Looking for Chopin and the beauty of his music everywhere - in concert halls, poetry, films, and more. In 2010 we celebrated his 200th birthday with an anthology of 123 poems. Here, we'll follow the music's echoes in the hearts and minds of poets and artists, musicians and listeners... Who knows what we'll find?
The summer began with the Summer Solstice on June 21 and we have two months of rest ahead of us. OK, one month. No? Less? Maybe just one week, or a couple long weekends, if you live in the U.S. where people are so paranoid about having to prove that they are essential at work that they never take the time off, or take it in such small installments, that their absence is practically unnoticed.
What Chopin concerts would you attend if you had two months for music, with a nice travel budget to boost your enjoyment. Where would you go? There are Chopin Festivals and Chopin recital series all over. Let's see what's available in Warsaw and nearby. Of course, when you go there, you'll land at the International Chopin Airport, to start your trip on the right note. There might be a pianist playing at the airport, too...
CHOPIN IN WARSAW
DAILY AT 5 PM, NOWY SWIAT - HOUSE OF MUSIC
Located on the historic boulevard, lined with boutiques and restaurants, this series of concerts is held at 63 Nowy Swiat, and as the website says; "No tour of Poland's capital is complete without listening to Chopin's music live." So this would be a nice stop to make, after sightseeing or shopping, and before dinner...
DAILY AT 6 PM. STARA GALERIA ZPAF, OLD TOWN
Located at 8 Plac Zamkowy ("Castle Square") across the square from the Royal Palace, in a gallery of Polish Artist - Photographers, this series of concerts is held in an art gallery hosting photography exhibitions by Polish and international artists.
DAILY AT 6:30 PM. OLD TOWN, ARCHDIOCESE MUSEUM
http://www.chopinconcerts.pl/. Daily live Chopin concerts in Dean's Palace of the Warsaw Archdiocesan Museum The Old Town in Warsaw ul. Dziekania 1 (next to the Cathedral). Brilliant pianists are playing works of Fryderyk Chopin. The website informs us: "The Dean's Palace is a beautiful historic building, whose full-scale renovation was completed last year. The interior is exclusive and perfectly finished.The concert hall has very good acoustics and the highest quality grand piano produces sound that is pure and rich, which makes listening to the concerts an exceptional experience. The limited seating of 80 creates an intimate and romantic atmosphere resembling the one that was typical of the times in which Fryderyk Chopin performed. Each concert lasts about 55 minutes." Lovely.
Holy Cross Church on Krakowskie Przedmiescie
DAILY AT 7 PM. KRAKOWSKIE PRZEDMIESCIE 62
Daily concerts in a place where Chopin played at the age of 13. It is located on the "Chopin Route" in the heart of Warsaw. A cozy atmosphere of a salon reproduces the type of music making that was practiced in Chopin's time. The venue is a quiet coffee house during the day and becomes a concert hall at night.
DAILY AT 7:30 PM CHOPIN'S SALON ON SMOLNA STREET
Located in the downtown business district, in a lively and vibrant part of Warsaw, this concert series features a Steinway piano. Audience members get a glass of wine and a slice of cake to increase the enjoyment of the music.
SUNDAYS FROM MAY TO SEPTEMBER, at 12NOON and 4PM. LAZIENKI ROYAL PARK.
http://en.chopin.warsawtour.pl/events-en/. "For more than 50 years, Chopin Concerts have been held at the foot of the Fryderyk Chopin Monument in the Łazienki Royal Park. Eminent pianists perform every Sunday from mid-May until the end of September, at noon and 4 pm. Hugely popular with Warsaw residents and tourists alike, they are a unique opportunity to listen to classical music while sitting on a blanket in the shade of a tree." Free. The downside used to be the horrible amplification of the piano, which by now should have been fixed, so the piano sounds like a piano and not like an instrument with bronchitis. Aleje Ujazdowskie.
SUNDAYS FROM MAY TO SEPTEMBER, at 12NOON and 3PM. ZELAZOWA WOLA.
Chopin's birthplace, the little manor in an exquisite park in Zelazowa Wola, is a delightful site of Chopin recitals through the summer. You have to catch a bus tour, or drive out of town - Zelazowa Wola is located in Gmina Sochaczew, Sochaczew County, Masovian Voivodeship, in east-central Poland. It lies on the Utrata River, some 8 kilometres (5 mi) northeast of Sochaczew and 46 km (29 mi) west of Warsaw. There are few things more lovely in life, than listening to an excellent pianist performing Chopin's music, while being seated somewhere in the park, filled with beautiful trees, gardens, and sculptures. And none of that annoying amplification - the concerts are live and acoustic. At least were, when I last visited the site. A must for everyone, at least once in a lifetime. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivOUu9CywwY
THURSDAYS FROM JANUARY TO JULY, AT PM. YOUNG TALENTS AT THE CHOPIN MUSEUM.
Located at Tamka St. the old "Ostrogski Palace' is now the Chopin Museum with a state of the art exhibition about the life, context, and music of the great pianist composer. Young pianists have a chance to present their talents in the concert hall within the museum on Thursdays at 6 p.m. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVTNj2e5zA0
Here's one talent, a 10 year old prodigy performing at the Royal Castle in Warsaw in 2018:
JULY 5-15, 2018. CHOPIN TO GORECKI FESTIVAL at CHOPIN UNIVERSITY OF MUSIC. Summer master classes for young pianists from around the world, with public concerts at the University's concert hall. Okolnik 2, Street, parallel to Nowy Swiat, walking distance to the Chopin Museum on Tamka Street. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r2PC6KFF9E
Krakowskie Przedmiescie, towards Zamkowy Square.
TUESDAYS AT 6PM, JULY-AUGUST. CHOPIN EVENINGS AT THE CHOPIN UNIVERSITY
The same location as above, Okolnik 2, walking distance from the Chopin Museum on Tamka Street, free concerts every Tuesday by students and graduates of the University of Music or other institutions, give concerts on the patio or in the Concert Hall, depending on the weather.
Ballroom at the Royal Castle
12-30 AUGUST 2018. CHOPIN AND HIS EUROPE INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL
Organized by the National Chopin Institute since 2005, this large-scale festival includes symphonic and chamber music concerts, as well as solo recitals in various venues around WArsaw, including the Holy Cross Church on Krakowskie Przedmiescie where his heart is buried, and the National Philharmonic.
Grand Theater of Opera and Ballet.
2-14 SEPTEMBER. FIRST INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION: CHOPIN ON PERIOD INSTRUMENTS. Organized by the National Chopin Institute, this competition places at the disposal of pianists a number of historic pianos, such as Erard, Pleyel, or Broadwood. The effects will be fascinating, I'm sure. Events to be held at the Grand Theater of Opera and Ballet, the Polish Radio, and the Holy Cross Church.
Period piano (Graff) in Paris.
Piano Bench in Warsaw
And of course, you can walk from one Chopin Bench to another, and see if the music boxes still work - they were embedded in these black marble benches since 2010. The benches are engraved with the route marking the most important locations associated with Chopin. There is a different story associated with each location, a moment in Chopin's life - his studies, family, friends, or concerts.
What is the function of Chopin monuments? They do not tell us how he looked like. Maybe what he and his music meant and means... national ideology, artistic conventions, musical myth-making...
Photograph of Chopin by L.A. Bisson, 1849.
For his looks we could turn to the only two extant photographs of Chopin, one from 1849, with the suffering, somber pianist facing straight at the camera (taken by L.A. Bisson at the home of Chopin's publisher Maurice Schlesinger) and another one, badly damaged, yet revealing the elegant, reserved, intelligent and vulnerable man in 1846 or 1847 (a daguerreotype from Warsaw's Chopin Museum, published in 1990 by John O'Shea, reprinted and reversed by pianist-composer Jack Gibbons). In both, Chopin wears a tense expression, with a frown above a prominent nose. He is dressed elegantly; his hair is longish and combed back, falling somewhat over his forehead. ( A purported third photograph, of Chopin on his deathbed, surfaced in 2011 but is considered a 19th-century fake).
Chopin's 1846-7 daguerreotype, original (L) and reversed (R). From Jack Gibbon's blog.
There are dozen of paintings, pencil drawings, sketches, oil portraits, of course. And then, there are monuments... For these, Chopin is typically made larger than life, monumental, timeless. Let's tour his image in his monuments, from bas-relief on memorial plaques, to enormous self-standing sculptures. In this part, we will visit Poland, France and other European countries - some of which Chopin lived in or visited.
WARSAW, POLAND
Chopin Monument in Warsaw, 2012 photos by Maja Trochimczyk
Wacław Szymanowski designed the world's most famous Chopin monument in 1907, at the height of Art Nouveau style. It took almost 20 years from the concept to implementation, and the monument went through several reincarnations prior to being built. It was finally erected in 1926 in the upper part of Warsaw's Royal Baths (Łazienki) Park, visible from the Aleje Ujazdowskie boulevard, with a large reflective pond in front of the bronze statue of the composer seated by a willow bent by the force of wind...
Chopin Monument in Lazienki Park, detail, photo by Maja Trochimczyk
Every time I visit Warsaw I stop over at the monument, depicted here with lovely blues and greens of the spring. I really do not like it. It must be some kind of a morbid fascination, then... But only now, after looking at the photographs, I noticed that it shows the suffering, inspired pianist in reverse, with the lock of hair above the frown flowing dramatically to the left, from hair parted on the right. The historical accuracy has to give in to the artistic vision... For a detailed story of the concept and genesis of the monument read the article by Waldemar Okon, "The Monument of Fryderyk Chopin by Waclaw Szymanowski: Concepts and Reality" in The Age of Chopin, edited by Halina Goldberg, 2004.
Chopin Monument in the Lazienki Park, details. 2012 Photo by Maja Trochimczyk
For those who do not know, the Monument that we see now is not the original bronze cast erected in 1926 - that one was destroyed by the Germans on May 31, 1940, as depicted on the photograph below.
Photo by an unknown author reproduced from Leszek Wysznacki, Warszawa od wyzwolenia do naszych dni, Wydawnictwo Sport i Turystyka, Warszawa 1977, p. 180, uploaded to Wikipedia by Boston9.
The rebuilt statue was dedicated in 1958, with an inscription on the side of the pedestal documenting this aspect of its history. Noon Chopin recitals are performed at the base of the statue every Sunday (in good weather) since 1959. You can listen to a brief fragment of Fantaisie - Impromptu from 2007 (amateur video), or to a longer 10-minute fragment of a recital by Piotr Latoszyński from 14 September 2014
There are many other "faces" of Chopin in Warsaw, stylized from his hand-drawn or painted portraits, that appear on a variety of memorial tablets in Warsaw, the city of his youth and studies. Some have been there for decades, others were created and placed on the occasion of his bicentennial in 2010.
Photo from Wikipedia
A plaque from 2010 commemorates the 8-year-old child prodigy in his first public performance that took place in today's Presidential Palace, Warsaw, The concert was organized by the Warsaw Philanthropic Society (Towarzystwo Dobroczynnosci) and took place on 24 February 1818.
Chopin Museum in Ostrogski Palace Photo by Maja Trochimczyk
From there it is not too far to Palac Ostrogskich on Tamka Street (also rebuilt after the war), now the Chopin Museum, that houses many Chopin sculptures, portraits and documents, among them the first, and most realistic sculpture of the composer, his death mask, made in plaster by the husband of Solange, George Sand's daughter, Auguste Clesinger.
Chopin Death Mask by Auguste Clesinger, in Chopin Museum. Photo by Maja Trochimczyk
An altogether different image - youthful, happy Chopin with a pompadour - appears on the bas-relief adorning the plaque in the Holy Cross Church, on the pillar where the urn with Chopin's heart is preserved. Smuggled into Poland after his death by sister Ludwika Jedrzejewicz, Chopin's heart was permanently entombed inside that pillar in 1882, with a tablet by Leonard Marconi. The inscription from Matthew VI:21 ("For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also") explains Chopin's deathbed wish that his sister was instrumental in realizing - by taking his heart back home, to Poland. The pillar, along with the whole church, was completely destroyed by Germans after the Warsaw Uprising, but they removed the heart for safekeeping before doing so. Now it is safely enshrined in the church pillar again.
Entrance to the Holy Cross Church on Krakowskie Przedmiescie with the Christ sculpture, and
the "Sursum Corda" Inscription (Lift Up Your Hearts), Photo 2014 by Maja Trochimczyk.
Pillar with Chopin's heart (left) in Holy Cross Church
in Warsaw. Photo by Maja Trochimczyk, 2010
A closeup of the tablet with its inscription and Chopin's bust.
2010 Photo by Maja Trochimczyk
Another plaque is found on the walls of the building where the Chopin family lived in 1820, now belonging to the campus of the University of Warsaw. As a graduate of the university, that incorporated the Warsaw Lyceum where Nicolas Chopin taught in the 1810s and 1820s, I feel quite connected to Chopin, even if my classes were in a far-off Geology building somewhere on the way to the airport (musicology being the study of petrified music, does belong with geology, no?). I took this picture during the Second International Chopin Congress in 1999 and now cannot find it.
Malgorzata Kalicinska, Chopin and Maja Trochimczyk, 2010.
Instead, I found two photographs of Chopin's busts, one from Palac Kazimierzowski during the Third International Chopin Congress in 2010 (with Malgorzata Kalicinska), and one in the foyer of my other alma mater, Chopin Academy of Music, formerly known as F. Chopin State Higher School of Music and currently named Fryderyk Chopin University of Music.
Facing Chopin in Warsaw, 2012. Photo by Nikodem Wolk-Laniewski
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There were also quite a few official flags of the school, with its changing name and unchanging, iconic Chopin's profile.
Official flags of the Chopin Academy (1970s-1990s) and the renamed Chopin University (current).
Having measured my nose against Chopin, and having lost that nose-to-nose competition, I went for a walk around town, and found Chopin everywhere. Well, not his likeness, but his music - present on recordings mounted into 14 dark basalt (or black marble) benches, with carved maps and captions. This was a gift to the city created for Chopin's bicentennial, marking the places important to his biography (the church he played the organ, the home where he lived, the place where he boarded the stagecoach to take him to Vienna, and then Stuttgart, and Paris). The benches are still attractive and educational, even though a few of the "press-the-button" music boxes stopped working by 2014 when I photographed them again. In any case, these are wonderful elements of Warsaw's landscape that capture the attention of passerby and, occasionally, fill the air with Chopin's music.
Here is the bench place at the edge of the Plac Zamkowy, the opposite side of the street
from St. Anne's Church. Below is a fragment of the map.
Chopin Music Bench. February 2010 photos by Maja Trochimczyk.
Chopin Music Bench on Plac Krasinskich (Krasinski Square)
2014 Photo by Maja Trochimczyk
Map on the bench on Plac Krasinskich, yellow marks the location, the starting point.
2014 Photo by Maja Trochimczyk
Here's the list of Chopin Music Benches with their location and music played at each, the tour is described on Warsaw's official tourist page, though with musical errors in captions that I corrected below.
List of Chopin Music Bench Locations (according to Visit Chopin in Warsaw site, with added musical links to historical recordings of featured works):
1) The Krasiński Square – This square used to house the National Theatre building, where in March 1830 Fryderyk Chopin presented his famous Concerto in F minor. This was also where in October 1830 he played his last farewell concert before leaving the country. The building does not exist any more and there is the Warsaw Uprising Monument on the square instead. Krasiński Square – MAZURKA in A minor, Op. 17 No. 4; 39” - Listen to a version recorded by Arthur Rubinstein.
2) The Miodowa Street – The entire social life of the capital used to be concentrated here. The local cafes, such as Pod Kopciuszkiem, Dziurka and Honoratka - the venues of meetings for artists and young people - were visited by Chopin almost on a daily basis. Miodowa Street - MAZURKA in A minor, Op. 68; 34” - Listen to a version recorded by Serge Rachmaninoff
3) The Kozia Street – This narrow street used to be an important transport route in Chopin’s times. The U Brzezińskiej cafe was his favourite place to visit. Kozia Street – “HULANKA” song; 29” - Listen to a version recorded by Andrzej Hiolski, baritone.
3) The Music Conservatory – The place which now features a square over the East-West Underpass used to house the Music Conservatory where Fryderyk Chopin studied musical composition. Music Conservatory – WALTZ in E-flat major, Op. 18; 39” - Listen to the Grande Valse Brillante Op. 18 No. 2 played by Garrick Ohlsson
4) The Wessel Palace – This was where on November 2nd 1830 Fryderyk Chopin got on a stagecoach and set out on his trip to fame – to Vienna and further to Paris. Wessel Palace – GRANDE POLONAISE in E-flat major, Op. 22; 35” - Listen to a version recorded by Krystian Zimerman in 1979.
5) The Radziwiłł Palace – This was where on February 24th 1818 Fryderyk Chopin, aged 8, gave his first public performance. Radziwiłł Palace located on Krakowskie Przedmiescie 387, now houses Polish government offices - RONDO in C minor, Op.1; 32” - Listen to a version recorded by Vladimir Askenazy.
6) The Saxon Palace (Palac Saski) – The Chopin family moved here in 1810, after Fryderyk’s father had accepted a job at the famous Warsaw Lyceum, which used to occupy part of the palace’s rooms. Saski Palace - MAZUREK in B-flat major, Op. 7 No. 1; 36” - Listen to a version recorded by Henryk Sztompka in 1959
7) The Saxon Garden (Ogrod Saski) – This was where the young Chopin entertained while he and his family resided at the Saski Palace (the former seat of the Warsaw Lyceum). Saski Garden – NOCTURNE in B major, Op. 9 No. 3; 47” - Listen to a version by Guiomar Novaes, 1959, the Nocturne starts at 9'53''
8) The Visitants’ Church – In Chopin’s times Sunday masses for students of the Warsaw Lyceum used to take place here, during which Fryderyk Chopin, aged 15, used to play the organ, performing the function of the Lyceum organist. The Visitants’ Church - LARGO in E-flat major (Op. posth.); 46” - listen to the Largo played by Anatol Ugorski.
9) The Kazimierzowski Palace – In 1817 the Warsaw Lyceum, and the newly-established Warsaw University, were located here. The Chopin family came to reside in the right-hand annexe (the Deputy Rector’s Building). Kazimierzowski Palace - WALTZ in E minor (Op. posth.); 45” - Listen to four historical interpretations of the Waltz from the early 1900s: Moriz Rosenthal, Leopold Godowsky (starts at 2'58''), Sergei Rachmaninoff (4'45''), and Josef Hofmann (recording of 1916, starts at 6'36'').
10) The Czapski Palace – The Chopin family moved here in 1827 and Fryderyk got a room in a small garret, equipped with a piano. Located at Krakowskie Przedmiescie no. 5, it now houses the Academy of the Fine Arts. The former residence of the Chopin family, located on the second floor, now features the Chopin Parlour museum with period furnishings. The Czapski Palace – WALTZ in D-flat major, Op. 64 No 1; 42” - Listen to Valentina Lisitsa playing the "Minute Waltz" in 1'48'' with extra slow trio and a wide range of tempi.
11) The Holy Cross Church – the place where Chopin’s heart rests.Holy Cross Church – FUNERAL MARCH (Marche funebre) from SONATA in B-flat Minor, Op. 35; 45” - listen to a fascinating interpretation by Ivo Pogorelic from the early 1980s, the March starts at 17'18''.
12) The Zamoyski Palace – Chopin’s sister, who gathered the souvenirs of her brother, used to live here. In 1863 an attempt on the life of a Tsar’s governor was made through the palace windows, in retaliation for which all the tenants were removed from their flats and their entire property was destroyed. Among the objects thrown through the windows and burned was Chopin’s piano. Zamoyski Palace – ETUDE in C minor, Op. 10 No. 12; 42” - Listen to an interpretation of the "Revolutionary Etude" by Stanislaw Bunin from 1985, the year he won the Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw (2'37'')
13) The Gniński - Ostrogski Palace – The seat of the Fryderyk Chopin Museum, next to which the Chopin Centre is located. Gniński – Ostrogski Palace – BALLADE in F minor, Op. 52; 42” - Listen to an interpretation recorded by Krystian Zimerman for the Polish TV in ca. 1979, four years after he won the Chopin Piano Competition (11'22'').
14) The Fryderyk Chopin Monument in Lazienki Park – The most famous monument of the composer in the world is located in the Łazienki or Łazienkowski (Royal Baths) Park, opposite the park gate in Aleje Ujazdowskie, near Belvedere. The Fryderyk Chopin Monument – POLONAISE in A major, Op. 40 No. 1; 39” - Listen to the "Military" Polonaise played by Josef Hofmann in 1923 (3'21''), by Arthur Rubinstein in 432 Hz natural tuning of the piano (3'45''), with its dramatic tempo differences and heroic expression, by Halina Czerny-Stefanska in the 1970s (5'16''), with its plodding, systematic, pedagogical evenness, or by that maverick of Las Vegas pianists, Liberace (3'23''), playing it as musically as the grand old masters.
When I started learning music back in the 1960s in Poland, I played the violin (badly), then viola (better), and then a bit of piano... At the Elsner Music High School and the Chopin University, we called it "mandatory piano with both hands" - and this is what it was, a required class done because you had to, not very musical. However, I learned to sightread at the keyboard and entertain myself by singing one part and playing two other parts of Bach's Kunst der Fuge. I also loved singing along with his Chorales. In playing Chopin, I did not move beyond easy preludes and nocturnes, but liked playing for myself, getting lost in the shifting moods and soaring melodies of his music.
The hours at the keyboard are long gone and my California upright sits in pieces in the garage, but the Arnold Fibiger "semi-concert" upright has survived in excellent shape in my Mom's place in Warsaw. After her death this summer, I donated the piano to my Warsaw Alma Mater - Fryderyk Chopin University of Music. It used to be "Academy" when I attended it and "State Higher School of Music" a decade earlier. I thought of selling it, but decided that a donation would be a better choice than getting a measly $200 for this beauty. ..
The piano is decorated with Art Nouveau reliefs and carvings; two Art Nouveau candleholders attached in front, and most of the keys still in the original ivory, with some yellowed inserts in plastic. No chance for historical restoration of those keys - ivory is banned, and rightly so... but was not at that time. I hope that my piano will bring long hours of enjoyment to the University's music students and will enrich its permanent collection of antique instruments.
LINEN OF GRANDMA & GREAT GRANDMA AT THE MUSEUM OF ETHNOGRAPHY
While in Warsaw, I made four other donations - the Museum of Ethnography received three cuts of home-made linen, two from my great grandmother on the maternal side - Konstancja Wasiuk, and one made from scratch, that is from planting the flax, through making the thread, to weaving the fabric - by my grandmother Nina Niegierysz - Trochimczyk.
The long stretch of linen was made for towels, with a standard "home-made" (samodzial) weave, 70cm wide and over 4 meters long. The staff at the Museum of Ethnography were thrilled to unwrap and measure the fabric. My grandma told me how she made it, how they planted the flax, harvested the long stems, soaked and beat the stems to create the material for weaving, in a long-lasting process. She then made the thread using her spinning wheel ("kolowrotek"), and finally wove the fabric for her dowry when she was getting married. She was born in 1906 so this activity took place in mid-1920s on their estate in Mieleszki.
The patterns on two shorter cuts of homemade linen are much more ornate. They were made by a professional weaver near the village of Trzebieszow. My great grandmother Konstancja was repatriated after the war, that is thrown out of the family estate near Baranowicza in the borderlands part of eastern Poland (Kresy, now Belarus), with whatever she could take and pack in the alloted part of the train, and sent back to Poland, while Soviets took over the family estate to convert it to Kolchoz...
She brought with her not only her intense faith in Jesus and a bad temper to boost, but also various strange remnants of her former life, including large spools of linen thread, that was made by her farm girls back home, in the Kresy... The thread made on the estate near Baranowicze was woven into different patterned fabric and used for towels, tablecloth... The museum will use it in its fabric collection.
BARBARA WYSOCKA'S MEDALS AT THE MUSEUM OF WARSAW UPRISING
The next stop was the Museum of Warsaw Uprising in Warsaw-Wola. I brought there the medals, photographs, and letters of Barbara Wysocka, one of my mother's close friends who house-sat the condo during her travels, and was invited to all major family functions, especially Christmas Eve (when no person should be alone) and Easter breakfast...
Pani Basia was single, and had no family at all. Her entire family died in the Warsaw Uprising and she was the lone survivor. She never married, never had children... What she had were her medals for bravery and a handful of pictures. The Museum staff took the medals, though was not happy with the one bestowed upon the veteran freedom fighter by the communist government (even though it was the highest honor, Polonia Restituta!) and did not like any of her post-war pictures nor letters...
They took the photos in uniform, of the young Barbara on the poligon, and with other soldier-friends before the war...
She was not famous and I do not even know what her Home Army pseudonym was. After the war she had ordinary life, finished college, worked in an office. Thanks to my Mom, she had an "adopted" family - us - and spent her weekends in the summer house, holidays at our table, and one colorful vacation (at the expense of my parents) in Abu Dhabi where my father worked for over 20 years and my mother lived for six months each year, spending her winters in the warm south and summers in cool Poland.
Barbara Wysocka's memory should be preserved by a museum dedicated to this cause - where many of her colleagues are also remembered. I'm glad that the Museum took the medals, but troubled that they wanted to deny that there was any good done in the "communist" times - without these times as a bridge, there would have been no independent Poland today. Some Home Army veterans were hounded and killed, others survived and helped rebuild the country. Warsaw was completely destroyed by Germans who forcefully removed all inhabitants and blew out all buildings, especially the large and historic ones... leaving shantytowns on the outskirts untouched, pocked by bullet holes.... Now, the historic core of the Old Town was rebuilt and Warsaw grows, with its history carefully reconstructed...
TRAVEL GUIDES AT THE MUSEUM OF SPORTS AND TOURISM AND THE TROCHIMCZYK FAMILY AT THE MUSEUM OF DIGITAL INFORMATION
My parents, Henryka and Aleksy Trochimczyk, loved to travel, loved to see the world and visit far away places. My father, an electrical engineering specializing in power plants, worked first in Iraq and then in the United Arab Emirates - Abu Dhabi. He spent most of his career working abroad, as an electrical engineer building a sugar beet refinery in Mosul, Iraq, and then the power plant and water desalination plant in Abu Dhabi. My mom joined him there, and the family traveled both there and through Europe - Greece, Turkey, Italy...
My mom also went to Spain and took a three month tour of the U.S. while staying with me in Canada. One day she said, I'm going for a trip, the next day she was on a Greyhound bus... Similarly, when Princess Diana died, my Mom decided to pay her respect and my parents drove to London for the funeral. All these trips were documented in picture albums and in guides from the many places visited.
These guides and albums were donated to the Museum of Sports and Tourism and will enrich the permanent collection.
The large yellow suitcase of my parents photographs, especially from Abu Dhabi and my mom's American tours, was borrowed by Mr. Piotr Niedziela of the Museum of Digital Information. He loved working with negatives and after reviewing the set of materials, picked over 600 images for his collection to illustrate an important part of Polish history - Polish engineers working abroad, building infrastructure in many countries. The Persian Gulf was certainly exotic enough to merit attention....
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