Both sides of Berlin and return to Poland

Wake up around 8. Our landlady serves us a most welcome large breakfast and while we eat she tells us stories from her fading but still lucid memories from World War II. She lived in Gdansk (Danzig) at the start of the war, on 1 September 1939, when Germany attacked. Like many older people she likes to talk and inevitably repeats herself. We heard it the other day too but it still sends shudders down our spines.

The copious breakfast takes time to consume and we are in due course taken to Berlin, where our lady was displaced during the war. Here, under relentless Allied bombing, her 4-month old child starved to death while her husband went crazy on the Russian front. She tried to commit suicide by cutting her veins but did not do a good job and survived. After taking leave from her we move back to East Berlin. here we visit the Treptower Park, with another huge mausoleum to fallen Soviet soldiers.

We leave Berlin and the wall behind for one last time.

The old Reichstag and the wall on the right

The Wall: hard to believe neighbours are now on the opposite side of the Cold War

On the bombing ot Berlin, read

Visiting Berlin

Lazy wake up call at 9:30 and long walk in the Tiergarten.

Tiergarten and Victoria column

We see the Victoria tower, enjoy a great panoramic view from the top and walk all the way up to the Brandenburger Tor, from which we can see the Berlin Wall. Nearby we can also visit a colossal monument to the Soviet soldiers who conquered Berlin. However, unsurprisingly, there are no West Berliner visiting the shrine!

Looking into East Berlin from the Victoria tower

We also visit a history museum in the old Reichstag building, kind of boring, not nearly as much fun as the one in the East! An interesting exhibit is a collection of Deutsche mark notes from the 1920s, when Germany experienced hyperinflation and developed a sort of paranoia for expansionist monetary policies that will last many decades.

One billion mark notes seem small change. I am struck by the two hundred billion mark bank note! That's serious money!

DM hyperinflation bank notes

Exploring West Berlin

Early in the morning we are ejected from our guesthouse and start looking for another place to spend the night. We found a couple of rooms for rent in the house of a friendly eighty-year-old woman in Charlottenburg. It's a beautiful home if a bit tired in terms of furniture and decorations.

Our hostess in Berlin

As soon as we arrive, and she hears we are studying in Poland, she starts telling us stories about the war. She lived in Gdansk (then Danzig) and saw the first Stukas dive bomb Poland on 1 September 1939. She also saw German battleships shell Polish territory but not a shot coming from the other direction. She is not nostalgic of pre-war Germany, but quite a bit worried about living in divided contemporary Germany, especially in isolated West Berlin.

In the afternoon we visit Charlottenburg and the big radio tower. We walk for many kilometers, I am quite exhausted by the end of the day.

Dinner at a simple Italian restaurant, San Giorgio, OK quality and cheap, what we need. Italian food abroad is rarely as good as at home in Italy, but it is usually inexpensive and filling, excellent for three students on the go!

We then walk around the city, aimlessly, hopping from one Bierstube to the next without any particular goal or target in mind. We are impressed by the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, left as a reminder the way it was after an Allied air raid in 1943.


To see what life in Berlin looked like at the end of five years of Allied bombing click here to watch a contemporary video.

East Berlin taster and move to West Berlin

Hotel Stadt Berlin in Alexanderplatz

Arrive in East Berlin at about 7:15am, it is raining hard and it's damn cold! Good start!

The city center is clean and every corner is almost manicured. First things first, we climb on top of the Fernsehturm, the long TV tower that is a point of reference for anyone moving around East Berlin. Built between 1965 and 1969 it is the tallest structure in all of Germany (NOTE in 2015: it still is!) and a symbol of pride for the authorities of the Germand Democratic Republic (GDR). Unfortunately because of the weather we can't see much from the top: it no longer rains but we can see just clouds and fog.

As we descend and walk around we discover that not all parts of the city are as spotless as we thought after our first impression around the station: many streets are dirty, they qualify for the title of slums really.

A few churches are available in this most strict Communist dictatorship. Re-built after the war, they are empty shells of bricks and concrete. No decorations. Only a few pieces of low-relief sculptures are on display, recuperated from the pre-war works.

Cold morning in Berlin

We then visit the Palace of Culture and the History Museum, both places replete with vicious attacks against the West in every shape or form: posters, caricatures.

We then try to cross the wall into West Berlin on foot, but we are not allowed to do so, can do only by metro, crossing at the Friedrichstrasse station. This is a unique station because it is in East Berlin but it is served by West Berlin metro, allowing for a more easily controlled border crossing.

The old pre-war German metro is still functioning but of course it is divided. Some stations had to be closed as the trains travel under West Berlin to go from one part to another of East Berlin.

When we arrive in West Berlin we start looking for a place to stay, and walk around the shining city for many kilometres. Very expensive for us after we have gotten used to Polish prices! Finally we find a mediocre room in the Buchenwald Pension for DM 26 per day. We are very tired and collapse soon after eight o'clock, and will sleep for a solid twelve hours.

Departure for Berlin

In the evening we board our long desired train for East Berlin. It's taken us so long to get the tickets, visas and legal cash we almost gave up. But now we are on.

The train is fairly comfortable, though we don't have a sleeper bed. Before it's dark we get a glimpse of the flatlands of Western Poland, the so long fought-over Pomerania.

We fall alseep knowing it's going to be a fascinating experience but a little worried about going to a society with a reputation for being much stricter and less forgiving than Poland.

Easter day procession at Jasna Gora

Get up very early in the morning. We are out of the hotel by 5.30 or so. It is VERY VERY cold!

The processions at Jasna Gora start at six o'clock, but they are not as impressive as we expected. Not so many people. Hundreds, not thousands. And it is Easter day.

Rather frugal arrangements, maybe resources are limited. Surely they must be. Yet we expected to find a lot more enthusiasm in the wake of the Polish Pope's recent visit and continuing commitment to change in Poland.

Trip to Czestochowa

Today we fill up Giallina at a new gas station. They don't know us so we must be a bit circumspect in negotiating a price. They readily agree to sell for 28 ZL/liter (instead of the usual 18 we pay at our friends' station but much less than the official 75 we should pay as foreigners).

Easy and pleasant trip to Czestochowa. We drive through several villages. In Sulmierzyce the local parish priest is excited to see our Roman car plate and insists to take us into the church and introduce us to the parishioners. Many people, they came for the Easter blessing.

Interesting to note that in this church, and others in small villages, a statue of Christ is guarded by two statues of medieval soldiers.

We keep driving along and run into a Soviet military cemetery. No crosses of course, just red stars and plain stones on the graves..

The Soviets are not loved in Poland, to put it mildly, but the official party line is that they liberated the country from the Nazi invasion. Which is true, except that they had partitioned the same country with the Nazi in 1939, and except that they did not really "liberate" it, as in give it freedom, but rather subjected it to a new communist dictatorship.

You can read more about this in many books, including the following.

Jasna Gora

When we get to Czestochowa it is really cold, there is a lot of snow on the ground. The Jasna Gora monastery is imposing, surely the most impressive site we have seen in Poland so far. It is the hear of Christianity in Poland. here, almost a year ago, Pope John Paul II delivered his farewell speech at the end of a trip that stirred emotions in Catholic Poland.

Black Madonna

Tonight we stay at the Hotel Orbis Patria, the three of us have to squeeze into two beds, but there is no choice... we are used to it.

You can buy a beautiful reproduction of the Black Madonna here

Train tickets and church music

After the usual morning classes I go for a hair cut at a barber shop in the Forum Hotel. 92 zloty with shampoo, pretty cheap and a good job.

Then Romek accompanies the three of us to buy our train tickets to Berlin. Despite the thorough preparatory work of the previous days, we need his help to overcome the indefatigable Polish bureaucracy. At one point a clerk wanted us to change money again, because the receipt of the money we changed yesterday had a different date (yesterday) than the date on the receipt of the train tickets (today). We manage to stay cool and Romek persuades the man to finally issue our tickets.

In the evening we go for a concert of Bach's Luke's passion in a small church in the center of town. Always a moving experience to listen to bach's religious music, even if I am not religious.

You can choose one of many editions of Bach's Passion according to St Luke on Amazon.

The best is probably this one:

Shopping for clothes and more study

Some more shopping for clothes in town, I need a jacket and trousers. Ann and I go around for a while and finally stumble is a nondescript department store, mostly empty and otherwise stocked with very very poor quality stuff. Finally I buy an almost decent kaki colored suit for 2250 Zloty. I am not difficult when it comes to clothes, in fact I don't really care, but this is really borderline. The cloth is rough, But it's the best there is, anywhere in the city.

After which we go to the post office to call Cathy, Ann's friend in Washington who will join us for a tour of Europe at the end of our course. Ann mentions to her for the first time that we'd like to drive to the Soviet Union, and she is not opposed to the idea. Ann feared she would be as she has little travel experience, very little. She initially said she wanted to see all of Europe in a few weeks, because she was not sure she would ever come back.

Apparently that's the way many Americans see a trip to Europe. I always noticed groups of Japanese tourists in Rome shooting pictures of everything as if it was the last thing they would ever see in their life. Rather gloomy prospect. But Ann talked to her and explained that it is much better to see less but go deeper. As I think about it, I am really lucky to have Ann and Andrew as my travel companions, we share a strong motivation to understand, which requires time and attention to detail. Never hurry. This trip would not be nearly as fun and useful as it is without them.

End of the day again studying in my parents' apartment, hoping that the landlord will let us keep it a few more days. More cheap and cheerful pasta and red wine for dinner. Better take advantage of it while it lasts.

Train tickets and Russian caviar

After class Andrew, Ann and I spend about five hours in various offices trying, unsuccessfully, to buy our train tickets to East Berlin. We even change some money legally, at the official exchange rate (I think it's the first time since we arrived in Poland, and it will probably be the last) but then some ticket issuing authority tells us we have the wrong receipt. They had never mentioned that there is more than one kind of receipt for foreign currency exchange. And they are serious, despite today's date it's no April Fool's joke. Or maybe they are not serious serious, they just want a bribe.

We'll see, but it seems this trip to East Germany is rapidly becoming more trouble than it's ever going to be worth.

At 7:00pm Marta comes to visit in my room. In her unceasing efforts to win my favors she has actually made a huge Polish flag for me. (I collect flags from the countries aI visit and I had mentioned I would have liked a Polish flag to take home.) Then we are joined by Borzena. After a while I leave Marta to her destiny and take Borzena out for dinner to Staropolska. Here I try black caviar for the first time in my life.

Borzena is a fine lady and even though we are just friends, and I have no plans to change that, I decide to invite her to visit me in Italy at the end of our course. She does not believe me. Also, she is not sure how to put this to her parents, so we agree that probably the best way is for her to be invited by Ann. (An invitation is indispensable to get a visa from any Western country and also makes it easier to get a passport in Poland.) Though Ann could invite her to the States while I could invite her to Italy, and the difference is not exactly irrelevant for planning purposes.

Caviar is readily available in Poland - for hard currency, that is. It is smuggled in from the USSR where it is produced by the Caspian sea. Because it is highly sought by Western tourists, diplomats, anyone relly, its exportation to the West is strictly regulated. It can be taken out of Poland only if one can demostrate that it has been bought legally, and no one can. During the course of my stay in Poland I'll have quite a few chances to buy it at various markets. Usually the price is USD 50 for a 2kg can that is worth several thousand dollars inthe West but has been paid peanuts in the USSR, where supply is not regulated by market prices but by access to the producers.

Ice skating and drinks

Downtown Warsaw

Usual morning classes. At 6:30pm Andrew, Ann and I meet Borzena at school and go for a skating session at a nearby ice rink. Borzena is quite good at it, and so is Andrew. Ann is OK and I am just pathetic. Anyway it's fun.

Later out for a drink at the Krokodil restaurant where we make the acquaintance of Rani, an young Indian who works in Tehran for an Italian company. Interesting guy. It's a difficult moment between the Americans and the Iranians because of the hostage crisis still ongoing, but for him it's business as usual. I forgot to ask him why he is in Poland.

Can't believe March is already over, we are moving ahead with our course. Our adventure is almost half-way through and actually I sort of begin to feel at home here in Poland. I have learnt enough Polish to carry on a basic conversation, order duck (and a few other things) at restaurants, buy icecream and break ice with the locals.

Easy Sunday over vodka and Katyn news

Katyn Memorial, Krakow

Easy Sunday. We get together with a few friends in our room. Ann, Romek, Tadek and a ping pong player whose name I missed all join for a few glasses of vodka. A bit funny to drink in the morning but well, we are in Poland.

Ann

They convey some harrowing news: a man in his seventies set himself on fire at the Krakow memorial to the victims of the Katyn massacre. Apparently he was one of the few from the group of Polish officers and intellectuals who made it out alive. Today's newpapers did not mention anything but the ping pong player has a brother who lives in Krakow and he told him over the phone.

The subject of the Katyn massacre is pretty much off the agenda in Poland. Everyone knows the politically incorrect truth (the Soviets did it) but no one is allowed to say anything other than the ridiculous propaganda line (the Germans did it) and so most prefer to just ignore the issue. The poor man who set himself on fire was probably sick of this fiction and lack of respect for the Poles who died such a cruel and useless death in 1940.

We are all in a somber mood after the news.

Tadek tells us about his brother's studies at the military academy. Apparently they have to study American weapons and the best instructors are Vietnamese soldiers who have recent first hand experience! Funny ironies of history.

Romek

A song for the Polish pope

At 2:30 in the afternoon we meet Jasmina, a friend of some Americans of Polish descent who live in Pascoag, Andrew's home village in the state of Rhode Island. She takes us to the home where she lives with her sister, a bit outside of Warsaw. One room without bathroom, no running water, and a wood-burning stove for heating.

She says she makes 5,000 zloty per month, about the national average these days. Very welcoming, she and her sister deploy a predictable array of drinks and food, though it is not meal time. Of course we must eat and drink all. Very simple people, they give all they can and are excited to meet us.

She then pulls out a cassette player and asks me to translate a couple of Italian songs about pope John Paull II. I translate into English and Ann then from English into Polish. JP II is clearly a superstar here, and his visit last year was, by far, the most memorable event to have taken place in the country in many decades. We made their day!

Stare Miasto, Warsaw

Evening out with Borzena, we walk around looking for a place to have a drink but somehow all bars are full on this Saturday night. Poles can't really splurge but know how to have fun! Dinner at Victoria, good food and a good deal as usual. Pleasant conversation with Borzena, who is open minded and very talkative about her (mostly negative) experience in making ends meet in Warsaw. She seems to have no secrets of any kind, and is eager to share it all, even if I don't ask. Interesting person.

After dinner a policeman tries to give me a fine for illegal parking and threatens to notify the Italian embassy if I don't pay. Maybe he wants a bribe, maybe not, hard to say, but I am not sure what to do. I simply tell him I have no money and he lets us go. That was easier than expected!

Gasoline and ping pong

After our usual classes we go for dinner at the Staropolska. Good. Then three more hours of classes at the Center for International Affairs.

Later on we go and fill up the tank at our usual gas station, where by now we are friends with all the staff and proceed with our usual "Polish" price purchase to fill up Giallina.

In the evening we are joined by a group of Poles, Vietnamese and Mongol (both countries are "socialist brothers" of Poland) students for an international ping pong tournament at the student house.

More Berlin planning and party

Socialist econ lass at SGPiS

Our usual morning lesson in socialist economics. The professor is rather shy, and sticks pretty closely to the party line. Even if I am really interested in trying to find out how they want to do away with the inescapable laws of demand and supply, this guy is just plain boring.

Afterwards we try, and fail, to buy our train tickets to East Berlin. We need to bring our passports, our visas and the receipt for our official money exchange. We'll have to come back another day. Can't believe they want all this paperwork just to sell a train ticket to a "brother" socialist country.

In the afternoon four hours of foreign policy classes at the Center for International Studies. As usual quite official and bureaucratic. However I get the definite impression that some of the professors speak to the limit of what is considered politically acceptable. I am sure they would say more if they were free to do so.

In the evening there is a party in Zbiszek's room. Nine men and two women, so it's not so interesting after all. Borzena is quite pretty and also the most friendly and open Polish girl we have met so far.