Busted! Uprising! Departing Warsaw

harrassed again!

stopped in the subway

This morning we checked out of the hotel and headed to the Warsaw Uprising Museum on the Metro.  Professor O’Sullivan, along with nine students were detained by a Metro “Policeman” who accused us of misusing our Warsaw Metro student tickets.  He insisted that we needed International Student ID Cards, and he said he could not accept our CSUN IDs as valid.  Another Metro policeman joined him.  As a result, each of the detainees were issued a 124 zloty fine. Instead of our cheaper student tickets, we were obligated to purchase the more expensive version.
They tried to make us buy another three-day pass, but Dr. O'Sullivan refused. Not only were the policemen unhelpful and irritating, we also believed they unnecessarily forced us to miss our train, scammed us, and likely befitted financially from the incident.

On our way back from the museum, the same policeman detained three of us again! He made another attempt to get us to buy a three-day pass. In the future, other traveling students should be aware of the Metro rule or take special pains to avoid the Metro “police.”


Our morning activity was the Warsaw Uprising Museum.  This tells the story of the heroic and doomed effort of the underground army-the Home Army (Armia Krajowa)-and the Polish government in exile (in London) to liberate Warsaw from the Germans. The Soviet Army was just east of Warsaw, forcing the Germans to retreat, and about to enter Warsaw to drive out the Germans.  The Poles feared that without their own resistance to the Germans, the Soviets would be less likely to grant the Poles national independence.  Despite the lack of support, the Warsaw uprising was fought for 63 days. The Polish resistance was the biggest resistance in any European military effort during World War II. They did not defeat the Germans, but the Germans destroyed Warsaw in retaliation.

Resistance armbands

The Uprising Museum was a mixture of history and propaganda -- that is, showing the heroism of the Poles and not the flaws of the Uprising.





Two students described aspects of the Museum that were not of major focus (heroism was the major focus), but which they found very interesting.

One of the panels at the Uprising Museum was about what happened to the Polish Home Army in the city of Lviv (Lwów). Michelle's mother came from Lviv, so she had personal interest and knowledge from her family's experience.


She writes:   Lviv was a highly coveted city historically, and it was often called the Jewel of the East due to its more Western European architecture and design. The German Army conquered it from Poland during World War II.  The Soviet Union launched Operation Burza (Tempest) which started in March 1944.  This was an effort in which Soviet forces allied with the Polish/Ukrainian forces at Lviv and forced the German army out of the city and liberated it. The Soviets had always regarded the region as rightfully their own.   

The exhibit did not mention that this liberation came too late for over 4,000 Jewish people who lived in the city.  They were killed by German Death Squad B. These Jewish people were betrayed by their non-Jewish neighbors, gathered up, and shot in a mass execution. The Uprising Museum exhibit focused on the helpful actions of the Poles in liberating Lviv.  Also, it mentioned (see photo) that the  day after recapturing the city, the Soviets disarmed the Polish/Ukrainian troops, and within the next two weeks, the entire Polish delegation was arrested.

535 Slovaks Platoon armbands

Joseph, at the Museum, was surprised to learn that more than just Poles fought for the Home Army. Some Jewish survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto Revolt joined, but there was also a so-called "535 Slovaks Platoon."  The photo to the right is the platoon armband.

The 535 Slovaks Platoon also included Czechs, Georgians, Armenians, Ukrainians, and Azerbaijani.  There were also about a dozen Frenchmen and Hungarians, a handful of Belgians, Dutch, Greeks, English, and Italian soldiers, and even one Romanian and one Australian. These were  mainly runaway POWs from camps, or others who were not necessarily in Warsaw by choice.  Their willingness to fight displayed how hated the Nazis were, even by those whose countries were officially allied to Germany such as Slovakia or Hungary.  Their efforts were doomed from the beginning.  Following an unsuccessful attack on the Belvedere Palace at the "W-Hour", or time the rising began, part of the Slovak Platoon retreated to the Chojnowskie Woods, with the remaining forces fighting in Czerniakow under the 1st Company.

After the Uprising Museum, we returned to the hotel, loaded our luggage onto the bus, and went to the railroad station.  We took a lovely 2.5 hour train ride to Krakow.  You'll hear about that on the next post.

{Contributors to the post: Samantha C., Michelle, Ed, and Joseph}