Traveling to Warsaw has been in my must do travel bag for years now. I remembered learning about the tragic history of the citizens of Warsaw as a teen and then, later, having the chance to befriend and spend a lot of time with someone from Warsaw who often told me “you would love it there.”

In college I dabbled with the idea of becoming an art conservationist and in my studies we went over the massive reconstruction job that was the old town of Warsaw. A city that, at one point, was almost 95% destroyed in war.

I remember the pictures and the maps and the monotonous details of how the Polish would construct a building’s close to original plan from photos, drawings and old letters. I knew about it, I learned about it… but it’s completely different to stand within it and to know “this place isn’t original.” And as our walking tour guide pointed out, “this is Disneyland.” A series of whimsical, false facades hiding the truth that is robust mechanics and characters out of costume just behind the pretty walls.

But it was mind blowing to stand in it. To know that passion, love, memories and copious amounts of courage brought this place back up from literally just ashes. For me… it’s the largest memorial I’ve ever been in. A memorial to the people who stood up and said “no” and were completely decimated as a result. Knowing they were going to die and chose to die fighting… I stood within the walls of the city that became their cage and then, after love brought it back, became their homage.

Inspiring, touching… there’s a lot of frilly and nice words I could use to describe how I felt learning about the sewers, the camps, the ghetto…. but there are no real words, there are only images for me. You can read someone else’s words here if you want to know more about Warsaw’s Uprising and you can view my images below. But, honestly, you should just go and be and feel for a few days.

Our later generations have the privilege of not having to reflect on the World Wars and the Cold War. We are lucky in that our grandparents and great grandparents secured a new future for us and now we can decide to forget that these atrocities even happened if we want to.

The old city of Warsaw stands gleaming and shiny new for all of us tourists to be charmed by… but it is indeed a great and stunning memorial to those of us who have given everything so we can choose to forget. Head across the river to Praga (the last images of this series) to see what the war really did to Warsaw. The contrasts are mind blowing.

Warsaw will not forget… it’s beauty and prosperity is a testament to the great and strong people of Poland. People who refused to give in, who refused to be leveled and now refuse to be forgotten. I knew Warsaw would be special for me… I knew I would bring home more realizations than souvenirs. I was not disappointed.

As Poland grows and as Warsaw continues to recover, the old ideas (at least from what I was told) have begun to creep back in. No culture or country in today’s age is without some kind of flaw in it’s ideology of acceptance, this is a major side-effect of culture. It is the individual and their individual ideas that begin to put holes in the fragile cheesecloth that is bigotry. Holes that take great courage to make… because bigotry does not present itself as fragile. It hides behind a mask of false strength and we must be the ones who have the courage to forge ahead and tear it down. We must not let history repeat itself. We are all the same, hungry for life and love and acceptance.

We must not let history repeat itself. As much as I love Disneyland, I wouldn’t want to live there.

Go to Poland, visit Warsaw. Feel it’s history deep within you. Take from it what you will and hold it close. Poland is a beautiful place, even if only for 72 hours.

-Kel