We thrust ourselves into the turbulent history of Warsaw right away by visiting the Warsaw Rising Museum. It was one of the best we've been to in Europe, detailing the Varsovians fight against the Nazis in mid-1944 in which they were abandoned by their Soviet "allies".
Within the museum was a 3D film showing a digital recreation of the city at the end of WWII. As revenge for the uprising the Nazis destroyed 85% of the city and expelled all of it's citizens. Afterwards, only an estimated 1,000 people lived among the rubble.
Warsaw is covered in monuments, statues and plaques to celebrate and commemorate those who have fought and died. This, the cutest and most heartbreaking is this statue to recognize the role of children in the Warsaw uprising.
The following day we toured the "old" town of Warsaw.
The medieval walls and the modern day Yaz
The house of Marie Skłodowska-Curie. Fearful of radiation, we chose to stay outside.
Łazienki Palace within the beautiful Łazienki Park.
Did you know that sunflower seeds come from sunflowers?
Warsaw is also very charming by night
What was really cool about this statue was that we recognised it straight away as a Thorvaldsen. We had seen the plaster version in the Thorvaldsens Museum in Copenhagen.
From 1940 onwards the Jewish population was imprisoned within a ghetto, over 100,000 of whom would die of disease and starvation within its walls. In 1942, over 250,000 residents were sent to Treblinka Extermination Camp. In 1943 the remaining residents launched a rebellion against the Nazis.
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising memorial.
On May 8, the Germans discovered a large dugout located which served as a main command post of the Ghetto insurgents. Most of the organization's remaining leadership and dozens of others committed a mass suicide by ingesting cyanide. They included the chief commander, Mordechaj Anielewicz.
This mound and memorial commemorate that event.
In spite of its past, Warsaw today is a modern dynamic city.
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