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Odyssey in Poland & Fryderyk Chopin
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In my several visits to Warsaw, there was an area that I had never stepped in before.
In 2005, I walked into Warsaw Ghetto, the Jewish ghetto created and razed completely by the Nazis.
 
There were very few shops or people walking around the streets unlike the central district of this city. I found the remaining fragment of the ghetto (pictured at above); only a few remains of the ghetto can now be found, I hear. Near it I saw a site under construction for the Hilton with a picture of the the high-story building.
I further walked around and reached Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego, the Warsaw Rising Museum, which just opened on August 1, 2004, marking the 60th anniversary of the Warsaw Rising. I got very amazed at how accurate and minute records of those 63 days of the uprising were kept at this museum.
   
Inside the museum, I felt horrified to see this picture panel - most part of the city was destroyed and was turned into a desert of ruins.
The then Polish Army uniforms and a woman paramedic with a first-aid kit.
And the portrait of Władysław Szpilman was on display. He had miraculously survived the Warsaw ghetto, as described in Academy Award-winning movie, "The Pianist."
     
I came across this boy again. I instantly recognized him whom I had met in Stare Miasto, the Old Town. I never thought I would meet him again here at this museum. I felt so painful when I saw this small Boy Insurgent armed with a gun to fight againt the Nazis.
The documentary film was being showed.
I found a familiar statue; it was definitely the same mermaid statue I had seen on the bank of the River Vistula. But its size was much smaller. I later learned that this mermaid was modelled on a famous Polish poetess and was also killed in the uprising.
 
 
I guess I spent two hours at this museum. Outside near the gate of the museum, I noticed a poster column that was covered with a number of pictures drawn by school children in Poland. They were Polish army, nurse, and the burning city… I cried out loud in my heart
Never, ever again!
 
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