Into the Midnight Sun

Of all the cities of the world, perhaps none has been punched in the gut as many times as Gdansk. Its geographical location has been both a blessing and a curse. Since the time of the crusades, this city has been conquered, annexed, and “protected,” by more different duchies, kingdoms and fiefdoms than you care to read about. It’s location at the junction of the Vistula River, the Motlawa River, and the Baltic Sea is just about perfect. It’s geography guaranteed that it would be desired by many. Left alone, it repeatedly rose to become a commercial power, no matter who claimed it. And there were many who tried. Some succeeded, at least for a while.

Gdansk (or Danzig, as she was called) became an important jewel in the crown of the medieval Hanseatic League, and the town became enormously wealthy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. German merchants continued to play an important economic role here, so that by the nineteenth century Germans were predominant and Poles were actually a minority. By the end of World War I she existed as the Free City of Danzig.

In his early attempts to expand his German empire, Adolf Hitler stationed his warships in Westerplatte on the spot the Viking Mars now occupies. The first shots of World War II were fired here by German naval vessels on September 1, 1939. Dive bombers and field artillery simultaneously joined the attack. Polish Major Henryk Sucharsky was informed that no help would be sent from the Polish armed forces. His men fought off repeated German infantry attacks as 180 Polish soldiers held out against 570 German infantrymen for seven days. Fifteen Polish soldiers were killed and twenty-six were wounded when Sucharsky decided that he must surrender to prevent further bloodshed. No one knew it then, but a conflict began that day that would become known as World War II. There is a monument here now, marking the place where the war began. The first shot was fired here. Here the first soldier died. The Polish government makes sure that there are always fresh flowers at its base.

At the end of World War II Poland was bombed mercilessly by the Soviet Union under the pretext that Danzig was a German city. Soon the Russian Army moved in, against the wishes of the local population, and forced this nation to enjoy the blessings of socialism. Never happy to be under foreign rule, Poland was forbidden by Moscow to receive postwar funds from the West, such as the Marshall Plan, to help them rebuild.

Fast forward to 1971. Here at the port city of Gdynia on the night of 10–11 November, the East German security police carried out mass arrests of over 1,500 Poles in the Obłuże district. Police later murdered 23 young men aged 16-20 charged with breaking windows at the headquarters of the German security police. Polish discontent with Russian rule exploded into militant resistance.

Today we saw the gritty shipyard where in the 1980’s electrician Lech Walesa led fellow shipyard workers in a revolt against Soviet domination. At one protest parade forty shipyard workers were gunned down by the communist authorities. Resisters received moral support and encouragement from the first Polish Pope, John Paul II. Walesa’s group named itself “Solidarity” and finally succeeded in overthrowing Soviet oppression in 1989. Thousands of displaced Polish citizens returned to their homeland. All German and Russian buildings were demolished. Those structures and other bombed-out buildings were replaced with newly constructed replicas of the seventeenth and eighteenth-century buildings that stood in those locations in times long past. Walesa became President of a newly independent Poland in 1990 and won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts. A hundred-meter-high tripod topped with three anchors now stands at the shipyard in memory of the forty martyrs.

Now the rebuilding and restoration are complete, and the city’s name has been changed back to its historic Polish form, Gdańsk (pronounced like “G’dainsk, with a long I). This newly restored city is breathtaking in its beauty. With so many “restored” and “rebuilt” buildings, one could argue that Gdansk is a bit like Colonial Williamsburg—two-hundred-year-old buildings that have been rebuilt six times. Okay. I get it. However, the feeling here is that these “new” old buildings are not just reconstructions. On the contrary they are the real Gdansk. There is a distinct kind of authenticity about them. The present historical fairyland is the way Gdansk WAS supposed to be before the Germans got hold of it. Some of the buildings here smell like Italian renaissance. Some hint of sixteenth-century Amsterdam. But the citizens here will not allow a German building, a German-sounding name, or a German institution. One street that had been known for centuries by the name of a famous German brewery is now called simply “Beer Street.” And if Gdansk is allergic to anything German, then they find anything Russian positively toxic. They have been Russian. Been there. Seen that. Got the T-shirt and they don’t want to go back. Poland is a member both of the European Union and NATO. Communism? No thanks.

Now Poland and Gdansk are free again. Free to be themselves. Free to be what they were before being constrained to obey Germans and Russians. Free to be Polish. Residents are taking their new freedom and running with it. The economy here is humming. New investment is coming into Gdansk so that the entire north bank of the old harbor area is teeming with new apartments, new businesses, new restaurants, and upscale night clubs. Interestingly, all of these new facilities are being placed in historic buildings, renewed on the outside as little as possible. The old fabric of historical warehouses on the sites is retained as much as possible, with shiny glass and steel making up anything lacking. The effect is striking. With several lovely beaches near here, Gdansk is attracting young people—so many, in fact, that the city is now developing a reputation as something of a party town. New wealth is pouring into the city, just as it did in the renaissance.

Gdansk remembers its past, but she looks to the future. We attended an organ recital in the Cistercian Church built in the ninth century in Oliwa (pronounced like Oliva, for the Mount of Olives) now a suburb of Gdansk. Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor rattled the stained-glass windows and brought tears to my eyes as an invisible keyboard artist made the monster growl. We passed the home of Lech Walesa, who still lives in comfortable retirement in a suburb. We saw young people thronging the streets under a sixteenth-century fountain of Neptune. Gdansk has recovered its past and is poised for an exciting future. Gdansk has rediscovered itself.Read more