First day krakow & auschwitz
Even as a child, I was a voracious reader. It honestly didn’t matter what the subject, I just yearned to sneak off & lose myself in a good book. I had things I was really interested in as a child that may of been unusual for a person of 8, 9 ,10 years old. Egyptian archeology was a big one. I would imagine myself as Cleopatra in ancient Egypt & I remember reading eagerly about her & Marc Anthonys trysts. I read anything I could get my hands on about ancient Egypt & going to see the pyramids was a really big deal for me.
World War 2 history or anything to do with the German Nazi’s & the holocaust was another passion to read about. I’ll guess that I’ve read 50 books on War history, mostly to do with Hitler & the extermination of the Jews. I read the book, The Diary of a Young girl, Anne Frank’s Diary, when I was roughly 8 years old & it never left me…the feelings that Anne wrote about, I could only imagine what that would have been like. I was so angry that they finally figured out her & her family were hiding in the the house & sent them to Auschwitz…I bawled like a baby about it. I visited the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam many years ago & was solemn for a long time afterwards. Little Anne was such a hero to me…her little girl thoughts memorialized through her diary. I started a diary shortly after reading hers & continue it to this day.
So, when I was planning this European hiatus, I compiled a bit of a list about where I really wanted to go & what I just had to see, & of course Auschwitz was on the list.
When I was going to leave the UK, I honestly didn’t know what to do or where to go exactly. I faltered. I doubted my decisions & thought I might be done altogether. The UK blew the bank. I didn’t feel especially cultured or challenged afterward & I was really tired. Was I going to fly to Prague & bum around there a bit & make my way down to Krakow to Auschwitz, or to hell with it & just fly to Portugal or maybe I should housesit in the UK some more. Bletch! Decisions!
But, one morning I woke up extra early…maybe even from a dream, & I grabbed my phone & booked a Whizz Air flight to Krakow…booked an Airbnb & booked a tour to Auschwitz. Problem solved! Off I went, bloody early from London & because of a scheduled train strike, $150 CAD shorter in a taxi. Send money!!
I arrived in Krakow & felt like I needed to wash my hair & bath for an hour. When I got to my Airbnb & realized I hadn’t learned a friggin thing about cheap accommodations, & jumped in the hot-cold-nothing-inbetween shower, made it quick & dashed off to find some groceries & just walk.
God, it’s gorgeous here. Not at all the “eastern block” industrial city vibes I was expecting & everyone is fairly friendly. LOL. My Airbnb host sent me a million great guide tips & I ended up walking through the city park to an authentic Polish restaurant that was packed with people. Instead of a bread basket on the table they brought pickles & cabbage…yay! I ordered a salad & perogies, cause why TF not & of course a dark beer. The waiter was flirty/friendly & I loved him, but not his teeth, so I left a decent tip & made my way to Rynek Kleparski Market…the most famous & oldest fruit & vegetable market in the city.
The market is very local & the prices were right on…lots of fresh farm things & loads of farm cheese…the best being “Oscypek”, which is a smoked salty cheese made of sheep’s milk which pairs perfectly with BEER! Whoop whoop! I bought some fruit, cheese, yogurt, farm fresh butter & a dark loaf of bread. Then, I passed by an organic health food store & grabbed fresh juice, which wasn’t cheap but my old saying when I was buying whatever I wanted rang through my head, “in with a dime, in with a dollar”. I was long over budget from the UK binge, but there are things to cheap out on & I never thought food was one of them.
After slogging the groceries three blocks I suddenly hit the wall & was absolutely exhausted & just managed to climb the four flights of stairs up to my little room. Like, I-can’t-keep-my-eyes-open-another-minute exhausted. I looked at my watch…4:30 p.m. I put my things away & thought…just a little nap…
I woke up at 7:30 a.m. the next morning :-/
I could barely open my eyes, with a raging headache from dehydration. I managed to slap myself awake, eat, shower, get myself looking presentable & set off to walk to the meeting point for the Auschwitz tour I had booked. Krakow has a big city park that you walk through to get to most things…you can walk on the street or take the scenic route through the park & it was a lovely 20 minute walk to meet Grazyna, the tours host.
Of course I was early, so I dashed into a bakery cafe across the street for a cappuccino & a take-away sandwich to eat later, still trying to shake the headache. The wind was starting to pick up & despite it being sunny, I found myself pulling my sweater around me & tucking my head into my collar. I walked up to the meeting point & a little-bit older couple approached & asked if I was on the Auschwitz tour & we chatted easily while waiting.
I love taking tours for the simple fact that I always meet people & by the end, it’s more than not, a bond for life. Carla & David are from Wisconsin, recently retired & are spending a month in Europe, mostly Germany where Carla’s sister lives. They’ve rented a car & are driving around to see what they want to see in the Eastern Bloc. Happily, David took control of us during the tour & I tagged along with them. The tour guide was fabulous, but she just let us off at the entrance of both Birkenau & Auschwitz & didn’t actually tour us through the buildings. This was actually a good thing as we could see what we wanted & leave the parts we didn’t want to or couldn’t handle going through. It was somber. It was heart wrenching. The sheer mass of Birkenau was mind boggling…it’s an absolutely massive compound. I’m not going to delve into the whole thing…it’s better to read a history book about it as if I get something wrong I’ll look like an ass, but I’ll tell you this...
There are very, very cruel people in this world & the atrocities committed in the name of politics or religion or race/color/creed makes me want to scream & never stop. I cannot imagine doing these things to anyone. How did they sleep at night? How did they have their own children? How did they get up in the morning, see their children off to school, kiss their wives & head off to exterminate people…put people to death in the most violent & cruel way? How?
Carla had a complete breakdown at one point. She couldn’t stop crying & physically she was sweating buckets. I tried to hug & console her, but she was leaking body fluids like a geyser. I often wondered if I had experienced Auschwitz in a past life, but I had no deep revelation like she had. I was somber, but it didn’t break me like it has many other people that walked through the remnants of this nightmare. I was, however, absolutely exhausted afterwards & slept most of the 1.5 hour trip back into the city.
Once we touched feet on the busy streets of Krakow we said our goodbyes, exchanging social media addresses, I decided to order an Uber to take me back to my flat. I really am cautious about walking around at night & I didn’t have my bearings in this city yet. Once dropped off, I popped into my little room quickly to grab my iPad & dump some contents of my purse out & then headed out for pizza & beer, which is where I sit right now. The day washing over me. I wonder if I’ll dream tonight.
