Krakow

Sunday, April 13

Lonnnnggg train ride from Berlin to Krakow. 8 and a half hours. It started pretty hopefully with a 6 person first class compartment all to ourselves, but about halfway through it began getting crowded, and some people already had reserved the seats we were in. We hadn't understood it was important to reserve ahead. So we moved to another compartment.... pretty soon more people came to claim their seats. With 3 hours to go, the train was so crowded people were sitting in the aisles. Luckily there was one unclaimed seat that Pat was able to keep, while I stood in the aisle for about 90 minutes. A gentleman offered me his seat with an hour to go, claiming that he had a sore back and needed to stand... though I think he was just being sympathetic. I didn't really mind the standing that much... better view of the countryside.

Arriving in Krakow about 6 pm, we had a good 25 minute trudge to our hotel. It is called the Old Time Hotel, with good reason, as it is more like the old high ceilinged, wooden doorway, labyrinth hallways of the hotels we remember from our first Europe trip in 1971. Comfortable enough!

Monday, April 14

Quite nice weather. We set off walking toward the old town for which Krakow is famed.Through the rampart and into the narrow streets and shops, and onto a large open square with dozens and dozens of tented market stalls, offering a kinds of crafts and handmade products, as well as a huge variety of hot traditional Polish foods.

Walking on through more cobbled street and some lovely parks, we arrived at the foot of Wawel Hill, and the Wawel Castle. The Castle was the home of Polish kings through the Middle Ages, and the Cathedral was the site of coronations and other hob-nobbery through the ages.

We decided to pay for the entry to the cathedral, with a very good headphone audio tour. The cathedral is the Polish equivalent of Westminster Cathedral, housing the tombs and relics of royal families, poets and military heroes. Part of the entry fee allowed us to climb the belfry. The 70 old wooden steps took us in and under the ancient wooden superstructure, to the gigantic bells, and ultimately a spectacular view of the city.

Carrying on for another couple of kilometres we came to the Kazimierez market square... a much more funky little market area that was once the infamous Krakow ghetto of 1939. the approach to the square is a graffiti laden hodge podge of craft shops and alternative fashion. The centre of the square is an old wooden octagonal marketplace selling the traditional Polish handheld flat sandwiches.

Walked back to the Old Town square to find a booth selling some traditional Polish goulash and sausages.

Tuesday, April 15:  Auschwitz/Birkenau

You can expect this won't be the usual tourist post.. it will contain some serious reflection. My father's mother, Fanny Poplowski, was a Polish jew. Fortunately she emigrated at the turn of the 19th/20th C or I wouldn't be here to write this. However, her parents (my great grandparents) and some of her siblings were murdered here at Birkenau.

I was unsure about posting photos, because somehow it feels like degrading the experience to a tourism post, but I am sure you will appreciate the gravity.

We purchased a bus trip package which included the one hour drive to Auschwitz, a mid day transfer to Birkenau and back, and then return to Auschwitz. We somehow managed to snag the two front row seats on the bus, which made the journey much more interesting.  The morning departure was 7:30am, and we were back by 7:30pm, so a full day.

While our package included a bus guide person, it did not include a tour guide of the camp, which meant we had to line up with the general public. As we arrived at the entrance, we noticed a line-up stretching about half a kilometre. Were we to join that? Yes indeed, and it moved only a few feet every five minutes or so. We inched forward in that line for just short of three hours! Later in the day, upon return from Birkenau to Auschwitz we had another one hour line-up. If we had known about these lines, we likely would not have gone. One wonders if the bus companies deliberately keep that secret. However, having now experienced the visit, we are glad that we did go.

The whole complex of Auschwitz/Birkenau is 40 square kilometres, with the original Auschwitz camp separated from the somewhat later Birkenau camps by the railyard. Visitors are now bussed from one to the other.

We had two and a half hours at Birkenau to begin. It is a massive open field of row upon row upon hundreds of barracks sites, a few dozen of which still exist or were reconstructed. The entrance way opened to the horrific infamous train platform where hundreds of thousand of jews and other persecuted peoples arrived in cattle cars and were greeted by SS "doctors" who separated those capable of work from those to be immediately murdered in the gas chambers.

We walked up and down the row of barracks, some of which had the interiors reconstructed.

At the far edges of the camp, were the most shocking remnants of the murder sites... the gas chambers, the crematoria, and the ash pits.

This was most upsetting... the floor of a gas chamber

...and this photo of women and children huddled amongst the same trees that we were standing amongst, awaiting their fate.

I was somewhat hesitant to post this photo, because there are some of you who hold the Christian faith, and I do not criticise. However it does provoke reflection. This chapel, possibly established after the war, was outside of the camp fence, and was quite inconspicuous. The crosses as you can see, are stark and modest, and the chapel appeared to be quite deserted.

The questions provoked by this chapel, and the camp tour are monumental. The enormity of this carefully planned and intricately engineered murder factory required collaboration at so many levels of government and administration. The ultimate decisions to engage in such enterprise, we all know about, and we can pinpoint that blame on a few known actors in the Nazi government. But what about the draftsmen and engineers who designed the facilities, sitting in comfortable offices, going home to their warm houses and hugging their children, and likely attending Sunday services? And what about the train engineers, the track layers, the fence builders, the chemists who designed the Zyclon B, the medical attendants to Mengele and others, the accountants and lawyers? They were just doing their jobs, like you and me. Can this happen again?

Now on to Auschwitz, the original camp. The entranceway was interesting. Visitors enter through modern glass and concrete facilities, then down a concrete ramp way with ascending concrete walls, under the parking lot, and then gradually emerge upward to find yourself in the encampment. Auschwitz is a much more intensely compact camp, with a few dozen two story buildings, and a tighter and stronger perimeter fence.

Some of the buildings were more barracks, but some were for more calculated evils such as the medical experimentation of Joseph Mengele and others, and the thievery and redistribution of confiscated goods.... and here were on display the horrific mounds of shoes, luggage, eyeglasses and prosthetics.

Yes.... childrens' shoes.

and this....

Never again? I can't get some comparisons out of my mind. Donald Trump and Hitler? Well, no... even though they share the psychopathic narcissism, so far we are saved by Trump's ignorance, laziness and incompetence. He's the chief of the clown circus such as Pete Hegseth and Pam Bondi and most of the Republican Representatives, but there are the truly evil such as Stephen Miller, and the collaborators who know perfectly well what is going on, such as Marco Rubio and most of the Republican Senators who cowtow to the Supreme Leader.

Thankfully, democracy is hanging on by its fingernails in Canada, and we are hoping for the best on February 28.

OK.... time to move on...

I am writing this from the train to Vienna, so watch for that next post... hopefully a little more upbeat!