KRAKOW
Krakow was our first destination in Poland since we had heard so much about this city from our kids who spent some major time there putting the hospital system on computer about 24 years ago. Krakow was never bombed in the war because the German Major General lived here and he would never have allowed it to happen. So the city has remained intact...and is just lovely.
We stayed in the Old Town which is the only place to stay. Our home for 3 days, the Boronowski Palace, sits right on the main square and the position affords it an amazing view of everything that is going on. I never got tired of looking out our windows. It was like live TV...so much happening in the square. There were throngs of people, restaurants lining the perimeter, horse carriages giving people rides, golf cart tour cars taking people around, flower stalls, and gift stalls.
We had a huge suite with lots of room to spread out...and we did. And athe views were fantastic.
At 4:30 it was beginning to get dark, so we unpacked and walked to a local restaurant called Pod Nosem, which was "yuppy and delicious". My concept of Poland is quickly changing since I thought it would be more Third World. This city is not that way at all. Yes, it is old but sophisticated.
Even the fashion seemed to be upscale. Not at all what I thought.
The next day we got an early start and enjoyed a lovely breakfast. Then we hired one of the ubiquitous golf carts to take us for a tour of the city. Our driver/guide was Greek, and really nice. The tour is all recorded so that you get all the history, and when we got to a stop and got off for a bit, the driver stopped the tape and restarted it when we got back in. The tour included the Old Town, the Kazmeriez area(which was the Jewish/Christian part of town), the Ghetto and Schindler's factory. Schindler's List took 78 days to film in Krakow..and lots of people were chosen as extras. The people are very proud of Oscar Schindler and what he did to help save the Jews of Krakow. We had to pass the Wawel Castle, cause we just ran out of time....next time.
The restaurant that night, Pod Baranem, was very traditional. Dick is loving the herring and vodka!!! I think mostly the vodka, but who knows. And at the end of the meal, they served a digestif made of Grain Alcohol...100% proof.....fruit infused with herbs and kept for 10 years!!! It was really tough..but better than the stuff in Italy. Interestingly, I had no heartburn that night, so maybe it really does work.
The next day was going to be really long. There were two things we wanted to see while we were in Krakow, and that would have meant giving up the city tour, which we also wanted to have. So we pleaded with the tour company to combine the tour of the world-famous Salt Mines with a tour of Auschwitz..and they did.
Our driver picked us up at 10 and we went to the Salt Mines. We climbed down 380 steps to the 1st level. We later climbed down two more levels (and we took the elevator up). The mine began working in the 12th Century and became really important under Kazmeriez in the 14th C. He was a good ruler, and there are many carvings of him in various rooms. Actually, there have 23 different salt carved scenes down in the mines, including a huge hall where they can perform weddings.
They housed people down there, as well as horses. It was easier to keep them down and not bring them up every day...so there are stables and dormitories. There are still salt veins running thru the walls and floors, but they are not mined any more. Now, it is just for tourists who need to experience what this must have been like for so many people
We didn't get claustrophobic, but the lingering thought after climbing down two more levels was "How are we going to get up?". The elevator took almost 4 minutes!!! We were really far down.
After the tour of the Salt Mines, we had a quick lunch and took off for the infamous World War II concentration camps Birkenau/Auschwitz. Because we were early, we did Birkenau first.
This extermination camp was built there because Auschwitz wasn't big enough to hold all the people to be killed, and it is just 2 miles down the road. It was originally planned in 1941 as a camp for Soviet POWs, but it ultimately became the largest center for the extermination of Jews. The first two gas chambers began functioning near the camp from the first half of 1942, as part of the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question". They could kill 5,000 people in a 24 hour period and dispose of the ashes.
Four more crematoria were added the following year. There is nothing left of the place except for an amazing sculpture built over the crematorium with plaques from every country
that had people killed here. Expansion plans were discovered to even do more damage. In the summer of 1944, the Germans deported about 13,000 Poles here from Warsaw, where the uprising was underway. They used the rail system almost exclusively, as it was faster than trucks, and could pull from all over Europe.
Now we were ready for our tour of Auschwitz. Altho we have been to Yad Vashem in Israel, and the Holocaust Museums in New York and Los Angeles, nothing prepares you for the sign hanging over the entrance to Auschwitz which says" Work Will Set You Free."
The sign had been stolen a couple of years ago, but it was found before it got shipped out of Poland and put back up at the entrance to the camp. As a result of that, security is really tight. No one is allowed without a ticket, and ours was checked at three different places.
The Germans originally built concentration camps from 1933 when Hitler took power. People regarded as "Undesirables" were imprisoned there...Jews, opponents of Nazism, German homosexuals, common criminals and others. And at the start of the war, Germany began opening camps in the countries it occupied. Auschwitz was originally a concentration camp, and then it became the largest center for the mass extermination of Jews in the world.
As opposed to Birkenau, Auschwitz was kept intact. It originally was a Polish Army barracks, and over time the 20 buildings became 28, with several being designated as a camp hospital and a jail. During its existence, (June 1940-Jan 1945), the Germans deported at least 1.3 million people there, 1.1 of them Jews. About 900,000 Jews were murdered in the gas chambers immediately after arriving in the camp. Because it originally was to be a concentration camp some were chosen to work and others were opted for medical experiments. And then those remaining were exterminated.... 130,000 pregnant women, elderly women and mothers were killed immediately, because they were of no use to the Nazi work force. And of the 700 babies born in Auschwitz, 60 survived. The rest were put to death, or died of starvation or illness.
Room upon room of hair, glasses, clothing, teeth...man's inhumanity towards man. Auschwitz has been kept intact to prove to the non believers that it really did happen, and to show the believers that it will never happen again.
Each block, each building, held a different horror. The gallows in the middle of the compound where people were hung and left there as an example...what a sight. And the area where they conducted roll call twice a day sometimes lasted for hours. And if you didn't make it thru roll call, you were sent to the crematorium.
I cannot begin to tell you how grateful we were that it was becoming dark, because the sounds of anguish were filling the air, and the sense of outrage was overwhelming. Everyone in the world needs to experience this place to understand what was done to the world and the world's history for generations to come by a horrific man who no one could/would stand up to. Generations of shame. And shame to those who choose to deny that this holocaust was a fiction.
Never have I been so grateful to my grandfather for getting his family out of Poland before the War.
WARSAW
Today we left for Warsaw and took the speed train. It was really lovely, and they served a beautiful breakfast at our seat.
We were very impressed. Unfortunately, we got off at the wrong station which lead to a series of misadventures leading up to us finally arriving at our glorious hotel..Ma Maison La Regina. This is an old building that has been modernized and our suite is overlooking a courtyard, and exquisite.
Tim and the boys got to the hotel and we walked into the Old Town looking for a Pirogi restaurant they had been to before and enjoyed. We finally found it, had our dinner and walked home.
The following day we went to a beer garden restaurant and had brats and beer!!! What fun. After lunch we went to the Uprising Museum.
In 1945 Germans killed all the Jews in the Ghetto, where they had been herded into a few years before. The Poles uprose in anger, and they,too, were also killed. To add insult to injury, the Germans burned down all of the Ghetto...obliterating most of Warsaw. Then the Russians came in and took over Poland, or what was left of it, until 1989 when Poland became independent.
From the museum, we went to a reception at the public library that Alice organized. The American Embassy has put an American Center into the library, where people can go and get American movies, and magazines, and experience all things American. We met the Ambassador and visited with him for a bit. It was a lovely event.
Did I mention the rain? It had been raining here for 3 days and I was really not having a good time. So far it wasn't too bad...BUT tomorrow we were going to Sokolov (where my father was born) and it is a 3 hour drive in each direction, so I wanted it to stop!!!
Well, we didn't get to Sokolov. Our hotel told us that the roads would be bad, and since there really isn't a city left there it, would be a drive to somewhere, and then a drive back...all in the rain. I know my father would have understood, but it was hard to be this close and not be able to do it.
Instead, we took a driver and toured Warsaw, seeing the Ghetto wall, the museums and all the other major places. We only got out of the car at the Ghetto wall and what was left of the synagogue. Afterwards, we met Tim and got a tour of the American Embassy. I have never been in an embassy before. It was very exciting, but the embassy itself was housed in a very 1960's building of ugly Russian architecture.
We had our last traditional Polish meal at Frita in Old Town (which was near our hotel, so we got umbrellas and walked).
As I said earlier, my thoughts of Poland differed than the reality. I was really impressed. The country has a lot to offer, and had the weather cooperated a bit more, it would have been a lot more fun. Next time!!!
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