Semana Santa: Krakow, Poland

Well it has been way too long since I have updated my blog.  I will back track all the way to spring break also known as Semana Santa in Spain.

My first stop of the week was Krakow, Poland.  I traveled with Molly Caraway.  It was so much fun to see a familiar face from home and I missed her a lot since I last saw her in January.  I was in Krakow from March 22-24.  On Thursday, March 21st, I had to go sleep in the airport since my flight took off at 6:30am on Friday morning.  I have taken for granted the fact that we live 15 minutes from the airport in Minnesota, and have a car to drive us to the airport at 4am so we don't have to sleep in the airport.  There were a lot of other kids from my program that also had early flights so I wasn't alone--thank god. I actually got quite a lot of sleep for the circumstances.  Finally I got on my flight and slept most of the way.

When I arrived in Poland, there was snow on the ground.  First time I have seen snow on the ground since Switzerland or even Minnesota.  The airport was TINY.  After it took a while to find where the bus was and find an ATM to withdraw thousands of Polish monies (yes, I don't use the correct terms for the currencies).  But I finally found the bus and Molly was waiting for me at the bus station. And it was SO COLD!

After I checked into the hostel and got settled, we made our plan for the day. We went and explored the town and the main old square.  There was a huge Easter market that was fun to look around and shop in.  Lots of food and candy stands! For lunch, we went and got dumplings because that is a traditional food there.  After that we went on a walking tour through the Jewish quarter of the city.  That was so interesting to hear the history from the Holocaust.  There were 68,000 Jews living in Krakow previous to WWII and only 3,000 survived the war.  We went through the Jewish ghetto and saw all the places that Schindler's List was filmed.

Easter Market

After the walking tour, we went to the Schindler's Factory Museum.  That was really cool and more a museum of the Holocaust rather than a museum of his factory.  It was still worth it and we learned some cool stuff and got stamps along the way.

The next day was the day I was most looking forward to, the Auschwitz tour.


AUSCHWITZ
Today, (April 8th) is the Holocaust Remembrance Day.  I think it is rather appropriate to write about my experience touring the camps.  Let this be my own memorial to all of the lives lost there between 1940-1945.

Molly and I did a tour of the camps that was organized through our hostel and a tour company. After being picked up and put on the bus, we watched a video of the liberation of Auschwitz.  I thought it would be boring but I actually learned a lot from it.  The video contained people who liberated the camp as well as live footage from that day.  The liberation was not a happy day or a pretty sight.  I had never thought about it like that.  It makes sense but from someone who didn't suffer like they did, you would think that any chance of freedom would overcome any depression, weakness, etc.  The film maker from that day filmed other parts of the war for the Soviets and he said that Auschwitz liberation was the most horrific.  People had to be carried out on stretchers and those too weak to even do anything, were shot anyways.  That seems so opposite of what a liberation should be.  But I guess they could only help so many.

We had a tour of Auschwitz I first.  I didn't realize that not many prisoners were kept there, but many of them were tortured there.  I still don't fully understand what all the buildings were used for but most of them were turned into little exhibits that we would walk through to learn about the camps or the quality of life at the camps.

The building that made the biggest impact on me was the building dedicated solely to possessions.  One  room had a case of the hair that the Soviets discovered when they liberated the camp.  They found 290 sacks of hair, which clearly wasn't the total amount of hair from every prisoner that went through the camp.  It was unreal to look at and imagine it being shaved off their heads.  Another room was filled completely of shoes.  The shoes in that room was still LESS THAN 5% of the total amount of shoes they took from the prisoners.

Cans of the chemicals used in the gas chambers.

Hallway of shoes.

There was a courtyard that they would take roll call in everyday. The prisoners would have to stand outside in any weather condition until every single prisoner was accounted for.  The longest one lasted 19 hours.  That is without food, water, and toilet usage.  The last thing we did in Auschwitz I was go into one of the only remaining crematoriums.  The Nazis destroyed and bombed all the other ones when they knew the Soviets were coming to try to hide the evidence of what was happening there.  It was very eery going into the gas chamber and furnace room.  It was hard to imagine that it all happened right under my feet.

Gas Chamber

We then got back on the bus to go to Auschwitz II--Birkenau. It was a ghost town when we got there.  I couldn't believe how huge it was.  We the the main tower and railroad tracks that are famous in the history books.  We got to see an actual rail car that was used to take prisoners to the camps.  Apparently, the tracks weren't extended into the actual camp until almost the end of the war to speed up the process.

It's amazing to me how much the Nazis lied.  The lied to the Red Cross, the world, the Jews, everyone;
"You're just going to take a shower", not separating mothers from their babies because it would cause a scene...instead just sending them both to the gas chambers.  The camp was insured by Allianz Insurance.  The propaganda about the camps being places for them to live in peace... Giving someone the power to decide whether they should die or not just by looking at them.  To the Nazis, if you couldn't work, you were useless, which means you die.

We saw the ruins of the main crematorium at Birkenau.  We went to one of the 22 remaining barracks and got to see what the living conditions were like.  They would fit 1,000 people per barrack and about 6-8 people per row.  The prisoners suffered from starvation diarrhea so the sanitary conditions were awful and many died from Typhus.  The winters were bitter cold and the summers were scorching hot. It was a miserable place to be.

Barracks

My experience was incredible.  I cannot put it into words.  I feel so fortunate to have been able to see such an incredible part of history.  The survivors did not want to destroy this awful place because they wanted people to come back and remember the terrible things that happened so it would never be repeated again.  I agree with that.  I still cannot believe I got to go, and this will be an experience I will never forget.


After the tour, we went back and relaxed and eventually went to dinner at an Italian restaurant.  The next day, we went to the Easter market and looked around and did some shopping.  We ate lunch and another traditional Polish food that looks like a mini pizza on a baguette.  We walked around the city until I had to get on the night train to Prague.