restored. I recently learned about giving tzedakah, or money for the poor, from one of my Jewish friends. I think that is what is represented here, along with a few books to indicate that an educated person is buried here. A lion is a symbol of Judah, the tribe of the Jews. Here are a few of my favorite crypts/mausoleums--I'm not sure what to call them. Some of the carvings are illustrations of Psalms. I think this one is Psalm 137. There was a big building project going on. Pawel told us that it is a mausoleum for Jewish soldiers who fought in the Polish army during World War I. It was planned in 1938 and the foundation was laid, but then the war came, and after the war the Soviets came, and they definitely did not want the memorial. Just this year or last year the Polish government decided to finish it. There were two roped-off areas that are mass graves of Warsaw Ghetto victims. The Nazis were afraid of disease, and so they actually buried some of the dead. A semi-circle of upright stones prtially surrounds the burial site. Each rock has a black stripe across it that resembles the stripe on a rabbi's talith, or head-covering. Pawel told us that the rabbis are sitting around the graves to pray to God to forgive the dead for violating the rules of a Kosher burial. In the 1800s, there were sections for women, men, children, married, single, pregnant, etc. With the growth of Reform Judaism, there was more integration. At the beginning of the 20th century, they began layering the graves. There are some places with as many as 13 layers. When a new layer is made, the stones are laid flat and a minimum of a meter of dirt is put on top before a new tomb is begun. Jewish tombstones always face east-west, with the feet buried near the stone. This was a cemetery for the wealthy, and they could afford nice markers. This is a hero's monument for Adam Czerniaków, who was the head of the Jewish Council in the Warsaw Ghetto. He swallowed a cyanide pill in July 1942 rather than aid in the deportation of Jews from the Ghetto to Treblinka. He left a note for his wife which read, "They demand me to kill children of my nation with my own hands. I have nothing to do but die." He left another note for other members of the Jewish Council that read, "I can no longer bear all this. My act will prove to everyone what is the right thing to do." Did you know that the man who created Esperanto, the most used international language in the world, was a Pole? Dr. Lazardo Ludoviko Zamenhof (1859-1917) is buried in this cemetery. An interesting fact about him: He was nominated TWELVE TIMES for the Nobel Peace Prize but never won. Twenty-five to thirty Jews are still buried here each year. Remember the pediatrician who gave the hospitalized children morphine so they would not know they were being shot? She is buried here. So is Marek Edelman, the last surviving leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. He escaped the Ghetto and the following year took part in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. After the war, he stayed in Poland and became a respected cardiologist. Lech Walesa attended his funeral. Edelman asked to be buried next to this monument representing the "Bund," an early 20th century Jewish socialist party that opposed the Zionist movement. Edelman was a prominent member of the Bund before the war, and he ultimately convinced the Bund to support the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and then led the doomed effort. This photo of Edelman and his wife was propped against the base of the memorial. I wonder who placed it there? Memorials on the base. This plaque was in the pavement in front of the memorial. A Polish stonemason very popular before World War II, Abraham Ostrzega was well-known for his burial monuments that reference Jewish traditions as well as the art of ancient Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, and Greece. Sadly, Ostrzega died in Treblinka in 1942, and many of his works were destroyed during the war. However, there are some that continue to draw attention to the graves of the wealthy in this cemetery. His monuments are easy to find because they are marked by an orange sign on a black iron post. While they show a human form, most are "geometrized," or relatively abstract. For the most part, Ostrzega abided by the orthodox Jewish prohibition of clearly depicting a human face in art. I believe this is also a monument carved by Ostrzega, based on the orange-tipped post next to it.. At first I thought those were pineapples flanking the engraved stone, but they look like they could be parrots. Maybe they are stylized Polish eagles. Another Ostrzega marker stands next to the stone of Wacław Wiślicki (1882-1935), a member of the Polish parliament. Wiślicki is credited with the saying, "If it's so good, why is it so bad?" I would love to take daily walks in this cemetery. Imagine the stories that are buried here. The cemetery did not fare well during World War II. There were mass executions here and the burial of residents of the Warsaw Ghetto as well as non-Jewish Poles. In retaliation for the Ghetto Uprising, the Germans blew up all of the buildings in the cemetery, including a synagogue. The front line of the Warsaw Uprising passed through the cemetery, and then the Communists intended to build a road through the middle of the cemetery, but never got around to it. Renovations of the cemetery didn't begin until the 1990s. I wonder if part of the reason for that is that there were no Jews left in Warsaw to take on the project. I'm guessing these walls were part of that renovation. Pieces of broken tombstones are mixed in with unmarked stones, similar to what was done in Krakow, but with a more modern look. Some intact stones must have been separated from the graves they marked, and how would you know where to put them back up? Or perhaps they were created by surviving family members. These people died in Treblinka, so this marker was made sometime after the war. The first words on this marker Kamien Krzyczy, mean "stone screams," which refers to Habakkuk 2:11, "The stones of the wall will cry out . . . ." Beneath the names are the words "Murdered in Treblinka, and other people from their families." Here is a memorial for a man killed at the Katyn Massacre, which is where the Soviet Union murdered 22,000 Polish officers and intelligentsia. Lekarz = "doctor." A sign near the cemetery entrance/exit reads: "This 'house of eternity,' as the cemetery is often referred to in Hebrew, is a monument of gravestone art, of Jewish art, and Jewish presence in Warsaw. Its value as a record of Polish Jews is incalculable because the material heritage of the Jewish community was almost totally destroyed during World War II." This was, again, an overwhelming experience. There are so many graves, but too few of the descendants of the dead are left on earth to care for individual graves or provide general upkeep. The horror of the camps casts its shadow everywhere and far back into the past--here, back to the Jews who were first buried in this cemetery in 1806 and now lie alone and forgotten, all their descendants gone.

Enjoy the tastiest and most authentic Polish food in Warsaw at this selection of the best local restaurants in the city.

1908, Waclaw Szymanowski