Then We Took Berlin

Berlin was definitely on our bucket list and only a 5 hour train ride from Warsaw; how could we not go for a visit.

 Built in 1884, the train station has a beautiful glass roof which was letting in the sun as we arrived. The forecast for the next few days was sunny with temperatures in the mid 30's.

The station did not look like this after the Second World War. Nearly one third of Berlin had been destroyed by air raids, Soviet artillery fire and street fighting.




Photo: worldwarphotos.info

Berlin was over run by  Soviet forces in the early morning of May 2, 1945. In late 1944 the London Protocol agreement was reached by the Allies that had divided the country and Berlin into occupation zones that were to be controlled by the Allied Forces of Britain, USA and Russia with France joining later on.

Photo: Wikipedia

Germany and Berlin were to remain partitioned for the next 56 years. East Berlin controlled by the Soviets and West Berlin controlled by US, Britain and France. My first memories of Berlin were stories of the Berlin Wall, built in 1961 to keep German citizens living in Soviet controlled East Berlin from escaping into West Berlin. Between 1961 and 1989, 80 people were killed trying to cross the dead man's zone into West Berlin


Photo: Wikipedia

In the late fall of 1989, with the Soviet Republic collapsing, the Berlin Wall was opened between East and West Berlin. Dismantling of the wall began almost immediately.

There are only a few sections of the wall left standing. Amazingly, with the original graffiti intact in some places. In the early days of the wall, it could be very dangerous for West Berlin graffiti artists to tag the wall. In some areas, the wall was built a meter inside East Berlin so anyone approaching the wall too close could be shot at, as they were considered to be in East Berlin. I decided to chance it that day.

With only a few days in Berlin, we opted for an intense 6 hour walking tour of  the sights of Berlin.

The day was heating up as we started the tour.

Our first stop, the Berlin Old Museum.

The museum survived  while all around it were destroyed.






Photo: moddb.com

With temperatures in the 30's, our tour guide was awesome, taking us on only the shadiest routes.


Brandenberg Gate and plaza.

Home to some of Hitlers most extravagant parades, that is before the Allies arrived.



Photo: Wikipedia

Checkpoint C or more well known as Checkpoint Charlie was a busy crossing between East and West Berlin during the years after the war.



Photo: BZ Berlin

More cars and less tanks today.  Now a cartoonish tourist photo op complete with sandbags and guard.

We visited the Holocast Memorial, constructed in honour of  the  6,000,000 jewish lives lost in Europe during the war.

With the rise of Nazism in 1933, Berlin became ground zero for the persecution and descrimination of German Jews.

Jewish stores and businesses were boycotted. Book written by Jews were publicly burned. Culminating in 1938 with Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, when most of Berlins Jewish businesses and homes were looted and  synagogues destroyed.

Beginning in 1941, the city's 160,000 Jews were deported to camps around Europe and by 1943, Berlin was officially declared Judenrein (clean of Jews).



Photo: U. S. Holocast Museum. Holocaust Musem






Berlin Cathederal. Inaugurated in 1905, bombed in 1944.










Photo:Pinterest




Rebuilt in 1975. Currently going through another rebuild.


It has been our experience that owning a cathedral can be a real money pit.












Berling National Gallery survived the war almost intact with only the internal areas destroyed by a Russian incendiary bomb. 










Photo: Wikipedia

Now a beautiful place to catch a few rays and rest our tired feet in the 35 C heat. 

The Fuherbunker, home to Hitler for the last few months of his life.


He shot himself here, on April 30, 1945 and his body was burned in a garden near by. Or so they say?

Now, just a little dried up piece of grass in the middle of a parking lot. 


Any signs of what was here have been removed to avoid becoming a site for the Neo-Nazi movement to gather . 

Now you might be thinking that stories of death and destruction are the only things that Berlin has to offer a tourist. You would be very far from the truth.  

A planned 30 minute stop at a small Dali museum turned into a 2 hour romp through his life and art. He was way cool ahead of his time. 

Berlin is a young, vibrant city with lots to see and do. We only touched a little of what she has to offer. 

Of course for Nonie, no visit to any city would be complete without a visit to a fabric market. 

Finding this one, involved one subway, two buses and a several block walk to reach.

But, Nonie found her Zen and a few metres of fabric. 

Note: I file this blog on November 9, 2019, the 30th anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down. 

Perhaps Gdansk

Another city not considered for a visit but a city that had some small meaning to me. Gdansk, located along the Gdania River and a port city on the Baltic Sea.


Thanks to another high speed train, we were able to make the trip from Warsaw to Gdansk, a distance of 340 kilometres, in just over 2 hours and 40 minutes.








 It was heavily bombed during WW II by the Allies and Russians after being occupied by the Germans.


















The plan was to visit some museums and its old town. Sadly, like Warsaw, it had been destroyed during the war but rebuilt to become one of the more visited places in Poland.

One of the pleasant aspects of Main Town is that the River Gdania flows in a circuitous route throughout the it.

Reminded us very much of Amsterdam with out the smell of marijuana and the ding, ding, ding of  bicycle bells.

Some of buildings survived the war. The Gdansk Crane dates back to the 14th century. It was used to load and unload cargo. It houses a museum exhibiting daily life of the port from 1500 to 1700. A interesting place to spend no more than 30 minutes.

The main attraction for me was the European Solidarity Centre which is devoted to the history of Solidarity, started in 1979 by Polish trade unionists and then morphed into civil resistance movement that spread throughout the Eastern Bloc countries. Some say that the creation of the Solidarity movement was the start of the beginning of the end of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics in 1991.

It rose from a shipyard worker's strike. Solidarity became a reality in the late summer of 1980 when it was recognized by the Polish communist government who signed an agreement allowing its existence. Led by Lech Walesa, a worker from the shipyard,  the movement grew to 10,000,000.

I had a small and personal connection to the Solidarity Movement. For me, it began in May of 1983; I was a 30 year old husband and father of two young boys. The world was going through the worst economic conditions since the 2nd World War. Inflation was in the double digits. We had just finished building a house with construction interest rates rising from 8% to 21% during the build and locking into a regular mortgage at 13.5%.

The Social Credit party led by William (Bill) Bennett junior had just been re-elected to a third term. Filled with power, the Socreds brought down draconian labour laws and terminated many of the social services that had been instituted over the past several decades. Bennett was following the same radical conservatism ideology of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Twenty-six bills were tabled.

Two bills dealt serious blows to the public sector unions. Under Bill 2, the unions lost the right to negotiate anything but wages and benefits and included the indefinite extension of wage controls. Bill 3 gave the government the right to fire anyone with out cause regardless of seniority and terminated any type of job security. 

On July 15^th, Operation Solidarity was born; a coalition of 400,000 BC unionists was formed to fight the Bennett restraint program.  The name grew from the Solidarnosc (Solidarity) movement protests happening in Poland. 

They  even using the same red and white banner used by the Polish movement.

Photo: Vancouver Sun

It was July 19^th and the union called an evening meeting of all Tranquille employees. Tranquille Institution started life as a tuberculosis hospital before becoming a mental institution.

At the time, I was the chief engineer of the heating plant and mechanical maintenance department for Tranquille.  

At the meeting we were informed of the closure of Tranquille and the layoff of all employees. There was no plan for what would happen to the residents and there was no actual date for the closure but under the new legislation all employees would loose their recall rights. That night, it was decided  the staff would occupy Tranquille and evict all management staff.

During the night a handmade flag was raised over the steam plant.

The next morning, I was waiting at the front door for my manager and the fire chief to arrive. I informed them that the union had taken over the institution and that they were not allowed to enter any of the buildings including the fire hall. The same thing was happening to management all over the complex.




http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/community-stories_histoires-de-chez-nous/solidarity-bc-protest_solidarite-protestation-cb/story/chapter-6-the-tranquille-occupation/

For the next three weeks, I lived on site, bunking down at the fire hall. Initially, I was contacted by Victoria and threatened that I would be held personally responsible for any facility problems that could occur on site but as time progressed the calls were more conciliatory as it became apparent that we were maintaining the institution as we normally would have.  

Fire Hall Photo: The Game of Nerds

Three stressful weeks later, we turned the institution back over to management, formed a huge parade and joined by other unions along the way, walked from Tranquille to a downtown Kamloops park where a huge Social Credit rally was being held to celebrate a by-election win for the Socreds in the Kamloops riding. We spoiled all their fun that day. 

Photo: Vancouver Sun

Operation Solidarity continued for the next three months with the largest demonstration ever witnessed in Vancouver, over 60,000  marched past the hotel where the Social Credit Party was hosting their general meeting. Two weeks later, a general strike and Nonie and I were spending some quality time on a picket line at a local liquor store.


Photo: Victoria Times Colonist



Six months later, I was offered and accepted a management position and we moved to Vancouver. 

Meanwhile back in Gdansk, we are headed for the War Museum. We planned to spend the morning there before catching an early afternoon train back to Warsaw. 

Our enjoyment of touring the Solidarity Centre the day before was quickly crushed by the memories stirred up at the War Museum. 

Given the direction of the world today, the lessons of past wars have been lost and forgotten. Everybody should tour a war museum every few years. 

First We Take Warsaw

We had an early evening, 18:25 train departure from Passau to Vienna arriving at 20:40. We traveled on a German made ICE-T train. Capable of up to 230 kilometres an hour, It was why we were able to travel from Passau to Vienna, a distance of 310 kilometres in 2 hours and 15 minutes. 

In Vienna, we were catching an overnight train to Warsaw departing at 22:20.  

Photo: www.seat61.com

Normally we would have allowed for a much earlier arrival to ensure we had plenty of time to make our connection in Vienna. However, our “on-time” experience with European train systems has given us the confidence to reduce our lay over times. Rather have the extra time to explore Passau than sit in a train station.

We were traveling to Warsaw on  a sleeper train called the Chopin. (Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic era)  Advertised as a modern Polish sleeper, our car had seen a lot of use. Everything about it screamed the 90’s. We had booked the deluxe sleeper that provided a washroom with shower and included breakfast. The breakfast was a plastic wrapped slice of bread and pastry, a small container of juice, and some mystery meat. A very small hot coffee was delivered by the car attendant. 

The shower was more of a dribbler than a shower.  Full on, the stream of tepid water barely flowed down the wall of the shower stall. You had to rub your body along the wall to get enough water to wash. Eeeewww! 

Verdict? Should have stayed overnight in Vienna and caught an early train to Warsaw.









Warsaw had not been on our radar for a visit. We were drawn there by the chance to visit with some of our extended Chinese family. They had us quickly up and touring, with no learning curve. Meeting us at the train station then showing us the ropes on navigating Warsaw’s excellent public transportation system.

For our stay in Warsaw, we had booked a small apartment through a Polish accommodation company. Not something we normally do but the low cost was irresistible. . Their on line presence seemed legitimate and they were listed on several of the larger e-rental company sites.  The apartment was exactly as the picture on their website so a shout out to P  & O Apartment Group.

Our front door opened onto  Old Town Market Square, the geographic centre of Old Town Warsaw, hence the name

The 2^nd World War and the decades that followed were not kind to Warsaw nor kind to Poland.

The Old town had been almost completely razed by the Nazis as they retreated from the Russian advance. Rebuilding began all most immediately after the war and continued through to the mid-1960's

This is a picture of the Old Town Market Square after the Germans got through with it.

Photo: Wikipedia.com

Much of the tourist industry is driven by those years.  Bus tours to take you to the concentration camps that surround Warsaw. Many walking tours describing what life was like through the 2nd World War and Communist years.

We took three tours. The historical tour was interesting as much of Old Town had been destroyed during the war so the age of the buildings for most of the buildings were only 50 or 60 years.  We were patiently guided to those few buildings that existed before the war. There were not many.

 A shout out to freewalkingtour.com/warsaw/ for their excellent guides. Tipping is encouraged.

The Warsaw Uprising was our next tour. The uprising began as the Germans were in retreat from the Russian army advance. The intent was for the Poles to drive the Germans out of Warsaw and free Poland’s capital after five years of German occupation. As the Russians arrived on the outskirts of Warsaw they halted their advance leaving the Germans lots of time to regroup, defeat the Polish resistance and raze the capital in reprisal.

Warsaw Uprising Memorial.



This ploy allowed the Russians to easily occupy Warsaw and Poland for the next 40 years.

Our final walking tour involved one of the most infamously remembered atrocities of World War II. The  Warsaw Ghetto Uprising which began in 1939, when the Nazis who had occupied Poland a few months earlier, forced 300,000-400,000 Jews into a 3.3 km area in central Warsaw. Here, thousands of Jews perished due to starvation and disease.

In 1942, the Nazis began mass deportations of the Jews disguising it as a “resettlement to the East”. In the short period of only two months over 250,000 to 300,000 Jews were removed from the Warsaw ghetto and exterminated at the Treblinka concentration camp. 

Photo: fcut.usf.edu

Near the end of 1942, the Jewish resistance movement learned that the deportations were part of an extermination process and took up armed resistance against further deportations. On April 19, 1943, when the Nazis and SS entered the ghetto for the final removal of Jews, they were ambushed by the Resistance. 4 weeks later the last of the Jewish holdouts were killed.   (Wikipedia)


The Nożyk Synagogue is the only surviving prewar Jewish house of prayer in Warsaw, Poland. It was completed in 1902 and restored after World War II.

I would recommend reading the book Mila 18 by Leon Uris, a fictional story of the Warsaw Ghetto.  Mila 18 was the address of a bunker that was the final headquarters of the Jewish resistance and on May 8 the bunker was found, attacked and destroyed by the Germans. Resistance members trapped in the bunker committed suicide rather than be taken prisoner. 

There is a stone monument situated on the site at Mila 18. The bodies of those who died in the bunker were not exhumed and remain there today. The rock sits on a rubble mound made from the houses of Mila St.   

It might seem to those reading this blog, that Warsaw could be a bit of a depressing place, but that is far from the reality. During the day, tourists from around the world filled the streets and out in the evenings with our friends, we found the city full of young vibrant Poles, most of whom were born long after the war had ended. The city is well worth a visit and it doesn't hurt to be reminded of our past as we are sadly doomed to repeat it.