A powerful monument that marks the spot (Monument to the Ghetto Heroes (Warsaw, Poland))

Member Name: dangaroo

Product:	Monument to the Ghetto Heroes (Warsaw, Poland)
Date:	17/06/09 (11 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A nice memorial to the uprisers

Disadvantages: Quite often groups of tourists pottering around

The monument to the Ghetto Heroes in Warsaw commemorates the tens of thousands of people (mostly Jews but a handful of gypsies who had been placed there from as far as Netherlands and Polish soldiers in there too) who died during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943 where the people of the ghetto had decided to fight against their planned future of being sent to an extermination camp (mostly Treblinka where packed daily trains were heading from a nearby pick up point) and rebelled against the pre-dominately Ukrainian and Latvian Nazi Forces.

I personally think that the planned tourist trail on which there are indicators is the wrong way round, historically it would be better to start off in Umschlagplatz then go to the Warsaw Memorial and then finish off at Mila 18. I live extremely close to it and walk the dog close to it on a regular basis, there are plans to build a large museum here and to transform the park in to a concrete square. Those plans have failed to materialise so far but a blue tent with information has been erected nearby for several years now.

Tourist buses come here day and night, to see the monument sculptured by Nathan Rappaport which was put up in 1948. It was the first monument to go up after the war and it marks the place on Ul. Zamenhofa where the uprising started. The neighbourhood is quiet and is mostly frequented by runners and dog walkers as well as the quick snapshotters from various Western and Asian countries, the occasional bus load of school children and the nearly omnipresent group of Israeli tourists, leaving reefs or do something to remember them.

The statue is interesting, in that the people seem to come out of the statue at you but to be honest I've never got much of a feel for it, despite Anieliwicz very much being the centre-piece, they all seem to look rather more like Greek gods, I can't say I'm a connoseur on monuments though - maybe that's the done thing when depicting men as brave warriors fighting for their life. It is however, a very important landmark and nice to see it left in peace today.

Summary: The statue doesn't really depict the scene for me