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On Friday we decided it was time to look around the city at something a little more cheery.
We walked up to Wawell Castle and stately homes. It was quite interesting but a few of the attractions we closed and we weren’t in a castle mood.

Instead we followed our stomachs to the Jewish quarter to Klezmer Hois where Susan had Kugel (a kind of potato dish) and I had Gęsie szyjki nadziewane Stuffed Goose Necks. I seemed a lot keener on my meal that Susan but it was cheap and we left full.

For the afternoon we went to the Ethnographical (folk) Museum and finally when to a Ukrainian place for dinner.

On Saturday we went to the Saltmines just outside town. Rather than normal buses in Krakow there are a number of Mini bus vans running out of town so it was pretty easy to hop on one of them.

After a long walk down many steps it was pretty amazing to see all the carved statues inside the mines. I’m not sure how miners get the time to sculpt all these intricate designs when they are meant to be digging for salt. There are loads of chapels in various areas in even one room that Deep purple recently played a concert at.

We also went to the cavern’s where the underground bungee and underground hot air balloon records have been set. After all this walking around it was good to be able to get the lift back to the top. Unfortunately it is an old miners lift and Susan flipped out a bit at the thought of being squeezed in with 12 other people and having the compartments full above and below us as we when up.

Finally for our last tea we managed to find Polish restaurant that basically served ale and meat. Susan unfortunately hadn’t accounted for the fact that a polish grill was unlikely to serve vegetarian. Fortunately the live polish music was good.

The week before this Poland trip Susan and I made sure we watched Schindlers List. After watching that film it was with a little apprehension that we hopped on the train for Auschwitz and Birkenau, the two main Jewish concentration camps during WWII. The day had started with drizzle followed by a misty journey out of Krakow and then plain old rain as we neared Oswiecim (Polish name for Auschwitz) station.

When we got to Oswiecim we had a bit of trouble finding the camp but the local’s we helpful and eventually we had a group of English people following us as we walked to Auschwitz on the outskirts of town. Auschwitz was the first camp and was originally a polish army barracks. At the start of the war it was used as a labour camp for political prisoners. The sign on the entrance gate bears the slogan ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ (Work Sets You Free) which is ironic due to the number of people who died from over working and starvation. In fact in one of the cell blocks (11) we visited the cell were the priest Maximilian Kolbe voluteered his life and starved so another man could live.

This particular cell block was where then experimented with tortures such as making people sleep standing up in small cells for days and suffocation due to limited oxygen. It was also sadly where the Nazis experimented with a disinfecting chemical (called Zyklon B) discovering in enough dosage the poison gas released could kill a cell block in 2 days.

Tragically the Nazis improved this technique quickly and finding if they heated this chemical it could kill a room of 1000 people in 20 minutes. Auschwitz I soon became to small so the Nazis built an exponentially bigger Auschwitz II at Birkenau.

At Birkenau accommodation for up to 800 Jews at a time were forced to sleep 7 to single bunks three beds high in wooden stables suitable for 50 horses. Living on a coffee for breakfast, rotten soup for lunch and piece of bread for dinner (700 calories in all) and working for 14 hours a day it must have been horrible. But these were the lucky fit ones most people didn’t even get registered. They were “examined” as the came off cramped transport trains and 90% of people were set to the gas chambers.

They estimated that 1.5 million people (mostly Jews) were killed at Birkenau. It incredible to see the camp and appreciate the enormity of what the Nazis done. Also how gutless they were blowing up the gas chambers and burning storerooms to cover up genocide the instigated.

One of the things most shocking was the piles of glasses, shoes and human hair the Nazis took from people after they died. These were just a small proportion but helped to visualise the amount of people that were effected. It was also crazy that all of the Jews (from all over Europe) thought they were starting a new life when they hopped on the trains. Many packed valueables, shoe polish etc and even mortifingly paid for thier train tickets.

It was very hard to look around a place where so much evil happened. Especieally since Rwanda and Darfur are testimonials that the world hasn’t learnt anything from its genocidal past.

Today has been good but long!
We woke up at 4:30 am (bearing in mind I only started packing at 11 pm last night) and got ourselves to Bristol airport for the 7 am flight.

Our flight to Krakow was inundated with a group 15 or so of teenage girls, who all seemed pretty savvy travelers. They spent most of the time on the airport train bugging the locals about whether they were going the right way. This was rather handy for us as we could just eavesdrop rather than asking them ourselves.

Once in the city we headed for somewhere to eat. Poland is fantastic from Susan’s point of view. We soon found restaurants meet her two key requirements:
1: Food is cheap
2: They serve vegetarian options.
So our soy steak and blueberry pancake lunch at the “Green Way” for £3 was more than acceptable.

We then wandered the old town looking for our apartment and trying to walk off lunch. We were pretty impressed with the accommodation Susan picked. It is a big loft apartment between central Krakow and the Jewish part of town.

After dropping our gear we went to the “Old Synagogue” which was built in 15th century. It is now a museum which had really clear and concise snippets of Jewish customs. I was surprised involved drinking loads of wine.

Our next stop was the Galicia Jewish Life Museum it had a collection of moving photographs of ruined synagogues’ and mass graves. I must admit I was pretty choked up when I saw pictures of young Israeli Jews holding a peace march through Auschwitz. It struck me that in worldly terms forgiveness may seem undeserving but that just makes it more powerful.

For dinner we were planning to go to a themed medieval restaurant in the old town but it was full. Still we walked down the road to find a nice cafe serving beetroot soup and
Dumplings. Barszcz (beetroot soup) is more like beetroot juice with garlic but wholesome enough. Pierogi is a ravioli like dumpling that comes in a variety of fillings including z kapustq i grzybami (Susan’s cabbage and mushroom) and z miesem (my meat dumplings). They were quite filling but Susan and I agreed they could have done with gravy or sauce or something to assist the naked boiled taste.

After dinner we found the Christmas Markets. It was rather opportune as Susan had been a little perturbed that there weren’t going to be any stalls. After stumbling on a huge area of stalls there was no other option but to get ourselves a strong mulled wine and look around at the wooden toys and handmade Christmas decorations.

Tomorrow we are going to Auschwitz.

Yesterday was my birthday. Unfortunately work was has been really hectic. Monday night I was working late, then yesterday we went out for a work lunch to celebrate me being 27 and I had a huddle “church” meeting after work. Susan was understandably a little upset went I came home at 10:30 pm and needed to pack my bags for Poland.

Fortunately she had given me my present before work.

It’s was tripod for our new camera. Suse pulled out all the stops to find a retailer that still had one in stock. Apparently they are all the rage. You heard it hear first.