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Published: August 16th 2009
Poland quite simply has amazed us. I think it was because we expected so little. We expected the bleak and the poor. Quite simply I have to hold my head in shame that I was so incredibly wrong.
We had said goodbye to our friends and Berlin and as we would say we were just back to being "team GB" as we set off on the 6.5 hour drive to Sopot. After generally having had such comparatively short drives, and with it being her idea to go there, I think Jo was pretty nervous about where she was taking us. We had read the review - a lively resort and golden sands - surely it couldn't be so bad. The drive itself was beautiful - a vast country full of beautiful nothing - ploughed fields and trees were the majority of the scenery, the occasional small village and lots of old cars to get stuck behind and fantastic new ones to whizz by you on a single track road up a hillside!
The reality of Sopot was far beyond expectations! The beach stretched over three towns and whilst many books will write about the importance of towns like the
nearby Gdansk (the first shots of WWII were fired just near here) we were there to sneak in a little holiday from our hectic schedule and didn't do any sight seeing! The resort itself was so new, stylish and big. It was everything you could want in a place to relax - and that was before the golden beaches that stretched out as far as the eye could see and more than once made me think that I was in the Truman Show!
Each evening we walked down the immaculate footpath by the sea down to the town, lots of people were rollerblading or cycling along, families out for walks and once again we felt very very safe. It hadn't been our image of Poland and as we passed the Grand Hotel (where Hitler once stayed) and saw a beautiful wedding reception taking place in the perfect grounds it really made us think that it was time to review our image of this country!
After 3 days of sweet nothing we were fully recharged, and slightly brown, just ready for our trip down to the capital Warsaw. From what we'd been told and from the guide book to
a certain extent we would have skipped Warsaw if the distances involved hadn't been so huge. I'm just incredibly grateful that we didn't. Again, I think that it was the 'low billing' the place had got that gave us both the space to love it; and we did!
As usual we arrived in the afternoon and set up our camp (and a nice new airbed). Given how Poland sits quite nicely in our budget we were heading out for food and caught the bus into town. We landed at the station end of town with the only major landmark being the Palace of Culture and Science - it was a
gift from Stalin to the people during the Communist era and quite simply has proven too large for them to dismantle. It's not unsightly, just a symbol of a time gone by, a symbol that isn't representative of the Polish people of today. Jo had a good sixth sense that night and we walked from here directly to the main area for food and to the Royal Promenade which leads to the entirely rebuilt old town. It was all quite simply fantastic. We barely spoke for people spotting as
we ate dinner and as we walked and admired all the buildings and the street entertainment near the old Royal Castle we were entirely captivated. The perfect evening and a good nights sleep for a full days exploring the following day.
As Berlin, Warsaw was a bizarrely quiet place on a Sunday. I wanted to visit the one remaining, untouched street that formed part of the Jewish Ghetto - ul Prozna. It was so powerful to see what we could only guess were bullet holes in the brick. On some of the buildings were hung pictures in sepia tones of the people who'd once lived there. I also quite liked that they hadn't made a fomal memorial site of it. The street was still living and breathing and had on it a coffee shop where I had quite simply the best cappucino I've ever had and I found a copy of the 'Warsaw Insider' (the local English language listings magazine). There was an article inside that described a new game you can play there. It's called the 'Warsaw Enigma' - the game provides you with a pre-war map of the city and lets you 'discover' the location of where
long since razed palaces etc. would have existed. I was to be interupted from this reading by a loud bang - a car came down the road and charged into a lamp post. Jo was quick to comment how the road had survived Hitler only to be destroyed by a BMW driver!
As we walked around the old parts of town that have been pain stakingly rebuilt since the war I pondered that it's not Warsaws fault that it looks like the Trafford Centre - all perfect and lacking the moss and slight cracks that would offer the honesty of age. I decided that the game had the perfect title for the city - an enigma - there's a history and a city that can no longer be seen.
From this Enigma we would move onto Krakow a city that may possibly have been
too discovered by tourists.
Krakow in brief, for us both, was over billed. The Cathedral Wawel is beautiful and imposing and offers sublime views over the rivers and the city. The main square was everything we imagined it would be, and, maybe that was just the problem - the city was everything that
we had imagined. The campsite was our best yet though! There's always something good to be said - we are living the dream after all!
From Krakow though we made the important day trip to Aushcwitz and Birkenau - the two camps that together were responsible for the deaths of approximately 1.3 million Jews, Poles and people that didn't fit into Hitlers final solution. We were silent from about 20 miles away as we drove towards the place. I felt something I can only describe as trepidation and pushed a packet of tissues into my pocket.
The first thing that struck me was how incredibly peaceful the place was. This wasn't only because it is now treated as the largest cemetery in the world, but because it was originally an army barracks, and with that there is a peace and order to the buildings, a symmetry.
We saw cells where people had been goaded into dying. It was torture, and that was long before the gas chambers were built (the place opened in 1939 and the gas chambers were built in 1941). Four people were put in a cell only a square yard and forced to stand
all night and then work all day, it was only a matter of time before they died. Much of the other things I knew that I'd see - the photos, the huge pile of hair, cloth made from human hair, spectacles etc. What I wasn't prepared for was the sheer amount - and these were only a small representation. They were all behind glass and sometimes the reflection of the light more than once made me believe, made me
want to believe that the quantity was a trick of mirrors. It wasn't of course, there was no attempt to exaggerate these events here. The building itself had been titled 'Material Proof of Crimes' as if it needed proving - but there are of course the sick people that still deny it. The hair, shoes and cases all covered an area roughly of a badminton court - again, a small representation.
We walked through the gas chamber itself at Auschwitz in sober silence, made fitting with a few wreaths and candles. I can't even describe what that experience was like.
After that we went to Birkenau, only a mile or so away and saw what a 'death camp' looked
like. This camp was built solely for bringing people to their deaths. At one time there were 68,000 people arriving per day - I don't think Old Trafford holds many more than this. There are no words or pictures that will describe how big the place is and make it real. That the place was once bustling with the most horrific of activities. The gas chambers at the rear are now ruins as the fleeing Nazis attempted to cover their tracks - there were four of them that could fit several thousand people in at at time. This was where our visit ended. Sober yet grateful we made the 20 minute walk back to the front of the camp with the final words of our tour guide in our head and the sobering thought that without vigilance these things could happen again - Hitler came to power at a time of economic crisis, of weak government and of a people looking for someone to blame.
"First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me."
The Polish people have to me appeared friendly but shy, and Poland has been hard to get to know. I think this is only defending a culture that has survived far more than its share of knocks. That they can create a game that parodies their vanished city, a bustling bright resort and an ancient, tourist ridden old city. The Poles have at times needed the help of other nations - but is there really a country that has made it through the years without needing the support and expertise of another? The Polish are a people that have never given up and, considering with were unsure of what to expect we doubled the time planned for the country - I think that says it all!
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Jennifer
non-member comment
Wow!
Wow! Wow! and double Wow! That was really moving. I can only imagine how eerie that must've been. What an experience xxxx