August 15-21, 1999 - Krakow, Poland
Krakow completely made up for Warsaw. For two
large cities within the same country, they sure had different auras. Granted, Krakow
wasn't destroyed as much as Warsaw in the war, but it was lively, jovial, fun; it
breathed. Some of its buildings were just as utilitarian as Warsaw's, but there was an
energy here that we felt Warsaw lacked. The main square area was full of residents and
tourists day and night while the side streets provided a quiet haven.
We took a day to see the Kazimierz district,
the former Jewish Quarter, which has gained fame as of late due to the movie Schindler's
List. We stopped by the 17th century Isaac Synagogue and saw several films and
stills of Krakow before and after the Jewish population got transferred to the Ghetto. The
man who served as guide to Steven Spielberg published a small guidebook which retraces the
steps of occupied Krakow shown in Schindler's List. Another case of recent popular culture
making the historic more famous. But at least it was for good and not for evil. All
proceeds went back to the synagogue. We also visited the Remuh Synagogue and Cemetery with
its intricate Renaissance and Baroque gravestones from the 16-18th centuries.
The main square in Krakow, Rynek Glowny, was
where all the "action" took place. The original Cloth Factory remained and
continued its tradition by providing places for souvenir owners to hawk their wares. The
Mariacki church with its asymmetrical spires looked neat in the postcards we saw;
scaffolding currently obscured the view. We were there during a market festival and got to
see lots of women in holiday dress painting traditional designs on ceramic, embroidering
linens, and selling flowers.
Every city must have its castle. The grounds of
Wawel Castle provided a great view of the river and town. It was originally home to many
Polish kings and the center of royal power till the 17th century.
Krakow was also strategically located near some
great places for day trips. We visited the Wieliczka Salt Mine, on the UNESCO list of most
priceless World Heritage monuments. It held more than just functional blocks of salt.
There were huge chapels, galleries, statues, and chambers housed underground in the mine,
completely carved out of salt by the miners. The mine has been in operation for over 700
years and dipped down from 64 - 135 meters below the ground; we had to climb down over 400
steps to get in. The salt wasn't white as expected, but black. There were white
cauliflower-like deposits on the walls of the mine formed from crystallized secondary salt
deposits. There were even salt stalactites on some walls too. The miners used the
chapels they built to pray twice a day--mining was rather dangerous back then. At least
the air was healthy, several spas were built within the mine when physicians found
curative benefits to breathing in the dank salt air. The myth was that every breath taken
inside the mine added 5 minutes to your lifespan.
On a different note, the second day trip we
took was to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp. Auschwitz was set up in 1940 as a
work camp for Polish political prisoners, but in 1942 it became the center for the
extermination of European Jews. Its probably the most well-known place of genocide because
there were some survivors. Birkenau was set up as a death camp in the strictest sense of
the word. Until January of 1945 Nazis killed at least 1,500,000 people there, mainly Jews
plus some Poles, gypsies, and Russian POW's. The mounds of glasses, hair, toothbrushes,
and shoes were quietly horrifying as each symbolized a person. Our guide also explained
some of the psychological tactics used to get prisoners to fight amongst themselves
instead of in unity against the guards: prisoners were given shoes, clothes, and food
sporadically, which of course cultivated ugly survival instincts. We watched an
interesting documentary filmed during liberation of the camp, from the Russian army's
point of view; it was very factual and surprisingly unemotional.
One of the more frightening aspects of our trip
to Auschwitz was a woman we met that morning on the tram. She was staying at a hostel near
ours, and also headed to Auschwitz for the day. We began by talking about what we both had
seen and done in Krakow, and Kelly asked her if she'd been to Kazimierz, the Jewish
Quarter. She quickly shook her head and said "No, I don't like Jews." While our
mouths were hanging open she continued that she was "from Athens, and we don't like
Jews very much; we don't have any and we don't get along." Whoa. How does one respond
to that? Where does one start? Why are you going to Auschwitz then, to gloat? Plus, how
did she know we weren't Jewish? She was young too, about 21. She didn't speak maliciously
or confrontatively, just matter-of-factly. The tram got crowded shortly after her
outburst, and we lost track of her as soon as we reached the train station so we couldn't
pursue or respond to her. We hoped she did get to Auschwitz and that she was placed in a
group with some of the students on pilgrimage there from Israel.
We separated again after Krakow: Dave went to
Lublin to see another concentration camp. Kelly had had enough of those and took a bus to
Zakopane to see the mountains and hike. We agreed to meet in Budapest in two days.
Needless to say...neither excursion turned out very well. By the time Dave got back to
Warsaw and transferred trains he learned that he had about an hour in Lublin before he had
to return to make it to Budapest in time. Kelly ran into similar troubles in Zakopane; it
was cold and rainy and the only bus to Budapest was full, and the next wouldn't pass
through the town for four days. Kelly did stumble upon a folk festival and bonded with
Katrin, a nice woman from Berlin who was in the same boat trying to get out of Zakopane.
As Dave had to stay in Warsaw another night, we decided Kelly won.
So we found each other in Budapest.
