Krakow & Auschwitz

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I used to last day of my inter-rail pass to get from Prague to Krakow. Trains are cheap in Eastern Europe anyway but it ended up being a pretty good deal. 5 days travel for €159 got me from Istanbul-Bucharest-Budapest-Poprad-Prague-Krakow! I paid about €14 extra this time to get a bed. I’ve had enough of sleeping on the floor of trains for the moment anyway. I actually ended up with a really comfortable 3 berth couchette to myself. Typically the one time I’m sleeping somewhere comfortable the train arrives on time and at 6 in the morning!

The way the train pass works if you take an overnight train is you only mark the date you arrive. So in the unlikely event you can stomach any more train travel you can take any other trains the morning you arrive for free. I’d slept pretty well that night so I dropped my stuff at the hostel and headed off to Oswiecim to visit Auschwitz.

It doesn’t matter how much you’ve read about Auschwitz a visit is guaranteed to shock you. Entire rooms filled with shoes, brushes, children’s shoes and even two tonnes of human hair hammer home the scale of the horror. It’s not just the numbers who died, but the ruthless efficiency applied to the whole process. Human hair was sold to make textiles, gold teeth melted, ashes sold as fertiliser and people’s entire possessions categorised then distributed to the German people.

Visitor numbers have increased significantly in the past few years so it’s no longer possible to enter Auschwitz I on your own, you have to join an organised tour which includes a visit to Auschwitz II (Birkenhau). I probably wouldn’t have done one otherwise but it was really worth it. Auschwitz I is where the exhibits have been set up and some of the barracks are open and in very good condition. Birkenau was the site of 2 massive gas chambers and was largely destroyed by retreating .The remaining brick chimneys give an idea of how massive the camp once was. The camp was the epicentre of Himmler’s final solution.

It’s not exactly a pleasant experience but it’s somewhere absolutely everyone should have to visits.
The next day was slightly less morbid. I spent the day wandering around Krakow. The old town’s pretty compact: main square, Cathedral and the castle are only a few minutes away from each other (thereby ticking off the essentials of a European city). Wawel castle is really striking and the main market square is the largest medieval square in Europe.

Slightly further afield the Jewish quarter is rather dilapidated and there are a dozen or so silent synagogues. A reminder if it were necessary of the brutal effectiveness of the final solution.

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Comments

[Beata and Tomek]

Aww ;-) The city of 1000s Churches;-)