Visit to Chelmno

Twenty-five miles north of Torun (an hour and a half bus ride!) is the small city of Chelmno, like Torun founded by the Teutonic Knights around 1200. Chelmno, on a hill above the Vistula, was for a short while the headquarters of the Knights, until they built their HUGE castle at Malbork, farther down the river. We're visiting Malbork, one of the largest surviving castles in Europe, on our end-of-camp trip, and after that I'll post pictures.

The Teutonic Knights (official name: Order of the Teutonic Knights of St. Mary's Hospital in Jerusalem) were formed to provide assistance to pilgrims to the Holy Land during the Crusades, a little before 1200. Their membership expanded & they became a powerful military order. They only accepted members who were Germans. They were sent up to Prussia (which includes northern Poland, where I am right now) to Christianize the Poles. In typical German orderly efficiency, they built castles up & down the northern Vistula river, all within one day's ride on horseback from one another.

They Christianized as much through bullying & brutality as simple persuasion. And, the local Polish nobility didn't appreciate their coming in & claiming land as theirs, so for more than 200 years there was conflict between the local Poles & the Knights. Finally in 1410 at the battle of Grunwald, the Poles defeated the Knights, and northern Poland became Polish again.

But Poland was later partitioned, some given to Russia, some to Austria, and Germany. In the 1800s northern Poland was handed to the Germans, so our camp is on the site of a Prussian military academy. The second bloody German invasion (after the Teutonic knights) was of course in 1939, at the beginning of WWII. The third German invasion, bloodless, is the invasion of German tourists, who bring their euros into Poland through tourism, because Poland is so inexpensive. They sometimes behave in "typical" autocratic Prussian ways, as we were told last night by the owners of a local coffee-shop -- Kona Cafe, the wife is from Torun, he's from Boston originally. Magda related how one German came into her Cafe & berated her (shaking his cane at her) for not understanding German.

Jim & I traveled yesterday up to Chelmno for a day-trip, which included climbing one of the church towers for a panoramic view. Pictures of our trip follow.