It’s difficult to put into words a summary of our weekend in Krakow. One reason is because I was criticised in a previous post on Belfast for focusing too much on the negatives of a place and not enough on the positives. Another reason would be because of the sheer horror and evil that seeps into your pores in a place like Auschwitz.
But Auschwitz is in a town called Oswiecim, so I’m going to go ahead and describe it how it was. Eerie. Horrible. Shocking. Inhumane. The whole experience was one of pure disbelief. That people could do such things to other human beings. From the raw photo’s, to the footage of the liberation, to the mounds and mounds and mounds of shoes – childrens and adults. But the most impacting for me, was the human hair. Taken from the women and tested positive for Zyklon B poison. And even more horrible than that, a roll of fabric made purely from human hair.
The imagery sticks with you long beyond leaving those chilling gates. You can’t escape it, you dream it, every second thought is about it. You get a real feel for just how short life is, but more strikingly, how appalling human beings can be. It does little to convince me the world could ever be at peace. You realise just how lucky you are in this life and how silly and minor your dreary complaints can be.
One thing that strikes me in this place more than any other place we have visited in Europe, is the fact that the Polish are so proud of their effort to retaliate. They fought the Nazi’s every step of the way and never gave up. But in Amsterdam, I felt like the Dutch were almost ashamed of letting these things happen. In Italy, they actually sided with them. In Austria, they almost embraced the movement and in Germany itself, it felt like they were desperately trying to forget it. This is, obviously, just my own opinion and I obviously realise it is a huge generalisation, but I just found the attitude of the Poles was fantastic - they tried their hardest to stop what was going on and they are so very proud of their efforts.
Auschwitz II-Birkenau was a huge eye-opener. It was so eerie to be on the platform where the millions of people were offloaded with their fate awaiting them. The dreary walk along the rows and rows of wooden and brick barracks with the rows and rows of thrown together bunks and toilets. But the most chilling and emotional was the gas chambers, crematoriums and the sites where ashes were scattered and bodies burned in the open air. There was only a few moments where my eyes were dry. To think of the people who so innocently walked down into those chambers without knowing it would be the last time they would see the light of day. To think of the people who made this happen. And the poor souls they forced to loot the bodies and relocate them to the crematorium. Words just simply cannot describe the feeling you get standing in front of a place like that.
When we got back, I did some reading on some people who had denied that the whole thing happened. Only to find that a lot of them visited Auschwitz, examined the evidence and changed their mind. Not surprising after what you witness there.
But that is, of course, only one part of Poland. We also got to see Krakow and it is indeed a beautiful city! Had dinner with a stranger traveler and tasted the local food. Kim was excited about the dumplings, but much to his disappointment, they are just big ravioli!
We visited the salt mine, which is such a unique experience! We were told the air down there, at 135m underground, was very good for us to breath in, so I was sucking that stuff down as much as possible! There are hundreds of chambers down there and naturally we only saw a few of them, but boy were they awesome! The weirdest part was seeing everyone try to lick the walls! I made Kim pose for a few photo’s doing the same, but I can assure you he didn’t touch it 
The Polish certainly like their religion and that was overly evident in the number of chapels and statues of John Paul II down there! I guess he was from Krakow after all 380 steps down into this mine, we were glad when we were told it was a lift back to the top. Except for when you actually got into the thing and it was literally the miner’s lift and we were whizzed to the top, thankfully in no time, as I was starting to freak out a little!
We spent the last of our trip walking around the city. We visited Wawel Castle, went to Rynek Glowny and saw the magnificent Cloth Hall and Town Hall Tower. We wandered around for a bit and then hit the shops as it was kind of cold outside!! That was, until we got back to 2 degrees in London!!
Entries (RSS)