|
Our responsibility to the future is to remember the richness of the past. The artists, the heroes, the brave and the strong. 2004 marks the 60th Anniversary of The Warsaw Uprising. In those sixty days, over 250,000 people sacrificed their lives at the merciless hands of the Nazis trying to save their beloved capital. Reduced to rubble, the proud people of Poland scraped together their meager sums in the following decades to help rebuild a “city that was to be no more.” Every cobblestone, brick and window has been lovingly replaced to defy that command from Berlin. The golden spire atop the Royal Castle glistens in the dawn again. The numerous plaques on the houses of Warsaw pay tribute to those who were executed there. The monument nearby always has flowers strewn at its base……and candlelight casts a glow with the setting sun. Strolling down Mazowiecka Street we sometimes forget we walk above the sewers of Warsaw, which both saved and destroyed the lives of so many people. We enter the magical Old Town not for its quaintness, but its holiness. Today, people once more gather in the pubs and cafes to giggle and sing and have fun, the fire and smoke and ash a distant memory. Only the tap of a cane belonging to a survivor echoes on the narrow streets, the millions of bullet holes repaired now, and the silver hair defines that valiant generation. It is time to listen to their stories and to honor them. CNN did a wonderful job of it in their “Forgotten Heroes” documentary in June. It is not to be missed. Norman Davies’ “Rising ‘44” is also brilliantly written. The world needs to know that there is more to us than meets the eye and ear.1000 years have left their mark, now it is time for us to leave ours.
|
