Godzina W in the centre of Warsaw

Four four years from 2016 to 2019, I spent the moment of Godzina W ('W'-hour) with my father in the quarter of the Powązki Military Cemetery reserved for Batalion Odwet, the Home Army unit in which he served. While this is where the official commemorations occur, the mass event that draws the real crowds is held at crossroads of ulica Marszałkowska and Aleje Jerozolimskie (Rondo Dmowskiego). I have never been before, so I was curious to see how this would compare.

I arrived at twenty past four, so 40 minutes before the sirens would traditionally start to wail.  A public-address system had been set up; someone announced that before the ceremony begins, that a decade of the Rosary would recited (one Lord's Prayer followed by ten Hail Marys). On cue, 20 or 30 powerful motorbikes arrived at the roundabout, revving up their engines and drowning out the prayers.

At half past four, the police closed both thoroughfares to traffic, a signal for people to start streaming in from behind the pedestrian barriers, moving right up to the roundabout and filling the road space from one end to the other. The minutes ticked down. Every higher vantage point – bus stop, kiosk roof, Metro ventilation shaft – was soon topped by young men, some of whom were holding flares. A half-hearted appeal from the organisers for people to get down went unheeded. At a couple of seconds to five, the flares went off. And then, on the dot of five, the sirens began to wail. This was it. Scores of flares filled the streets with flames and smoke. 

Viscerally emotional. I was still in tears from hearing the last song played over the public address system – a song I associate with this day, and with my father – Warszawskie Dzieci. 

The two-minute silence ended and Cześć i chwała bohaterom ('Honour and glory to the heroes') was chanted repeatedly by the crowd. The chanting eventually lost its vigour and fizzled out. A voice at the microphone started speaking in nationalist tones and the crowd began turning away, making for the Metro station or bus stops. "The Germans only pretend to be our friends..." Whatever. Time to leave.

Somehow, I much prefer Godzina W at Powązki. My father would have done so too. But one can't be in two places at one time. A time for quiet contemplation, wandering along tree-lined avenues lined with graves of the fallen.

This time seven years ago:
W-hour on the big day
[My father's last visit to Warsaw. He promised to return for the 75th anniversary. He made it. Three months later, he died.]

This time eight years ago:
My father at the 74th anniversary of the Uprising

This time nine years ago:
73rd anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising with my father

This time ten years ago:
Godzina W remembered with my father – a day of emotions

This time 13 years ago:
Godzina W commemorated in a more civilised way

Godzina W 14 years ago (2012)

Godzina W 15  years ago (2011)

Godzina W ten years ago (2009)

Warsaw's progress to normality

It was on a Saturday night in August 1989 that we ventured into Warsaw's Old Town square. The place was almost deserted and dimly lit. Only one restaurant was open, U Fukiera. We ventured in. Most of the tables were taken. A surly waitress showed us one for the four of us; we sat down and were given menus. Several pages of onion-skin paper in a black leatherette binder. Typed out through sheets of carbon paper, the board of fare. Every single item except for just four had been crossed through. All that was left were the following: Coca-Cola (33cl); mineral water (33cl), black unfiltered coffee (no sugar), and some Georgian (or Armenian, can't recall) brandy. We ordered the mineral water; the cap was rusty. The coffee was 100% Robusta, cheap-tasting and filled with sediment. At least the brandy was somehow OK. This, you will understand, was the height of the tourist season in the capital city of a country of almost 40 million people. Communism was falling, and with it the Marxist notion of a planned economy. 

And yet within five years of the transformation to free-market democracy, life had returned to the Old Town. In the summer of 1994, the City of Warsaw had inaugurated Jazz na Starówce (Jazz in the Old Town). This year marks its thirtieth anniversary. Every Saturday in July and August, there's a free jazz concert in the square. 

As a tourist destination, Warsaw is no longer jaw-droppingly cheap. But nor is it rip-off expensive. Quality is good, prices are reasonable. The city is clean and safe. No signs of drunkenness or aggression; tourists from all over the world, young folk, old folk. A normal city in other words. 

Below: early evening, and the pavement cafes, bars and restaurants are filling up. The weather is optimal – dry, blue skies, not too hot. The corner of ulica Nowomiejska ('New-Town Street'), which connects the Old Town to the New Town, and ul. Mostowa ('Bridge Street') that leads down towards the Vistula. On the walls of the Barbakan to the right, the shadow of the tower of the Church of the Holy Ghost. 

Below: live on stage last night was Piotr Schmidt and his quartet. Quality jazz; reminded me mood-wise of Miles Davis in his Kind of Blue phase. The square was filled with people appreciating the music. An hour-long set, one encore – and that's it, but one has to remember that people live on all four sides of the square.

The concert over, the crowd drifts off, but the bars, cafes and restaurants remain full; a sense of contentment in the air as night falls over the city.

If anyone should suggest to me that communism is better than a democratically regulated market economy, I would respectively tell them that it absolutely isn't.

Left: the corner of the Old Town square. Time to drift back, remembering visits here in years gone by. Good-natured crowds mill around this way and that; I'm not (yet!) getting that over-touristed vibe that spoils cities like Kraków or Prague. Yes, there's a wide variety of places to sit down to eat and drink, but it's not over commercialised; Warsaw seems to be in that sweet spot between being attractive to tourists but not a tourist trap. 

On the way back to Chynów, my train is delayed by a full half-hour, in the end it was overtaken by the last timetabled train of the night, which terminates in Warka. Below: an interstitial view of W-wa Służewiec station, between the stairs and the lift. Proper electronic signboards have been promised for this station sometime soon, as well as for Piaseczno and Warka. Good. The more information about delays etc, the better.

This time three years ago:
Summer winding down

This time seven years ago:
My Mazovian roots

This time eight years ago:
My father revisits his battleground

This time ten years ago:
Over the hill at Harrow

This time 11 years ago:
Behold and See - the Miracle of Lublin - Pt 1.

This time 13 years ago:
Quiet afternoon in the bazaar

This time 14 years ago:
The politics of the symbol

Uprising commemoration - excitement on Day 3

After breakfast, we are joined by Eddie for another three-generation day. We set out to find where my father lived for the first four years of his life before his family moved to ulica Filtrowa 68 (more on this tomorrow), and then onto the Uprising museum. Below: Warsaw's transformation continues to amaze my father, who remembers little more than street names and how the streets connected before the war. This is ul. Prosta, looking east towards ul. Świętokrzyska.

Left: here we are in Plac Europejski, Warsaw Spire in the background. My father is impressed by the urban planning - the wide boulevards, the amount of greenery and the new buildings. He quips that along with the ul. Złota, Żelazna, Miedziana, Srebrna etc there should be an ul. Szklana - so much glass is on these new buildings.

Below: we find the house of my father's childhood. This is ul. Łucka 16. It still exists! (it's set back from the road - I assumed that it had already been demolished, but it's still here, albeit it will be demolished soon.) My father doesn't remember it from the 1920s, but does remember revisiting it with his older brother Zdzich in later years; their flat was on the fourth floor. As they opened the window, a cat that was resting on the ledge was pushed off and it fell into the courtyard. They rushed down fearing the worse - but the cat was fine, having landed on all fours.

Below: on to the Warsaw Uprising Museum for a very special celebration organised by Peter Chudy, a great supporter of Polish military history (and historians). Peter had persuaded Representative Marcy Kaptur, a congresswoman with Polish-American parents, to arrange for U.S. flags flown over the Capitol to be presented to veterans of the Warsaw Uprising, including my father, by members of the U.S. military stationed in Poland

My father poses with U.S. military personnel in the library of the Warsaw Uprising museum, clearly delighted! Diplomatically symbolic, very important to strengthen the ties between NATO members.

Dziadzio wants to show his grandson where he what on Godzina W ('W' hour - the moment the Uprising began). It was here, in a first-floor room on ul. Filtrowa 7, visible in the photo below. Here, 20 soldiers from Batalion Odwet awaited their orders and weapons - they never came.

And so, to fight on, the soldiers had to make their way across Pole Mokotowskie to the Polish-held barricades along ul. Polna, defended by Batalion Golski. My father made it across, traversing first the cabbage fields (now buildings of the Politechnika Warszawska) and then through what was coincidentally his secondary school from 1935 to 1937, on ul. Śniadeckich. By a further coincidence, that building now hosts Cafe Krem, where we ate lunch today.

Below: looking for the rooms where my father manned the barricades along ul. Noakowskiego from 18 August to the end of the Uprising. Somewhere up there on the first floor, between staircase A and staircase B. Right across the road from the main Politechnika building, which was in German hands.

Below: we attended a commemoration in the Politechnika grounds. In the background, the white walls of ul. Noakowskiego 16. The Batalion Golski memorial is a sheet of armour penetrated by six shells and a section of tank track. Golski managed to destroy and disable a few German tanks early on in the Uprising, as a result, the Germans were wary of launching a headlong attack on the unit, fearing it was well-armed.

Finally, the last (and very lengthy) event of the day was a field Mass followed by a roll-call of the dead and a laying of wreathes at Plac Powstania Warszawskiego.

This time two years ago:
Ahead of the Big Day

This time three years ago:
Once in a blue moon

This time five years ago:
A return to Snowdon - Wales' highest peak

This time seven years ago:
On the eve of Warsaw's Veturillo revolution

This time eight years ago:
Getting ready for the 'W'-hour flypast

This time nine years ago:
A century of Polish scouting

Warsaw Uprising 75th Anniversary - Day Two

Day Two of my father's visit. The fourth year in a row now that he's flying over for the commemorations, each year is essentially similar but slightly different. The main difference this year is that there's no Sunday in the week's calendar, so my father is missing his weekly Mass. His unit, Batalion Odwet, celebrated Mass together on the morning of Sunday 28 July as he was on his way to Heathrow with my daughter (driven there carefully by Cousin Hoavis). We fly back on Saturday 3 August, so no Sunday Mass in Warsaw this year.

We arrive an hour and fifteen minutes ahead of the big event outside the Warsaw Uprising Museum, during which Poland's president Andrzej Duda presents medals and awards – an important but not too symbolic occasion, though at a highly symbolic location. To get the best seats, one must be early! I can hear around me people talking French, German and English; veterans and their families have come a long way to be here for the 75th anniversary.

The president arrives. The military band strikes up the Polish national anthem. We stand to attention, the soldiers salute. I wonder what is going through my father's mind as the band plays...

A few words from the president of Poland (below left) and the president of Warsaw (below right). Then a great many people coming forward to receive medals.

The ceremony, around an hour and 45 minutes long, is somewhat longer than it should have been given the summer heat and the fact that most of the honoured guests are nonagenarians. The speeches etc come to an end and the crowds make a bee line for the buffet.

Left: the volunteers and scouts are all very helpful. Before long, my father has a solid plate of food in front of him - braised pork, boiled potatoes, surówka and bigos. Something is missing though... A volunteer asks my father whether he'd like something to drink. Water - fruit juice, maybe? "No." he replies. "I'd like a beer." "I'm sorry, we haven't any beer..."

My father eats up his food and we set ofp down ulica Grzybowska - the part of Warsaw he spent the first six years of his life, past Plac Grzybowski and the church where he was christened, and to the iconic PASTa building, a central battleground in the Uprising. Down in the basement, there's a craft beer bar called Piętro Niżej (which boasts 160 different beers).

Here I buy my father a beer that really takes his fancy; it's called Relaks Pils, and its from the Zodiak brewery, slightly sour, quite bitter and served cold, the very thing to quench a summer's thirst. Moni joins us, and we pop by my office, from where my father can look down upon the massive building works that are going on all over Warsaw. The city is unimaginably different to the one he left at the end of the Uprising.

We have passed so many construction sites, around Rondo Daszyńskiego, along ulica Grzybowska, south of my office – as we did so, my father's eyes would gaze upwards at the new buildings – the Hub, the Spinnaker, Mennica Legacy Tower, and marvel at Warsaw's phenomenal progress.

UPDATE: My father and I had just finished dinner at our hotel and were on our way back up to our rooms when we intercepted by two lady volunteers who wanted a chat with my father about his Uprising memories. Once my father started recounting his story, he continued for over an hour and a quarter. Another volunteer, a young lad, joined us, and my father kept recalling new details that I've never heard about (and well-known facts too). Such clarity of mind – he suddenly became about 20 years younger – and his listeners didn't want him to finish or go, kept on asking more questions. We felt like we were all there, in Warsaw, 75 years ago.

The two-hour-long interview my father gave to camera yesterday for Muzeum Powstania lacked the spontaneity and warmth of this evening's impromptu event. It might have been aided by a small bottle of Żywiec Przeniczny.

One episode I never heard before I'll share: my father was recounting the final days of the war, when the Germans were herding prisoners-of-war and forced labourers away from the advancing allied forces. My father said he saw a narrow-gauge train heading south, a loco hauling tipper wagons, the sort used to convey ballast or building materials. As the train approached its destination (Westertimke), it stopped, and Germans hurriedly started running down the length of the train, getting the wagons to tip out their loads sideways beside the track. The load was human beings. These were forced labourers from a penal camp, barely alive, almost naked, tumbling out onto the ground. My father noted that even in these, the very last days of the war, the Germans had not lost their inhumanity.

This time last year:
Karczunkowska viaduct takes shape

This time two years ago:
My father's return to Warsaw, 2017

This time three years ago:
My father's first visit to Warsaw in 40 years

This time four years ago:
What's worse - unemployment, or a badly-paid job?

This time five years ago:
A return to Liverpool

This time seven years ago:
Too good to last (anyone remember OLT Express airline?)

This time eight years ago:
Poland's Baltic coast as a holiday destination

This time ten years ago:
The Warsaw they fought and died for?

This time 12 years ago:
Floods, rainbows and hope

Getting ready for Warsaw's Big Week

Sunday evening, back from the działka to meet my father and daughter off the London flight. A group of volunteers are also waiting to greet Warsaw Uprising veterans who are flying in from around the world to take part in the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of its outbreak.

This year, being a round anniversary, the City of Warsaw is paying for return flights for each veteran wishing to attend, plus carer, and hotel stay for the week for veteran and carer (in adjoining rooms). All very well organised. Here we are, just arrived in Dziadzio's room at the four-star Golden Tulip. It's very well located for the Uprising museum and ul. Filtrowa, where Dziadzio lived before the war and during the occupation.

My father had been asked to do a piece to camera for the Warsaw Uprising Museum (below). This ended up lasting two hours. The questions were posed by a historian rather than a journalist, so the questioning was less directed, more archival in nature, recording his memories in unfiltered form.

This morning, we set off on foot to the first major event of the week, the opening ceremony officiated by the mayor of Warsaw, Rafał Trzaskowski. My father insists on pushing his wheelchair the first kilometre and half. Here we are, crossing Aleje Jerozolimskie. Everything along this stretch of road has changed since he was a boy - literally nothing prewar has survived from Plac Zawiszy to Plac Starynkiewicza.

We walk past the entrance to Warsaw's water filtration plant, from which the area (Filtry) gets its name; my father never realised before the war just what a huge area of the city the plant occupies.

We arrive in Teatr Nowy on ulica Madalińskiego for the grand opening, the music is from a Most excellent band, Warszawski Combo Taneczny. The music was so emotionally powerful that both my father and I shed many tears; this is authentic Warsaw street music from before and during the war played with great intelligence and period detail.

Below: my father's friend and fellow Ealing resident, Pan Ryszard, exchanges a few words with mayor Trzaskowski. Behind them, the band relaxes after their performance.

Cheers! Let's hope everything goes well.

This time two years ago:
What makes scenery scenic?

This time three years ago:
Theresa May flies into Warsaw

This time four years ago:
Announcing the start of the Radom railway line modernisation

This six years ago:
In praise of the (Polish-built) Fiat 500 

This time seven years ago:
Llanbedrog Beach and a farewell to North Wales

This time eight years ago:
To the Polish seaside, by night train

This time nine years ago: 
Accounting for the past - 20 years on from PRL's fall

This time ten years ago:
An introduction to fine British cheefef

This time 12 years ago:
Over the Peaks by bus 

Warsaw Uprising: 74th anniversary commemorations

In what's becoming an annual pilgrimage, my father (95) flew into Warsaw on Monday ahead of today's commemorations of the 74th anniversary of the start of the Warsaw Uprising. As in previous years, the main events were on 1 August, beginning with the laying of wreaths outside the building where my father lived from 1926 to the outbreak of the uprising. It was here (although my father did not know it) the order to start the Uprising was issued by General Chruściel 'Monter'.

It was an early start - we were up before six to get to Filtrowa by 08:45. My father, in the front row, one of the very last male participants in the Uprising to be present at this particular event.

Below: the wreaths have been laid, the parade moves on. My father remains to revisit his pre-war family home.

Below: we visit my cousin's (my father's niece's) flat, the connection with the past still strong. He remembers the outbreak of the Uprising and of the boys from his school who died.

Below: next stop was the Warsaw Uprising Museum; my father gave two long interviews, one with TVN and one for TVP Info. We went by tram from Pl. Narutowicza - I must say, Warsaw's public transport is well suited for wheelchairs.

Below: we locate the name of my father's brother, Józef, who died during the Uprising aged 19, on the wall at the Museum commemorating the fallen Home Army soldiers. [Thanks to the lady from TVN who offered to take a photo of the my father and me together.]

On to Powązki wojskowe cemetery by public transport - the buses as good as the trams for wheelchairs. Below: first port of call at the cemetery is the Batalion Odwet monument; my father pauses here to look at the names of his fallen comrades.

The appointed hour for the meeting of Batalion Odwet's remaining members was 16:15; last year, nine were present; this year there were six. Sadly, my father's comrade Kazimierz Możdzonek, who'd done so much for my father in terms of Home Army association membership, event invites etc, is very ill and couldn't make it. The soldiers of Odwet watched the Godzina W ('W-Hour') commemorations from a distance; they were not invited to the Gloria Victis memorial; rather it was the politicians who took front of stage for this, the most solemn occasion in Warsaw's calendar.

Below: so many friendly faces, so many helping hands. So many people just wanted to thank my father and wish him well. We will be back again next year; the big 75th anniversary.

Below: my father lays a flower at the grave of his younger brother, Józef.

A big thank-you to Paddy Ney for his live narration from today's events in English (see link to his channel in top right of this page). Paddy caught up with my father at Filtrowa and then at his brother's grave.

This time last year:
73rd anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising with my father

This time two years ago:
Godzina W remembered with my father - a day of emotions

This time five years ago:
Godzina W commemorated in a more civilised way

Godzina W six years ago (2012)

Godzina W seven years ago (2011)

Godzina W nine years ago (2009)

Hala Gwardia, Hala Mirowska

Having written about Koszyki last Friday, it's time to write about the other two surviving enclosed markets of Warsaw - Hala Mirowska and Hala Gwardii, also built around the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The two buildings can be treated as one complex, they are separated by a market square (built over with small shops in the 1960s) but were architecturally identical originally.

Part of Śródmieście Północ, the two buildings lie between al. Jana Pawła II and ul. Ptasia, which leads towards ul. Marszałkowska. Below: the eastern end of Hala Gwardii, currently undergoing external restoration. Inside, it's been turned into an organic and regional food bazaar (closed this evening). Between 2002 and 2005 I worked just around the corner from here, on ul. Zimna, so I knew these buildings well. Hala Gwardii has changed in terms of the retail experience, Hala Mirowska retains that old-school feel. The Vietnamese restaurant, Asia Tasty (that does the best pho in town) is still there, on the corner nearest the camera). Inside Hala Gwardii I could espy a craft ale shop.

Below: looking at the western end of Hala Gwardii. In communist times, a sports centre, with a focus on boxing. The 1953 European Amateur Boxing Championships took place here, two months after Stalin shuffled off this mortal coil. (Poland came first in the medals table; England fourth).

Below: the eastern entrance of Hala Mirowska, which has had an external facelift, though internally is pretty much as I remember it in 2004. The contrast between the two buildings is stark; one has been immaculately restored - the other has shrubs growing out of its upper stories.

Below: the western entrance of Hala Mirowska, somewhat spoilt by an incongruous modernist box shoved onto the elevation. The 1960s annex could not clash more with the neo-romanesque original. The pavement along the east side of al. Jana Pawła II from Park Mirowski to ul. Elektoralna is packed with flower stalls. Incidentally, the Warsaw district of Mirów from which Hala Mirowska gets its name was itself named after Gen. William Mier McDuff (1680-1758), the Scottish creator of the Polish royal cavalry guards regiment, which had its barracks and stables on this site.

Below: inside Hala Mirowska. The ground floor is dominated by a Społem supermarket - Poland's answer to the Co-op; nothing amazing but all the essentials and a few luxuries are here. Surrounding the Społem are lots of old-school retailers selling all kinds of goods and services including wicker baskets and traditional tablecloths.

Below: the northern elevation of Hala Mirowska; the brickwork and iron-and-glass ceiling very much of its time; I am minded of Covent Garden, Smithfields and Billingsgate, the great covered markets of Victorian London.

The war did not spare Hala Mirowska and Hala Gwardii; both were severely damaged. Below: a fragment of wall left unrestored, with bullet holes in the brickwork. It was here, against these very walls, on 7-8 August 1944 that the Germans massacred 510 civilians. The buildings themselves were bombed and burned.

Restored in 2011, Hala Mirowska still caters for Warsaw's older, less well-off residents, while Hala Gwardii contains an offer aimed at a more youthful and wealthier clientele, though sadly it was closed this evening. Worth a visit - not just for the shopping, but for the architecture and history.

This time last year:
Four stations between Piaseczno and Czachówek

This time four years ago:
A tragedy foretold [Putin's masacre of 280 civilians over East Ukraine]

Koszyki

Pre-war Warsaw had four large indoor markets, three of which have survived to this day. The first to have been renovated was Hala Koszyki (on ul. Koszykowa). A splendid redevelopment, turning a down-at-heel and shabby bazaar into three floors of post-industrial retail-and-restaurant space that's architecturally attractive. [You can read about the other two, Hala Gwardii and Hala Mirowska, which are next door to one another, here.]

Built between 1906 and 1909 in the Art Nouveau style (Secesja in Polish) when Warsaw was within the Tsarist Russian Empire, Hala Koszyki consisted of two wings and a central hall. Both wings have been retained. Below: the left (eastern) wing - the PRL-era shop signage is in place, above the ground-floor windows on either side of the entrance, but have nothing to do with current usage.

Below: the right (western) wing mirrors the left wing perfectly. Again, old-school shop signs have been preserved.

Below: between the two wings, set back from the street, a new façade for the main part of the building. Outside, the bars and cafes are thriving, even with a rainstorm imminent.

Immediately through the main doors, there's a long bar (below) serving all manner of drinks. It's Friday, at the end of the working week, and the place is slowly beginning to fill up. By eight pm, it will be jumping. Many cafes, bars and restaurants (casual dining and fine dining) to choose from. There are also much-needed services (a dry-cleaner), an upmarket food retailer (Piotr i Paweł) and a space for culinary demonstrations and workshops.

Below: the guts of Koszyki - a three-level arcade with lots of space for retail and catering, plus space in which to hang out. This is the first floor. 

Left: a reminder of Tsarist times - bilingual sign for a fish shop, advertising gastronomical goods, fish conserves and marinades. Beautifully preserved from over a century ago. Today, the gastronomic tradition is maintained; there's a cheese shop in the basement, although there was no Wensleydale in today.

Below: a cool bookshop on the ground floor level - buy one, get one half price.

Re-opened in October 2016, Hala Koszyki is another great example of how heritage architecture can be given a new lease of life through smart planning and excellent execution. "Build it, and they will come."

Left: on the ground floor, looking east. A plethora of small shops, cafes, ice cream parlours and bars means that no one will leave disappointed. Though there could be more British cheeses in the cheese shop. There was Stilton.

Incidentally: according to the PWN Oxford Polish dictionary, kosz = basket. Then koszyczek (diminutive) = little basket. So what's koszyk? Basket, also. I'd have have translated koszyk as little basket and koszyczek as tiny basket. So - Koszyki = (little) baskets.

This time last year:
It's just an Ilyushin (remember the plane-restaurant?)

This time three years ago:
Marathon stroll (31.5km) along the Vistula 

This time four years ago:
Complaining about the lack of a river crossing between Siekierki and Góra Kalwaria! 

This time five years ago:
S2 update (nearly ready)

This time six years ago:
Progress on S2 bypass - photos from the air

This time eight years ago:
Up Śnieżnica

This time 11 years ago:
July continues glum (2007 - a rainy summer)