Solidarity...and a Little More Solidarity

We had a city tour in the morning, with another local guide.  We started at Westerplatte, which is a peninsula of land protecting the entrance to two of the rivers which run through Gdańsk.  It was here that the first shots of World War II were fired on 1 September 1939, when the German Battleship Schleswig-Holstein started to bombard the small contingent of 180 Polish forces at Westerplatte.  Despite constant bombardment and several attempts to land troops, the Poles hold off more than 500 German soldiers for a week, knowing that no reinforcements were coming.  The Nazi troops were so impressed by the Poles' resolve, the commanding officer allowed the senior Polish officer to keep his sword (as a sign of respect) and the survivors were sent to "nicer" prisoner-of-war camps for the duration of WWII, with the vast majority surviving until the end.

Museum of World War II -- Said To Be Best in the World

Baltic Sea in the Distance

Westerplatte, Where First Shots of World War II Were Fired

Typical Communist-Era Housing Blocks "Spruced Up"

Poland Co-Hosted the 2012 European Soccer Championships, and Built New Stadiums Across the Country

Gdańsk has been and remains a huge port, serving the vast majority of Poland's seabourne trade.  The history of the city is fascinating, with it going back and forth between the control of Poland and Germany, with the quirky period between 1920 and 1939, when it became the so-called "Free City of Danzig," as an independent city-state under the protection of the since-defunct League of Nations.  The population of Gdańsk was ethnically German for centuries, even though the country of Germany is a rather recent construct.  The residents considered themselves ethnic German, which was the principal language of the area, too.  The actual country of Poland, as an entity, was reconstituted at the end of World War I, as part of the Treaty of Versailles.  I have and will likely mention again the sad history of Poland's various partitions, and the fact that it disappeared as a nation entirely for almost 200 years.  Poland's borders, as set by Versailles, has the country shifted more to west than its current structure, with large areas of what is now Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine -- which were inhabited by ethnic Poles.  Danzig (Gdańsk) fell within the borders of the new nation, but given its strategic importance and the unquestionable German heritage, a compromise formed the so-called Free State of Danzig, which let the city sit quasi-independent, surrounded by "new Poland."  Hitler and the Nazis saw this as an afront to Germany and, similar to Putin's claims in Ukraine, the "reunification" of the ethnic Germans in Danzig was a justification used to explain their invasion and takeover of western Poland.  We all know, too, about the Hitler-Stalin pact, which had the Soviet Union invading Poland from the east, to reclaim those areas, which were "ethnically Slavic."  So, by the end of 1939, Poland again ceased to exist as a country.

Gdańsk, of course, also has a storied history as one of the founding cites of the famed Hanseatic League, about which we also learned a lot during our city tour.  On our drive to Westerplatte, we passed our next stop, which was the famed Gdańsk Shipyard.  Formerly known as the Lenin Shipyard, this is where the Solidarity movement started, and to this day, despite all its history, Gdańsk seems most linked to this movement, which help facilitate the downfall of Communist Poland, and which provided subsequent elected leaders of the country.

The shipyards in Gdańsk and the surrounding area are still extremely busy, but most of the work has shifted to newer and updated facilities.  The historic Lenin Shipyard is now largely a relic, with a large area devoted to a memorial and outstanding museum.  The remainder of the sprawling area is in various stages of clean-up and revitalization.  We saw several billboards touting waterside developments that are planned for the prime real estate.      

There is a huge museum on the site now, just inside the historic gates of the original shipyard, which opened in 2014, called the European Solidarity Centre.  It was heavily funded by the European Union and is one the best museums I've ever visited.  Anna and I returned here later in the day for a proper visit, but in the morning we viewed the large Monument to Fallen Shipyards Workers, which stands just outside the gates.  Most people associate 1980 with the year that the Solidarity Movement truly took off, but the actual starting point was in 1970.  In December of that year, right before Christmas, the government announced significant increases in prices for many staple items.  Spontaneous protests broke out in northern Poland, and principally Gdańsk.  In the end, at least 44 people were shot and killed by police.  To prevent broader unrest, with the agreement of Soviet leadership, the Chairman of the Community Party (de facto president) and several members of the Politburo were removed from office, and the price increases were reversed.  This is heralded as the spark that started the Polish independence movement.

It would be another 10 years, but in 1980 the government again raised consumer prices unexpectedly.  This led to limited strikes across the country, but at the Lenin Shipyard, at the same time, there was a female pipefitter, who was fired only weeks from retirement, when she questioned the safety conditions at the yard.  Her job was to physically crawl inside industrial piping and install asbestos.  That combination led to large-scale strikes at the shipyard, let by Lech Wałęsa.  His name would be on our tongues many times during the tour.  Cutting down on the history, but as part of the agreement which ultimately ended the strike and formally recognized Solidarity as an independent trade union, the government agreed to construct a monument to the people killed during the 1970 protests.  It was to be the first and only monument to communist oppression to go up in a Soviet bloc country before the collapse of the USSR.  It was erected in record time and was in place in less than a year.  Ironically, it was completed only a couple of months before the government reversed itself, and General Jaruzelski declared martial law in Poland in December 1981, which outlawed Solidarity and put its leadership behind bars for years.

The Sprawling Gdansk (formerly Lenin) Shipyard Complex

Memorial to the Citizens Killed in 1970 by Government Troops

Entrance to Shipyard and Epicenter of the Solidarity Strikes

The European Solidarity Centre Museum, Built on Part of the Shipyard

Interior of the Museum

Our last leg on the bus brought us just outside one of the historic gates of the Gdańsk Old City, from where we continued the tour on foot.  Like Warsaw, Gdańsk was essentially obliterated during World War II.  Estimates say 95 percent of the historic city were destroyed.  Despite the fast advance of Soviet forces, German authorities did not allow any evacuations until January of 1945, by which time it was very difficult to get anywhere.  We heard from our guide about the situation with the Soviet forces, themselves.  They were dubbed the "third army," meaning that for every engagement, roughly one third would die, one third would be injured or run away, and one third would continue on to the next battle.  Those surviving soldiers were, understandably, angry and undisciplined.  We learned that as the Soviet Army advanced westward, they were not told exactly where they were at any time.  When they reached Gdańsk, they were told they were entering Berlin.  They were told the same thing when they took Kalingrad.  That helped ratchet up the anger, so when Soviet troops entered the city, they showed absolutely no mercy to the poor remaining souls.  There are many heartbreaking stories of what was perpetrated on the civilian population, as German soldiers had long since left.  I bring this up to emphasize that the gates and old city that we were about to visit were, like Warsaw, all reconstructed to look as they had pre-war.  Here, too, they did an amazing job.  They gathered as many surviving photographs and pictures as they could, to determine how things had looked.  They did, however, edit history somewhat, and only included buildings that existed before the final partition of Poland in 1795.  They did not want to include any "German-specific architecture."  

You can see what a great job they did in the pictures.  What I had not realized until this visit, however, is that the facades are the only part built to look authentic.  Behind the facades, the buildings are essential communist blocs.  We heard that while a facade might make it look three separate buildings, behind it was all one apartment bloc.  Looking at the pictures, you can see that exterior windows are at different heights and of different sizes in the supposedly independent buildings.  Once inside, that meant that an apartment or room might have windows at floor level, or split between stories.  We did not get to go inside one of the apartments, but I would have like to have seen that.

Gates of the Old City

Home of the Executioner.  Evidently children of executioners had a hard time finding spouses, so they would normally marry the children of other executioners, from other cities.

Inside the City Gates

All Reconstructed To Look as Before the War

The city tour itself was quite good, with a lot of history and, of course, several church visits.  I found it interesting that the vast majority of the churches in the city were built before the Reformation.  They were later converted to Lutheran churches, and then BACK to Catholic churches and cathedrals after World War II.  You could see evidence of the switches back and forth in the ornamentation of each building, inside and out.  

Gdańsk is, of course, also world-renowned for its amber, and we passed dozens of high-end shops selling every imaginable iteration and form of the precious substance.  We had a short optional demonstration at the end of tour, showing us how to identify counterfeit amber, and explaining how it is harvested and crafted.  I was fascinated to learn that Baltic amber is an average of 40 million years old.  That was a shocker.  We had a very nice lunch outside, on the Town Hall square, and then did some damage on the so-called "Amber Row" of shops.  

Cathedral of St. Mary -- Largest Brick Church in the World

"Amber Row"

Another of the Pedestrian Draw Bridges -- this one pivoted across

When the day started, we had a long list of things we wanted to do with our supposedly "free afternoon," but by the time we finished lunch and shopping, it was already mid/late afternoon.  Our plans for a short boat cruise were gone, as was the possibility of visiting the spa resort of Sopot, about 30 minutes north of Gdańsk.  We had also heard about the fairly new Musuem of Wold War II, which is in Gdańsk.  It has been called the best museum dedicated to the war anywhere in the world.  It is said to cover the entire conflict, in both Europe and Pacific.  I was excited to visit here but, alas, we learned that it is closed on Mondays.  Grrr.  Anna was very interested in going back to the Solidarity museum, which also interested me.  K's feet were barking after so much walking, so we convinced her to stay at the hotel and get a foot massage in their spa, while Anna and I Uber'd over to the museum before they closed.  It turned out to be a perfect compromise.

As I mentioned earlier, the European Solidarity Centre turned out to the be one of the most interesting museums I've ever visited.  We both agreed we could have spent several more hours there.  In addition to its very striking architecture (it's polarizing architecture is meant to resemble a ship under construction), it is essentially a museum tracking the rise and fall of the Soviet Bloc, with particular focus on how Poland eventually achieved its independence.  It was a very hands-on museum and for the first time I encountered an audio headset which could track where you were in the building, and speak to you about exactly what you were viewing.  It would even say things like, "if you'd like to know more about topic 'x,' turn to your right," etc.  We stayed until they closed at 5:00pm, and I was particularly disappointed that we had to rush through the final floor, which was devoted to the collapse of each communist government in the former Soviet bloc.  We learned, too, that Lech Wałęsa has an office in the building.  He reportedly refused to accept it at first, as the thought the building was so ugly.  Once he was convinced to see the inside, however, he acquiesced and accepted the office.  We heard much, too, over the course of the week about how unpopular Wałęsa is in modern-day Poland.  I was shocked to learn that he is only in his 70's, but he is famous for his ego and inability to believe that anyone knows more than him on any topic.  His time as president, too, was especially rough.  Granted, it was immediately after the fall of communism, when I was living there.  They were attempting so-called shock therapy, but he is not remembered fondly.  His image abroad is much better.  His estranged wife wrote a book about their marriage several years ago, and it was a huge bestseller.  Everyone wanted to read about what a cad he had been to her, whereas his own books have always been poor sellers in Poland.

Enter European Solidarity Centre Main Exhibit

Ceiling Lined with Original Helmuts from Striking Shipyard Workers

Anna in One of the Mock Interrogation Rooms

Jacket of One of the Workers Killed in 1970 -- Bullet Holes Clearly Visible

The Original Demands Written Out by the Solidarity Strikers

Display Marking the Declaration of Marshall Law in 1981, Which Outlawed Solidarity

Election Poster From Free Election in 1989.  Analogy is From "High Noon."  Essentially, "Vote or Die"

Constantly Growing Mural Comprising Hand-Written Notes From Museum Visitors

Redevelopment Underway of Huge Swaths of the Former Shipyard Area

Back at the hotel, Anna and I had sore feet, but Katherine felt great after her massage.  We had reservations for dinner at an old restaurant famous for Goldschlagger liquor, which was invented here.  It is a spirit infused with flakes of real gold.  We purchased some, but have yet to actually try any.  Our meal was outstanding, and we were able to sit outside on the banks of the canal.  It was a great way to end a great day.

Famed "Goldwasser" Liquor