The March of Time -- Returns and Introductions to Poland: Incredible Highs and Disparaging Lows

As we broke up the night before, Joanna had advised us that the forecast for this day -- Friday -- was to be the warmest of our trip, with temperatures approaching 90. With a Kraków city tour in the morning, and visit to the Auschwitz death camp in the afternoon, we knew we would be outside a lot and tried to plan accordingly. Neither K nor I had packed any shorts for the trip, as the forecast before we left was not for such heat. I, personally, also hate the idea of the "ugly American" running around Europe in shorts. Anna had packed the best of all of us, but K and I managed to find our coolest outfits and hoped for the best.

We had a local guide, who would be with us all day. We were very fortunate in that the morning remained overcast, all the way until noon. That kept the temperatures down and made for a very pleasant morning. We started on the bus and visited the neighborhood of Kazimierz, which was started as a second commercial area of Kraków in 1335, when Jews were first invited to move to Poland by King Kazimierz III Wielki. They were invited to perform a lot of the duties which were off limits to early Christians, including money lending and banking. It grew into a multicultural area, with a predominantly Jewish population. As I think I wrote earlier, Poland had the largest population of Jews before World War II, and Krakow was a hub for Jewish culture and education. This area of town has been revitalized since 1989, and the oldest synagogue in Poland still operates here today, albeit to a very small congregation. In addition, unlike Warsaw, Gdansk, and Wroclaw, Krakow was not notable damaged during World War II. Until the fall of the Soviet Union, the official explanation for the lack of destruction credited a Soviet general, who allegedly surprised the Germans, forcing them to retreat unceremoniously, before they could destroy the city. USSR and Polish Communist officials claimed to be in possession of classified Nazi documents detailing plans to raze the city. In 1990, however, it came out that in fact the Germans never planned to defend or damage the city. Aside from blowing up the bridges over the Vistula River, their plan was to regroup in Breslau, which they did -- and ultimately lost after a five-month siege. The evacuation was so well planned, in fact, the Germans had time to meticulously pack and ship artwork and treasure, sending this to Berlin. The Soviet "liberators" essentially arrived in an empty city. Anyway, the result is that Kraków's historic pre-war buildings remain intact. One can still see the scars of the communist-era block construction, but that is more on the outskirts of town. I recall from my time there that there was a huge steel factory built in the suburb of Nowa Huta in the 1950's. We would actually visit the town of Nowa Huta on our final night, for our farewell dinner, but I recall lots of talk about the plant when I lived in Poland. The city was purpose built for workers and their families, all tied to the massive steel plant, as a "worker's paradise." The location, however, was poorly chosen, and because of regular wind patterns and frequent temperature inversions, all of the pollution from the very dirty factory drifted and settled directly over the city of Kraków. Over less than a decade, all of the buildings in Kraków took on a dingy soot-cover tone, to include all of the historical structures in the old city. They were in the midst of attempting to close down the factory in the early 1990's, or at least install some form of scrubbers for the massive chimneys. I shouldn't be surprised, but I learned on this tour that the factory was in fact shut down and deconstructed in the late 1990's. They are still cleaning up large areas with significant industrial waste, but when we drove out to Nowa Huta the next night, it looked like a suburb one might find in southern California, full of toney restaurants, hip condos, and large open spaces. In Kazimierz, we also saw the relatively new statue dedicated to Jan Karski. We had watched a fascinating documentary on him the previous afternoon, on the bus ride from Częstochowa to Kraków. I was embarrassed in that I had never heard his story. Karski was a Polish soldier, resistance-fighter, and diplomat during World War II, who acted as a courier in 1940–1943 to the Polish government-in-exile and to Poland's Western Allies about the situation in German-occupied Poland. He reported about the state of Poland, its many competing resistance factions, and also about Germany's destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto and its operation of extermination camps on Polish soil that were murdering Jews, Poles, and others. He witnessed conditions in the ghetto and was even secreted into a death camp, and was then asked to provide his first-hand accounts to English and American leaders. He spent the better part of a year in London and Washington, meeting with the highest leaders, including Churchill and Roosevelt. Alas, while he was believed, no action was taken and Karski considered his mission a failure. Roosevelt told him that while he acknowledged the atrocities being committed against Jews in Poland, he argued he could not rally public support to enter the war on behalf of the Jews. Karski emigrated to the United States and taught at Georgetown University for 40 years. He never spoke publicly about what he did until 1981, when a documentary with concentration camp survivors highlighted his mission. The post-communist government in Warsaw recognized him as a state hero late in his life.

Kazimiercz

Statue of Jan Karski

Our Bagels Were Transplanted From Kraków

Back to Kraków, though. From Kazimierz, we crossed the river to the area where the Jewish ghetto had been located. As there was no bombing during the war, it is still intact, to include remnants of the former wall. We saw the so-called Krakow Ghetto Pharmacy, which still operates as a pharmacy today. It was run by the only non-Jewish family living in the area designated as the ghetto in 1940. The pharmacist and his family were ordered to leave, but he pleaded with the German authorities to remain. He argued that if he left, the Jews would have no access to medicine, and he used the specter of a typhus outbreak to convince the Nazis to let him stay. He remained there throughout the war, dispensing medicine and food as he could, as the ghetto was systematically emptied around him. There is a small museum in the pharmacy, too. It is close to here where the famous factory of Oskar Schindler is located. The workers for that factory, many of whom ended up on his famous List, walked daily from the ghetto to his factory. It has since been made into a museum dedicated to life in occupied Kraków, to which K and I would return the following day.

Memorial to Jews Deported From Ghetto -- Each Chair is for 50,000 People

Famed Pharmacy of Kraków Ghetto

A short bus ride later, we disembarked for the morning and began our comprehensive city tour. We started on Wawel Hill, home to the famous castle and series of churches and cathedrals. Wawel Hill is the highest point of land in Kraków, and fortifications and the cathedral began as early as the 900's. We had a crash course in Polish history for the next couple of hours, with lots of talk about the coronations and burials of generations of Polish kings on Wawel, Pope John Paul II's ordination and life as a cardinal in Kraków, and LOTS about churches. It is said there are at least 100 churches within the medieval walls of the city, and that supposedly there is no place you can stand in the old city without being able to see at least one church steeple or building. Having visited here many times, I can't argue with that assessment.

The Vistula River, Which Flows Through Kraków, Warsaw, and Gdansk

Dog's Owner Had a Heart Attack on This Spot While on a Walk. His Dog Refused To Leave for an Entire Year, Until He Finally Allowed a Former Neighbor To Adopt Him.

The Famed Dragon of Kraków. Wawel Hill Is Said To Have Been the Dragon's Lair

Approaching Wawel Fortifications

Wawel Cathedral -- Site of Kings' Coronations and Funerals

The Gray Brick is the Oldest Section, Dating from the 900's.

Interior of the Royal Residence

Another Statue to John Paul II, Who Was Ordained and Served as Cardinal of Krakow

Leaving Wawel and Walking Toward City Center

There Are More Than 100 Churches in the Old City

Ponzcki

Our morning tour concluded at the main Market Square, with its famed Renaissance Cloth Hall -- a colonnaded structure in the middle, full of stalls. I remember this Cloth Hall being home to very nice and unique handicraft vendors but, alas, as one of the few negative signs we saw of all the progress Poland has made of late, those stalls are now full of basic tourist crap. We didn't spend much time here. The tour ended to coincide with the blowing of the bugle, from St. Mary's Basilica. Every hour, on the hour, every day of year, four times (once from each direction), a bugler plays part of a melody. Originally a bugler would signal the opening and closing of the city gates, as well as signal in times in trouble. In 1241, the bugler started to play to warn of a Mongol invasion. Tradition says he was shot with an arrow mid-song, and that is now replayed every hour, 24 hours a day, with the song stopped at the same spot each time. The job of bugler is family held, and involves staying in the tower on 12-hour shifts, 24/7, 365.

The Central Market, with Cloth Hall in Center -- Largest Central Square in Europe

Inside the Cloth Hall

We used our free time at lunch to seek out another Georgian meal. As before, we were not disappointed and loved every bite. We are now determined to find a Georgian restaurant in DC. By now the clouds had cleared and day was quickly heating up in the sun. We had just enough time to get back to our hotel and freshen up for a few minutes, before boarding the bus for the somber visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau. The name of village housing the old Polish military base which became the infamous concentration camp is called Oświęcim, which was Germanized into the name Auschwitz after 1939. There were actually three camps in Oświęcim -- Auschwitz, Birkenau, and Monowitz. Auschwitz utilized and expanded an existing Polish base, which is why the buildings there are more substantial and constructed of brick. Once the final solution was devised, the first gas chamber was built at Auschwitz, but it was too small and inefficient for the Germans. Birkenau was built several miles away, and it was built specifically for killing, with wooden barracks and two massive gas chambers and crematoria. We visited both of these camps on this day. Monowitz was the smallest camp and abutted the former IG Farben factory, at which prisoners from the three camps were forced to work. It no longer exists.

I had visited Auschwitz-Birkenau multiple times during my time in Poland. Every time someone came to visit, it became obligatory to visit. Having gone the first time for my own edification, I understood why others wanted to visit, but unfortunately I also know that visiting once is more than enough for one lifetime. As with everywhere else we visited in Poland, infrastructure money has also been poured into Auschwitz-Birkenau. A brand-new visitor center opened just the month prior, and the facilities in general were greatly expanded. Auschwitz serves as more of a museum, with dozens of buildings open to visit, most of which are dedicated to specific ethnic and affinity groups. You also have buildings dedicated to the confiscated material possessions of the victims, medical experimentation, refinement of the killing process, etc. Every other time I had visited, without fail, had been on a cold, gray and usually rainy/snowy day. I recall no crowds and I always felt alone and isolated. While I know it is important that people visit and understand what happened there, it was still somewhat unnerving to arrive in the just-opened massive new parking lot, to see dozens of tour buses and easily over a 100 private vehicles. Crowds were everywhere, with a strict time-metered admission process in place. Rules dictate that a docent from the museum accompany each group, and we divided into two groups, each with our own guide, who we followed on our wireless headsets. There was not a cloud in the sky and it was very hot by now, so that coupled with the crowds had me doing doubletakes most of the afternoon.

Entrance to Auschwitz From New Visitors' Center

Arbeit Macht Frei Gate

Eyeglasses

Artificial Limbs

Shoes

We were all quiet, as it is certainly a somber experience. We didn't talk much during or even after the visit, as there is simply a lot to absorb and comprehend. From Auschwitz, we returned to the bus and drove over to Birkenau, where we reunited with our docent guide. While Auschwitz as a museum, Birkenau is a memorial to the dead. The gas chambers and crematoria were blown up by the Nazis, with the approach of Soviet troops, but their remnants remain. Birkenau is home to the infamous sorting platform, where unsuspecting arriving prisoners were either sent to the gas chamber or the barracks, from where they became forced labor for the IG Farben factory. Eighty percent of the arrivals were killed immediately, with no records kept of their names, etc. The remaining 20 percent survived an average of three months under unimaginable conditions. When they became too weak to work, they were killed with atrial injections in the camp "hospital." We learned that the infamous wooden barracks on Birkenau were actually dismantled immediately after the war, but then reassembled in 1948, when the camp first opened as a memorial. Something else I learned, from a documentary they showed us on the drive from Krakow, was that the famous footage of Soviet solders arriving at the camp was actually staged. The documentary detailed the Soviet officer who was charged with filming Soviet advances during the war. He was with the first troops to liberate the camps, and he described in detail what he saw. He said, however, that given what he saw, they did not film it. Rather, they focused on saving the prisoners who remained in the camp. The Germans had abandoned the camps weeks earlier, forcing survivors to walk hundreds of miles to other camps further west. Most of them died on the forced march. Those left behind in the camps were already the weakest, and they were then left with no provisions for several weeks before the Soviets arrived. Surprising to me, the Soviets took mercy and took the survivors to makeshift hospitals, trying to save as many as they could. About six weeks later, those who had recovered to some degree were brought back to the camp and asked to "recreate" the liberation. So, those images of starving survivors at the gates of Auschwitz, cheering the arriving Soviets, were in fact staged, and those were pictures of them AFTER being treated for several weeks, so I can only image what they really looked like at the time of liberation. The documentary even had some never-used footage of a staged scene in which the survivors were shown cheering the arriving Soviets, rushing from the "Arbeit Macht Frei" gate, and showering the soldiers with kisses, and then dropping to their knees in adoration. The Soviet filmmaker later revealed, after the fall of the USSR, that even he found that staged footage too extreme, so he arranged for it to be "lost" and never used in film reels later shown to Soviet audiences.

Approach to Birkenau Death Camp

We were all hot and emotionally drained by the time we reboarded the bus, and the ride back to Kraków was somber at best. Dinner was on our own this night, and we all commented that had it been a group dinner, it would certainly have been an extremely dismal affair. As with Warsaw, there are quite a few very well reviewed restaurants in Krakow. I had made advance reservations at three different restaurants, and during the drive, all three of us went on-line, scoured the menus, and mutually agreed on which one we'd visit that night. It was back in the old city, located in a 15th century building, and we were seated in one of the subterranean dining rooms. The meal was fantastic and did much to elevate our moods. We were all exhausted during the walk back to the hotel, which was not surprising when we later realized we'd walked almost 15 miles in total all day. We all slept deep and hard.