CHOPIN UNIVERSITY.

JEWISH WARSAW

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At the time Hitler chose to expand Germany’s territories under the odious excuse of providing ‘living space’ for the German people, Warsaw’s Jewish population numbered 350,000 and growing. Neither pogroms nor the occasional boycott of Jewish businesses deterred Jews from settling in the Polish capital and only New York could boast a larger Jewish community. Yet within six years Warsaw’s thriving Jewish scene was all but wiped from the map, with over 90 percent perishing either in the Ghetto or the gas chambers of Treblinka.

Although anti-Semitism was by no means rare Poland was seen as a relative safe haven, and it drew settlers forced into flight by more discriminatory regimes elsewhere. By the inter-war years the Jewish population had made significant contributions to the social, political and cultural fabric of Poland, a contribution that would eventually be extinguished by the monstrous racial policies of the Nazis. When Warsaw fell following a brief yet brutal siege the city’s ancient Jewish population was damned to destruction. By 1940 Jews were forcibly penned into an area that already housed most of the Jewish population. On March 27, 1940, the Judenrat, a Jewish council answerable to the Nazi’s whims, was ordered to build a wall around the ghetto and a resettlement deadline of October 15 was handed to the city’s Jews. Failure to move into the assigned area was punishable by death. Spanning 18 kilometres and enclosing 73 of Warsaw’s 1,800 streets, the area was carved into a ‘small’ and ‘large’ ghetto, the two linked by a wooden bridge standing over ul. Chłodna (E-2). Today an installation titled ‘Footbridge of Memory’ stands at this spot, with optical fibres illuminating the former handrails over the street at night.

From the beginning conditions in the city were harsh; recovered Nazi files show that while ethnic Germans were granted a food allowance totaling 2,613 calories per day, Jews and other groups deemed ‘sub-human’ were expected to survive on 184 calories. Unsurprisingly a black market supported by a smuggling network ran rife, with some 80 percent of the food in the ghetto supplied through illegal means. Still it was not enough and as the noose tightened starvation became the principal enemy. In 1941 over 100,000 died in this way, their bodies often left to rot in the streets. Of the 800 ghettos scattered around the Third Reich Warsaw was the largest and also the deadliest. At its zenith approximately 380,000 residents found themselves squashed into the ghetto, with an average of eight people to a room. Yet amid this sea of suffering a remarkable social scene flourished, as proved by the meticulous ghetto diaries kept by Emanuel Ringelblum. Although murdered by the Nazis in 1944, Ringelblum, an intellectual and social activist, kept volumes of notes documenting the day-to-day life of ghetto inhabitants. It is from his painstaking notes we learn of the soup kitchens and charities that existed, of the musical concerts and cabarets and the fifty or so underground newspapers that circulated amongst the masses.

FRYDERIK CHOPIN (1810-1849)

Frederic Chopin (1810-1849) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of French-Polish parentage. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music.

Life and Music

• Frederic Chopin was born in Poland, west of Warsaw, on either February 22nd or March 1st 1810 - local records differ with when Chopin's parents claimed he was born.

• Chopin was composing and writing poetry at six, and gave his first public concerto performance at the age of eight.

• In 1822 Chopin came under the personal supervision of Jozef Elsner, the founder-director of the Warsaw Conservatory.

• He became a leading advocate of 'absolute music', producing some of the earliest Romantic pieces and arguably the finest body of solo music for the piano.

• Chopin dedicated his second piano concerto (1830) to Delfina Potocka, with whom he hit the headlines during the 1940s when a sensational series of highly erotic (forged) love letters were discovered.

• In 1836 Chopin met the novelist George Sand (alias Aurore Dudevant), and so began one of the most famous love affairs in the history of music. The pair split up in 1847.

• Chopin's Funeral March, one of the piano repertoire's most famous works, was composed in 1837.

• By 1841, both sets of Chopin's Etudes had been published. They went on to become indispensable tomes for piano students everywhere.

• Among the most famous of his works was composed late in his life - The Minute Waltz was finished in 1847.

• Chopin's health began to deteriorate rapidly and he left for England at the invitation of his Scottish piano pupil, Jane Stirling.

• He returned to Paris, where, despite gifts of money and many kind attempts to comfort him, he died on 17 October 1849.

FRYDERYK CHOPIN’S WARSAW

For the first half of his 39 years, Fryderyk Chopin was associated with Warsaw. It was in Warsaw that he studied music, where he was formally educated, and where his heart found its final resting place.

Fryderyk Chopin is without a doubt the most famous Varsovian. It was in Warsaw that he studied music, made friends, expanded his knowledge and gave his first concerts; the prodigious man even wrote for a newspaper. It was in Warsaw where he also experienced his first love. If we stroll through the city streets, most notably those along the Royal Route, we come across places he lived or frequented.
The most important stops on the route are Holy Cross Church (kościół św. Krzyża), where his heart is interred, the cutting-edge and super-modern biographical museum, which opened on the 200th commemoration of Chopin’s birthday, and the memorial in Łazienki Park, where recitals of Chopin’s music are held every Sunday afternoon from May to September. Also worth visiting is Żelazowa Wola – which is about 50 km outside of Warsaw – the place where Chopin was born.
He died in Paris and his body lies in the cemetery of Père Lachaisse,  except his heart which is in the Holy Cross church in Warsaw as he wanted it to be.

EASTER HOLIDAY 2015. BEATING VARSAW!

Warsaw (Polish: Warszawa), is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, in east-central Poland, roughly 260 kilometres (160 mi) from the Baltic Sea and 300 kilometres (190 mi) from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population is estimated at 1.729 million residents within a greater metropolitan area of 2.666 million residents, which makes Warsaw the 9th most populous capital city in the European Union.^] The area of the city covers 516.9 square kilometres (199.6 sq mi), while the city's agglomeration covers 6,100.43 square kilometres (2,355.39 sq mi).

Recent times

In 1945, after the bombing, the revolts, the fighting, and the demolition had ended, most of Warsaw lay in ruins.

After the war, under a Communist regime set up by the conquering Soviets, the "Bricks for Warsaw" campaign was initiated, and largeprefabricated housing projects were erected in Warsaw to address the housing shortage, along with other typical buildings of an Eastern Bloc city, such as the Palace of Culture and Science, a gift from the Soviet Union. The city resumed its role as the capital of Poland and the country's centre of political and economic life. Many of the historic streets, buildings, and churches were restored to their original form. In 1980, Warsaw's historic Old Town was inscribed onto UNESCO's World Heritage list.