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Published: March 10th 2015
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Out of all the places that I have been in my life, there is one place that I never really had much desire to go to; and that is Poland. However, after spending a few days there in February, my opinion of Poland has changed a lot. I really enjoyed it. As we had been in Budapest before Krakow, we had to take the night train from Hungary to Poland. We all had these childish fantasies of staying up all night on the train playing cards and rough-housing. When we stepped into our room which was about 5 foot wide and 6.5 foot high, we realised that we were not going to be doing this. All six of us were in this tiny little room, and cramped is an understatement. We all had our luggage with us, bags of food and drink, and our big coats to fit into this compact space too. I thought it was going to be a nightmare of a journey, but it happened to be one of the best bits of the trip. Around 10pm, we turned off al the lights in the room and all lay down the end of the beds facing the window.
We put some nice relaxing music on, and watched the stars out of the window. It sounds like one of those corny clichéd film scenes, and I suppose it was, but it was really cool. I think we all eventually just fell asleep as the train rocked us to sleep.
OK, so first things first, Poland (or Krakow) has some really beautiful buildings. The main square was really cute, and it wasn't what I was expecting really. Whilst we were in Krakow, we went on a really interesting tour of the Jewish town, or where the Jews lived before You-Know-Who (and no, I don't mean Voldemort) had them all chucked out of their houses. We then went to where the Jewish ghetto was. I was really disturbing to think that, a street that is now rebuilt upon, which has nice high-rise apartments and car parks, was seventy years ago a prison for thousands of the Jewish people living in Krakow. I couldn't, and still can't, get my head around how it all happened, and how it continued for such a long time. The tour also took us to places where Steven Spielberg had filmed scenes from Schindler's List. It
was all in all a great tour.
We also took a trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau whilst we were there. It's a weird topic to talk about, because when people ask you, "How was it?", I find it difficult to answer. It was in no way at all pleasant. Being there, seeing what happened there, on the grand scale that it did made me feel sick. However, I can't deny that it was one of the best parts of the trip. It disgusts me a little to say that, after all the people went through, but the awful history behind it is so intriguing. There were times when I felt that it was too much. For example, when the tour lady explained the system with children; that anyone under the age of 12 would immediately have been taken from their parents when they arrived and killed. How that one man decided whether or not the people getting off the trains arriving would have to work themselves to death, or die immediately. Entering the room where all the hair shaved off of incoming prisoners was kept made me want to cry. It is something that, even when you are there and are seeing the evidence of what happened, you cannot believe. A lot of people were taking pictures as we went around, but I just felt that this was not necessary. I took maybe two photographs at the start of the tour, but then I realised that I didn't want to have these pictures. Although Auschwitz is now a museum, a reminder of what happened in the past, I didn't want to treat it like a museum. I feel that is a lesson, and that everyone should visit one of these places, to show what one crazy person can achieve if we let them.
Luckily after leaving Auschwitz, we took a trip to a salt mine, and it was the best. I wasn't really keen about this, but when I got there; wow. These incredible sculptures and a whole church carved into the salt walls. If you are ever in Krakow, you should definitely pay it a visit. You're also allowed to lick the walls and floors- which is a salty little bonus.
All in all, I had a great time in Poland I would happily go back there again. Although it has a really sad history to it, it still strikes me as a fun and happy place. I hope to write my next blog post about the Fatherland, as I have neglected poor Germany blog posts for quite a while.
Bis bald, James
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