This post sort of reflects the trip - goofy then sobering. But I'll go ahead and end it on a positive note.
Friday
When Gwen and I take these trips it usually amounts to two days of traveling (Friday and Monday) and two days, three nights of actual city sightseeing. For some reason it was kind of a grind to get to Krakow. We hopped in the car early on Friday, drove two hours to the Stuttgart airport (rather than the closer Frankfurt), watched our flight get delayed an hour (watching coverage of the Buffalo plane crash in that time), finally got on the plane and took the two hour flight, landed at the remote airport which turned out to be two hours from Krakow, got confused at the archaic shuttle system and tried to figure it out while wandering outside like Siberian nomads in a swirling blizzard, finally figured it out and hopped onto a two-hour crammed "bus" ride (it was more like a minivan modified with an extra row of seats, thus eliminating any leg room, and chairs with necks at a 20 degree forward angle), got into the main bus terminal in Krakow, wandered around in the same blizzard conditions looking for a surprisingly hard to find taxi, realized our driver had the exact same haircut as Ivan Drago in Rocky IV (had a flat top you could land a plane on), and then finally made it to our hotel some 11 hours after we started the day. It was a little ridiculous in retrospect.
(In order to up the annoying ante for poor Gwendolyn, I had Beck's "Hell Yes" (from the Guero album) stuck in my head and kept singing it, only I would replace the words from the catchy chorus with those corresponding to our situation.
"HELL YES. Now our flight is delayed; now we're boarding the plane. HELL YES." )
I mentioned the snow, which is important because it became a constant feature of the entire weekend - it was dumping snow just about the entire time we were there. This kind of thing is great for trips to the Alps and skiing, but for sightseeing it can kind of hinder things, and it seemed we were constantly trudging through slush and bracing ourselves against brisk winds and heavy flakes.
So Friday was a long day. Luckily one of the well reviewed restaurants was right in our hotel (the Radisson, which as a chain tend to be much better in Europe), so exhausted we just sort of ambled down to dinner and had at it. The dinner was actually a buffet (but a good one), and it came with free wine, so the wait staff just kept filling the glasses. By the end of the meal both of us were feeling it pretty good and Gwen was actually fairly sauced, unintentionally. She even had the spins (which she almost never gets).
Drunk, we collapsed in the hotel room and watched "Flavor of Love" on Polish MTV, a horrid show which I had heard of but never seen. For some reason though, all we could do was keep watching. We couldn't turn it off. I couldn't stop wondering how anybody could be possibly be attracted in the slightest to Flava Flav. For the most part I hate TV, especially reality TV.
Saturday
Saturday we decided to go to the nearby and famous Wieliczka salt mine (which is actually a UNESCO world heritage site). This turned out to be a good decision because it a) was a cool place, b) got us out of the weather, and c) gave me ample opportunity to tune up my "stupid game" for my upcoming San Diego visit (Oh I'm ready E.).
You can read about the mine here.
I mention the stupid game because I couldn't stop quoting the Lord of the Rings - the part in Fellowship where they enter the mines of Moria, and before they realize it's actually a tomb, Gimli is singing its praises. The quote goes like this:
"Soon Master Elf, you will enjoy the fabled hospitality of the dwarves. Roaring fires, malt beer, red meat off the bone. And they call it a mine - A MINE!"
Anyway, poor Gwendolyn had to suffer through me saying this line, no kidding, at least 50 times as we prepared for, underwent, and completed the three hour tour of the mine. That last part (they call it a mine - a MINE!) was the real kicker. I'd give myself 60 quotings of that part (all with full inflection) easy.
After the mines we returned to the city and wandered around in yet another blizzard to briefly see the castle in Krakow. But by then it was getting cold and dark and we headed back to the hotel to prepare for dinner.
Polish food features a number of meat and pork products and famously pierogies which are kind of like oily potato raviolis (with variations). They are quite good - if not so good for you.
I give the Polish beer about a solid B by European standards (a tough scale). Not bad, but not as good as German beer (A-minus to A) and certainly not as good as Belgian beer (A plus).
After dinner Gwen and I retired to the room again, and this time got stuck watching "Rock of Love" with Bret Michaels. We hated this show. And yet again we couldn't turn it off. And thus we hated ourselves. (The only plus? Euro-MTV sub-titles the show and doesn't edit the swears so everyone is cursing their head off bleep-free.) Did I mention I hate TV?
Sunday
Sunday was our self-styled Happy Fun Day, which we jokingly called our tour to Auschwitz right up until the point when the tour actually started and then all joking abruptly ceased and was replaced by sober sighs and grimaces.
Gwen signed us up for a group tour of Auschwitz, which began at our hotel where a bus picked us up to start the day. The bus ride out to the camp is about an hour and after a short introduction from our tour guide we spent that hour watching a 30-minute documentary on the horrors of Nazi Germany and more specifically the horrors of the sadistic camp itself. The film was not surprisingly a real downer and even before we arrived I gave Gwendolyn a "this is going to be a long day" look.
Finally we arrived and then we were off the bus and into the front office. We picked up our headsets (which the tour guide spoke to us through) and headed off into the camp.
Right away we were led through the infamous "Arbeit Mach Frei" gate. The translated phrase is "Work sets you free" which of course resides atop the list of world's all time sickest jokes. From there we marched around to all the different buildings of the camp. Most of the ones we toured were the original buildings but were set up in a museum form with simple-but-powerful exhibitions detailing the camp's nefarious activities. Occasionally we'd wander through buildings left largely intact to detail where exactly torture and other such things took place.
Our guide was Polish but spoke excellent English and was really very good; (I would say she was the second or third best guide I've had for anything in Europe, right after the guy who did the "Walking Tour of the Third Reich" in Munich (who was easily number one) and maybe even better than the French guy from the Ric Steve's book who did a walking tour of Paris for Gwen, Pete, and I.) She had a great subdued tone, speaking clearly and simply stating the facts without embellishing. These issues need no embellishing of course, and the clarity of fact and picture in this case is really all that needs to be heard or seen. She did an awesome job and seeing as in my experience a guide can really make or break a tour experience, I was very thankful we had her.
The list of rooms, exhibitions, sights, and places we were taken throughout the camp reads like a Clive Barker novel. Things start with displays detailing simple facts about the camp, how it was built (by Soviet POWs), the number of prisoners (a lot), the years of operation (1941-1945), and of course the estimated number of those murdered (about 1.5 million, 90% Jews). There are dark pictures of guards, prisoners, the "selection" process at the train tracks, and everything else associated with Auschwitz. Next is a large scale model of a crematorium detailing the entire process of the gas chamber. Things get worse from there, as you're led past a room filled with 1950 kg of human hair (shaved off victims, particularly women, and which after gassing was typically sent to textile factories - they even had a rug made by the Nazis from mostly human hair, you could sees the frayed strands - yeesh). Next up is a room full of baggage and belongings discarded after arrival, testaments of broken and shattered lives of thousands. Then a macarbe room which tells about Dr. Mengele's medical experiments. Then there's the room of shoes with thousands upon thousands of discarded shoes from prisoners. Really sobering, dark stuff, just walking past this. Finally they have a portion dedicated to children where then have cases full of childrens' toys, shoes, pictures, and clothes from those murdered. That was probably the worst for me, seeing toddler sweaters and toys in a glass case, knowing that not even the little tykes were spared from the chambers. Often, as the guide pointed out, since they couldn't work, they were the first ones in.
The next building was a torture house, in which you're led past actual starvation stalls (people simply left to die, no food or water given) and the so called "standing stalls" in which four people were crammed into 4 x 4 foot stalls and left standing next to each other for a week or more, again without provisions. In this building was a small trial room where prisoners in violation of camp rules were tried (all found guilty), and sent immediately outside to be shot. And thus the tour also continues outside at that point, so everyone can take in the "Wall of Death" where countless thousands were murdered by single shots to the head.
Next it's on to the only remaining crematorium, which was ironically the first one. (After it was deemed that this one was too small, and thus inefficient for mass killing, the Nazis built several more at Birkenau down the road, but they destroyed them prior to abandoning the camp.) The tour actually takes you through the crematorium itself, so that you go into the changing room (where prisoners were told to get naked for the "showers"), then the gas chamber itself (complete with holes in the ceiling where the Zyklon B was pitched in) and then onto the crematorium where the bodies were burned (after the hair was shaved and collected and all the gold filling removed from the mouths of the corpses, of course).
As you can tell, this was dark, dark stuff. Very sobering. Very hard to believe that you're actually standing in a gas chamber where thousands died. Just madness.
Unfortunately there were no pictures allowed inside the buildings or inside the crematorium. Also, when walking through the crematorium, there is a strict silence code as well given that the place is technically a memorial. Not that there is anything worth saying at that point. For my part I kept picturing people trying to breathe with lungs full of cyanide, looks of panic, horror, etc. Just nuts. Our guide stood stolidly and quietly pointed to the holes in the celing where the cannisters of cyanide were pitched in.
Pictures were allowed outside of all the buildings and so we took plenty there.
After the crematorium the Auschwitz part of the tour was over (total time about 2.5 hours) and we had a few minutes to wander and use the bathrooms and then boarded the bus and headed over to Birkenau, which was essentially Auschwitz II, only much, much bigger.
Whereas Auschwitz details the specific horrors of the Nazis through exhibits, the power of Birkenau is really the sheer size of the camp. It is absolutely enormous, with rows and rows of prisoner barracks. Birkenau also features the the famous selection area, where prisoners rolled in on the cattle cars, and were immediately selected by Nazi doctors for work or the gas chamber. (About 75% were sent immediately to the chambers.) Unfortunately the day we were there everything was covered in snow so the railway tracks were only faintly visible.
The tour ended at Birkenau after a walk through some of the barracks and the accompanying tales of lice infested blankets, a lack of heating (augmented by the fact that we were all freezing despite full cold-weather gear, hats, gloves - only no one felt like complaining on this particular tour), and hideous sanitary conditions.
After the tour finished (only about 30 minutes at Birkenau) we got about 20 minutes to walk around on our own before boarding the bus again and heading back to Krakow. Gwen and I strolled the camp, fought the blizzard, and snapped a few more pictures. I just tried to take everything in. Then we headed back to the bus. It was a quiet ride back.
Just an amazing place to see.
I'm really glad I got to experience the tour and I think it's something everyone should see. It's obviously very disturbing but also valuable and incredibly powerful. Amidst the characterizations of unspeakable horrors there are tales of individual courage and heroism from the prisoners which helps put things in perspective. The museum/memorial is incredibly well done with the perfect amount of information (without being too much) alternating with visuals, exhibits, and facility exploration which tell the grim tale all too perfectly. Again, our guide was also fantastic - a huge plus.
The craziest thing about theHolocaust in my mind is just how systematized everything was. This is not the hot-blooded tribal genocide of Africa or the rag-tag ethnic cleansing of the Baltics or the chaotic slaughter in the middle east. Those too, are truly awful, don't get me wrong, but I think the Holocaust turns it up a notch because of just how "assembly line" everything was. This was a cold-blooded killing machine wrought from actual written policy. There were meetings about this. There were memorandums about this. There were "academic" debates on how best to do things. Corporations vied for the right to use "their" cyanide gas. Pharmaceutical corporations (including Bayer) tested products on prisoners. This is "civilized society" at work, making a plan, and carrying it out. To me that just makes this particular chapter in the dark annals of human history just a hair more gruesome.
After we got back to Krakow we walked the city square a bit and then headed off to another solid dinner. On Monday we made the return journey, which was a bit smoother.
Pictures of everything will follow. Auschwitz is worth ending on, but I figured I'd get back to a happy post mentality and I can see no better way to do it than the following.
The following is taken from the Krakow Guide Book. And it's AWESOME.
Wojtek the bear
"Fond of a bevvy and a fag [my note - the writer is British] Wojtek's habits weren't too different from your typical soldier, but typical he most certainly wasn't. Private Wojtek of the 22nd Polish Artillery Supply Complany was actually a six-foot Syrian brown bear who served alongside POlish soldiers during the 1944 Battle of Monte Cassino. Now, 45 years after his death, he finds himself once ore in the headlines as a campaign to have a monument honoring his life gathers pace.
So what's his story then. He joined the unit in 1943 as Polish troops advanced into Palestine. Accounts differ how the soldiers came upon him, though it's understood he was adopted as a homeless cub and weaned on condensed milk poured from a vodka bottle. Affectionately christeneded Wojtek he slept and worked alongside the men, helping in the transport of live shells and boxes of ammunition to artillery positions. Fed on a diet of marmalade and honey it wasn't long before Wojtek started assuming human traits, including the love of a smoke and a beer - his rewards for a good day's work. More than just a mascot Wojtek became a reliable member of his unit, mastering the controls of the shower hut, and once allegedly capturing an Arab spy hiding in the camp. With his unit reassigned to servie in the Italian campaign the soldiers faced the prospect of losing a loyal and valued comrade. The only loophole was to enlist him, and so it was Wojtek was entered into the Polish army, complete with name, number, identity and ration papers. His unit was deployed to Monte Cassino, and handed the unenviable task of resupplying Allied troops pinned down by German gunfire. It was in the these hellish conditions Wojtek earned his spurs, never once dropping a shell. His bravery was recognized by high command who changed the insignia of the 22nd Company to depict a bear carrying crates of ammo.
By all accounts Wojtek was a bit a of a social animal; during breaks in combat he would wrestle with hi sPolish mates, often clamping their heads in his jaws. He was a voracious tea drinker, sometimes taking his brew with a nip of vodka, and nor was he averse to clandestine raids on the field canteen.
Come the end of the war the company was redeployed to Berwickshire in Scotland, and it didn't take long for the legend of Wojtek to spread. Local farmhand Jock Pringle recalls his run-ins with the soldier bear: "He had two bottles of beer a aday and loved a fag, though it had to be lit for him. If it wasn't lit he'd spit it back out on his paws. He'd have one puff and then swallow it."
Finally in 1947 his unit was demobilized, and Wojtek was placed in the care of the Edinburgh zoo where he became a cult attraction. His former comrades would occasionally visit him, flinging cigarettes his way, conversing in Polish to him, and even jumping into his enclosure to grapple with their old friend. Although the subject of a book and memorial following his death in 1963 Wojtek's memory had been in danger of fading. That was until this year when he hit the headlines once more. Edinburgh locals are campaigning for a memorial to go up in his honour, while a new book and documentary about his life are due to be released shortly. This time round it looks like his legacy is here to stay."
Awesome. So let me get this straight? The Polish Army adopted a bear who fought alongside them against Nazi's, caught a spy in their camp, liked cigarettes and beer, and would routinely "wrassle" with his mates?
Ladies and Gentleman, I think I have a new personal favorite story. Let's put it this way: Take how horrible the entire existence of Auschwitz was. Now flip that 180 degrees. That's how AWESOME the story of Wojtek is.
I think my work is done here - told you I'd end on a good note.
Time for Pics.
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| Krakow- Feb 09 |
3 comments:
He made me read that bear story like three times. No kidding.
Gwen
Man. I don't know if I could handle Auschwitz.
I agree with Norm, that sounds almost too depressing to comprehend.
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