On Saturday, June 13th, HIA fellows had opportunity not only to discuss the issues concerning the Polish history and Polish minorities nowadays, but also to feel and compare the difference between the present and the past.
HIA fellows started the day with three active exercises of which aim was to perform the mid-term evaluation and asses what phase of the program was already reached.
The first happening with LGBT people representation took place in Poland in 1998, when three masked people stood on the Castle Square. Nobody even thought that a gay and lesbian open-air festival could be organized in Warsaw. Three years later, on the 1st May 2001 300 people walked down the streets in the first parade. There were only one rainbow flag and everything was quickly organized. But in 2004 the Parade didn't took place. The mayor of Warsaw, Lech Kaczynski, didn't permit to organize the event – as he declared - to protect the morality and religious convictions of the inhabitants. The responsible of the parade protested but at least, an on place event was organized that gathered 2000 people.The Warsaw Pride theme for 2009 was “40 years of Equality, 20 years of Freedom”. Despite the changes in the political system 20 years ago, homosexuals in Poland are still discriminated. LGBT during the parade had three main demands: possibility to register a legal partnership, enacting a law against hate speech and creating educational programs about homosexuality at schools. Fortunately, there weren’t any serious contra-demonstration organized (nothing strange – though I haven’t seen the police in such number for a long time in Warsaw), so HIA fellows could, with other participants, calmly take part in this colorful (but also rainy) celebration.
After lunch time, HIA fellows participated in a tour of Warsaw, entitled “ What Went Missing That Cannot Be Missed”. The guide - Ewa Bratosiewicz – not only showed the most well known and popular Krakowskie Przedmiescie Street - the most elegant street of Warsaw, along with mansions and farms of noblemen, and since the XVII century, palaces and residencies of magnates, surrounded by gardens as well as churches with cloisters were built - but also tried to present Praga as the most interesting part of Warsaw. Warsaw’s eastern suburb, during WWII destroyed only in 15%, Praga has long been regarded as off-limits to Western visitors. Often painted as the bastion of tower blocks and the criminal underclass, the area is actually enjoying a snail-like renaissance, and as such offers visitors a combination of art and past-multiculturalism in Warsaw.
HIA fellows contrived to visit the place, where the oldest, circle-shaped synagogue in Warsaw had been, the school were Janusz Korczak (a Polish-Jewish children's author, pediatrician, and child pedagogue, murdered In Treblinka) had been studying and the building, where David Ben-Gurion (the first Prime Minister of Israel) had lived during his study. One of the most unique way of commemorating the past in Praga is Kapela Podworkowa Monument. The tradition of cloth-capped buskers goes back a long way in Warsaw, and the best loved of the lot have finally been commemorated in brass on the other side of the river. The pre-war Kapela Podwórkowa are a bit of a local legend in these parts, and now the five piece band have been honored with a noisy monument sculpted by Andrzej Renes.
Saturday also encouraged HIA fellows to discuss, discuss and discuss, not in formal, organized way with speakers, but in the cosy places somewhere downtown, about issues the youth are able only to speak about and be understood only by the youth. Dear Readers – the most interesting part of weekend will stay not described ;)
HIA fellows contrived to visit the place, where the oldest, circle-shaped synagogue in Warsaw had been, the school were Janusz Korczak (a Polish-Jewish children's author, pediatrician, and child pedagogue, murdered In Treblinka) had been studying and the building, where David Ben-Gurion (the first Prime Minister of Israel) had lived during his study. One of the most unique way of commemorating the past in Praga is Kapela Podworkowa Monument. The tradition of cloth-capped buskers goes back a long way in Warsaw, and the best loved of the lot have finally been commemorated in brass on the other side of the river. The pre-war Kapela Podwórkowa are a bit of a local legend in these parts, and now the five piece band have been honored with a noisy monument sculpted by Andrzej Renes.
Saturday also encouraged HIA fellows to discuss, discuss and discuss, not in formal, organized way with speakers, but in the cosy places somewhere downtown, about issues the youth are able only to speak about and be understood only by the youth. Dear Readers – the most interesting part of weekend will stay not described ;)
