170th Birthday

Armidale turned 170 today and the local historical society staged a play, or rather a series of six replica events, to mark the event before a large crowd of admirers. The scene was Armidale's McDonald Park, the precise spot where in 1839 the naming event took place. The NSW government's Commissioner sent out to survey the frontier area was George McDonald, who named his tent (there were no permanent buildings) Armidale after the castle of Armadale on the Isle of Skye - the seat of the Clan McDonald. The misspelling, we are now told, was deliberate because the Commissioner was highly literate and a poet. He would have known the exact spelling. He even rustled up a bottle of champagne to celebrate the event, though how that got here in drinkable fashion is anyone's guess. At the time there were no roads or railways and the Commissioner's party, including police, took weeks (May to September) to make the journey from the Hunter Valley.

The pictures show a local farming family and carriage; Sir Arthur Hogbin (grazier, L) taking to Commisioner McDonald (R); Governor Sir George Gipps (who gave Mcdonald his commission); John Everett (grazier, L) arguing with McDonald (R); and Ms Annabella Boswell. You can also the two-piece 'band' which played period music and the large number of school-kids of all ages in front. The whole event was very well done, all the way down to the costumes made locally, the acting, the research needed for historical authenticity, and its overall direction. Well done, and entertaining.

AS

Krakowskie Przedmiescie 2

This posting focuses on some of the buildings in the area including the Presidential Palace, the University Gate, one of the many churches along the route, and a statue to Cardinal Wyszynski - one of the prelates who made life tough for the communist rulers before JP II came along and put the first nail in their final coffin.

Just in front of the Presidential Palace, Prince Józef Poniatowski is mounted on his horse. If I recall correctly, Napoleon appointed him a Marshal of France. The Palace itself survived the war because it was occupied by German administrators.

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Krakowskie Przedmiescie 1

This and the next item will be my last postings on Warsaw and I'd like to thank you for reading this far! The street name above literally means Krakov Suburb (Krakov Faubourg in French), and is probably the most stylish in Warsaw. Once again, much of what you will see is reconstructed from the rubble left by the departing Germans in 1944. The district is also known as the Royal Route because it connects Castle Square with, some distance away, the summer Palace at Wilanów

It is a wide street, full of pavement cafes, grand monuments, classy hotels, and well-proportioned public buildings. My visit was, alas, at dusk, as you'll see from the accompanying pictures.

First let us have a look at the locality's typical streetscapes. At the western end end is Castle Square with the Zygmunt's column, and at the other end are the tall towers of the Holy Cross Church with the Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543) monument nearby, and the same photo shows the opulent Bristol Hotel. This first of two postings on Krakowskie Przed. includes mostly street scenes.

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Village Life

The eastern part of Poland which we visited had scores of sometimes picturesque small (population c. 100) villages. Their inhabitants often tended to be elderly, extremely religious, and sometimes speaking strange dialects (given that the region has oscillated between Polish, German, (White) Russian and even Ukranian hands). I sometimes felt like being in a museum. Perhaps the attached slides give some feel for the region.

The attached pictures illustrate a village called Puchly which happened to be celebrating some Eastern Orthodox festival. Note the stork's nest high up on post, like countless hundreds we saw elsewhere.

AS

Bialowieza National Park

At 6.00 am just over a week ago a party of about 12 of us left for a walk in the Bialowieza national park - the oldest such park in Poland having been established in 1921. It is primeval boreal forest - the last patch of natural lowland forest in Europe much as it emerged from the last ice age.

The early departure was to try to see some of the park's shy inhabitants to best advantage. These include the few remaining European Bison, red deer, and pigs (or boar). Alas we saw nothing apart from hectares of beautiful trees hundreds of years old and a few of some 3000 species of fungi (including some 450 types of mushroom). The terrain is damp and swampy in places, which was also ideal for mosses and lichens.

At the entrance to the park lay a Palace Park dating back to when the area was a hunting ground of the Tsars of Russia, though the Palace itself seems to have disappeared.

Despite the absence of big fauna, it was a wonderful experience to wander through a deathly quiet landscape virtually untouched from the receding ice age.

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Lazienki Park

London has Hyde Park, New York its Central Park and Warsaw's equivalent is Lazienki (pr wazienki if my understanding of Polish is accurate). An L with a slash through it (but not on my keyboard) is a soft w; the w is, of course, pronounced v.

Unlike the others, this one is full of palaces, lovely lakes, and grandiose statuary. There is the famous Chopin memorial, the Jan III Sobieski monument (he defeated the Turks at Vienna in 1683), the Palace on the Water, and the Officer's School - all shown here. However, these pictures are a long way short of showing the park's rich contents which contain a mock temple, an orangerie, an open auditorium, an observatory, the national museum and several more palaces. The Sejm (parliament) is nearby.

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Royal Palace

The Royal Palace lies adjacent to the Old Town and like the rest was rebuilt from rubble after the war. In this instance, however, it appears that a lot of the contents (furniture, paintings, etc.) were spirited away before the German occupation and hidden. The interior was reminiscent of Versailles in its use of gilt and mirrors and an interesting commentary on Polish history.

King Zygmunt's Column stands in Castle Square and the statue atop was retreived largely undamaged after the war. The column itself was destroyed and replaced by the third column to host this statue. It dates from 1644 and comemorates the king who transferred the Polish capital to Warsaw.

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Stare Miasto (Old Town)

Warsaw's beautiful Stare Miasto is a world heritage listed composition of squares and narrow streets lined with old houses and businesses close to the Royal Palace. That's what it seems at first sight, but the reality is perhaps closer to Disneyland because nearly everything you see in the attached photographs was destroyed in the Second World War. It is a 'modern' reconstruction of old Warsaw from photographs, paintings and other resources undertaken by the communist government.

Let's say it was a job well done because the effect is dazzling and I suspect many visitors are taken in by the streetscapes they observe. My guess is that the interiors of the buildings are considerably modernised and that only the exteriors pictured here are a good facsimile of history.

One night, I and two Israeli colleagues had a delightful, if expensive, meal at Fukier in the market square (Rynek Starego Miasto), which served Polish food artistically modernised for contemporary tastes. It's highly recommended if you pass that way.

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Saxon Palace / Gardens

Two of the more interesting parts of Warsaw, just off Solidarity Avenue, are the Saxon Gardens and the remains of the Saxon Palace destroyed in the war. Apart from the green oasis, the palace remains now house the tomb of the unknown soldier. Just east of those remains is a large square that featured prominently in the collapse of the soviet empire.

In 1979, a newly instituted Pope, John Paul II, visited his homeland and gave a troubling speech for the Polish communist government. It couldn't be a direct attack, but was a very subtle critique of communist society, and led to the formation of the Solidarity Movement a year later. Nine years after that, the communist edifice collapsed. Some speech! And the audience of 2 million people in the square shown just loved it.

The last picture also shows the National Theatre / Opera House in the background.

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Wedding Cake

One of the most prominent buildings in Warsaw, and one of the ugliest, is the wedding cake skyscraper, so named because ... well ... it looks like a wedding cake. This design came out of Stalin's Russia, where Moscow has several examples, and it was exported to some of the Soviet satellites. I once spent a week in a similar building at Moscow State University in 1976.

This particular example, the Palace of Culture, was donated by Stalin immediately after the second world war as part of the reconstruction process. Actually, he donated the plans, but the Poles paid for its construction. They could hardly refuse the gift, though there was a campaign for its demolition post 1989. It survived and it seems to serve as a cinema and theatre complex, plus viewing platform, these days.

The view from the top is much better than the view of the building from the bottom! By the way, the poster draped over the front of the building commemorates the start of the second world war with the invasion of Poland in 1939. The building's immediate surrounds are a pastiche of office blocks, shops and sometimes poor quality residential apartments.

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Warsaw Ghetto

Warsaw's Jewish Ghetto was the site of one of the most infamous atrocities in the Second World War when, in 1941, its inhabitants rose up in futile revolt against the German occupiers. Some 100,000 people were killed on the spot, double that shipped off to Treblinka and other death camps, and the Ghetto levelled to the extent that few buildings were left standing.

Little remains of the Ghetto today, apart from a few walls and a marker of two in the pavement, as the picture show.

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The Wolf's Lair

Among the great Polish horrors is the Wolf's Lair, near Gierlosz, named by Hitler himself for his eastern HQ hidden in the depths of another wood. He spent a remarkable 800 days there directing the campaign against the Russians and organising the fate of unwanted subjects in his empire. The site was constructed by slave labour, heavily camouflaged to protect its existence, and later on reinforced massively to withstand possible aerial attack. Being a secret installation, it was of course necessary to execute the labourers who knew about the facility's existence. The location was also heavily mined, as several of the Polish troops clearing the site found after the war when they lost their lives.

The lair was the site of the best of the attempts on Hitler's life when Stauffenberg's bomb nearly killed him. This was recently portrayed in a Hollywood movie starring, if I recall correctly, Brad Pitt as the ill-fated Stauffenberg. One of the memorials is to him, as shown in the picture.

The site was extensively damaged by the scorched earth policy of the retreating Germans during 1944. In short, they blew it up with hig explosives leaving a trail of twisted concrete, which remains to this day. The images include Hitler's own bunker and the typing pool!

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Treblinka 2

I have just two more pictures of Treblinka I would like to show, one the inspiring story of Henryk Goldszmit, the guardian of orphaned children, who insisted on accompanying them to Treblinka to look after them guessing what fate was in store for them.

AS