Drought in Poland has had at least the benefit of uncovering a number of artefacts, including Jewish tombstones and a wartime fighter plane.
Rivers have reduced to record lows, with the Vistula at its lowest level since 1789.
Many of the remnants being rediscovered are a potent reminder of the country’s wartime adversities, invaded from the west by Hitler and from the east by Stalin, the transport and murder of its Jewish citizens, and the enemy combat on both land and sea.
Tombstone fragments with Hebrew inscriptions were found parts of the riverbank in Warsaw which would normally have been underwater. It is thought they were originally in Warsaw’s Bródno cemetery where some 300,000 Jews were interred but only 3,000 gravestones remain.
The rest were used during and after the war for building materials and to reinforce the Vistula’s banks.
A Soviet fighter plane, along with the remains of its pilot, has returned to the light of day 70 years after it crashed through thick ice and into a tributary of the Vistula.
Eyewitnesses date the crash to January 1945 when the Soviet army was advancing and was pushing back the occupying German forces. About 600,000 Soviet troops on Polish land died during the struggle.
Pieces of Soviet uniforms and boots, a parachute, a pistol along with radio equipment and ammunition were found inside the plane.
Officials were aware that the Vistula and others rivers held remnants of the pains of war, but searching for them had not been easy. The prolonged drought has contributed to unveiling some of them.
At 1047kms it is the longest river in Poland.
