The German occupying authorities established the Lublin ghetto in March 1941 in the Podzamcze district, beneath the castle and around streets including Szeroka and Lubartowska. Jewish residents were forced to move into the designated area, where overcrowding, food shortages and poor sanitation made daily life increasingly difficult. Today, the former ghetto boundaries are marked on the street and I walked around trying to find as many of these markers as I could.
The liquidation of the ghetto began on the night of 16 to 17 March 1942, as part of Operation Reinhard, the German programme to murder the Jews of the General Government (the German administered territory in occupied Poland). Over the following weeks, approximately 26,000 people were deported to the Bełżec extermination camp, while others were murdered in Lublin. Several thousand survivors were moved to a smaller ghetto at Majdan Tatarski, which was itself liquidated in November 1942, with residents murdered or taken to Majdanek. This is the concentration camp on the edge of the city that I visited last time I was in Lublin.
This photograph from the German Federal Archives is particularly haunting. It shows German police descending into cellars in Lublin during a raid dated December 1940, before the formal establishment of the ghetto. The accompanying archive descriptions record arrests and the seizure of hidden food and possessions. Even at this time before the ghetto was established, those caught faced the danger of violence, imprisonment and forced labour.
Also from the state archives, this is the announcement in March 1941 of the creation of the ghetto. The Germans stated that it was for “compelling health reasons” using public health as a pretext for forcibly segregating the city’s Jewish population.
St Joseph’s Church on Świętoduska Street was built for the Discalced Carmelite nuns during the seventeenth century. They had acquired an unfinished fortified residence belonging to Rafał Leszczyński in 1630 and adapted it into a convent, adding their own church alongside it. An agreement with the architect Jakub Tremanzel was signed in 1635, and the church was consecrated on 28 August 1644.
The religious community changed several times during the nineteenth century. Under Austrian rule, the nuns were ordered to move elsewhere, and Carmelite friars displaced by a fire at their own monastery took their place. The complex subsequently housed Visitation nuns before the friars returned in 1835. Following the January Uprising against Russian rule, the monastery was suppressed and its buildings converted into military barracks.
The adjoining monastery also has a much darker history. During the German occupation it served as a military prison for Poles suspected of underground resistance activities. In July and August 1944 it housed an NKVD (Soviet secret police) detention facility, followed by a communist security service prison. Communist military intelligence and prosecutors subsequently used the building, where members of the Home Army and National Armed Forces were imprisoned and brutally interrogated.
The interior is not overly decorative although the pillars, altar and ceiling do brighten matters up and I also rather like the distinctive flooring. I only took this one photograph as there was a nun in the chancel and I didn’t want to look like I was interfering with the whole arrangement. I must admit that I took over forty photos of a construction fence with images of Lublin in the 1930s and managed to take only one photo of this church, but who needs consistency?
I’ve posted before about the portal in Vilnius that showed live images of Lublin in a bid to spread community and friendship across countries. Since then, Ipswich has also acquired its own portal and I was very excited to see the delights of this fine town whilst in Lublin. Unfortunately, it was broken. All rather sub-optimal.
It’s a nice concept, although they had problems in Dublin with some people rather abusing the whole vision. Give humanity a window into another country and someone will inevitably decide that what international relations really needs is a view of their backside. Fortunately, the denizens of Lublin, Vilnius and even Ipswich were all rather more positive about the arrangement.
Between 1937 and the outbreak of war in September 1939, Lublin’s Jewish inhabitants faced growing antisemitism, including organised attempts to discourage customers from using Jewish shops. A boycott campaign launched by the National Party in 1936 formed part of this increasingly hostile atmosphere. One Jewish resident, Sara Grinfeld, recalled students picketing a shop in the spring of 1939 and attaching notices telling people not to buy from Jews. Businesses continued trading and everyday life carried on. These photographs taken by Stefan Kiełsznia in the 1930s capture that everyday activity, although they cannot show all the hostility and uncertainty behind it.
German troops occupied Lublin on 18 September 1939, and persecution of its Jewish inhabitants began in the first weeks of occupation. Forced labour was imposed, and from 1 December 1939 Jews aged ten and over were required to wear identifying armbands bearing the Star of David. Looking at the shopfronts here, it is difficult to reconcile their ordinary appearance with how quickly life in the city changed.
The first photograph shows a low building with a long sloping roof, a beer house on the left and a belt-making workshop on the right. Between them are doorways beneath shallow arches, with pedestrians passing along the narrow pavement. There is nothing particularly dramatic happening, just people walking past businesses and getting on with their day.
The second photograph offers another view of the beer house, alongside shops advertising caps and fabrics. The fabric shop has particularly conspicuous painted panels around its entrance, making rather good use of the limited space between the doors. Several people are passing, while others stand near the open shopfronts. There is rather more variety here than the plain building initially suggests, with each small business finding its own way to attract attention. The large “PIWIARNIA” sign makes the beer house especially easy to identify, even with my limited Polish.
The third photograph looks into a cobbled courtyard or passage off the street, with more businesses tucked around its edges. A clothing sign is visible on the right, while further shop signs surround the archway at the back. The one element that I haven’t been able to entirely understand is which, if any, of these properties are still standing.
Before the Second World War, around a third of Lublin’s inhabitants were Jewish, part of a community whose history in the city stretched back centuries. Jewish shops, schools, religious institutions and businesses were an integral part of everyday life. Under German occupation, that community was devastated by persecution, deportation and mass murder, while much of the old Jewish district was destroyed. I’ll write more about Lublin’s Jewish history and the ghetto established here during the German occupation in future posts.
This outdoor exhibition makes rather good use of the fencing around the former Arkady site, alongside Lubartowska and Świętoduska streets. Installed in 2025 through a collaboration between the Old Town District Council and the Brama Grodzka – Teatr NN Centre, it features photographs taken by Stefan Kiełsznia during the 1930s. There are explanations in Polish and English, with QR codes providing links to further information. I like this approach, placing images of the old streets amongst their modern surroundings and giving passers-by a reason to stop. Construction fencing has rarely been so informative and I took rather a large number of photos, so that’s several blog posts to come.
The first photograph shows a row of businesses along ul. Lubartowska shows a row of businesses beneath the upper floors of a substantial building, with pedestrians passing along the pavement. One sign advertises pharmaceutical supplies, while another offers clothing, illustrated by pictures of rather formally dressed men beside the doorway. These were ordinary scenes at the time, but without these photos there would perhaps be no permanent record of many of these shops even existing.
The second photograph has more substantial lettering advertising flour, groats and bran, with a paint shop next door. The open doors offer glimpses into the premises, whilst people stand outside or continue along the pavement. The signage rarely leaves much doubt about what is being sold.
The third photograph includes a horse-drawn cart outside a shop advertising inexpensive fabrics, alongside premises selling wine, vodka and mead. Above them are tall windows and a small balcony, perhaps with the shop owners living above. It is another photograph that perhaps rewards a closer look, recording the working life of a street rather than just its architecture.
I had intended to walk past this building site, but the fencing turned out to have rather more reading material than expected. It doesn’t take much for me to get distracted.
There are only a handful of rail services from Lublin Airport railway station every day and I was pleased that my flight wasn’t much delayed as I didn’t much want to wait a few hours for the next one. Also, this is an impressive set-up, the entrance to the airport terminal is about two metres behind where I’m standing. Integrated public transport at its best.
I thought that this train looked rather lovely in the sun and I had forty minutes to wait before it left. A Spanish woman came up to me and asked in hesitant Polish when it was departing. We soon switched to English as that’s the only language I can realistically speak and established that her clock was an hour behind local time. She had thought she faced nearly two hours of waiting, so discovering it was under an hour came as something of a relief.
The train is operated by POLREGIO, but carries the Lubelskie region’s branding and coat of arms. For anyone interested, it’s a Polish built Newag Impuls 2 train. I purchased my ticket online whilst waiting whilst waiting for them to open the train doors, but there appeared to be a ticket machine on board for anyone who hadn’t bought a ticket beforehand. I couldn’t see any ticket machines at the station.
Impeccable and I liked that they opened the train thirty minutes before departure. Spotlessly clean, working power points and not one single passenger put their feet on the seats or played music. The rail fare was around £1.50 and I felt that this represented excellent value for money. The journey into the centre of Lublin takes around twenty minutes and there was a guard checking tickets and assisting passengers.
Lublin’s central railway station, although I’ll witter on about this in another post.
This was another success from the Polish rail network. I was given a power outlet, a clean train and no teenager broadcasting TikTok. Perhaps the transport revolution is complete.
Safely at Luton Airport, I had the excitement of staying up overnight whilst waiting for my early morning flight to Lublin. A cheap filter coffee at Pret was in order, which also allowed me to keep my devices fully charged. I do wonder, as an aside, whether this Pret might need to be more proactive about people who aren’t customers occupying several tables and preventing paying customers from finding a seat. Arriving early means I don’t have a problem here, but I notice that some potential customers do.
I’m not sure that I’ve ever noticed before how early security opens at Luton Airport, as I saw numerous passengers going through at 02:00 which is much earlier than somewhere like London Stansted. I decided to go through at 02:30 to help keep me awake and it was suitably quiet and peaceful.
The security process was efficient and the staff were kind and helpful as usual. No shops were open airside at this time, but there was plenty of seating.
A couple of hours after I took this photo, the terminal was packed and there were hardly any seats available.
Mine was the fourth flight of the day out of the airport.
Big Smoke is meant to open at 04:00, but this well-run venue seems to routinely open shortly after 03:00. They’re the first main food outlet that passengers see, so this seems a sensible call if they can get their staff members through security this early. I arrived at 03:30 and received a friendly welcome.
I get an £18 credit to spend at Big Smoke with my lounge pass and this cost exactly £18. A latte alongside avocado, eggs and sweet pickle on sourdough toast. This is actually really decent, there’s a depth of flavour and taste to the food, with the coffee having the required caffeine in it. I’m not in the market to spend £18 on breakfast, as I’m not decadent, but for those who are, this isn’t a bad option.
I thought that I’d pop into the lounge as well to get more coffee. And I managed to get another little breakfast.
Very nice. I’m not sure it would be worth paying £30 for access to this lounge, but my lounge pass means that I don’t need to be burdened with that decision.
I thought that it would be a little busier than this, but everything was clean and they had remembered to polish the cutlery this time. It’s normally caked in dry food which is entirely sub-optimal.
The gate was called a little early and so I meandered over there. The boarding process was clear and well managed, with the staff members ignoring the numerous passengers who seemed to be pushing their luck with large bags. It was a busy flight and there weren’t many free seats left on the aircraft.
Boarding the aircraft, which was G-WUKT that had taken me to Bratislava in June 2025. The seating gods had given me an aisle seat near the front which I was pleased with as it meant I could disembark quickly and I wanted to make a connecting train. The passenger in the middle seat asked me to switch with her boyfriend who was sitting around fifteen rows back. Although I am endlessly helpful, I refused this request as this seems to be happening on over half of flights now. The passenger was shortly afterwards moved by someone else as it transpired that she was in the wrong seat herself, so I was pleased that there wouldn’t be any awkward moments.
We had a wait at Luton Airport due to a lack of slots, but the pilot said he planned to push back anyway and see what happened. It transpired that we had just a short delay before we took off and all was well. The crew were professional and helpful, although they didn’t have much to do as the majority of the passengers were more interested in sleeping than buying food and drink.
I was delighted that by efficient speed walking I was able to be the second person at the border desk which sped things up. I’ve mentioned before that on Wizz Air, it feels that most of the passengers aren’t British in the way they often are with Ryanair. That meant I was through the border quickly and faster than many Poles who were using the electronic passport gates, with the member of border control deciding not to ask me what I was doing in Poland.
It was my first time back in Lublin in nine years and as we had arrived without any significant delay, it meant that I could catch one of the few train services of the day that departed the airport. My flight cost £8.99 and, once again, Wizz Air delighted me with their service.
I’ll write about my visits to some towns near Katowice in a future instalment of this exciting blog, but for the moment I feel the need to record the flights back home so that I don’t forget more than I already have. Here’s the bus station in Katowice.
Waiting for the bus to the airport, which is both cheap and runs regularly. It’s possible to buy a ticket on the app, but mine had stopped working for reasons unknown and I just bought a paper ticket which cost the equivalent of just over £1.
I had the back row of seats to myself on the airport bus, although I was primarily taking a photo of the validating machine in case that was ever useful to anyone. My friend Gareth managed to get fined within ten minutes of arriving in Poland for failing to validate his ticket, although he’s not a very savvy traveller.
Safely at Katowice Airport around forty minutes after leaving the city centre.
Katowice Airport is the fourth busiest in Poland and has gone from serving around one million passengers in 2005 to nearly four million in 2017 and 7.3 million last year. The growth, like so much in Poland, is continuing and an entirely new central passenger terminal is planned to accommodate the increasing numbers.
I was at this airport a few months ago and remembered from then that there’s a lounge for non-Schengen passengers, but the one for Schengen passengers can only be accessed by paying separately. I instead went to the gate area to find a seat and power, which was a successful little quest. I noticed that the airport staff were checking every bag at the gate to see if they fitted into the little cage. There were a fair few extra złoty raised in this little exercise and I was slightly concerned myself as I like to worry about these things.
I went to the back of the queue whilst merrily rearranging my bag to make it seem even smaller. The passenger in front got their bag into the sizer, but spent some time trying to extract it again. I was moderately annoyed to be the first passenger in my queue to just be waved through without my bag being checked after all my rearranging, but it is fair to say that I do travel light. With that, it was time to wait for the aircraft whilst some passengers were positively grumpy about being charged extra.
Boarding the aircraft and the seating gods had given me a window seat near to the front which was more than suitable for my needs. The aircraft was 9H-WAG, yet another new one for me, just in case anyone was asking. The flight was, as nearly always, uneventful and the cabin crew were friendly, the service was efficient and the aircraft was clean. For the £9 cost of my flight, it all went smoothly and represented I felt excellent value for money.
My window seat gave me some impressive views during the flight, this is the Hohe Tauern National Park in Austria.
Flying over Nice, a city that I haven’t been to before, partly because it sounds a bit expensive.
Approaching Barcelona, which is one of my favourite cities that I’ve been to a few times before.
And safely into Barcelona Airport on time and the aircraft is just visible at the end of the jet bridge. My plan was to go into central Barcelona by train and then return to the airport late in the evening, as I had a flight back to the UK in the morning. Staying awake at an airport, yet again, seemed a marvellous idea but more on that soon.
One of the reasons that I find Poland so agreeable is the country’s tendency to do things properly and efficiently, although this creates problems when the European Entry/Exit System has been handled differently elsewhere in the Schengen Area. Last year I had the excitement of being stuck at the border as there was confusion over how long I had been in the EU, officials eventually agreed that I had not overstayed.
This time there were quite long delays at the border and officers appeared to be conducting some detailed interviews. The very polite border control officer noted that there was a discrepancy at Bilbao Airport and this isn’t a surprise as I wrote about the confusion at the time. This meant that it looked like I hadn’t left the EU and so I had technically exceeded my number of days in the bloc.
A manager came over and she was efficient and helpful. I was pleased that Wizz Air stored all my boarding passes in one place, as this made it easy to show her the relevant flights. That evidence was sufficient to resolve the discrepancy. She mentioned that this was a failure by the Spanish border authorities and that it would be noted by the airport, although I’m not sure what they do with this information. I do like to imagine that somewhere in Katowice there is now a carefully maintained spreadsheet containing a sternly worded entry about Bilbao.
The delay wasn’t substantial, but it took me fifty minutes to get from airside to landside, meaning that I missed the bus by one minute. The border authorities had accepted that I was legally present, but the bus demonstrated rather less flexibility and departed without me. I’ll be glad when the EES is operating consistently across the Schengen Area.
After I discovered how cheap the fixed fare Bolt taxi was between Kutaisi airport and the city centre, I decided to do the same on the reverse trip. This was the only option I had if I wanted to get breakfast at the hotel, as the airport bus only runs once every couple of hours. The journey was therefore an easy one, with the taxi arriving only a couple of minutes after I booked it. This time, the driver didn’t feel the need to interrupt my plans to put my seat belt on and I was also pleased with his driving.
There are some subtle signs around the airport that this is a country looking towards the European Union and away from Russia. The political process of Georgia joining the EU has stalled at the moment, but opinion polls show that more 70% of residents support joining.
There is an airport lounge although it’s a paid one which doesn’t allow the various lounge cards access. I was aware of this in advance and so had ensured that my breakfast at the hotel was a substantial one.
The airport itself was clean, bright, functional and there were plenty of power outlets, but despite what it might look like from the above photo, there wasn’t really enough seating. There were a couple of cafes, a shop and an external smoking area for those who felt the need.
When the redeveloped airport opened in 2012, it handled fewer than 200,000 passengers during the following year. Wizz Air’s enthusiasm for serving Kutaisi has since helped push that figure towards two million, while expansion plans would eventually enable the airport to handle around five million passengers annually.
The walk to the aircraft confirmed that Georgia remained substantially warmer than my preferred operating temperature.
The aircraft was 9H-WDI, another new registration for me and therefore an important addition to records which nobody has yet requested to inspect.
The seating gods gave me an aisle seat just behind the emergency exit row seats. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, this led to the excitement of watching passengers attempt to upgrade themselves, before the Wizz Air cabin crew told them either to pay €20 or return to their allocated seats.
The flight itself was, yet again, uneventful which pleased me greatly. It was busy on board, but the service was efficient, the pilots were clear with their announcements and nothing fell off the aircraft.
And safely into Katowice Airport a little earlier than expected and with no incidents to report. All really rather lovely. Well, until there was a border issue, but more of that in the next post.
