From the more notable to the lesser known, here is a top five list for visiting the Warsaw Ghetto
From the more notable to the lesser known, here is a top five list for visiting the Warsaw Ghetto
On December 7th, 1970, the German Chancellor Willy Brandt visited the Monument to the Ghetto where he spontaneously sank to his knees. Images of this moment flashed across the world and his impromptu act is remembered as sowing the seeds for German-Jewish reconciliation. A tablet in the North Western corner of the Ghetto park has been added and the area rechristened Skwer Willego Brandta.
he original Uprising memorial made its debut on April 16th, 1946. It’s inscription reads: “To those who fell in the unprecedented and heroic struggle for dignity and freedom for the Jewish people, for a free Poland and for the liberation of mankind.” The circular memorial (close to the corner of Polin) symbolizes a manhole coger and incorporates red sandstone, a material purposefully chosen to symbolize the blood that was spilled.
Mordechai Anielewicz, the commander of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, conducted operations from a bunker on Miła 18. All that remains now is a grassy mound and memorial stone lying halfway up ul. Dubois. It’s said that over 100 Jewish fighters lie buried underneath, including Anielewicz who committed suicide on May 8th as the Nazi piped poisonous gas into the bunker. “What’s most important,” wrote Anielewicz in his final letter, “is that the dream of my life has become a reality. I have lived to see Jewish defence in the Ghetto in all its greatest splendor.”
Built to mimic the form of one of the cattle wagons used to take Jews to their deaths, the memorial at Umschlagplatz marks the assembly point for Jews prior to their deportation to Treblinka. Initially plans were raised to inscribe the names of all those known to have been transported to the death camp on the monument, though with that thought to be in excess of 300,000 people the idea was deemed too unrealistic. Instead, the decision was reached to etch approximately 400 Jewish first names onto the granite walls.
Unveiled on April 19th, 1948, the fifth anniversary of the insurgency, this flagship landmark was erected in close proximity to where the first shots of the rising were fired. Eleven meters tall, the monument was designed by Nathan Rappaport and famously constructed using Swedish labradorite that had originally been earmarked by the architect Albert Speer to form a Nazi victory arch. A relief depicts a defiant Mordechai Anielewicz standing amid men, women and children caught up in the fighting. Today it is the center point of all ceremonies connected to the battle, not to mention numerous other Jewish related events and holidays.
