On Monday we went to the Warsaw Uprising Museum, which was pretty cool-looking and had interestingly-designed exhibits. The problem was that it kind of lacked a solid narrative, so I think I went through the museum backwards since the layout wasn’t intuitive and honestly I’m not sure I learned much – later BF and his dad told me more Uprising facts which were helpful.

Long story short, starting on August 1, 1944, the Polish Home Army attempted to liberate Warsaw from the Nazi occupation. The Nazis were retreating from the Soviet Front and the Red Army was also advancing towards Warsaw. The Uprising was only supposed to last about 2 weeks but due to various factors it lasted for 63 days. About 15,000 troops were killed and there were about 200,000 civilian causalities. Most of these causalities were mass murders on the part of the Nazi soldiers – the museum did emphasize this aspect very well. There was a section on the medical staff/hospitals and I learned that the Nazi soldiers just killed pretty much everybody – including orderlies, many of whom were young women ages 15-18. There was a particular emphasis on youth and how many young people died, most of whom were not even soldiers.

There was also this room of letters from the time – Boy Scouts acted as couriers and ran letters to and fro. Apparently letters couldn’t be longer than 25 words.

A diary kept by an 8 year old boy during the Uprising. The lighting was such that I couldn’t get a clear pic. Sometimes I wonder if anybody would ever come across and be interested in my journals, but probably not. Unless in the future they build a museum called “What I Ate Today” or maybe “This is What Annoys Me About Work.” I would totally attend either of those museums.

Apparently last time BF was here there was a fake sewer you could go through but we couldn’t find it – I guess they closed it. During the Uprising people had to move between areas via sewer which was really horrible. I went googling for a pic and found the above.

As a reward for getting through the museum, there was a little cafe modeled after a 1939 Warsaw Cafe called “Half a Cup of Black Coffee,” which was quite enjoyable.

There was a LOT of information – even in the cafe the photos on the walls had captions and info. 1944 is really not that long ago so there are tons of artifacts, letters, personal accounts etc – I think the museum tried to gather and present too much of it at once for those of us who don’t already know the Uprising. But the cakes and hot chocolate in the cafe were good (the hot chocolate was very thick and actually started to congeal as it cooled down, I’m not sure what it was exactly).

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September 10th, 2010 |