Our Big Adventure

POLAND

Poland is a flat and fertile nation in the centre of Europe. Surrounded by conquest happy neighbours it has suffered centuries of war, invasion and foreign occupation. KRAKOW

Kraków, the ancient capital lies in the southern part of Poland, on the Vistula River and is one of the oldest cities, with evidence dated at 20,000 BC. Legend has that it was built on the cave of a dragon, whom mystical King Krak had slain.

The Rynek Glowny or Main Marketplace is Europe’s largest medieval square, and measures 200m x 200m, it was here that homage’s to the King where sworn and public executions once held. The 14th century Renaissance Cloth Hall at it’s centre could be called the first public shopping mall, I was keen to go inside as I had read about a huge souvenir market and art gallery there, those who know me well will know where I was heading to first.

From there we walked the ‘Royal Road’ to see Wawel Castle, perched on a 50m high rocky out-crop overlooking the city and the river.

We continue our walk through the former Jewish district of Kazimierz, home for more than 600 years to Krakow’s Jewish population, many having fled to here to escape persecution from other parts of Europe. More than 40,000 Jewish residents of Krakow died in the Holocaust, and now there are very few Jewish residents, still, deserted synagogues and other signs of Jewish culture remain.

Just across the river from here is Podgőrze district, the site of the former WWII Jewish Ghetto where only fragments of it’s wall remain. Oskar Schindler’s Enamel Ware factory is also in this area. This is the man who saved thousands of Jewish lives, by telling the Nazi’s he needed people to work in his factory, then later smuggled them out of Poland to safety. This area is also where the Nowa Huta was located, one of only two Socialist Realist cities to be built. It’s steel factories cast a polluted shroud over the city of Krakow until finally it’s economic importance forced it’s closure. Many of the buildings in the old town where blackened by it’s industrial pollution, and the gold dome of the Cathedral on Wawel Hill destroyed forever.

We all should be forever thankful that Krakow survived the fiery fate that many other WWII occupied cites shared, this is a wonderful old city full of beautiful buildings, majestic squares, hidden courtyards and a wealth of history.

CAMPING in KRAKOW

From Camping in Krakow

There was only the one camp ground in Krakow still open in October, and it was nice and close to the city, only one short bus ride away, perfect for us. As we pulled in late one afternoon you could just about hear the moan of the elderly man that led us to our camp spot. He showed us around, unlocking the doors to the showers and toilets as we went. Although the website clearly noted that the park would close until Oct 31st, they had all but closed down..

Daily as we left the park to go into the city, or just across the road to the supermarket they would wait expectantly for us to come and checkout. The leaves around our camper seemed to get raked much more than the other areas, we did feel a bit sorry for them, but we were enjoying this lovely city, and not quite ready to leave. And it’s not yet the end of October!

When the day finally came for us to checkout and leave you can bet they had a little celebration, and promptly closed the gates, just in case someone else like us happed to arrive.

AUSCHWITZ

Few place names have more impact than Auschwitz, and for five long years the name aroused fear amongst the population of Nazi occupied territories.

Most of the Jewish population from Krakow were transported here, but as time passed the Nazi’s began to deport to the camp people from all over Europe. Soviet prisoners of war, Gypsies, Czechs, Yugoslavs, French, Austrian, German and Dutch were also among the prisoners of Auschwitz.

The camp was originally a Polish Army barrack and when Poland fell to the Third Reich the camp was taken over and doubled in size by POW labour

As you enter the camp, above the surprisingly small main gate there is a cynical inscription, “Arbeit macht frei” or Work brings freedom. Every day on their way to and from work details, usually 12 hour days of hard labour, thousands prisoners had to pass under that sign.

Because the camp is now a museum, there are signs which help the act of imagination. “The camp orchestra had to assemble here to play marches while the prisoners filed past. This would keep the prisoners in step and help count them as they went to and from work.” And a little further on “If a Polish prisoner escaped his family were arrested and sent to Auschwitz”. They were made to stand under a sign announcing the reason for their arrest, brutal but bearable. The next sign along the pathway is uncompromising. “Within five months of the opening of this camp, some 9000 prisoners had died, most of them of hunger, hard work and brutality.”

Inside the prison blocks is a series of displays that we found more affecting than any words. We see rooms filled with toothbrushes, hair and shaving brushes, eyeglasses, and artificial limbs, all would have been taken from the prisoners upon arrival. In another an almost unbearable sight, a sea of suitcases, all with names and addresses, in which the inmates would have brought their prized possessions, as they had been told that they were being re-located. Another is filled with shoes, all colours and sizes, but it is the small children’s shoes, tossed here, discarded in death, that are the most heart wrenching for me.

One of the most appalling sights is the pile of human hair, 30m long by 3m deep, 7000 kg of human hair, cut from the prisoners before or after death, tightly packed into bags to be sold and to be made into cloth. This ‘small’ quantity had not yet been shipped when the camp was liberated.

Auschwitz was the biggest centre for the mass extermination of European Jews, the majority killed in the gas chambers immediately upon arrival, others died a slower death from hunger, disease, exhausting work, criminal experiments or execution.

You think you can not possibly see anything more horrifying until you reach the gas chambers and incinerators where those who had been gassed could be instantly cremated. Three hundred and fifty bodies could be dealt with daily, an estimated 1.5 million men, women and children were murdered here. But by late 1941 it was not nearly enough.

In order to cope with the demands of the ‘Final Solution’ another camp, much larger was built. This camp, Birkenau, was specifically geared for extermination.

BIRKENAU

Less than three kilometres from Auschwitz, Birkenau was built.

Covering approximately 175 hectares of boggy countryside, three hundred accommodation sheds, some brick but mostly wood were built. Much of the camp has been preserved and the long gatehouse with it’s central watchtower and a railway line running right through it is familiar from documentaries we have seen.

Several of the buildings still remain, buildings built without foundations on the damp ground. Most had no floors, apart from the damp earth that must have turned into a quagmire in this cold and wet climate. Three tier high wooden bunks the prisoners slept upon where covered with nothing but rotting straw and there were virtually no sanitation facilities. At one time the total number of prisoners here reached an unbelievable 100,000.

We walk along the railway line that leads past the unloading ramps to what remains of the five gas chambers, half destroyed by the retreating SS men, in an attempt to conceal their criminal activities. Each one was three times bigger than any at Auschwitz, and by 1944 the SS were killing up to 7,000 people a day from all over Europe and the USSR.

We climb a grassy mound, a mix of earth and the ashes of those who perished here and see the International Monument to the Victims. Flowers, candles and messages left from visitors from around the world lined the front

The fact that the Auschwitz and Birkenau camps remain open as museums is surely right, the physical evidence should be here for ever. But the cries and screams of separated families, the visceral malodour of so many crammed into such a small space, the stench of the crematoria. The sheer corrosive pain of what it must have been like to be here in this place can only be re-created in the mind.

As we left this place of horror the thought’s running through my mind were that we can leave here, just walk through the gate, hop back in our camper and leave, the same thing would not have happened 65 years ago. Those gates would have been closed, rifles trained on us by those that despised us, and orders barked out by those who knew they could send us to our death without any compunction.

Being here shocked and saddened us, it is a place we shall never forget.

posted by Brian and Julie @ 5:43:00 PM