/countries/show/poland/1.rss en-us With its beautifully restored 17th century burgher townhouses and polished cobblestone streets, Gdansk, Poland shows little of the ravages bestowed on it by modern history. Famously invaded by Hitler at Westerplatte on the 1st September 1939, Gdansk’s shelling sparked WWII and threw Europe into conflict. Six years later, the city was liberated by the Red Army, only to be destroyed once again. After decades of painstaking restoration, Gdansk once again resembles something of its former glory. Central to its heritage is amber, with the earliest evidence of an amber workshop in Gdansk dating back to the late 10th century AD. Today Gdansk runs its own amber processing school, and its amber masters continue to enjoy worldwide appreciation for their craft. Archeologists believe that amber was first cultivated in Pomerania by the region’s prehistoric settlers, who ascribed the unique-looking stone with magical properties and used it to make amulets and idols for pagan worship. Later on, during the 5th century BC, Gdansk flourished as a key port along the Amber Route, trading amber from the Baltic Sea to ancient Greece and Rome. However, Gdansk’s Golden Age came at the turn of the 17th century, when amber trading reached its peak as it became fashionable among Poland’s royal and noble classes. The semi-precious stone, known as ‘Baltic gold,’ became a national symbol of Gdansk’s prosperity, offered as a diplomatic gift to popes, tsars, kings, sultans and caliphs. Thanks to the prehistoric pine forests that once grew there, the coast of the Baltic Sea sources about 80 percent of the world’s amber. This beautiful semi-opaque stone is formed out of fossilized tree resin during a process lasting approx. 35-40 million years. The stone is then hand-sifted out of the quartz sand, shallow water and clay deposits which line the Baltic coast. Depending on its age, amber comes in a dazzling range of colours, from white, yellow and green to red, brown and black. The most prized examples contain the preserved remains of plants, insects, and even small vertebrates, stuck millions of years ago in the resin and left forever trapped in time. Any tour of Gdansk’s amber history should begin at the Amber Museum, located in the Prison Tower on historic Dluga Street. Its six floors explore every aspect of amber production, from its harvesting and trading, to its role in modern art. Visitors can inhale the scent of tree resin, marvel at a lizard encased in amber, and find out about amber’s uses in folk medicine. The Amber Museum also houses a selection of artifacts from the Georg Laue Collection, including an exquisite amber cabinet. Other highlights include the world’s largest amber sculpture: A Naked Woman After Rodin (weighing in at 2.5kg), and a Fender Stratocaster guitar made of, you guessed it, amber. Another essential stop-off point for Gdansk amber admirers is St. Bridget’s Church, whose austere interior is adorned by a monumental amber altar with a stunning reproduction of Poland’s famous “Our Lady of Czestochowa" icon. Dedicated to the 44 shipyard workers gunned down during protests in December 1970, the church provided shelter to Lech Walesa and other members of the Solidarity Movement. Round up the day with a spot of shopping on Mariacka Street and Dluga Street, which both sport an array of luxury galleries and artisan shops selling amber products: including jewellery and crystal-ware, unique pins and rose-shaped brooches, stained glass-style lamps and quirky take-home souvenirs. Another prime spot to pick up Gdansk's amber is along its Vistula-side promenade, where street vendors offer decent prices for their wares. Look out for unpolished amber flakes steeped in vodka (“nalewka bursztynowa”). According to Poles, the mixture treats everything from rheumatism to hangovers! Rub onto your temples to alleviate headaches or dash liberally into tea for a fiery winter warmer. Fri, 06 May 2011 19:51:45 +0000 http://www.thecircumference.org/experiences/amber-gdansk http://www.thecircumference.org/experiences/amber-gdansk Every year, hundreds of thousands of people come to the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland to pay homage to the one million people that died there. Indeed, some believe that the visit is an essential rite of passage lest humanity ever overlook this most unforgettable moment in history. An official UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum is made up of two camps in which virtually every stone is untouched, and all areas are open to visitors. The first camp, Auschwitz I, is where you will find the famous 'Arbeit Macht Frei' (Work Makes Us Free) sign that prisoners walked under on their way to and from enforced labour at the camp. Here you can see the site of the execution yard where individual prisoners were placed in front of a reinforced wall and shot to death. The museum of the first Auschwitz concentration camp also houses very large numbers of belongings that were taken from victims. Suitcases, household utensils and even shoes were stockpiled by the Nazis. One especially harrowing display case that stretches almost 100 ft. long is filled to the top with human hair which was gathered both before and after victims were killed. The second camp, Auschwitz II, better known as Birkenau, was where the bulk of the Holocaust horror took place. A staggering 960,000 Jews, 150,000 Poles, and 23,000 Gypsies were exterminated at this killing factory; mostly with Zyklon B industrial gas. The holding areas, crematoria and gas chambers can all be visited at this Auschwitz concentration camp, but be aware that they are extremely distressing even if you feel well prepared for the visit. Among the captives at the Auschwitz concentration camp was 15-year-old Anne Frank, famous the world over for her diary about living with her family in hidden rooms behind an office in Amsterdam to escape persecution. Her story is just one of more than a million tragedies tied to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Transported to the camp in September 1944, Anne was forced to strip for disinfection, had her head shaved and a number tattooed on her arm before she was put into enforced labour. If she had been just a few months younger, she would have been gassed upon arrival like all children under the age of fifteen were. Anne was later transferred to another concentration camp named Bergen-Belsen where she died along with her sister during a typhoid outbreak. This was just weeks before the camp was liberated by Soviet troops on 27 January 1945. This date is now marked each year as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:20:07 +0000 http://www.thecircumference.org/experiences/auschwitz-concentration-camp http://www.thecircumference.org/experiences/auschwitz-concentration-camp