Krakow - A Much Different Experience

If the pictures aren't big enough on any post here, feel free to click on them and enlarge them!

One of the towers from the old city walls

Monday evening we arrived at our lodging in Krakow after about 10-11 hours of travel on our Fuchs bus.  We stayed at a place named the Hotel Piast and it operates as a hotel in the summer and student dorms during the rest of the year.  Pat and I were in a double that shared a bathroom with another double (I didn’t take any pictures, sorry).  Our entire program was all on the first floor of the hotel except two rooms, which was pretty fun.  That first night we just ate dinner in the hotel and stayed in to catch up on sleep.  I also tried to watch the finals of the US Open, but in the middle of the second set it rained so I ended up going to bed and missing the end of the match and the Chiefs’ first win of the season. Oh well.

The next morning we at breakfast at 8 and boarded the bus to go on a tour of the city.   Our initial visits were to the old city walls.  Inside these walls is now a reasonably sized commercial area and it is the center of the city.  Our guide showed us a variety of churches and monuments.  One of these was a monument dedicated to a massacre somewhere in Poland’s history.  The sad fact was on a large anniversary (100, 150 I don’t remember for sure) of this massacre their president’s plane crashed and he was killed (this happened fairly recently – 2008 maybe?).  Not a fantastic date in the history of Poland.

The center of the city

Eventually we made our way to the main castle inside the walls.  It’s pretty big and situated on the highest hill, which only helps it dominate the landscape.  Inside it there is a gorgeous cathedral, which we weren’t allowed to take pictures of, but there is color everywhere.  Plus, we got there just in time to see them open the altar for the day, and it was spectacular as well.

The castle on a hill

For lunch we went to the Cechowa Restaurant, and despite the service being a little slow, it was still pretty tasty.  Afterwards, we boarded the bus and headed about an hour outside of Krakow to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau.  Warning to all, the following is a description of what we saw and may not be appropriate for some to read, especially young children.  If you want to skip past it, the first sentence of something not about it is completely bolded.

Click to enlarge this one - there is fire
that shoots out of it's mouth every
few minutes

The first sight we visited was Auschwitz I.  It’s comprised of about 30 buildings.  Most of these were living quarters for inmates who were working at what started as an imprisonment/concentration camp.  We walked through a couple of these where there are many facts about how many stayed there and how many were killed, as well as large stockpiles of belongings of all the individuals who came though.  We walked past but did not go in the building (block 10) where Dr. Carl Clauberg conducted experiments on women under the belief he would find a sterilization solution to “the Jewish problem”.   Next was block 11.  This housed a variety of punishment areas.  Outside was the death wall where shootings frequently took place, as well as such punishments as hanging prisoners backwards from their wrists.  Inside there were small cells where as many as 40 people would be put at once to starve to death. There were even tinier cells where 4 people would be put and closed in.  It was such a small room that they could not sit down, and thus were left to die from exhaustion, starvation, or suffocation - whichever came first.

Auschwitz I

 We continued our tour around the camp and eventually saw the gallows.  Our final stop was to walk through a gas chamber.  Disguised as a shower, it is connected directly to the crematorium where the bodies were immediately disposed.  Once in the chamber, a small container of some poisonous crystals would be dropped into the room, and it would slowly release into the air and seep in through the prisoners’ skin, nose, mouth, and the rest of their naked bodies.  The agonizing process generally took about 15 minutes – sometimes more or less depending how much acid was dropped.

The Death Wall decorated with flowers

After our visit to Auschwitz I, we went to Auschwitz II, also named Auschwitz-Birkenau, which also started as a concentration but was also converted to an extermination camp.  This camp was many times the size of the first, and the rail tracks run right through it.  Trains would run right into the middle of the camp.  Believing they are simply being relocated from another Eastern European location, the travelers would disembark with as many of their belongings as they could bring.  In the distance there was a line of trees behind which they believed were more houses than the few they could see in front of them.  In order to keep order, they were told that they would be served food, but first they must shower.  The most efficient way to do that, they were told, was for everyone to strip down and shower together.  Though this was weird, thousands at a time would obey and walk straight into the gas chamber.  Sometimes there was a man acting as a “physician” who would pull a few of the most able-bodied people aside claiming to need to examine them.  These were the people who stayed at the camp and did work for the Nazis.

A gas chamber.  The entrance way used to have much
higher walls so people could undress and walk in.

At Birkenau we saw rooms in which there were 26 triple bunk beds on each side.  That makes approximately 150 beds, though 2 or 3 or more people often shared most.  Regardless of the weather they only had one blanket, and mattresses, if there were any, were made of hay and straw.  We then saw the bathrooms – a bunch of holes in a large cement strip inside a building.  The interesting thing about all of it is that when the Nazis were being pushed back and they knew the camp would be discovered they poured gas on all the buildings and tried to light them all on fire to cover up the evidence.  Over 1.3 million were killed at these camps; 1.1 million of them were Jews.

It all is so puzzling and upsetting.  On the one hand, it’s terribly frightening and upsetting that so many people would follow this kind of ideology.  On the other hand, it made me want to know so bad what was going on in all of their heads that made this all seem right.  There are pictures of guards standing next to the gallows after a hanging and they are all smiling and laughing.  But it was the sterilization that really got me.  They believed that it really was acceptable to discover a final solution that would end the Jewish question.  Not just acceptable.  Rather that it was necessary for the good of the world.  It’s one thing to operate under the belief that you’re part of a superior race, but to attempt to exterminate another?  It’s one of those things that I don’t understand, and I probably never will.  The entire time I was walking around I was thinking of a quote from the Lord of the Rings, and it’s probably the only time I’ll actually be able to use it and have it actually be serious and in context: “So much death.  What can men do against such reckless hate?”  I’m glad I know so many good people in the world.  Without them, people with opinions as strong as these would have little trouble imposing their ill-directed will.

Birkenau. Travelers believed that behind the trees was a much larger settlement for which they were headed.

After a few hours touring both camps, we departed for our restaurant for dinner back in Krakow.  Our dinner was at the Jewish Restaurant Ariel where we ate a fantastic meal and then had a concert from a string trio (I can’t remember the name, but they’ve played some pretty big venues).  Afterwards our guide, Blanca, showed us to a bar that just had a cover and then was all you have once you’re inside.  It was pretty fun, although our program just kind of picked a corner with couches and just camped out, so it was hard to know what the place is actually like.  I left “relatively” early because there was a group of people leaving and most didn’t know where they were going, but I was tired anyways so it worked out.

The next day we had an entirely free day to do with what we chose.  Pat and I slept in and then met the group for lunch at the same place as the day before.  Afterwards we went with a reasonably large group of people the Schindler Factory – a museum dedicated to a man (Mr. Schindler) who helped save a significant number of Jews during WWII.  It retold the story of the outbreak of the war and how it affected Krakow, and then how the Jewish quarters were liquidated in two quick days – first parents and then children and the elderly.  Finally, it talked about how Schindler ran a factory that employed Jewish prisoners, but he paid as much as he could and the conditions were much, much better than at the other factories.  Estimates vary, but Schindler saved thousands of Jews through his factory.  Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List is based off of this story.

Dinner that night was at the Polskie Jadło. It was again a nice meal, and tonight Pat and I decided to stay in and rest because we had another long bus ride ahead of us the next day.  I hung out with some friends on our floor of the dorm for a while, did some skyping, and then got a few hours of sleep.  The next day we made great time and arrived in Budapest, Hungary a couple hours early.  IES really splurged here, we’re in a 4 star Best Western that has been amazing so far.

Final thoughts on Krakow: it was a pretty cool city, though I wasn’t as pleased with the nightlife as I was in Prague.  The architecture was really cool though, and of course, the history is complex and difficult.  Unfortunately it was cloudy much of the time we were there.  That, combined with our visit to not particularly happy places, left me feeling as though the city is constantly a little depressed.  It was certainly an experience I won’t soon forget. Sorry the post is so long, though I’m glad I have lots to write about again!