- Auschwitz
Pictures at Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II Birkenau.
- Dresden
Dresden, Germany. The city was fire bombed by England and the United States as the end of World War 2 approached, when it was clear that Germany had no chance of winning. Dresden had no military bases or supply lines going through the city, but the Allies bombed it to create civil unrest.
In any case, the Germans started rebuilding the significant buildings according to their original specifications and, where possible, using the original bricks and statues too.
Got to see Raphael's Sistine Madonna in the art gallery in Old Town.
- Krakow
Krakow was the capital of Poland for hundreds of years, but as a Polish bartender described to us, "Some king decided he didn't want the capital there anymore, so he built a palace in Warsaw and moved the capital there."
Krakow was basically untouched in the war, so all the original architecture is still there. It's not as impressive as the Gothic architecture of Prague, but still light years ahead of any US city I've been to (and I've been to many of the major ones).
Krakow is, from what I gather, the most cultured and well educated city in Poland. It's also where Pope John Paul II (Jan Pawel) is from, so there are signs with the Pope on them all over.
- Prague
These are very scattered images at the moment: from 4 days and 2 cameras and night and day and different purposes.
Most are of Old Town, Small Quarter, Hradcany, and the Charles Bridge, which connects Old Town with Small Quarter and Hradcany (where the Castle is).
Prague was more or less untouched (architecturally) by World War 2 and the Soviet Occupation until 1989, so as with Krakow, much of the architecture and streets etc. are hundreds and hundreds of years old.
- Warsaw
Warsaw was leveled even harder than Dresden in World War 2. Old Town was more or less untouched until the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. After the Uprising, where something like 200,000 Poles were killed and only 2,000 or so Nazis, Hitler literally ordered that they blow up every single building in the city. More than 90% of the city was gone afterwards. Of course, just over the river the Red Army, supposed ally of the Poles, watched as all these people were annihilated by the Nazis.
Just like Dresden, though, a lot of Warsaw was rebuilt to its orignal specifications based on paintings, plans, pictures, etc. Old Town is almost identical to what it was before the war.
Warsaw, more than other cities, had old broken down block Soviet architecture apartment buildings all over the place. You can see them in the cityscape pictures from our hotel room window. It's also something I noticed on the train through the Czech Republic and Poland: broken down soviet apartment buildings all over.
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