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I left Krakow yesterday afternoon for Lublin. I once again missed the bus I was supposed to be on and had to catch the next one. :-/ But thankfully, the next one was only 55 minutes later, and the driver let me on without paying for another ticket.
The ride out was mostly uneventful, but I did see out of my window that big church in Kielce. I had seen it during my first ride into Krakow (from Warsaw) but I didn't catch the name of the town, so I couldn't match the church name. Anyhow, I'm retelling my "aha" moment terribly, so I'll stop.
And then here I am, in Lublin. I texted/sms'ed Dariusz/Darek when I landed:
ich bin ein Lubliner.
Hahahahhaa. Ok, i crack me up. I came up with that ALL by myself. But somehow, I don't think Darek thought it was that funny. :-/
Dariusz and his sister, Bita (sp) have been really nice. Dariusz mostly speaks to me in German, sometimes in English, and I reply mostly in English, but sometimes in German. Rather funny that our common language is one that neither one of us is native in. Last night they fed me supper of pancakes and we had 3 dictionaries sitting on the table:
polski-niemiski, polski-english, and english-polski. Whew!
* * *
Today we went to see the castle, oldtown, and Majdanek.
The castle museum was closed, but we got to see the church. No photos allowed. The walls were painted inside with biblical scenes. Hard to describe... (this entry is kinda lame, isn't it)
And the oldtown, it's not very big, we walked right through it in about 10 minutes.
And then Majdanek. Oy.
Well. I had no idea what to expect because it's not like Auschwitz, that everyone has already been and written about it. Honestly, I only first heard of Majdanek last year, and I didn't google up before coming on the camp, so everything was new...
Well... It's big. And there was hardly anyone there. We walked in without really seeing a big sign that pointed to the entry or Museum (which I think there should be one) and ended up the top of a ramp that headed downwards a bit, and then ended up at a humongus "PI" shaped monument. It had 2 thick stone/concrete legs, an opening between them that was tall enough for humans to pass through, and a huge tall stone/concreate beam overhead. It was massive. And again, hard to describe. Maybe I should've photographed it, but for some reason I thought sooner or later I would end up at the Museum and I can buy a postcard of it there...
After passing the PI, it was a step flight of stairs down and then a path that seemed lead off into the distance. To our left was grass, to our far left was a forest. To our right was grass, to our distant right were camps (barracks), and beyond the camps was the city.
We walked down the path. There were a few others. Nothing like the crowd at Auschwitz, though, and Dariusz commented that he doesn't understand, why don't people come here, why only Auschwitz. Well, it's because it's not as well known... But why is it not as wellknown? I don't know. :-/
I could see at the end of a path a dome shaped thing. I don't know how long it took us, but it was probably about 10 minutes. When we were approaching the dome, Dariusz took out the dictionary to look up something. Then he pointed to the word, and it was "fate". Then he pointed to the lip of the dome, which had etched in it in Polish (my understanding of the translation):
Let our fate be a caution to you
*shudder*
Then we walked up to the dome shaped thing. Also no photos, because, call me old fashioned or strange, but I feel weird taking pictures where people have died.
The dome shaped thing had 2 parts to it, the roof (the dome shaped thing), and a low circular wall taht's about knee high that matched the diameter of the dome. So between where your knees are and where your head is, it's open air, and then above your head is the lip of the dome shaped thing.
And within the circular wall, you can look in and down, and it is a big mound that looks like gray sand, and from what I can gather, is a mixture of earth and the ashes of the dead.
Then we saw the cremetorium. It seemed like just a small room. There were different sized holes for the oven and Dariusz surmised that the small holes were for children?
A room with what looked like a basin (a table with a shallow lip). For some reason I thought, oh, for holding holy water, like in a church. But when I walked in and read the explanation, it was a table for dissecting the dead to take out their gold teeth.
Then we went to see the barracks. Standard issue. Then into a barrack that had the shoes displayed. But this one isn't a bunch of shoes behind a wall of glass, it was 3 aisles (think grocery store) of cages that were filled with shoes more than 6 feet tall, and you can walk down the aisles between them.
Anyhow... The whole day had a different feel from Auschwitz. Not much more to say. You can see it for yourself.
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Vala
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Majdanek
I borrowed a tape from one of my Polish friends about Majdanek. Unfortunately I have not taken the time to watch it yet, since I am always so busy. Right now I am studying English grammar (heavy) because I have an exam on friday. Everything else is fine, tonight I'm going to teach Icelandic to foreigners (Polish ppl, Russians, one from Zanzbar and one from Litvia) and I am going to feed them with the Polish candy and chocolate I bought in Kraków. Take care & keep in touch. Vala ps. Sorry to know that the underwear don't fit well!