Kulinska family reunion: Part 3 Warsaw First Impressions

June 26, 2026

While my visit to Kraków was immensely emotional, knowing that I was the first of Brygida's descendants to return to Poland, Warsaw felt different. It was deeply personal.

This was not simply another city. This was the region where members of my own family had lived through wars, occupation, resistance, and rebuilding. Some boarded trains and ships bound for an uncertain future across the ocean. Others stayed, joined the resistance, or simply struggled to survive. These were no longer anonymous figures in history books. They were my family. It was their world, their streets, and their history—and, ultimately, part of my own.

We left Kraków on June 18 by train for Warsaw. The trains in Poland are remarkably clean—immaculate, in fact—and both inexpensive and efficient. A first-class ticket for seniors costs about the same as a second-class ticket (around $35 for the 2¾-hour journey on the express train).

We shared our compartment with a family from Finland and soon struck up a conversation. Before long, I found myself doing a little genealogical research for them on Ancestry. It seemed fitting somehow. Even while traveling across Poland, genealogy had a way of finding me.

Outside the window, miles of flat farmland and forest slipped by. Before we knew it, we were pulling into Warszawa Centralna.

 

Stepping out of the station, we were immediately swept into a world that was very different from the one we left. The station was enormous, crowded, and bustling with people moving purposefully in every direction. After the quieter pace of Kraków and Zakopane, it was a bit overwhelming. We stood for a few moments trying to get our bearings and wondering where to call an Uber.

I stopped an Uber driver who had just dropped off a passenger and, relying on what Duolingo had taught me, asked in my best—but still very imperfect—Polish, "Proszę, mówisz po angielsku?" He smiled, answered yes, and kindly explained that Uber pickups were on the opposite side of the station. Pointing us in the right direction, he wished us well before driving away. It was another small act of kindness from a stranger that made us feel a little less lost. 

After a short ride, we arrived at our apartment. It was comfortable, thoughtfully stocked, and would become our home for the next several days. Even so, we still felt somewhat disoriented in this unfamiliar city.

After getting settled into our apartment, we walked to a nearby Żabka to pick up something for dinner before exploring the neighborhood.

Almost immediately, I sensed that Warsaw was different.

I knew the history reasonably well. I knew that the Warsaw Uprising had been brutally crushed, that the city had been systematically destroyed by the Nazis while the Soviet Army remained on the opposite side of the Vistula, and that, in the aftermath of the war, Poland found itself under Soviet domination despite having fought alongside the Allies. Those were historical facts I had learned from books. They were abstract. 

Kraków had been spared much of the physical destruction that befell Warsaw, and we had not visited Nowa Huta, the planned industrial city built during the communist era on Kraków's outskirts. Nothing had prepared me for what I felt as I walked through Warsaw that first evening.

There was a weight to the city that we had not experienced in Kraków or Zakopane. At the time, I couldn't explain it.

The photographs below attempt to capture some of those first impressions.

A very large mural

A mural on the Community Theater confronting the Catholic Church's failure to protect children.

 

A very modern-looking church sealed off behind gates, separating the sanctuary from the faithful.

 

Soviet-era buildings, constructed after World War II as Warsaw was rebuilt under a communist government backed by the Soviet Union.

Modern skyscrapers rise above the city

 

Even sorting the trash was an adventure

 

Another thing that caught us off guard was the nightlife. Long lines of people waited outside bars and music spilled into the sidewalks, which were crowded with people. It seemed strangely at odds with the weight I had begun to feel in the city.

At first, I found myself wondering if people were trying to drown generations of sorrow in alcohol. Looking back, I realize that was probably my own emotion speaking rather than reality. Those people were simply enjoying an evening out, as people do in every city. Yet the contrast between the lively streets and the history I knew Warsaw carried stayed with me.

By then we were both tired. The apartment had already begun to feel like a refuge amid the unfamiliarity of a new city. We made a simple dinner of a ham omelet with some wonderfully fresh Polish bread from Żabka, enjoyed the quiet, and called it a night.

It had been a long day of travel and first impressions. As we settled in for the evening, I sensed that Warsaw still had much to reveal.

The next morning we successfully navigated Warsaw's trams and made our way to the Warsaw Uprising Museum.

Along the way, I happened to glance out the tram window and saw an elderly woman sitting beside the sidewalk selling fresh strawberries. They looked absolutely delicious. From that moment on, I was determined to find some before we left Warsaw. But I diverge...

The Warsaw Uprising Museum was one of the most profound experiences of the trip. One exhibit that particularly affected me was the oath of the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa, AK).

Standing before those words, I realized that members of my own extended family who remained in Poland—including several members of the Medwadowski and Kuliński families—had almost certainly stood before others and taken that same oath. They pledged their lives to the defense of their homeland, fully aware that they might be called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice.

Reading those words, history was no longer something I had learned from books. It had become deeply personal. I stood there humbled by the courage, sacrifice, and love of country embodied by those ordinary men and women—people whom I call my own.

The AE Soldier's Oath

Typewriters, printing press, and other equipment used by the Home Army during the Uprising

After reading the oath, I found myself searching.

I searched the displays for the red-and-white armbands that members of my own family might have worn. I searched the museum's database for familiar surnames, hoping to catch a glimpse of someone whose story had intersected with my own family's. I wasn't simply looking at exhibits anymore. I was looking for connections.

As I moved through the museum, I found myself carried through the unfolding story of the uprising. I could almost feel the optimism of those first days, when Warsaw's citizens believed that liberation might finally be within reach. That hope gradually gave way to exhaustion, overwhelming force, and unimaginable loss.

One exhibit that has remained with me was the reconstruction of the city's sewers. Walking through the reconstructed sewers, I found myself imagining the original passageways—dark, foul-smelling, and covered with filth. Even then, I caught only the faintest glimpse of what it must have been like for the thousands of men, women, and children who crawled through them in desperate attempts to escape the relentless destruction above ground.

I also sat mesmerized by the three-dimensional reconstruction of Warsaw in 1945. Neighborhood after neighborhood had been reduced to rubble. Nearly eighty-five percent of the city lay in ruins. Only about one thousand people remained among the devastation, trying to begin life again amid the ashes.

I know I sat through another film before leaving the museum. What was it about? I honestly couldn't tell you.

I have no recollection of it at all.

I've racked my brain trying to remember what that final film was about, but I can't. Perhaps my mind simply doesn't want to remember. By that point, my brain and heart had simply reached their limit. There is only so much grief, courage, destruction, sacrifice, and human suffering one can absorb in a single morning. I was no longer trying to learn more facts. I was simply trying to process all that surrounded me.

When we finally left the museum, our feet and our hearts both ached.

We stepped out of the darkness into the brilliant midday sun. For hours we had wandered uneven cobblestone streets, listened to the sounds of war, walked through reconstructed sewers, and immersed ourselves in the courage and suffering of the Warsaw Uprising.

Now we found ourselves back in twenty-first-century Warsaw.

People hurried along the sidewalks, office workers stepped out for lunch, trams rattled past, and traffic flowed through the streets.

As we stood there, a steady stream of buses arrived, bringing schoolchildren to the museum we had just left. Watching them climb out with backpacks slung over their shoulders, laughing and talking with one another, I couldn't help but think about the contrast. They were growing up in a free Poland, learning the story of a city that had nearly ceased to exist.

Perhaps that was the greatest victory of all.

By then it was lunchtime, and we walked to a nearby café called Salad Story. It seemed another reminder that Warsaw is not simply a city defined by its past. Alongside centuries of history is a vibrant, modern Poland. The menu blended traditional Polish flavors with influences from around the world. Simon chose a Mexican-inspired salad while I settled on a bowl of soup.

 As we sat there watching people come and go, I realized that Warsaw carries its history without being imprisoned by it. Life had returned, and the city had moved forward without forgetting where it had been.

After lunch, we found our way to the subway and the familiar red "M" sign. Descending into Warsaw's spotless subway stations, I found myself thinking of New York's subway—the one my great-grandfather helped build. Two cities. Two very different histories. Yet somehow, through my family, they had become connected.

Alighting the subway at Nowy Świat–Uniwersytet Station and making our way to the surface, it felt as though we had stepped into a lighter world.

We wandered down Ulica Kubusia Puchatka (Winnie-the-Pooh Street), smiling at the unexpected reminder of childhood. Nearby, a candy shop overflowed with brightly colored sweets, animal-shaped candies, and oversized lollipops. Flower boxes burst with brilliant red geraniums, their color echoed by rainbow pinwheels spinning in the breeze. A giant smiling pierogi stood outside a nearby restaurant, cheerfully inviting passersby inside.

For a little while, Warsaw seemed determined to remind us that joy, laughter, and ordinary life had returned.

Ulica Kubusia Puchatka (Winnie-the-Pooh Street)

Candy shop with bright yellow flowers, whimsical animal-shaped candies, bright colored lollipops

Flower box with bright red geraniums and rainbow colored pinwheels

Giant pierogi outside a restaurant

After a quick stop for coffee (and a much-appreciated restroom break), we continued our walk toward the National Museum. 

In contrast to the Warsaw Uprising Museum, the National Museum was filled with light, soaring ceilings, and open galleries. After spending the morning immersed in war, grief, and destruction, it felt almost like stepping into another world.

One irony was not lost on me. Much of the museum bears the marks of the communist era. Some of the concrete columns and architectural details are decaying, reminders of a government that often sought to shape—or suppress—the historical narrative, including for many years the story of the Warsaw Uprising. Yet within these walls, history has been preserved rather than erased.

One exhibit particularly captivated me. In the 1960s, as construction of the Aswan High Dam threatened to submerge countless archaeological sites beneath the waters of Lake Nasser, a Polish archaeological expedition led by Professor Kazimierz Michałowski carefully removed the magnificent medieval wall paintings—often referred to as the Faras frescoes—from a Christian cathedral in northern Sudan. Had they not done so, these remarkable works of art would have been lost forever.

Elsewhere, I stood before magnificent carved altarpieces. My thoughts quickly turned from the sculptures themselves to the people who had created them. Anonymous craftsmen had spent countless hours carving every intricate detail by hand. What prayers accompanied their work? What hopes did they have? Did they return home each evening to wives and children? Did they struggle to put food on the table? And what became of them after the altarpiece was finished? 

My original plan had been to head straight for the gallery of Dutch masters. Somehow, though, I found myself waylaid by the galleries devoted to Polish artists instead.

I'm glad I did.

There I discovered painters almost entirely unknown to me, their work every bit as compelling as that of the artists whose names fill Western art history books. Some canvases stretched across entire walls. Others captured winter scenes so vividly that I found myself wanting to reach out and touch the snow. Aristocrats gathered in conversation around richly set tables while, in another painting, figures bent to drink from a fountain. The paintings didn't simply depict Poland's past—they invited me into it.

 

As we made our way back toward the apartment, we passed the towering Palace of Culture and Science. Like so much else in Warsaw, it carries a complicated history—but that is a story for another day.

 

A little farther along, I noticed a small neighborhood produce shop that had already closed for the evening. The sign above the window read, "Owoce & Warzywa."

 

Fruit and vegetables.

Thank you, Duolingo!

Immediately my thoughts returned to the strawberries I had seen that morning from the tram. Surely this little shop would have strawberries.

"I'll be back," I thought.

For dinner, we stopped at a bar mleczny (milk bar). I had been hoping to find gołąbki (stuffed cabbage), and to my delight they were on the evening's menu.

As I savored every bite, I couldn't help thinking of my mom's stuffed cabbage. She usually makes it only at Easter, and I hadn't been home for Easter in years. Thousands of miles from Michigan, I found myself unexpectedly at home. 

And yes, Mom, it tasted just like yours!