Poland is such a huge country compared to the rest of Eastern Europe. We did not really want to visit Warsaw but had to stop there for a night after a 8 hour night bus from Lithuania.
It was not bad, I expected a huge dodgy concrete city with only old people and a sign saying everybody else has gone to London please switch the light off when you leave....... but I was pleasantly surprised.
We had sunshine which was a bonus and the city was quite modern and leafy.
The next morning we were off again to Krakow, about 3 hour south of Warsaw by train.
Bow chica wow wow............... Now this is the place to be. I guess nobody in London would think of visiting Poland as it does not seem to have the chic appeal of Paris or other city breaks but Krakow rates up there with most. It has the biggest square in Europe 200m by 200m, which is really impressive.
Our hostel was OK not much of a hang out spot but close to everything.
The old city is quite small and has loads of places to eat and drink, and apparently the council has
A roseA rose left on the barb wire outerfence.
had to treat the cobble stone lanes with a special spray because they were getting destroyed by excessive amounts of kebab fat! (Incredibly good kebab spots EVERYWHERE)
Auschwitz............ it is difficult to write about this place because I don't want to be disrespectful, because it means so many things to so many people all around the world.
We got accosted by a man in the station when we were on the way to buy our train tickets to visit Auschwitz who was basically offering a taxi/guide service, after a bit of bargaining on the price we agreed and got taken there in style in this guys old Merc. The drive was just over an hour and he pointed out all the historical spots on the way.
There are different areas to Auschwitz and the area everybody visits Auschwitz 1 which has been totally rebuilt, it was an old Polish military camp that the Nazi's used as a concentration camp. The camp is made up of loads of block houses and now each block houses different exhibitions about what happened at the camps.
Moving, disturbing and unbelievable.
The sign over the front gate mocking says "hard work
will set you free" and we were told that the guards used to tell the prisoners that the only way to leave Auschwitz was through the chimneys of the crematorium.
The Nazis took photos of the prisoners before they started tattooing them (as means of idenification) and some of these photos are now displayed in the halls, with the names of the prisoner, when they we placed in the camp and when they were killed/died.
Mel and I did not find one person who had survived more than one year in the camp.
If Auschwitz 1 was not bad enough we were taken to Auschwitz 2 a huge concentration camp that was only half finished and stretched as far as you could see. The prisoners of Auschwitz 1 had built these camps to house hundred of thousands of prisoners. The Nazi's were defeated before they completed the camp and burnt it to the ground when they fled, so that all that remains are the brick chimneys.
So a dark day but it had to be done.
The most moving thing for me was a story our taxi driver told us: he said he had once taken a man
Aushwitz 2The Germans burnt the camp when they fled. Every chimney was in a building that housed hundreds of prisoners.
to see Auschwitz and when he dropped him off he asked the guy if he needed 3 or 4 hours like everybody else to see the place. The guys asked him to wait because he would be back in 5 minutes. When he returned 10 minutes later he told the taxi driver he was ready to return to Krakow.
Confused the taxi driver ask if he did not mind explaining why he only stayed 10 minutes. The man replied that his whole family had left Auschwitz through the chimneys, and his whole life he wanted to visit so he could enter Auschwitz and leave through the front gate.
Sorry for this downer blog entry, but it had to be done............
Ken x
The camp planThis shows how large the camp was and it was only half finished
SuitcasesOnly part of all the things taken from the prisoners.
Poland's Flag
Map of Poland