Off to Krakow

October 1-2 (Written in the wee hours of the 3rd)

It's midnight on October 3rd, and after waking up from a six-hour nap (I seriously couldn't stay up any later than 6 PM), I thought that I might as well spend a little time describing how I arrived at Krakow.

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I like to travel, as in to say that I like visiting new places. Getting to those places, not so much.

I was cursing myself as I got up on the morning of the 1st. Despite going to bed aft a reasonable hour, not feeling particularly nervous about my trip, and double-checking just about everything, I couldn't sleep more than four hours.

The trip down to SFO and my brief stay at the airport were unremarkable but for the fact my 777 to Frankfurt was delayed 70 minutes. I had a long layover for my connecting flight, so that didn't bother me. The fact that I could have tried to sleep in did. Even so, the delay gave me an excuse to eat at the airport, something I rarely do due to my flying jitters.

It might have been a jiggly flight, but I got there in one piece.

Thankfully, I reserved an aisle seat with no one next to me or behind me. My seat even had a power plug. My only neighbor was a kind German lady going to Hamburg.

The 10 hours to Frankfurt were torturous, both for the monotony and mild/moderate bumps that were persistent from Greenland to Great Britain. I know they're not dangerous, and the flight attendant was nice to check up on me after I told her I'm not a fan of turbulence.

The only real danger we encountered was during landing. On the final approach, the plane's engines roared, and we turned away from the airport. Everything suddenly became silent. Then the captain got on and told us that he saw a plane sitting on our designated runway. That could have been bad.

Despite flying on a 777, Frankfurt Airport didn't have a gate for us, and we all had to take the bus to the terminal. I waited at customs for about a minute, and the officer didn't even ask me a question.

Just like with my Dresden trip, I had to mad dash it to my Krakow plane. I did walk through a duty-free shop that had little Pac Man machines made out of solid gold.

Another bus to the Krakow plane, an A319-100 sitting on a tarmac next to a Thomas Cook plane. Apparently, the now-defunct British travel company just abandoned part of its fleet at Frankfurt.

Lufthansa A319s are what you would imagine flying in the Eastern Bloc was like: uncomfortable, old, school bus pleather seats. Simply put, ugly as all hell. And the pilots, I don't know where they get these guys. I have never been in a plane that can reach 30,000' faster than an A319. They don't mess around.

Well, I got to Krakow in one piece, and on the descent, got a view of the Vistula River and Nowa Huta – the ideal Communist city the Soviets built on Krakow's edge in the 1950s. I had to wait for my gate-checked bag, and then it was another mad dash to the tram to the city center. Sat next to two nice British ladies on holiday.

Krakow Glowny and the adjoining galleria were a madhouse of shoppers and travelers. I navigated through the mall and up the street to Angel City Turnau, my home for the next eight nights. For $55 a day, a studio apartment full of Ikea furniture might as well have been a palace.

I set down my stuff and returned to the mall for a little comfort McDonald's and then bought some snacks before returning to my apartment to watch TV and crash.

I'll stay up a little longer before hopefully getting a few more ZZZZZZZs.

Thursday, October 3rd

Getting back to sleep didn't happen. Ugh. Anyway, after a little breakfast, I tried to catch a train to Plaszow at Krakow Glowny with no success. Spent an hour feeling like a chicken with its head cut off. Anyway, I did get a one-week public transport ticket for $15, a steal.

Not feeling like reading up on any new attraction, I decided to visit one of my top destinations, the former Schindler factory, now part of the Muzeum Krakowa. The bulk of the museum concerns Krakow under Nazi Occupation.

I got on a tram and headed over the Vistula River. At the stop, Zablocie, luxury apartments that reminded me of Redmond, Washington, were going up. Since I was thinking about the movie Schindler's List, the sights made me realize that 1992-93 was the perfect time to film a movie here. Nothing had changed since the 30s, and modernization was just around the corner. Even though 99% of the old buildings remain in central Krakow, the periphery was undergoing rapid development.

Stepping inside the iconic building, I got in a short line (A much longer line quickly formed behind me. Phew.) for a 12:20 PM ticket. Having 30 minutes to spare, I went into the museum café for an ‘iced coffee' (a culinary monstrosity with heavy cream and chocolate syrup, but hey, it was good) and a croissant. The café was dedicated to the movie and has Spielberg's hat and director's script on display. The table where I sat was laminated with an English newspaper article describing the movie's production as the largest ever undertaken in Poland.

The museum tells the story of Krakow from just before the war to the Soviet liberation/occupation. Had to maneuver around tour groups strategically. Anyway, the exhibits were in English, giving me the chance to really immerse myself. A week before the war, it seemed that everyone knew it was coming, and when it happened, it came as such as a shock that Poland lost so quickly. This was due to Poland's slow mobilization and the Soviet Union invading from the East. In the occupation's early stages, the Germans arrested university professors and male students for holding ‘illegal' classes – The women were simply dismissed and sent home. Street signs with Jewish names were torn down, and a year later (1940), Krakow's main square was named Adolf Hitler Platz. Bookstores were flooded with Nazi propaganda.

As for the Ghettos, I walked through a recreation of a room where a dozen people lived. There were real artifacts everywhere and plaster casts of people to show just how cramped it was. The white plaster gave off the impression that the people were ghosts. Eerily fitting.

Schindler's office was the only part of the building that the museum kept original. It has his desk, adorned with a phone, lamp, and chair. There was even a picture of a smiling Schindler riding a horse. Although a museum employee was standing in the corner watching, it was okay to touch these items. A Japanese boy, about 12-13 years old, leaned on the desk so hard that the wood creaked dangerously. I figured I could get away with touching it. It was an honor.

The next section of the museum detailed life for Christian Poles in Krakow. In a reconstructed apartment, you could look behind a cabinet to find hidden guns and grenades.

After that was a part on the nearby concentration camp. The floor was covered with gravel to simulate walking on that ground. Finally, the last section deals with the war's final stages, as the German army prepared to defend the city against the Soviets. Despite a lot of bluster, they simply blew the dam at Roznov to flood the Vistula, giving them enough time to retreat. On display, there were many guns and a hiding space for escaped prisoners. At the end of this section was a large portrait of Stalin, a fitting testament that Krakow, along with the rest of Poland, was under new management.

The final two rooms were the most moving. In the first, the room was pitch black but for small cubbies built into the wall, each containing a single personal item of someone who died. The floor, topped with heavy rubber, was filled with spongy material. You can't keep your balance, making you stumble through punch drunk. I stepped into the final room alone. The off-white walls were covered with statements from the war's survivors in every language. Soft music played, and natural light streamed from the ceiling. This was the only part of the museum when I was alone, and it seemed perfect that it turned out that way. Just before leaving, I passed a display case filled with burned books.

I took the train back to the center of town and explored the old buildings. The main street was filled with modern shops and tourist traps. Around the central square were no fewer than 30 restaurants with anything you could ever want to eat. One of the few seemingly empty places was the clock tower, the last remaining part of the original town hall. Bought a ticket to climb to the top. Was a workout climbing all those stone steps (Thankfully, there was a chain to hold on to.), but the view was incredible. Heading back down, I decided on a place for dinner. Sat outside despite the intermittent light drizzle (I was under an umbrella) and cool temps. I watched the horse carriages roll by and a rainbow appear over the town. Had spinach pierogi and a beer for dinner. Topped it off with a barrel-aged vodka. Delicious and ridiculously cheap.

Went back to the apartment and crashed about 8 PM.

Friday, October 4th

Another restless night, but I decided to make the most of the day and get an early start. Arrived at Wawel Hill at around 8:30. During the walk there, I bought an Obwarzanek, a chewy bread ring that's slightly sweeter than a bagel. Traditional toppings include salt, sesame seeds, or poppy seeds. There were tons of street sellers around the city, and it felt fitting to eat one on a chilly, cloudy morning.

Only a few people were milling around the castle when I arrived. That was a blessing, as I was able to take pictures without other tourists in the background – the place had filled up by the time I left.

In front of the Wawel Cathedral were large bones hanging from chains. Story goes that about 1000 years ago, a dragon fed on the city's inhabitants (he had a liking for virgin maidens) and burned the crops. So, one day, a cobbler named Skuba stuffed a calfskin full of sulfur and left it at the entrance to the dragon's lair. Dragon eats it, and the sulfur makes him thirsty. He drinks and drinks from the Vistula River until he explodes. Skuba became the hero, but if the ‘dragon bones’ ever fall from the chains, the world will come to an end. Great story.

At 9 AM, I bought a ticket for the cathedral. Well, the cathedral was free, but my ticket paid for admission to the bell tower and crypts. Wawel Cathedral…it's hard to describe how impressive it was. In the main room were the graves of Poland's greatest kings, including Kazimierz III. As each tomb's marble lid showed the kings (and one queen) in repose, the room gave off a Lord of the Rings/Game of Thrones vibe. Still, as a Catholic church, iconography was everywhere. Against the outer wall were small chapels, one of which was dedicated to Pope John Paul II. There was also small crypt that everyone can access. It contained two tombs, both esteemed Polish writers who I felt bad for never having read. Finally, one temporary display on the main floor asked for money to rebuild Notre Dame in Paris.

Heading up the bell tower was a claustrophobic experience. The wooden passageways were narrow and drafty. The steps and rails were smooth – millions of tourists have made the climb. I noticed the same sort of thing in the cathedral, stones on the floor worn down in certain places due to so many footfalls over the centuries. America…we don't have stones like that.

Anyway, the tower contained three levels with bells, and the higher I went, I found a heavier bell. Unlike other museums, I could reach out and touch them. They were centuries old, many forged to honor a new pope. The heaviest bell was at the top. Standing under its 12,000 kilograms (26,000 pounds), I felt awfully small. But still, it was a baby compared to the Tsar Bell (about eight times heavier) I saw in Moscow last year. From the top, I had a great view of the city.

I made my way down a separate set of steps and went back into the cathedral. Whoever planned out the tour path did an excellent job making sure that people with tickets see everything. Going down into the crypts, I first saw the grave of Andrzej Kosciuszko, a military commander who, after moving to North America, took part in the American Revolutionary War and helped design the original fortifications that became West Point. An excellent surveyor, he helped the Continental Army find a defensible position that led to the victory in the Battle of Saratoga, turning the war's tide. Next to his tomb was a plaque given by the U.S. Congress in 1975, honoring him on the battle's 200th anniversary.

The rest of the crypt contained the tombs of dozens of Poland's princes and princesses. Unfortunately, there were many small ones – children who died of diseases such as dysentery or seizures.

One of the final rooms was dedicated to Jozef Pilsudski, a military commander who won Poland's independence during and after WWI. Although he became a de-facto dictator who controlled the country's policy behind the scenes, he is still the nation's modern founder.

The final tomb was that of President Lech Kaczynski, who died in a plane crash in 2010 alongside many Polish politicians and military commanders.

Leaving the cathedral, I bought a ticket to the treasure vault in Wawel Castle. Like many similar vaults I have seen in the past, it included gold and silver serving trays, military ribbons, and jewels. In a room by itself was Szczerbiec, the sword that coronated Poland's kings from 1320 to 1794. In WWII, it was evacuated to Canada before returning in the late 1950s. The sword’s case was across from a stained-glass window that projected otherworldly light onto the blade and hilt.

I think I know where Tolkien got his idea for Anduril.

Leaving Wawel, I went to a nearby outdoor café for a panini snack and a beer.

It was cool, but not chilly afternoon when I took off for the Kazimierz District, home to what was once Krakow's thriving Jewish community. Walking west to east, I wandered into Corpus Christi Basilica, which contains the largest organ in the city. It reminded me of Notre Dame, as both are gothic cathedrals with high arched ceilings.

Halfway through my walk to the New Jewish Cemetery, I came across a collection of food trucks. My earlier panini a disappointment, I bought a frankfurter with spicy mustard. The scorched skin crunched with each bite. Yum.

Heading under a train overpass, I walked into the New Jewish Cemetery. Founded in 1800, the cemetery was the city's main Jewish graveyard until WWII, when the Germans sold off the headstones for scrap and left the human remains to scatter in the wind. By the end of the war, the 11-acre site was merely a pit. However, after the war, the headstones were repatriated; the shattered ones became part of the wall that surrounds the site. Today, vines grow over many of the headstones, and some have decayed into piles of rock. There were more tombstones in this cemetery than there are Jewish people living in Poland in 2019. It was, in the best way I can put it, a post-apocalyptic graveyard. But standing there, letting my fingertips run along the stones that made up part of the wall, was an immensely moving experience.

After taking a bit of rest back at the apartment, I used the late afternoon to visit the site of the Plaszow Concentration Camp. The Germans tore it down in the war's final months, and the Russians took whatever was left. All that remained was a single house and random piles of shattered concrete. It was a very quiet place with gravel paths, people walking their dogs, and bicyclists. Every few hundred feet was an informational sign that described what once stood there and prisoners' experiences. I was coming to the end when I approached Hujowa Gorka, where the Germans incinerated 10,000 corpses to hide their crimes. Marking the site was a rusting cross with a crown of thorns. Next to it was another information sign with the following quote:

Halina Schutz: I also witnessed an execution of 10 people for an escape by one prisoner in September 1943. Among those 10 was a woman with her small, 7-year-old son. The child was very much afraid of death, he was cuddling up against his mother asking "Mummy, does death hurt very much?" His mother was crying and explained, "No, only for a little while," and then they were shot. One German took his gun and shot first the child then the mother.

A Ted Chiang quote sums up what I felt at that moment: "People used to speculate about a thought that destroys the thinker, some unspeakable Lovecraftian horror, or a Gödel sentence that crashes the human logical system." That thought doesn't need to be science fiction, though. It's really there, at Hujowa Gorka.

I returned to the Kazimierz District for dinner at Ariel, one of the local restaurants that serve Jewish cuisine. I had the roast beef and potato pancakes. They were filling, but not much taste. The most interesting thing about the meal was trying an Israeli white wine from the Golan Heights. At a nearby restaurant, a trio played Yiddish music, which, oddly enough, included "If I Were a Rich Man" from Fiddler on the Roof.

Saturday, October 5th

After a good night of sleep, I lingered at the apartment to enjoy my coffee. I didn't head out to the National Museum until 10:20 or so. It was a drizzly, cold morning, and I took the bus. The buses in this city were great, as they ran more frequently on weekends than trams and went to more places. Thank god for Google for telling me the right directions.

The museum was a lot less crowded than I thought it would be for a Saturday. I met a nice British elderly couple while in line for tickets. My first stop was Lady with an Ermine by da Vinci, a 520-year-old painting. It was beautiful but not moving.

The museum contained three other important collections. One was modern art. I found a few interesting pieces in that wing, including a massive 2015 portrait of an arm and hand in mid-swimmer's stroke. The artist dedicated it to all the refugees who risked their lives to flee wars in the Middle East.

Second, there was an exhibit on artifacts concerning Jewish family life in Krakow. There was a Torah, dozens of menorahs, and many other personal items. An informational plaque at the beginning of the exhibit explained that prominent Jewish families living in Krakow had donated their collections to the museum in the late 1930s. None of these families survived the Holocaust.

The last collection I saw concerned military history from the middle ages to WWI. Like similiar galleries I have come across, it contained guns and swords from throughout Europe. I always love seeing the pistols, as after the shooter fired, he could use the barrel as the handle and bludgeon his enemies with the reinforced stock. Also, guns were much prettier back in the day (e.g., gold and mother-of-pearl inlay).

I killed 20 minutes in the museum café before walking up the street to Ramen People, which, if the reviews were to be believed, had the best ramen in Poland. Also, ramen is the best food for a cold and drizzly day.

I got there just before the restaurant opened. On the restaurant's window was a sign saying ‘all are welcome' and the pride flag, which I thought was nice considering how gay people are still ostracized pretty heavily in Central and Eastern Europe.

I got a table and ordered chashu ramen and a pint of Kirin. On the wall opposite me was a picture of a tattooed Japanese man lying with his back to the observer. Climbing on his side was his son. In the child's hand was a Godzilla toy. I thought it was a nice touch considering the story of the Wawel Dragon.

The ramen – chock full of seaweed, mushrooms, pork, and a soft-boiled egg -- was spicy and filling. I was legit impressed.

After lunch, I had two options to fill my day, so I decided to do both. I took a bus into the nearby suburbs to visit Stanislaw Lem's grave. Getting off the bus, I had to walk up a one-lane residential road. It was a hike to say the least, and the ramen felt like a brick in my stomach. Even so, the rain was holding off, and the scenery was perfect fall with turning leaves.

Salwator Cemetery was huge, so I had to use my phone to find the grave, which was near the cathedral. It was moving to get to pay my respects. In my notebook, I wrote, "Thank you for inspiring so many of us. -SFWA" before tearing out the page and placing it on the grave.

The long journey back to the city center took me to the Pinball Museum. For 40 zl, you can play all day (they give you a wristband if you want to come back later). And better yet, they also served beer. The place has over 100 machines, and, being Saturday, was packed with locals and tourists.

In one room, I found it: Junk Yard, a pinball machine I had loved playing as a child at TILT in Bellevue. It had been 20 years or more, but it all came rushing back as I started collecting parts that I could turn into a space jalopy and toaster gun so that I could defeat Evil Bob and his dog. I stood there for a good 30 minutes lost in the past. While there, I also played about a dozen other games (including one based off The Who's Tommy. Fitting for a few reasons.), all wonderful. I made plans to return later in my trip at a time when my legs weren't so tired from walking.

Long slog of a walk and tram ride back to the apartment before I crashed with some snacks and a beer. What a great day.

Sunday, October 6th

Got up early so I could catch up on my journaling. Heading off to the Salt Mine at 10:50 and spend the later part of the afternoon bar-hopping in the old town. Wish me luck!

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The bus to the salt mines left at 10:50. When we arrived at the main entrance, it was a crowd, to say the least. At least a dozen other tour groups of at least 30 people were waiting for entry. Thankfully, the museum had excellent organization. Even if a tour group for English speakers starts at 12:00, for example, the group is broken up into smaller groups, meaning that each guide has no more than 25 people to look after. These groups (again, within the larger group) are staggered in 90 second intervals to ensure a more intimate experience, and even if people from the same tour bus are split up, everyone exits within 10 minutes of one another.

Anyway, the first part of the experience involved descending approximately 350 wooden steps in a narrow corridor. It seemed unreal, something out of a fantasy novel that leads to another world. When we reached the bottom (only 1/3 of the way down that we’d eventually go), we began to see some of the smaller exhibits, ones that had been carved in recent years. There was a scene that portrayed the mine’s mythical founding. Our tour guide went to an iPad on the wall and pressed a picture of the British flag, meaning that our audio was in English. Other displays had similar effects. At one point, our guide had four participants turn a spoked wheel that pulled a rope attached to a pully. The pully raised a large barrel. I wish I could have joined in.

At one display, we learned how people first discovered the 30-million-year-old salt deposit. Six-thousand years ago, early humans found streams of salty water bubbling from the ground. They would put this water in clay bowls, let the water evaporate, and use the salt to preserve food. By the Middle Ages, salt was worth more than gold, and miners would use ropes and horses to drag 700-pound salt logs to the surface. After a while, they began breeding horses inside the mine, and horses lived their entire lives there. In many ways, they were treated better than the miners, as they were more valuable to the mining effort. Even after the mine closed in 1986, the last horses lived out their lives there (as there was no way to get them out). The last one died in 2002.

After a while, we approached the large caverns, including the deepest underground cathedral in the world. It was breathtaking. Other caverns, adorned with magnificent cedar staircases, looked like something straight out of Moria. We looked out over many saline ponds saltier than the Dead Sea. Submerged lights gave the water an eerie greenish-blue glow.

Some other notes about the mine. The temperature is always 65 degrees, and after a while, I could taste the dry salt in the air. It had a weird, but not unpleasant effect on my breathing. Also, our guide encouraged us to taste the walls. Yep, it was salty. There was another place where I dipped my hand into a saline stream. Yep, it was salty, too. And besides the sculptures, the floor, too, is carved to look like granite or limestone. You can turn on your phone’s flashlight, put it on the floor, and see the light refract through the salt crystals.

The biggest surprise for me came at the very end. At nearly 400-feet below ground, the deepest tourists are able to go, there was a full-service restaurant with tables adorned with white table cloths. I was legitimately stunned. Bought some small salt sacks for friends and family. And yet the salt mine continued on for six more levels, the bottom of which is flooded. The two kilometers I walked inside represented less than 1% of the mine’s total size.

Getting back to the surface involved taking a miner’s elevator. A hard-hat adorned worker joined me and six other tourists in the cramped metal elevator as we ascended. It was dark, and the cold breeze whipped at us as we rose at tremendous speed.

After dropping off souvenirs at the apartment, I strolled into old town for a duck breast dinner that included puff pastry stuffed with zucchini and onions. The orange dipping sauce was great, too. Finally, I paired this excellent meal with a white wine called Solaris in honor of Stanislaw Lem’s novel. It was dry, perfect for the duck.

Monday, October 7th

Today the weather was the most pleasant of my entire trip, and I took a stroll through Hell.

I queued up with a group of French, Italian, and English-speaking tourists at Straszewskiego 14, just two buildings down from shooting location in Schlinder’s List where Schindler walks out of his flat to see ash falling from the sky. It seemed like an appropriate place to start a tour of Auschwitz.

Oddly enough, I rode the same bus and had the same driver as the day before. The ride out takes 70 minutes, and boasts some of the best scenery I’ve had the pleasure of seeing in Europe - bucolic rolling hills accented with churches, pleasant homes, and corn fields.

We arrived in a parking lot full of at least two-dozen tour buses. We had a short break, so I went to the bathroom (Note: Public facilities in Krakow are impeccably clean.) and bought a small bottled water.

On the bus, our guide had told us that security control was paramount at Auschwitz, and we’d have to go through a metal detector. I worried that my back rods would set it off, but I got through just fine.

We collected headsets and met our English-speaking educator, a museum employee. She took us under the Arbeit Macht Frei sign, which is a replica due to the fact the original was stolen and then quickly recovered in 2009. I think the real one’s on display in one of the exhibits we didn’t see.

Nonetheless, stepping inside and seeing those imposing two-story brick buildings…it was like a hand grasping my heart, not hard, not painful, but there. I think that’s the difference between detachment and reality when it comes to things like the Holocaust. Even if you’ve studied it, seen the horrible pictures and read survivors’ testimonies, you don’t have to face it. But standing inside, you have no other choice.

We visited about 5-6 blocks, or buildings. Each had a different theme. One was about the camp’s origins, which featured a large marble pedestal topped with a clear crystal urn full of ashes. ‘1940-1945’ was written on the base. This memorial was to commemorate the approximately 500,000 people who were killed at Auschwitz for whom records don’t exist.

Another building was the jail, the basement of which the Germans first used Zyklon B gas on 600 Soviet POWs and over 200 sick Jewish prisoners. They didn’t get the dosage right, meaning that the doomed suffered for hours. After that, the prison returned to its original purpose. The condemned where put into starving cells, where they were starved to death. Some cells were only the size of a telephone booth, and four people would have to stand in there until all of them died. In one of the larger cells were flowers and large flickering candles. This memorial recognized a Catholic priest – now a saint – who switched places with a condemned man. The spared man survived the war.

One building contained the possessions of murdered Jews. A room of 40,000 pairs of shoes, another full of two metric tons of women’s hair. The Soviets found the hair in large, compressed sacks. The Soviets did chemical analysis and confirmed the presence of hydrogen cyanide gas in the fibers. Another room full of pots, pans, eyeglasses, clothes, brushes. And this was what the Germans abandoned in the war’s final weeks. For over two years, they had salvaged everything to send back to Germany to aid in the war effort. The hair became soldiers’ blankets, for example.

The last block we visited contained the courtroom where the SS had 10-15-minute trials for prisoners who had conspired to escape or broke other rules. The verdict was always death by firing squad. We walked the same path as the prisoners and outside in front of the Death Wall where tens of thousands were shot. The original wall torn down, the replica was a moving memorial adorned with candles and flowers. Before my tour group moved on, I walked up, turned my back to the wall, and looked straight ahead.

The last thing so many ever saw….

Our final stop at Auschwitz was the only surviving gas chamber in either complex. It was small, only able to kill 300 people every two days. A black granite sign at the entrance asked us not to talk inside. It was dim inside besides the small hole in the ceiling where the SS poured Zyklon B pellets. In the adjoining room were the ovens, reconstructed with the same bricks and metal that the Soviets found when the liberated the camp. Nearby were the gallows where the Poles hanged Rudolf Hoss, the camp’s commandant, in 1947.

I was numb as I handed back my headset and left Auschwitz. After a short break, we got back on the bus and drove the two miles the Birkenau, the main extermination camp. The rail line that brought 1.1 million people to their deaths submerged into the earth just outside the entrance.

We walked under the main gate and along what was once the unloading platform. The track splits into two so there could be a train coming and going at all times. The kilometer-long unloading platform featured a single cattle car. On the lock, a pink rose hung.

The Germans blew up Crematoria II and III in January 1945. Each was 10x the size of the surviving gas chamber at Auschwitz – over 3,600 people per day. Even after 74 years, I could make out the undressing room and gas chamber. Our guide explained that we had come on a special day, as it was the 75th anniversary of when a small rebellion had taken out Crematoria IV, which was in a different part of the camp.

Behind Crematoria II were two settling ponds still full of human ashes. Water covers them now, and four unmarked, dark tombstones face them. After the ponds filled up, the Germans just dumped the ash in the nearby Vistula River.

Between the two destroyed crematoria was a large memorial containing an identical message in over 20 languages. In English:

FOR EVER LET THIS PLACE BE A CRY OF DESPAIR AND A WARNING TO HUMANITY, WHERE THE NAZIS MURDERED ABOUT ONE AND A HALF MILLION MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN, MAINLY JEWS FROM VARIOUS COUNTRIES OF EUROPE.

AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU

1940-1945

Most of the camp was burned to the ground. Only the chimneys and other brickwork remained. Only one significant building was still standing, the Death House. The Germans would put sick women there without food or shelter until the next train came in. Then, the women would march to the gas chamber with the other doomed. Sometimes the wait would last days. Many women simply died on the hard, wooden bunks.

Our guide mentioned that when the camp was liberated on January 27th, 1945, the Soviets found 700 surviving children. When I was a child, I met one of these survivors – he was a classmate’s grandfather who had come to speak to our class. At the time he was only 60 years old.

Getting back to Krakow around 5 PM, I got more than a little drunk, first at the Wodka Café Bar and then at a local open-air night market. Too much good food and drink made for a miserable morning the next day, but still, chemical-induced numbness may be one of the few appropriate responses to seeing so much human misery.

But, to be honest, there isn’t enough vodka and beer in the world…

Tuesday, October 8th

After a lot of coffee and an aspirin, I felt normal enough to get outside and enjoy my day. I had a tour in the late afternoon in Nowa Huta, so I decided to start with the aviation museum that was on the way.

The Polish Aviation Museum had one large advantage compared to the Central Air Force Museum in Moscow that I visited last year: I could touch all the planes. Being Tuesday, the museum was free, and I started my tour outside. Best guess, there were nearly 100 fighter jets, propeller planes, commercial planes, and helicopters. Each informational plaque described how the plane made its way to the museum. There was an American-made fighter jet that had been sold to South Vietnam. When North Vietnam captured it, they sent it to Moscow for study. After the Soviets learned everything they could from it, the plane came to live at the museum. Another American fighter jet had been donated to the museum, as its pilot was Polish American. Finally, there was a MiG-29, which Germany, after reunification, had sold to Poland for all of one Euro.

On the museum’s edge were collections of Warsaw Pact radar systems and missiles, including the type that downed Gary Powers. There was also (I’m pretty sure), a pile of Soviet nuclear bomb casings.

Before leaving, I got the chance to walk inside Pope John Paul II’s personal helicopter, which he had used twice to visit his native Poland during his papacy.

I headed up to Nowa Huta, Communist Poland’s utopian city. Built between 1949 and 1955, it was designed for 50,000 workers, many of them employed at the local Lenin Steelworks. Unlike the commu-cubes of the Soviet Union, Nowa Huta incorporated Polish and French architecture. Although sprawling, its design encouraged small communities within communities.

For lunch, I found an old restaurant straight out of the Communist era. The table wobbled, the food was bad, and the chair stiff. I loved it. It’s so rare to see the past preserved (and not replicated).

Although the steelworks still exists, it’s no longer bares Lenin’s name, but that of a famous Polish metallurgist. The administration buildings at the factory gate were two large, castle-like structures. Identical on the outside, the one of the left was for the plant’s managers, while the building on the right hosted a canteen and other amenities for plant workers.

Interestingly enough, I was the only one on the tour. My guide was a friendly young man who spoke excellent English. , a giant ring of keys in his hand, he took me inside the grand waiting room and adjoining conference room, a place that had hosted Castro, Nehru, and Khrushchev. The marble floors and chandeliers radiated power – exactly what the Communist Polish government wanted to impress on its guests. The large conference room also was the meeting place for Comecon – the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance. From 1949-91, Comecon organized economic cooperation between Communist countries.

The administration building was abandoned in 2015, when the plant’s management – which at that point represented seven different steel manufactures -- built a more modern structure inside the complex. My guide, along with a small caretaker crew, makes sure the building stays safe until its current owner, an Indian business magnate, decides what to do with it.

Descending underground, we walked a 100-meter tunnel to the nuclear bomb shelter. Designed in the 1950s, it was to protect the plant’s senior staff and coordinate relief efforts throughout the sprawling plant and nearby Krakow. What was most surprising was that just about everything still worked, including a telephone switchboard from 1958. The bunker’s good condition stems from the fact that plant workers continued to hold drills there until the mid 1990s. In the main control room was a large map of the plant and Krakow, which highlighted chemical plants throughout the city. Large rings surrounded each plant – a contamination area that would occur if the plant was bombed. One highlight from my time in the bunker was turning the key that would have killed the steelwork’s power - impressive as the steelworks is bigger than central Krakow.

Returning to Krakow’s city center, I had dinner at a restaurant situated at the base of the clock tower I had climbed on my first day. Ate veal and gnocchi while watching horse carriages ferry tourists in the fading twilight. Next to me, a propane heater spouted flame like the mythical dragon that defines Krakow’s medieval identity.

Wednesday, October 9th

Kind of a blah morning, to be honest. One, I was worried about the fire threat and power outages I would return home to the next day. Also, I was just vacationed out. Too much of a good thing all around.

I decided to spend my morning back at Wawel Castle seeing a few exhibits I had missed a few days prior. The sad thing was that nothing inside the castle is original. The Austrians carted off everything in the early 1800s. The modern restoration dates back to the 1930s. Yes, all the pieces inside (e.g., tapestries, furniture, etc.) are original to the Middle Ages and Renaissance, but still, the place felt like a Ship of Theseus – or, in this case, Castle of Theseus. Before leaving, I stopped at one of the castle’s many gift shops and picked up a few souvenirs for family and friends.

Had some pierogi for lunch before returning to the Pinball Museum. There, my day became special. For over an hour, I was the only one there. Downing a few pints of Polish beer, I played Junk Yard to my heart’s content, along with many other excellent games. Having fun calmed my nerves about any potential fires, power outages, or turbulence I would encounter the next day.

As late afternoon descended on Krakow, I took one final stroll through the square. It was so pretty, and I wondered if I would ever return, maybe spend a few weeks renting out a flat in the old city – living like a 1920s bohemian. Who knows. Anyway, my vacation ended the same way it began, with a cheese-less, sauce-less Big Mac and fries. Fortunately, I slept well that night, and there were no troubles in getting home the next day.

Well, that’s it. These last few days have been some of the most wonderful, meaningful, and devastating of my entire life…just as I had hoped.

Thomas Broderick - Founder