Musings by OZ

Having traveled from the U.S. my wife and I arrived in Warsaw just over a year ago at the beginning of November. After taking some time to settle in to our apartment we decided it was time to go out and explore the city. Our first day of exploring Warsaw happened to be on November 11th and unbeknownst to us at the time on this date each year Poland celebrates the anniversary of the restoration of Polands sovereignty as the Second Polish Republic. In 1918 Poland gained independence from the German, Austrian and Russian Empires. For 123 years Poland did not exist as a country, they were not independent until the end of World War I when the destruction of the neighboring powers allowed the country to re-emerge as an independent country. 

We had no idea at the time that November 11th was Poland’s Independence Day, we were just out and about exploring our new city of residence. We spent our first couple of hours wandering around the Old Town neighborhood and as the hours went by we noticed that more and more people were wandering around and they were all heading in the same general direction so of course being the curious travelers that we are we decided to follow the crowd to see where everyone was headed. We followed the flow of people and ended up on Marszałkowska street in front of the Palace of Culture and Science. As we were walking in front of the Palace we noted that the street had been closed to traffic and at the end of the street where it intersected with Aleja Jerozolimskie we could see that a huge crowd had gathered. It was now close to 16:00 and the sun had already started going down, we couldn’t see exactly what was going on so we continued to walk toward the crowd. As we were walking we heard what sounded like explosions off to our right and then again off to our left, boom, boom.  We were a bit nervous at this point so we stopped and asked a couple of police officers if it was safe for us to be in this area, they shrugged their shoulders and said that we were probably safe. As we stood there looking around trying to decide if we should continue forward or run back to our car and lock our doors we noticed the many families in the crowd, young children, kids in strollers and elderly were all heading toward the the big assembly at the end of the block. It seemed safe enough so we pressed on. As we got closer we saw that people in the crowd were waving the flag of Poland and quite a few of them were holding up bright red flares. So there we were walking toward a huge group of people, surrounded by explosions and engulfed in a red smokey haze from all of the flares wondering what were we getting ourselves into?  After we had joined the crowd of thousands we finally were able to stop someone and ask what was going on, this is when we learned that we had stumbled upon the celebration of Polands Independence Day. 

Fast forward one year to November 11th 2018, one hundred years after Poland re-gained it’s Independence and one year since we had moved to Warsaw.

This year we thought we knew what to expect so we jumped in our car and headed to Warsaw’s Centrum.  As we got closer we realized that there were considerably more people than last year and more streets were closed than I had expected. The parking gods were with us as we found a great spot behind the Palace of Culture and Science. We bundled up, locked up and headed off to join the celebration of 100 years of Independence.

Right away we knew that we were dealing with considerably larger crowds than last year. We walked around the Palace and passed through a group of people that had gathered on the palace steps that made us feel a bit nervous, 50 or so people that were not only dressed in black but they also all had their faces completely covered. I could feel the tension emanating from this group so we picked up our pace and left this nefariously suspicious group behind us to join the huge undulating flag waving sea of people that had amassed in front of the Palace.

We entered the main group of people with no destination in mind, we just went with the flow. We felt much safer in the group of hundreds of thousands than we did in the group of fifty. Within this huge gathering of people we noticed once again that many families were present. Walking shoulder to shoulder we never once felt any concern for our safety.

As the afternoon progressed we saw more and more red flares being waved and we heard more and more explosions from fireworks going off. We were surrounded by so many people waving not only Polish flags but flags of other countries. I saw the U.S. flag a few times, British flags as well as flags that I didn’t recognize.

In the middle of the crowd we found a flag vendor and decided to each get a flag so we could show our solidarity for Poland and its people and this country that we now called home.  In the year since our arrival Poland has made us feel very welcomed, we have had nothing but wonderful experiences since we have arrived. We have met so many wonderful Polish people that have opened their hearts and homes to us. We waved those Polish flags and joined in the celebration of 100 years of Independence. We were surrounded by people that were full of pride for their country and they should be, Poland is an amazing country full of amazing people and this should be celebrated, so we bought those Polish flags and waved them with pride!

We were caught up in the current of people, this wave of humanity took us from the front of the Palace and down Jerozolimskie toward the river. We stepped out of the ocean of people at Nowy Świat so that we could once again be spectators and not participants, we wanted to not just be swept up in the crowd but to see the crowd as it swept by. As we were standing on the corner watching the crowds head toward the river we would hear someone start to chant or sing from up the street, this lone voice would then be joined by thousands. As the words were repeated again and again a wave of voices would pass us by. What started as a single voice would quickly become a tsunami of voices, a wave of pride, as the crowd joined in. From what Polish I understood, which isn’t much, they were singing and chanting about God, Country and Independence. It was truly an amazing thing to hear and see, an amazing celebration that we were fortunate to be able to witness .

From what I have heard the crowd that day was over 300,000 strong. We heard from some friends in the U.S that suggested that we should avoid this gathering because western news portrayed it as being a dangerous conflict. My wife and I spent half a day fully immersed in the celebration of Polands 100 Years of Independence and not once did we feel unsafe. After hours of wandering, walking, marching and spectating the one feeling that we mostly felt from the hundreds of thousands of people was the feeling of Pride, they were proud to be Polish, they were proud of their country and we were proud to participate and witness such a powerful event in history.