My Polish Alphabet - "N"

 

"N" is for the Narrow Gauge Railway Museum in Wenecja, which we visited some years ago. 

 

Wenecja means Venice in Polish

 

The railway track (600 mm wide = 1 ft 11 5/8 inch.) was built to connect three local towns, nowadays it is just a tourist attraction. 

 

Unfortunately, on the day of our visit, the railway line was under maintenance, so we could not enjoy the ride on a small train, but I had had a chance to experience it in the past.

 

There is not much space to seat on the narrow gauge trains and the seats are rather narrow.  Carts and the engines are smaller too.

The museum collection consists of several steam locomotives. The oldest one was made in 1899, and others in the early 1900s.

Post office cart

The locomotive in the above photo was made in Hannover in 1923.

There is also the old station-waiting room and ticket office.

From the museum area, you can also see the ruins of the castle in Wenecja (the structure was built in the 14th century). 

 A good place to visit with the family as well.

F for Fiedler's Museum

 

Arkady Fiedler (1894/1985) was a Polish writer, traveler, and naturalist. During his life, the man took part in numerous expeditions to several countries on all continents. 

Some years ago, I happened to see the museum situated in Fiedler's family home in Puszczykowo (not far from Poznań, Poland), and I did enjoy watching all the exhibits there. The small items are on display in the house. Others, placed in the yard, are interesting reconstructions.

Some of the structures are:
a statue from Easter Island,
a monument to Crazy Horse, Lakota chief,
Sitting Bull statue,
and the Gate of the Sun (Lake Titicaca area, Bolivia).

The place is worth visiting, but probably not many people know about it.

Santa Maria - replica

Fiedler wrote 32 books. One of them, "303 Squadron" (about the WWII Battle of Britain fighting squadron), was on our school reading list. 

"The River of Singing Fish" ("Ryby Spiewają w Ukajali") about his trip to South America, bought by my sister, we had at home.

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"My Polish Alphabet" is related to things, places, and people that come to my mind when I think about Poland.

C for Ciechocinek

The letter "C" in "My Polish Alphabet" is for Ciechocinek.

 

Ciechocinek /tche:hotcheeneck/, situated in the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland, is a spa town known for its brine sources and related to them graduation towers built 1824/1859.

A graduation tower is used in the production of salt. The process removes water from a saline solution by evaporation. The result is an increased concentration of mineral salts in the product. The tower consists of a wooden wall-like frame stuffed with bundles of brushwood. In Ciechocinek, the brushwood is blackthorn. The wigs have to be changed every 5/10 years. Anyhow, the saline water is pumped up the tower, then runs down the twigs and partly evaporates. At the same time, some minerals from the solution are left behind on the brushwood (1).

There are three graduation towers in Ciechocinek which are 15.8 m/52 ft high. The second one is the longest (719 m/2,359f t long). They are the largest graduation towers in Europe (there are smaller ones in France and Germany).

How it works
The brine solution goes from one tower to another and another, and the concentration of the brine gets greater and greater. The final product of the graduation towers' work is a 30 % brine concentration. From the last tower, the saline water goes by pipes to a salt plant where besides salt, therapeutic lye and sludge are manufactured (2).

The air is so incredibly good and healthy there! It contains several microelements that make breathing easy and clear the respiratory system very effectively. When we walked along the towers, we could feel how greatly our sinuses and lungs got cleared. It was sooooooo nice! 

During the stroll (over 2km/6,000 ft), we could see particles of salt accumulated at the bottom of the towers. Of course, we collected a few pieces as a keepsake. 

Salt of course

The base of the tower is made of oak wood

More salt

 

Inside the last tower, where the concentration of the brine is the biggest, there was an inhalation chamber. The entrance fee was 5zł. We climbed up the wooden wall and, for 30 minutes, sat there watching the brine solution going down the wall and inhaling the healing air. 

Brine going down the wall inside the tower

Salt collected at the bottom of the tower

Standing there, we could feel the brine solution dripping everywhere. The tiny drops refreshed the skin.

It was amazing how much easier breathing was afterward.

In the town, there are spa hotels. In one of them, they had a warm saline water pool, with currents massaging the body. The water is too thick to swim in it, so people just sat there enjoying the warm massage.

After visiting the graduation towers area, we went to see the nearby salt plant museum. Besides the old told used ages ago to make salt, lye, and sludge, there were some restored ancient pieces of gym-type equipment (called in the past therapeutic apparatuses).

 

It was another very, very long walk we did while visiting Poland. Afterward, our legs needed to rest, so  we enjoyed sitting in the town spa park.

 

All in all, due to the towers and the saline water going down the twigs, there is a very special microclimate in Ciechocinek.  I wish we had been able to can some of that local air/pack the tower with the inhalation chamber and bring it here to Texas...

Sources:
1. Wikipedia
2. Ciechocinek graduation towers 

You can find more letters of "My Polish Alphabet" here.

Visit to Stutthof Concentration Camp Museum

Last November, during our visit to Poland, we also went to see the Stutthof Concentration Camp Museum. It is definitely not a typical tourist destination at all.

If you do not know - a quick reminder on some history matters.

Nazi Germany invaded Poland on Sept. 1, 1939.  The Nazis' plan was to annex Poland and get new living space for German citizens there. To make it possible, the idea was to annihilate all the Poles. Therefore, very soon after the invasion, the massive extermination of Polish people began, and the Stutthof concentration camp was created on Sept. 02, 1939. Prisoners were transported to the camp by trains.

What they found in the place is difficult to put in words. Starvation, extremely hard, slavery labor, the horrifying cruelty of Nazi guards, inhuman living conditions, exposure to extreme cold in the winter and many more horrible things and situations. Mentally disabled persons were killed with lethal phenol injections. It is not possible and I do not intend to describe it all in this short post.

'Death gate' leading to the camp

Prisoners' shoes

Since 1942, people from other parts of Poland and Europe were sent to Stutthof as well. All in all, 110,000 prisoners, citizens of 28 countries (including the USA) were registered at the camp. During the war, about 63,000 - 65,000 were killed there (28,000 of Jewish origin).

Crematoria

Gas chamber 

In January 1945, when the war front (and the Russians) was coming closer to the camp area, Nazis evacuated it. Prisoners had to walk in the freezing winter weather, no proper clothes, barefoot in the snow, exhaustion, and beating by guards - about 23,000 prisoners perished during the evacuation of the camp.

#1 camp surgery/death room, #2 art by a prisoner

We went to the museum by bus - Stutthof museum is situated near Sztutowo village (50 km from Gdańsk). The entrance to the museum is free. In November, due to the colder season, there were very few people visiting the place beside us. The weather was perfect as for that part of the year in Poland. It was cool but there was no wind, snow or rain either. We could walk around the area not being disturbed by anything or anybody.

My husband had never been to a concentration camp museum, I had been to the Stutthof museum quite a few times, with groups of my older students as such a field trip is also part of the Polish school curriculum (the museum is not recommended for children under 13 years old). However, when I had happened to be there with my students, I had to stay focused minding the teenagers more than watching the museum itself. So, although in different ways, it was the first type of such  'tourist experience' to both of us.

We visited the Stutthof museum on Thanksgiving Day. Learning what had happened there, we had so many things to be grateful for. More than one could usually think of.

Stutthof Museum website: http://stutthof.org/english