Thanks for your detailed comments. I think I am going to close the discussion about “whether it’s OK to run in Warsaw” with your remarks. The discussion seemed a bit silly to begin with, and it seems everyone has had their say.

I posted your feedback because you actually are Polish – which is a nice perspective to end on.

If any one else has any comments on what the essay was really about, of course, those are welcome. I’m in Karachi this week and will be running here as well.

To the authors of the first comments – if you think Nazi war crimes were “facilitated by the pacifistic Polish regime”, how about pulling your head out of your ass and actually reading some reliable sources? Our entire army was decimated by the simultaneous attack of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in the first weeks of war. Perhaps, as you’re most likely living in the US, it’s hard for you to imagine that your country’s army might actually be defeated, but believe me, it does happen. What would you do then? Throw volunteers with makeshift weapons against regular army? Oh wait, we actually did that, it was called the Warsaw Uprising. Chris, sorry for this little bit of troll-feeding in your comments, but I find such suggestions insulting to say the least.

And yeah, jogging in Auschwitz perhaps wouldn’t be a good idea. Warsaw however happens to be the capital city of a 40 milion country, and the horrors of WWII are just one of the aspects of its rich history.

Thanks for the post Chris – I hadn’t considered Warsaw as a destination in my future, but now I’ll have to rethink it. It sounds like it is well worth a visit!

Most people, when they hear “Warsaw”, they think of what they know about the city — mostly from World History II. You know all that, of course; you took the same courses in school. But you know a little tiny bit more. You know that the riverside makes a great jogging route! This does not cancel what you learned in history class; but neither does the classroom knowledge cancel out your current experience. It’s just more data.

As another example, I was in Berlin in the spring of 2001. When most people hear “Berlin”, they think of that city’s role in the Cold War. I think of construction cranes; and because of my history knowledge, I know that most of those cranes are along the stretch of land formerly occupied by the Berlin Wall.