Auschwitz

Auschwitz memorial site, Poland

Most people reading this will probably have heard of Auschwitz. For those who haven't, it's a former Polish army barracks which seventy-odd years ago the Nazi's took over after they invaded Poland, turned into a concentration and extermination camp, and murdered huge numbers of people, mostly Jews. It's sadly the site of the biggest mass murder in human history. 

It might sound odd but sitting in the hostel in Krakow, I had a good think about whether or not to go there. Why would I, or anyone else want to visit a site of torture and mass extermination? Is it disrespectful to visit such a place as a tourist, with no personal connection to it? I decided though that it's a memorial site, with a historic value and the only way to really comprehend the events of the Holocaust. It's not pretty reading but I feel it's worth sharing. 

I thought it was a bit sad that the swanky tour companies get rich off the back of an atrocity, so decided to get a local bus there from Krakow for the day and pay for a tour on site instead, getting there around midday. We first watched a film of archive footage, which was pretty graphic and uncompromising in it's content; some filmed by the Nazis during their rule and some by the Allied forces when they liberated the camp. 

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Our guide took us round the smaller of the three camps first, which mostly is preserved in it's original form. We were shown round many of the prison buildings which now house museum exhibits, including items that belonged to the victims - for example a huge pile of 40,000 pairs of their shoes, removed before they were killed. It was a truly chilling sight - I looked at them, and tried to comprehend that each pair belonged to an innocent person who was killed just because of their race. Believe it or not, the Nazis were so sick they even sold all such possessions in second hand stores back in Germany, though didn't make clear the origin.  

We then took a short bus journey up the road to the main site of the atrocities. Here, huge numbers were imprisoned in horrendous conditions and worked essentially as slaves in work camps. But even bigger numbers - over a million people - ninety percent of whom were Jews, were taken to the end of the train line into a building where they were told they had to all shower, before going to the sheds they thought they would be living in. Except, instead of water coming from the ceiling, the Nazis released poisonous gas. A sick tactic to get people into one room without resistance. A death factory.

In all the tour lasted about four hours, and was pretty moving. It doesn't bring you to tears, but is very sad, depressing and uncomfortable to do, but equally, is enlightening to the events and worth doing.

The guide at the end of the trip told us that his personal mission, and the reason he does his job, is to to educate people to the events, and help stop such a thing ever happening again. Good plan.

The end of the line for many, in more ways than one

Land of Poles

Krakow, Poland

I knew I was getting further East in Europe when the bus I was boarding in Prague was to terminate in Ukraine, and the sign was also written in Russian. 

St. Mary's Basilica, Kraków

Once again I'm in another country I didn't really plan to visit, but thought I was too near to miss. The main reason I must admit though, is to visit a place I've heard about many times, though not for good reasons. More on that in a separate blog.

Before coming here I'm not entirely sure what I thought about Poland. I knew they were invaded in WWII, I knew it was under Soviet rule for years afterwards. And I knew a few years ago there were nearly a million Poles living and working in Britain after the EU opened it's doors. I guess then, that I expected it to be quite poor, cold, and bleak looking and the people equally cold.  

At 1am I was awoken suddenly by the bus driver shouting 'KRAKOW' and was the only person to get off in the deserted station. With those preconceptions in mind, walking out of the station late at night to my hostel a mile away I was a little on edge. But these fears were unfounded though as the Poles, in my limited experience there, seem to be a good bunch, and the city of Krakow - old, pretty and well kept.

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Walkabout

Kraków Cathedral

It was a miserable morning on the first day, but I went for a walk anyway to see what the city was about, seeing the usual market, square and castle along the way. 

I found some info on a free walking tour of the Jewish areas of Krakow, and decided to go along after lunch. This isn't something I'm normally into, but it made sense considering that I was forty miles away from the main site of the Holocaust, and found the tour pretty informative yet sad.

Typical rural house

Poland is cheap, very cheap. Their wages are well under half of ours in the UK on average I believe, so I took advantage of this one night and went out for tea - my three course meal consisted of potato pancakes for starter, Polish dumplings for main and Apple pie and custard for desert, in a nice restaurant for the grand total of £8 - this is on top of the £3.50 a night dorm bed including breckfast!

Ojcówski National Park

The White Hand rock at Ojcówski National Park

On Saturday I wanted to hire a bike and get out of the city, so cracked on fairly smart. Unfortunately the seemingly simple process of hiring a bike turned into a right ordeal. First shop was closed, big walk to find the next didn't actually exist, then an hour and a half later finally had the heaviest and crappest bike I've ever ridden. Beggars and all that.

Ojkowski was quite a small park, basically just a valley, but was very beautiful and quite unique with various limestone formations everywhere - stacks of rock, archways and caves. Being the weekend the Poles were all out enjoying the warm sunshine and it was pretty busy. 

Nightlife
The hostel I was staying at for some reason wasn't very sociable (except a odd retired Brit who'd lived there a year!) So I decided to go on one of these organised pub crawls, since Krakow is known for it's nightlife. Upon seeing the group, I was a bit hesitant whether to bother as they were all much younger that me. But I'm glad I did as it was a great laugh and met some great people - a group of lads from Ireland, an Aussie couple, a girl from Kenya and a bunch of Germans. 

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Communist Tour

Nowa Huta district

In the 40's when Poland was ruled by the USSR and therefore a communist country, a huge new town was built in the edge of Krakow called Nowa Huta. I was planning to leave Krakow on Sunday, but decided to stay one more day to see this place (a bad idea as I found today). I was told by far the best way to see the area it was on a tour - expensive but it sounded worth it. Wandering around on your own sometimes isn't enough. 

I got to the meeting point at 2pm and once again no-one was there. I spoke to the info centre who kindly pointed out that the clocks changed the day before and I was an hour early. Duh! An hour later I returned, but no one was there, so I went to complain, and now find the tour bus was caught in a traffic jam for another hour. The frustration! 

Eventually the guy showed up driving
an authentic 70's Communist built minibus. It was hilarious - small, odd shaped and noisy, but really got you into the spirit of it all. Nowa Huta turned out to be quite a unique looking place - grand but bland, and my knowledge of that era is now a little better. But to be honest the tour really wasn't worth the money really. Oh well.

I had to get back to Berlin, Germany to go to the Indian Embassy (another story) on Monday, and rather than an expensive and slow bus or train, I wanted to try and get there using one of these car sharing websites - Carpooling or BlaBlaCar, something I've not managed to use before. Quite a few lifts were advertised, seemed quite straightforward. But after over two hours of searching about, and messaging a number of people, I ran out of options and had no option but to take the train. Twice the time, cost and distance, and very annoying. I then went to pack, only to find I'd lost my only jumper, a bag with food in, and my shower gel. It wasn't turning out to be a good day.

I eventually tracked down everything but the gel, and caught the train. Passing small forests and patchwork Polish countryside on the way, all fairly flat with small fields, I at last sat back and relaxed, and nine hours later at midnight, I was in Berlin, capital of Germany.