Thursday in Warsaw

Good Morning Warsaw!!

After a fantastic breakfast at the Hotel Bristol, we headed to the Norzyk Synagogue which is a renovation of a synagogue which actually survived the German destruction of Warsaw and everything Jewish.  It is an active orthodox synagogue which has about 600 members. Not much else Jewish was left behind.

What was left behind was Jewish graves.  We visited the Jewish cemetery which was eerily beautiful in a forested and shady area.  It was huge and Jews have been buried in double layers over the years.  Most gravestones were quite legible with inscriptions in Hebrew/Yiddish and Polish.  All the names were familiar.

Older gravestones - could be going back hundreds of years.

One section of cemetery was for young mothers - most of whom probably died in childbirth.  The broken candlesticks symbolized how the death of a young mother breaks the family.

Incredible:

Washing my hands at the pump upon leaving the cemetery.

This monument to the Jewish heros of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising is in front of the brand new Museum of the History of the Polish Jews.  The monument commemorates how Jews died.  

The gorgeous glass new museum memorializes how the Jews of Poland LIVED.  When completed, its exhibitions will trace 900 years of Jewish Polish history, going back to the Middle Ages. It's a fantastic new educational and cultural center built on the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto.  

http://www.jewishmuseum.org.pl/en/about-museum

We wrapped up the day with private piano recital of Chopin music by a gifted violinist.  Then, great dinner.  Off to bed -- tomorrow, Krakow.