Category: Poland

This will be one of a series of posts of exhibits that particularly interested me in the Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk.

I thought it was interesting that the smashed remains of a statue had survived, as usually they’d be destroyed quite quickly. The story behind this is though tragic and it took place in Jedwabne, a small town in a rural area of Poland which isn’t a huge distance away from Białystok. Before the Second World War, the Jewish community made up around 40% of the town’s population. A pogrom took place on 10 July 1941, when 340 men, women and children were murdered, 300 of whom lost their lives after being placed in a barn which was set on fire. During the day, a number of the Jews had been ordered to destroy the Lenin statue on Dworna Street, which is why it was wrecked.

Much of this was left to history until 2001 when a exhumation of the bodies at the site was undertaken, when two mass graves were found, as well as the remains of the Lenin statue. There is all manner of controversy about whether the murderers were Polish or German and Aleksander Kwaśniewski, the then Polish President, apologised for any involvement by the Poles. Political arguments have ensued since saying that the Polish shouldn’t have apologised, it was nothing to do with them. There’s an interesting article at https://polin.pl/en/news/2016/07/09/78-anniversary-of-the-jedwabne-pogrom about the excavations and the timeline of events behind it.

Either way, this makes this statue more remarkable, as it was brought down that was part of an act of mass murder and it was then buried. It has been excavated from a war grave and brought here to the museum, part of the story that led to the destruction of an entire Jewish community. The site is unlikely to be dug again so that the graves can remain intact, so this is the only piece of the story that is left visible, the statue which once stood in the market square.

This museum wasn’t quite completed when I was last in Gdansk and it was one of the main things that I wanted to visit on this trip. It’s the national Second World War museum and there was some controversy building it, but it’s completed and very well reviewed. The museum is operating on a reduced capacity at the moment to allow for social distancing and tickets can be purchased in advance on-line. I took a chance on going on free visiting day, which is a Tuesday, conscious that getting a ticket might be difficult given the demand as it’s not possible to get the free tickets in advance on-line.

To cut a long story short, I arrived at the museum twenty minutes before they opened, and I expected a short queue at the ticket office. The set-up wasn’t quite as I imagined it, as the ticket office is down on the third floor underground, but I was surprised that they’d opened this already. I went down, collected my free ticket and then waited the 15 minutes or so for them to open the doors for the permanent collection. The design of the museum is really all quite odd and it isn’t particularly logical, but it is clearly signed. The main desk on entrance isn’t the ticket desk and it’s a moderately confusing set-up that seemed to be confusing a fair number of people.

There are two elements here, firstly, absolutely everything is available in English, including the multimedia installations, whilst, secondly, the wording is quite strong. It’s not inaccurate, but there is something of an equivalence made between the Soviet Union and Germany, which runs through the whole museum.

One of the scenes of what a peaceful Polish high street might have looked like during the inter-war period.

In the centre are actual flags from the war period, and another reminder of how the Soviets and Germans are equated in the exhibits.

A large-scale version of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact map which sought to carve up Polish lands between the Soviets and the Germans, with Gdansk coming under German control.

One of the museum rooms which contained a variety of weaponry. This isn’t something I’m particularly engaged with, but there were plenty of guns for those who wanted to look at them.

A display which serves as a reminder of the starvation that so many suffered from during the conflict.

An example of one of the exhibition rooms and it was generally quiet throughout the museum, although there were quite a few people clumped together near the beginning. There were a range of Nazi recruiting posters on display on the left that were particularly interesting.

This means terror in Polish (my language skills are really coming on).

There’s no known history about this rail car other than it was made by the Germans during the First World War. It was though the type of transport that was later used by the Soviets to transport Poles and the Germans to transport Jews to concentration camps.

This was quite a sobering room, some of the many individuals who died in the concentration camps.

Opór, which in English means the resistance, with this section of the museum covering the efforts made in numerous countries to undermine German rule in their territories.

This is quite a remarkable room, a recreation of some of the destruction to so many cities.

I spent over three hours in this museum and although I didn’t skip anything, I did start to tire a little by the end and stopped watching every video and reading every piece of text. This wasn’t because the museum was dull or tiresome, but it was a little emotionally draining given the content and that’s also a long time to spend in the same museum. What was evident was how much times others were taking, I got the impression that a three hour visit was almost the average and the museum themselves say that’s the minimum needed.

This is a very nicely put together museum and it flows in chronological order and keeps up the narrative in an engaging manner. The signage is generally excellent, although it was slightly unclear where to go in places, but it was hard to go too far wrong. I’m not sure why Gdansk was chosen for this museum, but it’s appropriate given that the war started here for the Polish at Westerplatte.

I went to look at the reviews for the museum and they are exceptionally high, the same rating as the Louvre and just behind what is perhaps my favourite museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Indeed reading the reviews can be a bit dull, they’re just all full of praise, although I accept that’s all for the good. I wanted to see how anyone could not like this museum, and I noted that a few people tried hard.

“Total waste of time. The exhibition is very static and boring. No visitor activities at all. It looked like an art museum, not a history one. Everyone walked around in total silence with no emotions and no discussions – even the small ones. Like in funeral services or something 🙂 It was like a walkthrough using Wikipedia articles, photos and videos. In some halls were no chairs for elderly. My little girl who is very intrested about military stuff said also it was so boring.”

I’m unsure what visitor activities the museum could bring in (you too can smash some buildings up?), maybe they wanted some sort of theme park experience. Although there was a sombre feel to the museum I did notice, I felt that was hugely to their credit as the majority of visitors seemed to be engaged about the exhibits and the implications of the text and imagery. There were a couple of school groups as well, perhaps the best behaved I’ve seen, entirely attentive to their tour guides. I’m actually not sure that I’d bring a little child to the museum and the museum recommends that visitors should be at least twelve years old, although that’s not enforced and is just a guide.

“Horrible experience, the staff barely speaks English so I cannot get support on my issue of not having a mask and being late to catch up to my group. She just spoke to me in polish.”

It’s almost as if the museum is in Poland…..

“Couple of tanks & motorcycle on display. Mainly video & pictures, I guess you could find all on internet.”

The museum isn’t actually packed with exhibits, but it’s new and there’s a limit to what they’re going to be able to get in a relatively short space of time. I’d still say that they had 1,000 or so exhibits, and probably more. That’s actually an issue the museum authorities must have faced, as they wanted to cover the resistance, but the Warsaw Uprising Museum has much of that material, as well as items from concentration camps, but there’s a limited availability of such exhibits and most are already in museums. I’d struggle to find a lot of the material here on the Internet though, and museums are all about curation.

“I only recommend this place if you’re a fan of WWII.”

This was a 1/5 review mostly about how someone got locked in the toilet (it’s quite an involved tale which intrigued me for a while), but I’d be surprised if someone not interested in the Second World War went to the Second World War museum. Probably not that many visitors are what I would call fans, but there we go.

“This place is more about the civilian cost to Europe and the world rather than a military museum”

Good. That’s the reality of war.

“Director of this museum is absolutely ruthless and hateful to Soviet Soldiers and the history!”

I think this relates to a political storm a few years ago with this museum, but it’s fair to say that the Soviets don’t come out well here in the museum. It’s hard though for a museum in Gdansk to really develop this any other way, the Soviets tried to give the city to Germany in 1939 and then the Red Army caused mass destruction in the city after they have liberated it, with some morally reprehensible behaviour. There’s a rather excellent article about this at https://www.thefirstnews.com/article/incredible-forgotten-photos-reveal-true-horror-of-red-armys-destruction-of-gdansk-but-also-its-subsequent-rebirth-11681, with plenty of photos of the destruction.

“After visiting the old part of the city, I decided to visit this museum. When I came to buy a ticket..they did not want to receive the euro, only the local Polish currency”

Nice, someone giving a rating of 1/5 as the museum didn’t want to accept a different currency and couldn’t really come up with an alternative….

Anyway, I’ve digressed again, but most of the negative reviews are about the difficultly in getting tickets, which has been a problem for the museum to deal with, although I was pleased with my experience. I thought that the entire visit was positive, not least because it was free today, but because it was an informative, decently curated and well put together museum. Very lovely.

And to follow at some point in the future are some individual posts about items in the collection that I felt were particularly noteworthy.

I’ve somehow managed to miss this craft beer bar located in the city centre of Gdansk and I only located it because I was looking for somewhere I hadn’t been that might sell decadent pizzas. Or indeed any pizzas.

I arrived just after 14:00 and I’m not entirely sure why so many places in Poland open at that time, which is too late for lunch and seemingly too early for most other people. I was the only person in the bar, which didn’t entirely surprise me. There was a friendly welcome from the staff member though and it felt an inviting environment to be in.

The concept here is of having cans and bottles in the fridges, with a staff member pro-actively offering assistance to help customers find something that they like. The staff member explained the fridges and their contents, all friendly and engaging. The fridges are also clearly laid out and are in a logical order.

It became apparent quickly that the choice of beers here was outstandingly good. This set-up frankly shames hundreds of British pubs who offer no craft beers, but yet could nearly all offer some set-up like this (assuming they’re not tied). Such a simple and easy way of offering a wide selection of beers across lots of different styles. I very much liked it, although it gave me a problem that there were too many good beers and I had to buy some to take away with me.

The bar had a wide selection of beers from the Warsaw based Funky Fluid, which can be a little difficult to source in the UK (I think I’ve only seen them in Brewdog and even then, only rarely), who are one of my favourite breweries.This pink guava, passion fruit and peach beer was a delight, packed with fruit flavour, easy to drink and with a suitable amount of sour kick to it. For me, it would be hard to make a sour much better than this, a glorious drink.

And then the Cooke Monster from Inne Beczki, a micro-brewery based in Blonie (I had to look that up, it’s a town not far to the west of Warsaw). This was the decadent delight that I was looking for, packed with coffee and chocolate flavours, as well as being smooth, despite being 7.8%. This wasn’t far from being like a chocolate milkshake, one of the better oatmeal stouts that I’ve had.

I gave thought to whether I should just spend the entire day in the bar, but I thought that might be pushing it a little too far as I didn’t want to stumble out. The snow and ice has nearly all gone, but I thought a long visit might be excessive, although I wouldn’t have taken much persuading to stay for longer.

I had found this bar because their pizzas were recommended, but I went instead for the chicken bagel with pickle, mozzarella, pickled red onion and white cabbage. I expected something much smaller than this if I’m being honest. Although I expected to enjoy the bagel (otherwise I wouldn’t have ordered it) this was far better than I had expected. A large portion, an entire chicken breast and a coating that was rich in flavour. The chicken was tender and moist, the pickle and red onion added a salty and sour taste, whilst the bagel was of a decent quality. Very enjoyable and even the white cabbage was delicious, so they’re clearly doing something right for me to be able to write that.

But back to the bar itself, which was clean and comfortable, with pro-active service from the staff. There were a number of customers who came in during my visit, often they just bought one beer to take out or sit in, some others lingered for longer. It’s rare that I’m so delighted by the beer options that I have to take some beers away with me, and it’s so rare I’m not sure that I’ve ever done it. There are also enough other beers here to keep me entertained on a future visit, with the prices are all being reasonable for the quality offered.

As I mentioned, this is what more pubs in the UK should be doing, not just micro-pubs and a few forward thinking bars. Too often the choice of beers in pubs and restaurants is bland and unappealing, but yet this lovely little bar in Gdansk has managed to outclass so many of them. This is one of the best bars that I’ve been to, such a simple concept but such excellent food and drink and a friendly and genuine service. This is very much all on-trend, but it isn’t formulaic, it’s just informal and forward thinking.

Sundays are designed for craft beer or cafes (and religion for those that want – I don’t judge), and I was happy to follow this tradition by doing both. It’s important to support a broad range of hospitality sectors in Gdansk, I’m happy to do that.

This was a slightly busier cafe than my photos suggest, I had to wait for people to leave before taking them. The surroundings are pleasant, I particularly liked the books. Reading the news, I was puzzling over the situation in Ukraine that was unfolding when I was sitting here as well, I was thinking about going back to Kyiv next week, but I think I might wait to see what happens first as I’m not into danger travel. Anyway, that’s enough politics for the blog.

This is a surprisingly interesting way to people watch. I suspect that I need to get out more if things have come to this, but there we go.

I ordered at the counter in my usual broken Polish, which went better than usual, although I set the bar very low on these encounters. I was given a buzzer so that I knew when to collect the food and I like it when things are kept simple like this. It took them 12 minutes to prepare my coffee and cake which seemed quite a long time, but I was in no rush at all.

This photo is something of an optical illusion. That’s a large slice of cake and it’s almost a bucket sized cup of coffee, although to be fair, I did order a large latte. The prices were expensive for Poland, coming in at just over £5.50, which was quite decadent of me, but the peanut butter cake was delicious and the latte was one of the best that I’ve had. This was quite fortunate as I had about a litre of it to get through.

I liked this cafe, it was laid-back, informal and I stayed for a quite a while getting work done. They serve slightly more substantial meals, but I was happy with my cake which tasted moist and so seemed fresh. Friendly surroundings, a peaceful environment, good food and drink, definitely a recommended way to spend part of a Sunday afternoon.

Leaving my usual IHG and Accor options for the night, I booked into the Hotel Artus in Gdansk city centre, opposite St. Mary’s Church. I noticed that the Genius Level 3 offer for this hotel gave a free room upgrade, so I thought I’d try that, especially given the low prices.

Positive first impressions, I don’t think that brickwork is particularly old, but it adds some character to the room, as do the big windows.

The sitting area of the room, all modern and contemporary. The light at the rear didn’t have a bulb in and the bathroom sink didn’t have a plug, but I didn’t let these factors concern me.

And that was the view from the room, quite spectacular and a complete delight to look out onto. There was regular noise from the church bells and the usual sounds of a city, all of which I thought were charming and added character. The hotel has picked up some negative reviews about the noise from the church bells, which is ridiculous as far as I’m concerned, what’s the point in staying next to this historic building which is one of the largest brick built structures in Europe and complaining about the noise from it? Anyway, I thought it was all really rather lovely.

The breakfast room in the attached cafe, my first impressions were positive. This serves as a cafe which is open to the public during the day and the surroundings are a well thought through mix of modern and traditional.

The latte was dusted with cinnamon, this was a decent coffee.

I was disappointed to discover that they’ve scrapped the buffet breakfast arrangement and are just serving plated breakfasts. I’m fairly sure that this is just because they’re quiet, but I don’t like penny pinching like that as they could just put a few items out and refresh as appropriate so that guests can have what they want. The rolls, peppers and salad elements here were nice, as was the yoghurt. What I assume is pork was bland and tasteless, and the cheese tasted of cardboard. I was initially pleased to see toast, but it was some sort of odd and inedible toastie. Annoyingly, there was no orange juice, jams or gherkins, which are my staple diet at Polish hotels, along with salamis and the like. I must admit to missing the breakfasts offered by IHG and Accor hotels, and these shouldn’t really be better than smaller hotels like the Artus, especially given it has its own cafe.

The hot options were limited to sausages and scrambled eggs, which is a shame as a decent poached egg and toast is one of the nicest things. The sausages were poor quality and things like this are far better just placed on a buffet arrangement so that guests can choose if they want them or not, perhaps just trying a small amount. The onions were nice, although it’d be difficult to get that wrong. I felt quite guilty about how much of the food here had to be chucked in the bin, this is a wasteful arrangement from the hotel. I’m not convinced that their penny pinching actually saved them anything here either.

Anyway, this room was cheap, at £20, so absolutely nothing to complain about there, although the breakfast was extra. As room views go, this was one of the best that I’ve had and as a lover of city noise, the ambient sound of church bells and pedestrians worked nicely for me. It was a shame the hotel served some cheap items up for breakfast, otherwise this would have been a near perfect review. Breakfast aside, I liked the atmosphere in the hotel and there were no annoying noises either internally or externally. I’ll also remember that lovely room view for a long time, so I’m glad I stayed here.