Rynek, Museum & Gnomes

Fifty | Ninety | Twenty-Five | Wrocław

14 April 2022 - Wrocław & Oświęcim

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This beautiful city is odd, because the heritage is Deutsch, but they were removed after the second world war by the Russians and replaced with Poles. Compensation for moving everyone's borders westward to make Russia bigger. As Russia is now trying to do again in Ukraine. Iwona went to the university here in Wrocław to study law and the old Breslau University building where she attended classes is now a museum. English and Polish signage, but no Deutsch. It seems, perhaps, that the people here might like to forget who the city was stolen from, even if it was the Russians who did it. There are claims on Lviv and Wilno that Poland would like back, but they are not talking about giving back Breslau. The EU is a country built on an idea rather than a language, much like Switzerland or the USA. Poles are found all over Europe now, especially in Norway and England, and now a tenth of Poland is Ukrainian thanks to the war. Europe is meant to be a mixture of cultures and hopefully is on its way to becoming one again!

Tonight we're sleeping in the small town of Oświęcim, better known by its German name, Auschwitz. It's fairly nice, probably due to the affluence of tourists of the town's infamous history. This too was part of Silesian Deutschland just like Breslau, and tomorrow I will see the horrors wrought on our Jewish brethen for no crime other than being born to the wrong parents. It's hard not too feel that the people who did this have no write to run a society and that the Poles have done it much better in their brief history after their country's latest partition. Their welcome of the Ukrainians who have come here in the millions as refugees sets an example for us all to aspire toward.