Warsaw Remembers Excavations at the Saxon Palace Recapture the City’S Ravaged History

Letter From warsaw

The Saxon Palace was once the seat of power for Poland’s kings. Today, it is the site of a massive archaeological excavation.

Warsaw Remembers Excavations at the Saxon Palace recapture the city’s ravaged history

by Jennifer Pinkowski

s I turn the corner toward the wings were joined by a three- The square in front of the palace, the Saxon Palace, I realize story colonnade, beyond which grew which had been named in honor of AI am standing in the spot tall chestnut trees. Today in place of Jozef Piłsudski—the general who led where Stanisław Zielinski painted the the palace are two open excavation Poland to independence in 1918 and palace bathed in butter-yellow light pits shrouded by fences wrapped in served as the nation’s first president— on a sunny day in 1938. At the time white fabric. Between the fences lies was renamed Adolf Hitler Platz. of Zielinski’s painting, which hangs the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, From here the Germans launched in the Warsaw historical museum, the only part of the palace that is still attacks to quell the 1943 Ghetto and the building served as headquar- standing. 1944 Warsaw uprisings. Hundreds ters to the Polish military. Before it A year after Zielinski’s sunny day, of thousands died in the streets, and was destroyed, the U-shaped palace the Nazis invaded Poland, beginning a roughly equal number perished in would have stretched before me, its what would turn into a 50-year period concentration and prison camps. two wings running the length of of brutal cultural suppression. The In the face of advancing Sovi- several city blocks on either side of Saxon Palace became the occupation et forces, Hitler ordered the city an enormous courtyard. In the 1830s headquarters of the German military. destroyed. By late 1944, the retreating www.archaeology.org 57 German army set explosives in build- Excavations at the Saxon Palace have ings across the abandoned city and uncovered some spectacular artifacts blew them up. Shortly after Christmas including this diamond ring that was apparently dropped or thrown into a the Saxon Palace was leveled, leaving a toilet during the 19th century. hole in Poland’s national identity that remains to this day. When residents began to return to the city a few weeks after the Nazis retreated, they found a citizens of the city, this form of the wasteland: 85 percent of the city had palace is in their memories, and they been obliterated. want to see it the way they remember After the war, the Soviet-backed it,” says art historian Tadeusz Bernato- government cleared the palace rubble wicz, a consultant on the dig who has and transported it across the Vistula researched the palace for two decades. River, where it was used to reconstruct When completed, the rebuilt Saxon parts of the city. The Soviets renamed Palace will be the new home of the city Piłsudski Square “Victory Square,” a government. A section of the archaeo- moniker it held until 1979, when native logical site will be on display inside. son Pope John Paul II led a mass here that is often credited with galvanizing he Saxon Palace is actu- the challenge to Communist rule. Since ally the remains of three pal- then, the square has appeared much as Taces, each one expanding on it does on this overcast November day: its predecessor. In fact, the Saxon king vast, gray, and empty. wasn’t the first to build here; it was But, as archaeologists have recently Jan Andrzej Morsztyn, a prominent revealed, parts of the palace survive poet and court official. Archaeologists underground. In 2006, contract archae- found the cellars of his seventeenth- ologists Ryzsard Cedrowski and Joan- century baroque palace next to a moat- nae Borowska found an extensive array lined bastion that once marked the of architectural remains dating back city’s southwest border. In Morsztyn’s to the seventeenth century and tens time, Warsaw was the capital of the of thousands of artifacts. These dis- Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, coveries were made during an excava- which included much of what is today tion triggered by a looming building Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus, project—the reconstruction of the and Ukraine. Dominated by farms and Saxon Palace. estates, Warsaw was smaller and less The idea is to restore Piłsudski grand than the former capital, Krakow, Square to what it looked liked in 1939 and the other major urban hub, Vilnius before the Nazi occupation. “Warsaw (now the Lithuanian capital). But the was so totally destroyed that for the elected kings of Poland, governed along

58 Archaeology • May/June 2008 with the Sejm, or Parliament. Warsaw remained in Russian hands One of these kings, Frederick Augus- throughout the nineteenth century. tus of Saxony—known in Poland In the 1830s, a wealthy Russian mer- as Augustus II the Strong—bought chant commissioned a Polish archi- and expanded the Morsz- tect to enlarge the palace. tyn estate. When archaeolo- Among the signs of wealth gists cleared out the rubble archaeologists discovered from one deep well, they from this period are por- found some of the most celain furnace tiles and a striking artifacts from diamond ring that had the early eighteenth cen- been tossed into a toi- tury, including the king’s let. Archaeologists also official pottery, colorful found an epaulet from decorative tiles, and por- a Russian uniform that celain sculptures from probably belonged to a the queen’s garden. They soldier stationed at the also found remains of Saxon Palace in mid- a royal chapel. By Pol- century. In 1863, an ish law, Augustus had to ultimately unsuccess- convert to Catholicism to ful nationwide revolt be king. His Protestant began against the Rus- queen and Saxon subjects sians, and the Saxon were none too pleased. Palace’s gardens were one By the late eighteenth of Warsaw’s battlefields. century, Poland’s monarchs were losing their hold on power, and by 1795, the Above, 18th century pottery bearing the mark of its owner country had succumbed to the AR, for “Augustus Rex,” better known imperial ambitions of its aggressive as King Augustus II the Strong. Below, neighbors. Russia, Austria, and Prussia fragments of decorated tile dating to the carved up the country between them. 19th century.

www.archaeology.org 59 The Treaty of Versailles ended might give more details about the last World War I and returned indepen- days of the Saxon Palace, but archaeolo- dence to Poland after 125 years. But gists have already learned a few things. within a dozen years Poland was The palace was blown up in sections, once more sandwiched between two over several days, from the ground aggressive powers, Germany to the floor; the basements were left intact. west, and the Soviet Union to the east. The steel beams excavators uncovered Archaeologists found many artifacts were twisted like licorice from the force from this interwar period, when the of the explosions. At least one detona- military was monitoring these threats. tion may have happened at 10:15; the The finds include plates from a print- archaeologists found a badly damaged ing press used for confidential military clock that stopped at that moment. documents, and a sign for the Cipher These artifacts are important because Bureau, where mathematicians made Warsaw has few objects that predate significant breakthroughs in cracking the Nazi occupation and destruction the German Enigma code. The most of the city. Warsaw’s museum has only surprising discovery was a secret tun- a small collection of medieval pottery nel dug in 1933 to connect the build- and ironwork. And the archaeological ing’s wings. Archaeologists also found collection at the National Museum, evidence of on-site R&R: wine corks, which fared slightly better, displays a betting slips, and bar receipts in a base- surprising number of Greek vases and ment casino. Egyptian mummies, but few Polish Though the Germans did not leave artifacts. much behind when their five-year The wartime loss of Poland’s cul- occupation ended, archaeologists did tural heritage has been the subject of find helmets and unexploded ordnance countless lawsuits and books. Yet the in the rubble. The team had a specialist issue still galvanizes public opinion, on call to handle its removal. says Ryszard Cedrowski, lead archae- Scholars are just starting to pore over ologist on the dig. “When we found recently released German archives that things, there was a huge social action,”

Above, a sign pointing the way to the Cipher Bureau, where intelligence agents worked to crack the Nazi’s Enigma code. Right, the archway of a secret tunnel. The Polish eagle and year of construction, 1933, were carved into the wet cement.

60 Archaeology • May/June 2008 An archaeologist documents the remains rebuilt in order to make the city livable of a moat that was filled in to make way again. Much of it became vast tracts for the construction of the Morsztyn palace. The brick archway was part of of anonymous, Stalinist-style housing. the palace’s cellar. However, there was another rebuilding trend—reconstructing certain histori- says Cedrowski. “The media started cal buildings to look as they had before talking about it. Everyone wanted to the war. Most notable was the Old protect the site, from the right-wing Town, an area that has been a World Catholic papers to the Communist Heritage Site since 1980. Other recon- papers. People got very emotionally structed wartime casualties included attached.” the sixteenth-century Royal Castle, Journalist Karol Kobus, of the con- rebuilt in the 1970s and now a major servative daily Dziennek, agrees. “It is tourist draw. one of few things that we—the journal- The Saxon Palace was deliberately ists who write about Warsaw’s past and ignored during this rebuilding phase. its heritage—truly agree,” he says. “If “The political decision was made not to you know Warsaw history, you prob- rebuild certain buildings because they ably understand why everything older were connected to other governments than 60 years is so important for us. We before the war,” says Arthur Zbiegnini, fight for every historical stone.” deputy director of the city’s Heritage In early 2007, the sections of the Preservation Office. The Saxon Palace archaeological site flanking the Tomb of was one of them. As the prewar mili- the Unknown Soldier—essentially, the tary headquarters, “it was like the Pen- remains of Morsztyn’s Palace—were tagon today,” says Zbiegnini. According placed on the historic register. After to the postwar Communist party line, full documentation, the rest of the the Soviet army had rescued Poland archaeological finds will be removed to from the Germans, and the Polish make way for the construction. army had been ineffective at best and collaborating with the Germans at he Polish attachment to worst. Much of the Polish army’s lead- the palace stems as much from ership was executed, jailed, or exiled, Tthe postwar period as the war and for decades Poles were forbidden itself. In the decades following World to acknowledge their affiliations with War II, large sections of Warsaw were their own military. In this political cli-

www.archaeology.org 61 mate, the reconstruction of Piłsudski Square was impossible. Only the end of Communist control in 1989 created the opportunity to rebuild. Still, it wasn’t until 2005, when Poland’s cur- rent president, Lech Kaczynski, was mayor of Warsaw that the project was put in motion. Today, however, the picture is very different. Poland is seeing a resur- gence of national identity, often of a deeply traditional nature. Nationally, right-wing politics dominate, though recent elections have shifted power a bit to the center. Extreme strains of nationalism have sometimes emerged. In Warsaw, one aspect of this reasser- tion is the public’s rallying around the archaeological remains of the Saxon Palace. A few days before the November 11 Independence Day ceremonies, I visit Piłsudski Square to see how the event preparations are going. Tanks and can- nons occupy the east side. Scaffolding three stories high acts as the metal skeleton for speakers and billboard- size monitors. The fence surrounding the excavation area has been covered with olive-green netting and gauzy material in camouflage hues. My trans- the square. “We’ve never found such The Tomb of the Unkown Soldier, built lator, a journalist herself, runs over to valuable archaeological remains,” he in 1926, is all that remains of the original a group of five-year-olds marching says, his fingers rustling through a Saxon Palace. It is the site of an annual wreath-laying ceremony comemorating around the square. One of them is 300-page report on the Saxon Palace November 11, Independence Day. her godson. “Aren’t they so cute?” she he created for the city preservation exclaims. Each is holding a hand- office. “In Warsaw, we don’t have such been pushed from 2010 to 2013. painted Polish flag. They are practic- interiors. When I want to show my That gives archaeologists a lot of ing their routine for Independence students seventeenth-century walls, I time to play a role in the Saxon Palace’s Day: they’re going to sing the national have had nowhere to go. But now I can reconstruction, which makes it unique anthem, “Dąbrowski’s Mazurka,” at the show them how they were built.” among Warsaw’s rebuilding efforts, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Since excavations began, the site has says Cedrowski. The Old Town, for been exposed to the elements while the instance, was largely the vision of ater, Tadeusz Bernato- reconstruction design has gone back to architects. With the Saxon Palace, wicz and I meet at a café the contractor to incorporate plans for the discovery of the building’s foot- Lon Krakowskie Przedmiescie, protecting the archaeological remains. print is essential to a more authentic one of Warsaw’s most fashionable Once the site was added to the his- reconstruction of the way the building avenues for hundreds of years. The art toric register and therefore required looked in 1939. The archaeological fea- historian who consulted on the recon- preservation, the projected cost rose tures they found correct even the most struction of the Town Hall and the from $175 million to $200 million. recent military-era site plans. former deputy head of International But the contractor was slow with the Bernatowicz sees Piłsudski Square Council on Monuments and Sites for plan revisions, and Warsaw’s mayor as symbolically important, but not Poland, Bernatowicz has researched Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz canceled human-friendly. He hopes the recon- the history of the Saxon Palace for the contract. The city has put out a struction project will foster a sense of two decades. Since the mid-1990s, he call for new bids, and the expected civil society in Warsaw, one that was has helped organize public events at completion date for the project has first created by Augustus II. When the

62 Archaeology • May/June 2008 Saxon Gardens adjacent to his palace opened to the public in 1727, it was one of Europe’s first public parks. The palace’s interior will be used for government offices, so the draw for visi- tors will be the excavations. The archaeologists hope the site will be the central component of an interactive museum like the hauntingly powerful Warsaw Rising Museum, which opened in 2004 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the 1944 uprising. In the meantime, the city is fund- ing ongoing excavations this year. The archaeologists would like to investigate the ground between the tunnel and the tomb, where they expect to find more cellars. If the parking lot that was supposed to go where they found the Morsztyn Palace is moved across the square, it will open up the ground where a nineteenth-century Russian Orthodox church once stood, and pos- sibly a new chapter in the history of the once-demolished city.

ndependence Day arrives with a raw chill. Thousands have Icome to the square to watch the annual wreath-laying ceremony at the tomb. Among the attendees are Presi- dent Kaczynski, Prime Minister Don- ald Tusk, Lithuanian president Valdas Adamkus, and Warsaw mayor Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz. The day before, Kacyznski led a ceremony at the square in which posthumous “promotions” were given to the 14,000 Polish soldiers and police officers killed in mass execu- tions by Soviet security forces in 1940. All 14,000 names were read aloud. It is not surprising that this crowd overwhelmingly supports the reconstruction of a symbol of Polish self- determination. I am surprised, however, by the urgency the people I meet in the square feel. “If you can make them reconstruct any faster, if you have any influence,” 76-year-old Zenon Sobieszek says to me, “please make them speed up the work.” n

Jennifer Pinkowski is a freelance journalist and contributing editor to Archaeology. www.archaeology.org 63