Warsaw has a sad story to tell.
Invaded by German troops during the Nazi occupation, it was literally razed to the ground in 1944. Much of today’s downtown historical Warsaw has been rebuilt from photos and recovered rubble. During the war, its Jewish citizens were shipped off to concentration camps, most never heard from again. A century or so before that, Poland was practically wiped from the world’s map, annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia (1795) and then Russia (1815). And for half a century after World War II, it lived under grim Communist rule.
Yet Warsaw, the capital of Poland, also has a mighty heart buried deep inside its cobbled streets and reconstructed pre-War buildings.
And that heart belongs to Frederic Chopin.
It wasn’t supposed to be a week-long vacation in Warsaw, but a travel booking snafu meant that our family had quite a bit of time to discover this city during last Holy Week (and decidedly less time in the “hipper” tourist destination of Prague). But the baliktad booking actually allowed us to soak up the heart and soul of Poland — proud home to Pope John Paul II, Chopin, Lech Walesa, novelist Joseph Conrad and atomic scientist Marie Curie, to name a few.
One of the more interesting facts we discovered while touring Old Town is that Chopin’s actual heart — yes, the organ itself — is buried inside the Church of the Holy Cross. It’s sealed up inside one of the church pillars, according to an attached plaque. Chopin was born in Zelazowa Wola, about a two-hour ride from downtown Warsaw; he moved to Paris to study classical music when he was 20, and succumbed to tuberculosis at age 39. He never learned to speak French well, and while the rest of Chopin is buried in Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris, the great composer bequeathed his most vital organ to the country of his birth.
Since we were in Chopin country, we tried visiting the composer’s birthplace in Zelazowa Wola, but were turned away at the gate of his humble estate, after being told the “museum” was closed on that day.
No matter. We had an even more special surprise on our trip: my mother-in-law, a huge fan of Chopin, had asked if it were possible to attend a live concert of Chopin music while in Warsaw. One sunny day, we toured the Lazienki Palace, a 17th-century baroque palace used by Polish King Stanislaw August Poniatowski as a summer residence, and were treated to a “private” piano recital by one of their great national artists, Maciej Poliszewski. We entered a baroque music room filled with chairs situated before a Steinway grand piano. As it turns out, we were the entire audience — me, my wife, mother-in-law, brother-in-law and sisters-in-law — and sat rapt as Poliszewski played — sans written music, and totally for us — a blazing repertoire of Chopin ballades, mazurkas, scherzos and waltzes.
It was amazing. Imagine, say, if you visited Dublin and Bono sat down in a pub and played you a private, unplugged set of U2 songs; or if you went to Italy, and Andrea Boccelli gave you a live recital. It was that cool. Afterward, during a champagne intermission, we were moved enough to buy multiple copies of his CD. And as we enjoyed the rest of the waning afternoon sunlight, strolling around the “Palace on the water,” we knew it was going to be our most cherished memory of Warsaw.
There was much more to see, of course, and our towering tour guide, Agnieska, brought us around Old Town, where we imagined what it was like before the Nazis arrived in 1939 — and what it looked like after the German soldiers decided to burn the city to the ground while retreating. In case we couldn’t fully grasp the historical reality, we watched a 20-minute documentary film showing the people of Warsaw — happy, strolling with baby carriages, or walking along the Vistula river — completely unaware of Hitler’s plans to occupy the city in September 1939. Once Hitler’s tanks rolled in, the government was replaced by Nazi rule and, within months, Warsaw’s Jews — some 30 percent of the city’s population — were herded into an area surrounded by 10-foot walls known as the Warsaw Ghetto. It’s eerie to visit this part of the city near the highway today: it’s noticeably more elevated than the foreground. That’s because, as Agnieska told us, the ghetto was literally rebuilt over rubble and bodies. We visit the former ghetto, now mostly built up with Communist-era tenement homes and several Jewish memorial sites. We stand next to the last remaining portion of “the wall,” indicating where Polish citizens and Jews resisted the Nazi occupation before the final razing of the city. (A fairly accurate portrait of this chapter in history is also contained in Roman Polanski’s Oscar-winning film, The Pianist, which depicts the Warsaw ghetto. It was filmed entirely on location).
Sad music seems to float on the air in Warsaw. The Poles today are a combination of contrasting ages: older survivors, with vividly lived-in faces reflecting the War, the Communist era and the whole rebuilding experience; and younger Poles, absurdly fresh-faced, plentiful (reflecting an uptick in optimism after Communism fell in 1989), healthy, and seemingly untroubled by history. They snog in public a lot. Kids on skateboards meanwhile zoom around Old Town Plaza — now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Meanwhile, the old, the lived-in, sit on park benches, looking out, perhaps, on a square from an earlier era. We saw a gathering of WWII vets line up at a nearby church for an Easter parade: their faces were either fleshy and full, with tufts of white hair and red blotches showing years of boozing; or sunken and hollowed, carved and cavernous, reflecting a harder type of living.
The Warsaw Uprising is a big topic here, with museums dedicated to documenting what Germany did, and how Poles fought back. There’s also some thinly veiled bitterness toward the Russian soldiers, who arrived on the banks of the Vistula in 1944, yet cooled their heels for over a month as the city burned before coming to the “rescue.” All in all, 85 percent of Warsaw was destroyed. All that is left has been carefully reconstructed. They somehow managed to capture the look, if not the historical fact, of Old Warsaw. In a way, those old lived-in faces supply the true feel.
As we stood in the Plaza, Agnieska told us a little about the dark days right after Communism’s fall. There was jubilation, of course; as an example of “the Polish sense of humor,” she said the old Communist Party headquarters was immediately turned into a stock exchange. But in reality, long lines for basic items were what followed. Not just food, but things like Barbie dolls and other “Western” luxuries were hard to come by. Not much investment poured in. But by the mid-‘90s, foreign brands finally arrived here: McDonald’s, KFC, and fabled Levi’s jeans made their first appearance behind the Iron Curtain.
Warsaw is unlike many European cities in that it’s no longer authentically preserved. Not much was left to work with after the War. Rather, it’s a restored city — the colors and materials of the buildings just a little too bright, a little too recent-looking. But rather than some Disney simulation, it’s a careful, heartfelt remembrance of what the city once was. It escapes kitsch largely by virtue of its aging inhabitants, who clearly loved the place enough to start from scratch.
The other big hero in Poland is Pope John Paul II, or native son Karol Jozef Wojtyla. Although born in Wadowice to the south and educated in Krakow, Warsaw residents claim him, too, especially during Holy Week, when thousands of colorful candles and prayers are laid out on the streets by the faithful. Large banners of the Polish Pope drape churches and public buildings. Colorful hand-painted Easter eggs are a big hit with tourists. Clearly, Warsaw is a place where faith was never abandoned. The spirit of the people is reflected in its love of the arts, its dedication to history and remembrance. And its heart — along with Chopin’s heart — still survives to this day.
Still on a music kick, we attended a Beethoven program at the Polish National Opera House, Teatr Wielki, downtown. The “Symphony No. 8 in F Major” was pleasing enough (followed by Act 1 of Wagner’s “The Valkyrie”), and it was cool to have our own private opera box to enjoy the show, but somehow it felt like another invasion — the German music taking over downtown Warsaw — and in our minds, perhaps, we were still hearing the searching, powerful lines of Poliszewski, giving us a direct line to Warsaw’s heart and soul.
Not surprisingly, too, there was a Filipino duo ensconced in the bar of the Hotel Bristol when we returned after the concert. Great peoples — and great music — seem to travel alike.