14....at last the sun shines!

Before I arrived here several people had said "Oh, you'll like Krakow much better than Warsaw or Gdansk". I was already sure in my mind that Poland had little to offer me, interesting to visit, yes, but nothing that would make me want to stay or return. So, I was wrong, and yes I do like Krakow much better than anywhere else I've been in Poland. OK, maybe it's something to do with the sun shining at long last, maybe it's because the hostel I'm staying in is comfortable, or maybe I've found something here that I was looking for. All I know is, I'd return to this city.

Although the trams and buses and trains are efficient here, the historic centres of the city are small and close together, I can walk it all without too much effort. So I have, starting with the area I'm staying in the Kazimierz, the heart of the old Jewish community (not the ghetto, that was on the otherside of the river to here, near one of the work camps)

Unlike in Warsaw, here much of the old city and of the Kazimierz survived without serious damage, as a result there is an atmosphere here that was missing there. As I walked through the streets and squares of the area it was clear that it was once home to a sizable Jewish population, not as large as Warsaw's but active in the life of the city. The Kazimierz's "New Square" is still an active market place (although there are plans to "redevelop") Home to fruit and vegetable stall, meat and dairy products sold inside the circular central building, with thriving Polish style fast foodstalls busy every lunch time. On various days of the week it serves as a flea market, or rag market, and then it's so crowded you can hardly move.

There are quite a few surviving Synagogues, although only one is now active. Even an old burial ground escaped here damage, and with it an old, originally medieval Synagogue. The damaged and unidentified grave markers have been used to rebuild part of the wall surrounding the Synagogue and cemetary. Holes and cracks in it's structure now hold prayers and petitions pushed into them, a substitute for the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.

As I walk around the streets I can see that the Synagogues, Jewish Cultural Centres, bookshops, restaurants and cafes in the area all cater for the vast number of Jews of Polish origin who come to this city annually to trace their families, or to those people whose purpose is to try and understand the Holocaust and it's consequences. It's a Judaic Tourism, and whilst in part it serves an important educational function it also brings a great deal of money into the city.

Cafes and restaurants here really compete in their attempts to offer "the essence of the old Jewish way of life" with Klezmer music, and a lot of "shabby chic" furnishings...so much so someyimes you don't know whether you're in a restaurant (like in the photo) or an antique shop...in some it's both. Sometimes it can be a little bit overwhelming, and then just when you think it's all too much, something catches your attention, and your throught tightens and there are tears in your eyes again.

Much of Old Warsaw itself is still there, the city walls and it's agte houses, the huge castle, long avenues of baroque facades covering older buildings. And at it's centre the old Cloth Hall, once centre for the guilds and the international trade in wool and linen that helped fund the city. Now it's the tourist hub of Krakow....

...full of State approved (quality guaranteed) souvenier shops. The square around it is bordered by grand multistorey houses, once homes to the rich, now restaurants and cafes for the citys many visitors....

...actually, I find it quite hard to get used to the fact that nearly all buildings here, if not built from wood, are built from brick...even the grandest of cathedrals or castles. It just doesn't always look that way because of the brightly coloured and decorated plaster that covers them. One thing that I've noticed is that varoius versions of Polish national dress make it onto the streets here, worn, of course, by those people wishing to attract the attention of the curious (and free speding) tourist.

Walking down one of the narrow, highsided street, one with no less that four churches in it, I heard music. Not so strange given that the largest of churches on the street regularly holds organ recitals, and this was certainly Bach that I could hear. Then I realised, some of the notes sounded a little thin for an organ, and as I approached the church it was obvious the music wasn't coming from inside the building. Mystified I looked around, and there, sitting on a box, against a wall sat a man, a busker, with an accordian, playing some of the most sublime music. He played church music, he played "Flight of the Bumblebee" he played...brilliantly...to a passing street audience, some of whom stopeed and listened, maybe threw some coins into his bag, most of whom walked straight past without really hearing . When he finished playing I threw in my loose change, not a lot, but all I had left at the end of the day, he smiled, nodded and just started to play again.

I couldn't end my stay in Krakow without visiting it's newest museum. Most of us, in the West, have heard of Oskar Schindler, thanks to Spielberg's film and possibly Kenally's book. At the old Enamelworks factory that Schindler ran an new multimedia exhibition has just opened telling the story. not of Schindler's extraordinary work, but of the city of Krakow, from before the German occupation, through it all up until the end (and a little further, reminding the visitor that Krakow, and Poland remained occupied long after the Germans had gone). There is a little of the original factory left...

and a short film does tell the Schindler story, but then one of the best exhibitions I've ever seen involves the visitor in the story of Krakow, it's people including the Jews...

(if you look closely you'll see the "holy family" is wearing the identifying armbands that the Nazi authorities insisted Jews wore)...and about the survivors. It includes testimonies about things people witnessed, what they did, what others did, and about the choices that people made, both good and bad. It reminds the visitor that under conditions like those in Krakow under such overwhelming pressure people can  and do make choices that can lead to incredible heroism, to day -to-day-survival, or to betrayal and death.

On Tuesday evening I fulfilled a promise I'd made to myself and went to a concert at the Gallicia Jewish Institute.  The venue itself is an art gallery and museum during the day, so they played in waht was once a warehouse (incredible accoustics) with a background of photos detailing the present day remains of Polands once thriving Jewish communities. The band was called Klezzmates. Their music was a skillful and highly entertaining and enjoyable blend of Klezmer, Jazz and traditional Folk music.

One of the things I've done here in Krokow was to visit the university. It's the oldest university in Poland, and also the place where my Father worked and studied. I've made some enquiries, and asked for a search to be done of the archives in the hope that some information will be found about my Father's family...all records in Warsaw seem to have vanished. It was a strange feeling, holding a library card in my name to the library which holds books by and about my Father.

13...Auschwitz / Birkenau

I've decided that all I can really do is tell what I observed by the photos I took, and a few words to explain. I can't do more. The enormity of what happened there at these twin camps is not to be comprehended....and yet it must be, so that we can ensure it never happens again. Not by looking back and bewailing the past, but by creating a future where it is entirely unthinkable that human beings should act this way ever again.

The gate that leads to the original camp..."Arbeit macht frei"..."Work makes one free"

The original brick built barracks in Auschwitz, conditions here were better than in the wooden huts in Birkenau. The barracks had originally been built for the Polish Army before being taken over by the Germans, initially to house Polish political prisoners (all the intellectual, political and religious leaders of Poland at the time the Nazis invaded).

Having been told that they were being moved to "the East" to work, people brought posessions with them in bags and suitcases (one of these is labelled M.Frank, Holland, possibly belonging to Margot, sister of Anne)

 Everything was taken from them, most was sent to Germany for the second hand market, what ever didn't go there was stored. Shoes, both for adults and children...

....Glasses, toothbrushes, plates and cutlery...if it was brought in peoples luggage then it was stored. As were items removed from the dead. there is a room in which there is a mass of human hair, tons of it, destined for use as fabric.

Once stripped of posessions, those few who survived the selection process and were chosen for work were issued with their camp uniform (the odd marks in the photo are reflections in the glass behind which the clothes are displayed)

Men and women were kept in seperate barracks, with fences of barbed and electrified wire between them.

There were watchtowers at regular intervals around the perimeter....

...security was very tight, only around 180 people managed to escape from the camp, mostly from work details outside the walls. Those people selected for work were systematically brutalised and starved until they died. On average women and children lived 2 months after their selection for work, men around 4 to 5 months.

The vast majority of those people who passed through the gates of the camp...Jews, Homosexuals, Roma (eastern European ethnic Gypsies...the very same ones being expelled from France and Italy right now), Jehovahs Witnesses, Politicals.....did not get as far as the work parties. They were separated off and told that they needed to wash and be disinfected after their long train journey. Having removed their clothes they went quietly through this small doorway (just as we did on our way in, although we knew beforehand what we would see)...

...around 1000 people at a time crowded in to a small, dark cellar space....

..in the ceiling there were small openings....

..into which Zyklon B was poured, a crystalline form of Prussic acid, that released a gas which suffocated those people trapped in the chamber.

 It was the same stuff that the German soldiers used, in much lesser concentrations to disinfect and delouse their uniforms and living quarters.

It took some time for them all to die, and for the gas to be cleared out again. Then the Zonder Kommando (a work detail of prisoners) would clear the chamber and begin the process first of stripping each body of gold fillings, watches, jewllery, hair, prostheses, anything that might be of use, before burning the bodies in the specially designed incinerators.

This process was actually too slow and inefficient for the disposal of such vast numbers so that many thousands of corpses were burned on pyres in the surrounding forests. The smoke could be seen from 10km distance.

It became known in the area that the camp was not the work camp it was stated to be, but instead details began to filter through about it's true nature. By 1942 word had been sent to London and the forces fighting Germany about what was really going on at Auschwitz. It was a political decision that kept the camps going until the end of the war...the camps were not a military target, destroying them would not help defeat the Germans, and besides which...it was all probably exaggerated.





Auschwitz 2 otherwise known as Birkenau was opened because the original camp was too small to deal with the numbers of people being brought in from all over Europe. Prisoners came not just from Poland, Russia and Germany but from anywhere where the Germans had invaded...Italy and Greece. They came in railway trucks designed for cattle, some 80 to a truck...

On the platform they were immediadtly divided into those few who were to join work details, and those who were marched straight to the gas chambers (destroyed at Birkenau by Germans as the Russian armies drew closer)

Accomodation for the workers at Birkenau was in wooden barns, open in part to the elements, where people slept in bunks...

...around 20 people to each bed section....

Here at Birkenau there is much less of the structure left standing, just fields full of brich chimneys to show where the wooden huts stood, divided by lines of fencing...

At the end of the railway line that leads into the camp there is a monument to the millions who died in this place...

Yet the place is it's own monument. I asked my guide if she found her job difficult "Yes," she said, "Sometimes it is very hard, but I think also it is very important that we tell people about what happened here"
By preserving it, and by making it available to people to visit, by having guides who know the history, not only in terms of dates and events but of the people who passed through from life to death, this monument to the evil that Humans can do is there to help ensure "Never Again".

12 (I think) ...Inspiring Ice Cream

So, the rain's back , again, and because of the weather I found it difficult to find something to do that would keep mey attention and last a while (as far as I'm concerned walking around shops doesn't give me that sort of satisfaction). What I found was the Gdansk Archeological museum. Not paticularly well displayed, but what there was....! All the exhibits were of finds from Poland itself, and in particular the Northern part. Stuff I'd only ever read about or seen in books......

...like these "face-urns"...

...and amber figurines....

...and a strangely celtic carved stone ball....

There was also a fascinating exhibition about cess pits...yes that's right, fascinating! Because it wasn't so much about the cess pits themselves, more about the things that people had lost down them over the centuries, and what it revealed about their lives.

There was also an exhibit outside the museum itself of ancient carved stele, known as "Prussian Hags"

What amazed me here, and in other museums I've visited in Poland, is that photography (albeit without flash) is allowed, in fact when you go in you are told as you pay your entrance fee (not more than £2.50) that you may photoraph whatever you want!

Inspited by the Archeological museum, and the Amber museum the day before, I went in search of some amber of my own to work with....and I found some rather nice pieces at good prices. Whilst I was hunting through the amber shops ( of which there are many in Gdansk) I met an amber artist called Jan Sygitowicz whose remarkable sculpture of 8 rats....

I'd seen and photographed in the Amber museum the previous day. He's been working in amber now for 40 years, and produces some really beautiful work.

Something else I've got rather enthusiastic about here is a chain of Ice Cream parlours called Grycan. Simply some of the best ice creams and sorbets I've ever tasted, and ridiculously cheap! A giant sugar waffle cone with 4 balls of ice cream / sorbet of your choice, plus whipped cream, nuts, chocolate and real raspberry syrup, AND a large glass of pure fruit smoothie for jsut under £4.00!!!!

My last day in Gdansk was a bit weird, all packed up, but a whole day to kill before my overnighter left for Krakow. So I took the tram to one of Gdansk's own beaches. It made me wish I'd done it before, on a fine day, because when I got there there was a vast expanse of beach, hardly any of the usual seaside stuff, just a few fish bars and not much more. Apparantly during the season it's packed, but the day I was there, maybe because of the weather, there were a couple of elderly couples doing their constitutional walk, one or two mothers with young children, and the inevitable amber hunters. You find these on all the beaches in the area, combing through the debris that accumulates where the tide has retreated. What they find are minute flakes of the stuff, the sort of thing that is put into a small decorative bottle, marked "genuine amber from the baltic" or some similar slogan, and sold for about ten times it's value. I've not bothered to join them, it's backbreaking work, and I prefer my amber bigger than 2mm diameter!

Unfortunately I've got no photos of these beautiful beaches because my little camera (my SLR having been packed away for travelling later that day) decided to throw a wobbly and break down...temporarily, but it's a fault that will recurr, so I'm going to have to hunt for proof of purchase etc when I get home to get it fixed (it may be small, but small ain't cheap these days!)

Travelling in a sleeper car is a very strange experience. The good thing is that I got to lie down in relative comfort, unfortunately, even with earplugs the noise of the train, and the irregular motion and stops meant that I slept poorly. So thirteen hours after leaving Gdansk I arrived in Krakow again, the place where I started my journey around Poland. By the time I got to the hostel I was feeling wiped out and quite unwell, so the rest of the day was lost.

Today, Saturday 18th September was Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Attonement. I visited Auschwitz / Birkenau.......

I'm not yet ready to write about that. I got back tonight exhausted physically and emotionally. I'm going to need a day or two to sort out my feelings. Until then, Shalom, Peace be with you.

11......return ticket to Hel(l)

It's taken a few days to get online again ( that's what happens when the hostel you're staying in doesn't have wifi!) Since last writing I've seen a lot ...done a lot, not slept as much as I should have!

After leaving the shipyards I returned to the centre of town where I stumbled across a sweet shop with a difference...they made their version of "seaside rock" in public, so I watched the process with interest..free samples an added enticement...

...then, of course, I HAD to buy some (but only to bring home as presents, not for me to eat!).

On Sunday the day dawned bright and warm. By 10.00am when I reached the upmarket beach resort of Sopot (think Brighton meets Cannes) it was already 23degrees and warming. The town itself shows a clear art nouveau influence , although there are occasional more modern buildings...

...this one based on illustrations in a book, and the occasional sculpture. The one that I liked best was that of a fisherman and his catch, suspended above the street on a wire, the statue and his catch act as a counterbalance so even in high winds he stays put!

 The resort has long stretches of cream coloured sand, a shallow sloping beach shelf that makes it ideal for children, but not so good if you really want to swim.

By mid day the temperature had reached 30 degrees (water temperature was 17 degrees, cold at first but then very comfortable for lounging about in) The gulls floated lazily overhead.

The water was flat, hardly a ripple in sight, and somewhere, not so far north of where I was sitting was Russia! As the day progressed, the town got busier, and a group of Happy Clappers set up on the pier, and kept going for five hours. Of course, as the crowds increased, the gulls became more opportunistic..

...encouraged by people who were quite happy to feed them.

The increase in numbers also meant that short cruises were on offer on a fake (very) pirate ship. It offered a chance to get out onto open water and enjoy a little bit of a breeze. Cormorants were fishing nearby,

and there was a massing of jellyfish just a little way offshore. There was also an enterprising wedding photographer shooting a couple on a boat!

The following day I bowed to the pressure of smelly socks and sweaty tee shirts, and tracked down somewhere to get my clothes clean. Not an easy thing  in a city where everyone seems to have a washing machine, not one launderette! I ended up having to pay for a service wash at a laundry and dry cleaners....that was one thing that was NOT cheap! But at least now I don't stink...no, and neither do my clothes!

My first impression of "Old" Gdansk was that somehow I'd been transported back to Amsterdam...

...finding out a little about the history, this wasn't too surprising, there were many cultural and economic links between the two cities and states for many years. The city is an odd mix of buildings covering the period from 1450 right up to the present day.

 

 Not all of it blends harmoniously, and the constant cobbles underfoot are a real pain in the feet, legs and hips! There are constant reminders that this has always been a seafaring city, with an economy based on the trading that goes with that.

One thing that one cannot escape from on the streets is the Amber trade. The coasts here have been the base for the collection and trade in Amber and in the cereation of beautiful objects made from it since prehistoric times. There is a museum here in the old Torturers Tower (the stairs are still torure).

The displays cover everything from raw amber, amber with inclusions, ancient artifacts.....

....historical works of art....

and modern jewellery....

and contemporary works....

I already loved amber as a material, but what I saw in this one small museum made me realise that what I had known about it until now was nothing compared to what can be, and is being done with this wonderful fossilised resin.

In planning this trip I couldn't help noticing that near to Gdansk was a peninsula that stuck out into the Baltic. In places less than a kilometer wide, it stretches out covered by dunes, forests and fishing villages. Not so long ago it was a restricted area for miltary use. But now it has been opened up again. Where Sopot was upmarket, this is definitely, down to basics. And it's irresistable, asking for a return ticket to Hel (OK so there's an L missing, and the Poles don't get the joke)...actually it's well worth the three hours journey from Gdansk...although I could have done without the screaming kids, and the three school groups of teens that got onto the two carriage bendy train.

A word about trains here...when will they discover that if they build a platform high enough one doesn't have to climb up waist high steps to board the train?

Once arrived, one quickly realises the dominant smell is that of fish....smoking! And there, right on the pavement in front of me, a mobile fish smokery.....a good sized portion of smoked herring for £1!

Windswept, and with the weather becoming increasingly less inviting, I decided that I would enjoy looking, but definitely NOT swimming.....

...but I did take another boatride out into the waters that lie between the peninsula and the mainland. In the distance one can just make out the faint silhouettes of the cranes and chimneys of the Gdansk shipyards. Or turning the other way, a good view of Hel itself.

But the sky was getting cloudier by the minute, and the sea choppier....and when it started to rain as we reached shore, I decided it was time to return to base.