Some Pictures from Easter Sunday

The kids are ready to begin their chocolate hunt when Katy and Michael realize that Kyle has been sneaking candy he found hidden by the flowers on the stairs.

Tim said, "Go!" and then the kids were a blur. Can you spot Kyle's headless body speeding through the picture?

Sunday afternoon, we went to the embassy party at the ambassador's residence. Kyle deemed himself too old to attend so we replaced him with the Easter rabbit. Michael looks quite grown up in his new glasses.

Ann and Debbie posing in the garden. I have since lopped off my frizzy mass of hair.

View of the party and Warsaw. Perfect weather.

Mom chatting up the ambassador and his wife; I appear to be superfluous!

Tour of the Jewish Ghetto

A sobering but important tour- we took a three-hour bus/walking tour of the area of Warsaw that used to contain the Jewish ghetto created by the Nazis during WWII. The tour was arranged by the embassy for a cool but sunny Sunday which coincidentally, was the anniversary of the Jewish Uprising.

The headstones (matsevah) are from the large Jewish cemetery that the Germans, for some reason, did not obliterate as they did the rest of Warsaw. Sadly, the graves are overgrown with trees and decaying plant debris because most of the relatives of the interred were killed in the war; there is no one left.

This plaque is on the memorial at Umschlagplatz which is where hundreds of thousands of Jews were loaded onto cattle cars for transport to Treblinka for immediate death. Treblinka was not a concentration camp because it contained only crematoriums.

One of the few remaining pieces of the original wall that was built to enclose the ghetto. The wall was erected to a height of approximately nine feet (level with the top of the plaque). This section is higher because it was later used as a wall of a building. Jews "living" in the ghetto were allocated 180 calories per day, assigned about ten per room, and not proveded with real medical care. The German goal was that the Jews would die but when it wasn't happening fast enough, they were shipped to crematoriums.
April 19, 1943, for Hitler's birthday, the Germans entered the ghetto with the goal of eliminating the remaining Jews and destroying the ghetto. I believe this coincided with Passover. The Jews fought back and thus began the Uprising.

Umschlagplatz memorial.

The Jewish Ghetto monument. The flames are not always lit but as I said, this day was the anniversary of the Jewish Uprising so there were camera crews in place and soldiers were practicing for a wreath-laying ceremony.

An Update- Finally!

My mother's visit was a fast-paced two weeks so I had no time to post an entry. And now that she has returned home, I have hundreds of pictures to choose from. Today I am posting a miscellaneous group of family shots with brief descriptions.

The first picture is all of us standing at the entry to Wilanow Palace which is located at the south end of our neighborhood.

Next, is Mom, me, and Katy standing in front of the tomb of a Polish king. The tomb is just to the left of the gates of the palace.


















Third photo is us in front of our house just as we were leaving to walk to the palace.















Fourth, Easter morning after the candy hunt.





Next, Tim and I just before we set off on our Sunday morning run. I'm freezing and want to get going.






The kids on the couch watching TV.

Michael is 11!

Michael's favorite animal is the panda so these are the cupcakes we made for him to bring to school on the 31st. He had found the directions on one of the blogs he follows- himonkey!

The Sunday before his birthday, Michael had a bowling party with his friends. After bowling, we returned to the house for a Lego cake, presents, and Rock Band. The Polish bowling alley at the mall charges playing time by the minute rather than by the string.

For Michael's birthday dinner, he would normally have chosen IHOP so I recreated his favorite chocolate chip pancakes.

After dinner, he followed the clues in the treasure hunt to find his presents and cards.