Monument sights in Poland
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Statue of Marian Rejewski
In the newer part of town, a block north of Hotel Pod Orłem on ul Gdańska, you can find a seated statue of celebrated Bydgoszcz citizen and mathematician Marian Rejewski (1905-1980). Conservatively depicted in suit and glasses, the great mathematician is seated modestly on a bench. Next to him is the likeness of an Enigma machine, the device he once defeated.
Mathematicians are usually stereotyped as bookish, unworldly creatures. But not so Bydgoszcz-born Rejewski, who took on the Nazi ciphers to become one of the heroes of WWII.
Rejewski was teaching at Poznań University in 1932, a year before Hitler came to power, when he was seconded to the Polish army's Cipher…
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Ghetto Heroes Monument
About 200m north of Pawiak Prison Museum, on the corner of ul Anielewicza and ul Zamenhofa, is a tree-lined park, which in summer is dotted with sunbathers. It's an incongruously peaceful setting for the Ghetto Heroes Monument, a memorial to the thousands who lost their lives in the ill-fated Ghetto Uprising of 1943. The grey stone tower is built of Swedish granite, originally imported by the Nazis to build their own victory monument.
On one side a bronze relief depicts a crush of doomed but defiant insurgents; on the other is a scene of martyrdom - a Jewish elder clutching a Torah scroll leads a group of his people, the sinister outlines of Nazi helmets and bayonets…
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Monument to Pope John Paul II
Outside Bazylika Mniejska is a Monument to Pope John Paul II, which is known as the 'Cream Cake Statue' in some circles. It seems that when the pope visited his hometown in 1999, he sat in almost the same spot and reminisced about how he and his mates would enjoy kremówki (cream cakes) from a certain shop 'just over there'. The statue actually depicts the pope in the usual pastoral pose, with his hand raised in a blessing, but it might look to some as though he is pointing.
Naturally, you can't miss trying a kremówka, the calorific pastry of cream, eggs, sugar and a dash of brandy. Everyone claims to serve the real McCoy, but to our mind the best is at Kawiarna…
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Adam Mickiewicz statue
A few steps north from the Church of St Adalbert on Rynek Główny (the Main Market Square) is the Adam Mickiewicz statue surrounded by four allegorical figures representing the Motherland, Learning, Poetry and Valour. The szopki (Nativity scenes) competition is held beside the statue in early December.
The flower stalls, usually to the north of the statue and traditionally run by women, have been trading on this site since medieval times. The area in between is the 'pasture' for Kraków's pigeon population, which the city - unbelievably - encourages. The area is currently fenced off as excavations for a possible underground shopping and entertainment complex are going on…
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Westerplatte
Westerplatte is a long peninsula at the entrance to the harbour. When Gdańsk became a free city after WWI, Poland was permitted to maintain a post at this location, at the tip of the port zone. It served both trading and military purposes and had a garrison to protect it. WWII broke out here at dawn on 1 September 1939, when the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein began shelling the Polish guard post. The garrison, which numbered just 182 men, held out for seven days before surrendering.
The site is now a memorial, with some of the ruins left as they were after the bombardment, plus a massive monument put up in memory of the defenders.
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Monument to the Fallen Shipyard Workers
Just in front of the shipyard gates, on Solidarity Square, the Monument to the Fallen Shipyard Workers commemorates the workers killed in the riots of 1970. Unveiled on 16 December 1980, 10 years after the massacre, the monument is a set of three 42m-tall steel crosses, with a series of bronze bas-reliefs in their bases. The first monument in a communist regime to commemorate the regime's victims, it became an instant symbol and landmark.
One of the plates contains a fragment of a poem by late Nobel laureate Czesław Miłosz: 'You who wronged a simple man/Do not feel safe. A poet remembers./You can kill one, but another is born.'
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Sigismund III Vasa Column
A natural spot from which to start exploring the Old Town is triangular Castle Square (Plac Zamkowy). Attracting snap-happy tourists by the hundreds each day is the square's centrepiece, the Sigismund III Vasa Column. This lofty 22m-high monument to the king who moved the capital from Kraków to Warsaw was erected by the king's son in 1644 and is Poland's second-oldest secular monument (after Gdańsk's Neptune). It was knocked down during WWII, but the statue survived and was placed on a new column four years after the war. The original, shrapnel-scarred granite column now lies along the south wall of the Royal Castle.
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Grabarka Crosses
The story of the Grabarka Crosses goes back to 1710, when an epidemic of cholera broke out in the region and decimated the population. Amid utter despair, a mysterious sign came from the heavens, which indicated that a cross should be built and carried to a nearby hill. Those who reached the top escaped death, and soon afterwards the epidemic disappeared. The hill became a miraculous site and a thanksgiving church was erected.
Since then pilgrims have been bringing crosses here to place alongside the first one, and today the hill is covered with around 20,000 crosses of different shapes and sizes.
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Neptune Fountain
According to legend the Neptune Fountain, next to the town hall, once gushed forth with the trademark Gdańsk liqueur, Goldwasser. As the story goes, it spurted out of the trident one merry night and Neptune found himself endangered by crowds of drunken locals. Perhaps that's why in 1634 the fountain was fenced off with a wrought-iron barrier. The bronze statue was the work of another Flemish artist, Peter Husen; it was made between 1606 and 1613 and is the oldest secular monument in Poland.
A menagerie of stone sea creatures was added in the 1750s during the restoration of the fountain
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Church of Our Lady Queen of Poland
The Church of Our Lady Queen of Polandis otherwise known as the Arka Pana (Lord’s Ark). This interesting, though rather heavy, ark-shaped construction was the first new church permitted in Nowa Huta after WWII, and was completed in 1977 entirely by volunteer labourers. Up till then, Nowa Hutans used the two historic churches that had somehow managed to escape the avalanche of concrete. They are both on the southeastern outskirts of Nowa Huta, in the Mogiła suburb about 2.5km southeast of Plac Centralny (tram 15), and are worth a visit if you are in the area.
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Umschlagplatz Monument
The Umschlagplatz Monument marks the site of the umschlagplatz (literally, 'taking-away place'), the railway terminus from which Warsaw's Jews were transported to Treblinka. The rectangle monument's marble walls are carved with more than 3000 Jewish forenames, from Aba to Zygmunt, and the stark message: 'Along this path of suffering and death over 300,000 Jews were driven in 1942-43 from the Warsaw Ghetto to the gas chambers of the Nazi extermination camps'.
Its shape is symbolic of the cattle trucks into which the prisoners were herded.
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Memorial
As you walk from the train station to the town centre, you'll notice a park containing a Memorial to the 1939 defence of the town during the Nazi invasion. Hel was the last place in Poland to surrender; a garrison of some 3000 Polish soldiers defended the town until 2 October.
The peninsula became a battlefield once more on 5 April 1945, when about 60,000 Germans were caught in a bottleneck by the Red Army and didn't lay down their arms until 9 May; this time it was the last piece of Polish territory to be liberated.
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Barbican
The most intriguing remnant of the medieval fortifications, the Barbican is a powerful, circular brick bastion adorned with seven turrets. There are 130 loopholes in its 3m-thick walls. This curious piece of defensive art was built around 1498 as an additional protection of the Florian Gate, and was once connected to it by a narrow passage running over a moat. It’s one of the very few surviving structures of its kind in Europe, and also the largest and perhaps the most beautiful.
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Basilica of the Assumption of Our Lady
The Basilica of the Assumption of Our Lady, better known in these parts as the Mariacki. The first church on this site was built in the 1220s and, typically for the period, was ‘oriented’ – that is, its sanctuary pointed eastward. Following its destruction during the Tatar raids, the construction of a mighty basilica began, using the foundations of the previous church. That’s why the church stands at an oblique angle to the square.
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Racławice Panorama
Wrocław’s pride and joy is the Racławice Panorama. Housed in a cylindrical building in a park southwest of the National Museum, it’s a cyclorama, a giant canvas painting measuring 15m by 114m and wrapped around the internal walls of the rotunda. It is viewed from an elevated central balcony. Three-dimensional items (tree trunks, plants, weapons, roads), special lighting and sound effects bring it to life.
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Stary Rynek
The Old Town is on the southern bank of the Brda River, a 20-minute walk from the train station. Its heart, Stary Rynek, is dominated by the palatial town hall and a large Modernist monument to the victims of fascism. It was here that the Nazi invaders kept hostages at gunpoint for two days in September 1939, shooting 40 of them. Nowadays the grim monument seems somewhat at odds with the life of the square and the surrounding streets.
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Monument to the Victims of June 1956
The Monument to the Victims of June 1956 is one of Poznań's most significant memorials. It commemorates the ill-fated workers' protest. The monument, consisting of two 20m-tall crosses bound together, was unveiled on 28 June 1981, the 25th anniversary of the strike, at a ceremony attended by more than 100,000 people. It's a huge, evocative landmark, similar to the Monument to the Fallen Shipyard Workers in Gdańsk.
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Monument to the Warsaw Uprising
Directly opposite the cathedral stands one of Warsaw’s most important landmarks, the Monument to the Warsaw Uprising. This bronze tableau depicts Armia Krajowa (AK; Home Army) fighters emerging ghostlike from the shattered brickwork of their ruined city, while others descend through a manhole into the network of sewers. The monument was unveiled on 1 August 1989, the 45th anniversary of the uprising.
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Kościuszko Mound
The human-made Kościuszko Mound pays tribute to Tadeusz Kościuszko, the hero who embodied the dreams of independent Poland in times of foreign occupation. Enter through the chapel and climb 34m for a spectacular panorama. There is a separate waxworks exhibition called Polish Routes to Independence (adult/child 8/6zł; open 9.30am to 6.30pm). From Salwator, take bus 100 or walk about 1.5km to the monument.
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Jewish Monument
The most overt reminder of the Jewish legacy of Kazimierz Dolny is the Jewish Monument in front of the old cemetery. The Nazis murdered some 3000 Jews from the town and its surrounds and desecrated the old cemetery. The Jewish Monument was assembled in 1984 from several hundred tombstone fragments collected here. The monument is just over 1km from the Rynek, on the road to Opole Lubelskie.
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Basilica of St Francis
Duck into the dark basilica on a sunny day to admire the artistry of Stanisław Wyspiański, who designed the fantastic Art Nouveau stained-glass windows. The multicoloured deity in the chancel above the organ loft is a masterpiece. From the transept, you can also enter the Gothic cloister of the Franciscan Monastery to admire the fragments of 15th-century frescos.
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Schweik Statue
The odd little bronze likeness of a soldier sitting on a bench in the centre of ul 3 Maja is the Schweik Statue, representing the antihero of Czech writer Jaroslav Hašek's polemical novel The Good Soldier Schweik (1923). According to the book, Schweik (or Švejk) visited Sanok on 15 July 1915. Fame at last.
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Monument to the Poznań Army
The Monument to the Poznań Army is stark, modern monument dedicated to the local armed force that resisted the German invasion of 1939 for almost two weeks. It's just opposite the sloping Cemetery of the Meritorious (Cmentarz Zasłużonych; M015F), the oldest existing graveyard in the city (1810).
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Dominican Church
The oldest surviving monument on the west side of the river is the former Dominican Church, now belonging to the Jesuits. Built in the mid-13th century, it was repeatedly reshaped and redecorated in later periods, but the fine early-Gothic doorway at the main entrance is still in place.
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Town Hall Tower
This tall tower is all that remains from the 15th-century town hall. In summer months, you can climb 70m to the top for a bird's-eye view of the goings-on. Nearby is the 11th-century Church of St Adalbert (Kościół Św Wojciecha), which predates the Rynek Główny.
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