Krakow

I had a choice to make.

In order to ensure I would be in London on schedule later this month, I had to book the airline ticket well in advance. As you can see from some of my travel, I tend to be more of the wandering type than the scheduling and planning type. This meant that I had to know where I would be flying to London from. I didn't really know several weeks ago which direction I would want to travel from Prague. I heard good things about Krakow, Poland to the north. Kristen and Mary were traveling south toward Hungary. My friends Ashley and Crystal would be in Prague a while longer. So where would I be on the 22nd? I knew I probably wouldn't be in Prague for two weeks, but I also figured I wouldn't get too far. So I booked the flight from Prague, knowing I would have to back track to make my flight.

I decided to go for Krakow, Poland. It was a cheap train ride from Prague and my friend Sarah from Berlin even said she would hop a train to check it out too since it was close by. I checked in to a delightful hostel called Nathan's Villa. It is one of those backpacker's paradise places. A great place to meet people, it has a bar in the basement open until people stop ordering, a movie theater room showing the DVD of your collective choice, free laundry if you don't mind mixing your clothes with others', and a nightly barbecue out on the ping pong deck. Sometimes a hostel can make or break a town in your memory. Although not five star accommodations, Nathan's is there to make it a good stay.

Like every town, Krakow has a big old castle, and lively and touristy town square. Nothing really new there, but right away I enjoyed the Polish folks' disposition. In Prague, we would observe this general feeling of a place we called the "smell of communism", kind of a bleakness. That grey film was still present in some places here in Poland, but the people here were friendly and sunnier than those I had left behind in Czech.

Off the beaten tourist track, there is a nearby neighborhood called Kasimierz which has a ton of nice restaurants and bars. Historically, it is the old Jewish quarter of town with many old synagogues. It has been run down in recent years, but is enjoying a come back now with cute places to eat and drink popping up mainly around its central plaza. It's popular with young locals and travelers alike.

The most historically significant sight to see in Krakow is about an hour out of town by bus: Auschwitz.

I had visited some Holocaust museums and memorials in Berlin where I had seen some pictures and learned about history. It is never an uplifting experience, but I felt pulled to go to the place. The main place. The scene of the crime.

Before now, I had a general understanding of what went on here. But a couple of things struck me as I walked around.

There are a couple of sections to the site. The original complex was a Polish military base the Germans took over. The Nazis converted it into a death camp, but there was a problem. Not enough capacity. They couldn't kill enough people fast enough. So, besides the other camps around Europe, they built two more enormous sections here, complete with higher capacity gas chambers and ovens to dispose of remains. Although the new camp could house 100,000 people, the vast majority of people brought by train to the camp were never housed. They were marched directly to the gas chambers. It was a factory bent on efficiency... a horrible type of efficiency.

Also, the Nazis saved and warehoused everything they thought was of any material value, including hair, medical prostheses, luggage, and clothing. For some reason, the display that had the greatest effect on me was the barracks building that houses a mountain of shoes. The shoes, to me, were a reminder of the individuality of the victims. Some of them were fashionable shoes. Some of them were work shoes. But, for me, it underscored that each of those pairs of shoes also went with a pair of feet, attached to a person with an education, with a hobby, with friends, with a future. Until they got here.

I wondered how a nation of people could allow this. I wondered how many every day people knew what was happening. I wondered who could work at a place like this. I wondered how citizens could vote for a platform of hate. How was this possible? I think that is the point of these museums. It seems so unthinkable. But it occurred only fifty years ago in a highly cultured and educated country.

I met a young Polish girl while traveling. When I mentioned Krakow was on my route, she immediately brought up Auschwitz. Even though she was only 25 or so, the subject brought deep emotion to her immediately. The war, the atrocities, have still left great scars here, even for those were not alive to see them.