Visit to Poland 22.8.2008 - 6.9.2008
Map of the travelled route
Thanks to the NOAA for their public domain dataset ETOPO2v2 and to GMT I could render this nice map (clicking on the town will take you directly to the right webpage):
Some general remarks
Poland the unknown neighbour
Poland is not a typical travel country for most germans (if you exclude people with a polish background and people with revisionistic interest) and I think unfortunately most germans don't know much about poland except the usual clichés. Part of the reason I believe is the preference of germans for sunny countries like France, Spain or Italy, but that doesn't explain it all, as there is a huge following for scandinavic countries. There came half a million mining workers to the Ruhrgebiet, but they are almost invisible. Part of the reason for western germany might be also, that it was behind the iron curtain for a long time. But that doesn't explain the current ignorance of our eastern neighbour (To backup this claim with some random statistics: Whole east europe is less than 5 percent of the german travel destinations according to the "Forschungsgemeinschaft Urlaub und Reisen e.V.").
I've been a tourist to Poland and unfortunately until now I just know some sentences in polish, so I didn't walk a mile in polish shoes (although I walked more than a mile). However I think I learned a bit more about the country and the commonnesses and differences between Germany and Poland. Talking about sociocultural differences bears always the danger of overgeneralizing and oversimplifying. However when I'm talking about such differences I'm always talking about communication differences and differences in the perception of what is normal in a country and not about differences in people themselfes. There are good and bad people everywhere and on average people are the same at different places of the world (There might be differences on average happieness of people related to the communication behaviour, but that is to complex to analyse here - I'm talking about impressions.).
One german clichee of polish is that they steal a lot of cars (or steal a lot in general). I've read that the origin of that clichee is more, that poland is a transit country for stolen cars which go to the more eastern countries and that people thought, their cars would be stolen by polish people. I have to say, that I had quite expensive camera equipment with me and that from all the european and american cities I've visited so far I never felt so save as in the major polish cities. I didn't saw any "no go" area, as there are in some american cities and I felt safer than let's say Berlin. But there is a difference between perceived security and real security - and it seems polish people prefer guarded parking spaces. The newer building blocks are completely secured by fences and guards and only people who live there are let in. I've heard of similar things of France - so again that is not so specific to Poland - but I don't think many people in Germany would want to live in such an appartement. Most people in Germany perceive themselfs quite safe.
Some History
It is quite understandable that after the Holocaust, a lot of people are still afraid of my country, which became a country of mass murderers. However a lot of germans probably don't understand, why some people in poland still fear beeing the playing ball between Germany and Russia. Yes, Germany has been a successfull democracy for nearly 60 years, yes, a lot of germans don't like the military or beeing involved in any military operations (It was easy for former chancellor Schröder to use that in the election campain), yes, most germans are bewildered by the claims of the Federation of Expellees. However if one takes a closer look at the history one can fully understand those fears and why the still persist. I'm by no means a historian, so just some words about the history, please check out Wikipedia or better resources for more information.
The second world war was started with the german assault on Poland. Hitler derived all his crazy ideas from the racist theory to which the arian race was superiour to any other race and the arian race would have the god given right (and duty) to kill other races in order to progress the future of the arian race. At that time germany was perceived by the nazis as densely populated and Hitler planned on expanding to the east to give the arian race more space. Hitler was systematically in a way, that he killed first the intellectuals in Poland but also he killed a lot of civilians. Half of the Polish people who died in concentration camps like Auschwitz were not jewish. Following the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact Poland was divided between Germany and the Soviet Union.
While the red army was close to Warsaw a underground union of Polish civilists and Polish soldiers struggled to liberate Warsaw from german occupation. While the uprising was only planned for a few days and it was hoped, that the red army would come to help, the red army waited until the Polish forces had to surrender to the German troops after 63 days. Shortly afterwards German troops were ordered to burn the city down systematically. The nearly complete destruction of Warsaw was not due to the fights but due to this order by Hitler.
This was not the first time that Poland disappeared from the map of europe. From 1795 to 1918 there was no polish state and it was occupied by Prussia, Austria and Russia. For 123 years, polish identity and culture only survived with the help of the polish people and the intellectuals and artists saw their most important task in preserving and cultivating that culture. When the german army and the soviet army invaded Poland it was the second time those countries made poland disappear from the map. But that was not all that happened.
Travel report
22.8 and 23.8.: Travel in the night train and arrival in Warszawa
How I arrived in Poland with the night train and my first impressions of Warsaw with some pictures of the old town.
24.8.: Warsaw, Kings road and Łazienskie park
Starting from the monument of the Warsaw uprising I walked down the Kings road down to the beautiful Łazienskie park. Next to not so shy squirells I could listen to a nice Chopin concert.
26.8.: Kraków, Jewish part and Old Town
Going back in history this was capitol for Poland for a long time. Today it is a lovely and lively town which I started to explore from the jewish part Kazimierz.