I did eventually, hours and much sweat later, get my passport only to have a Polish official take it once we’d crossed that border -- the Polish official’s grooming was not quite so knife edge AND he didn’t bark, so of course, less intimidating. The train pulled into Dworze Glowny station in Krakow during the evening rush hour, a light snow falling onto sooty snow piles. It was only as I exited the station to a dimly lit, gritty neighborhood that I realized I just had no clue where I was or what to expect (gee, duh!). Where would I stay the night? Where would I exchange money (at the time Poland still used zlotys and those couldn’t be bought or sold outside the country)? Where’s the interesting part of town and was I anywhere near it? As I passed a taxi queue just outside the station all the cabbies started calling out to me “Auschwitz, I can take you to Auschwitz.” Well, what a cheery and unexpected welcoming. Of course, considering I’d read nothing about Krakow, everything was unexpected.
As I hustled past the cabs I saw a patch of sidewalk cleared of snow. Painted there was an arrow and the name Hotel Polonia. I took a few more steps, another snow free bit of sidewalk, another arrow for this hotel. I decided to follow figuring, at worst, the hotel is a total dive and I'd keep on looking OR I’d stay at a wicked dive for one night -- how bad could it be?
I got to the entrance around the corner to find an enormous, gleaming chandelier, deep carpeting and a doorman and thought, “there’s just no way can I afford this but maybe I could splurge for one night and find some place cheap in the morning.” After a fair amount of linguistic tango (he spoke no English. I spoke no Polish and his accented German was light years beyond me) we got to what became the norm for the remainder of my stay in the country, charades. It worked magnificently. He showed me the cost for a night, some thousands of zlotys. I asked, somehow, "what’s that mean in dollars." Amazingly, he had the exchange rates. A room for one, breakfast included, WITH PRIVATE BATHROOM (luxury city!) was $15.00 USD a night. SOLD! I indicated that I would like to stay for 4 nights. After settling in I went out in search of a money exchange kiosk, bread, cheese and beer. You know, the essentials.
After a couple of days wandering, I thought I’d take an english language tour of Auschwitz/Birkenau. I know, way cheery and uplifting but I couldn’t be so near what had once been Hell itself and not go. I boarded the van and, after two straight days of charades, mime and broken (OK shattered) German for communication, I was thrilled to hear and communicate in English. Two of my fellow tourists were Peace Corp workers on vacation from the Ukraine, another was a history professor from the University of Canberra. We were all chatty and, now that I think of it, oddly upbeat until we passed through the gates of Birkenau. From the main guard tower Birkenau was a flat seemingly endless,
snow covered lifeless plain. There weren’t even any birds. No book’s description, no movie scene could have prepared us for what we saw over the next few hours.
Auschwitz, strangely, infuriatingly, looks from the outside like a 1940s New England boarding school.
Hannah Arendt’s book came to mind: Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. Though we’d exchanged only a few good words on the bus and had been silent throughout the tour, my new friends and I had formed a bond of sorts. We were herded to the gift shop (!!!) and cafe (!!!) for coffee and a snack before heading back to Krakow. All I could think was -- “yeah right, I’m gonna send postcards from Hell. ‘Wish you were here?’”
Once back in Krakow we decided that a very focused pub crawl was in order and Polish potato vodka was the drink of choice. This, as could have been expected, failed to reboot our happy souls. Spending just a few hours in a place that even Dante couldn’t have imagined took quite a toll. So, we went for a second night of potato vodka fueled pub crawling after which my friends poured me onto a midnight train bound for Berlin.
I got to the entrance around the corner to find an enormous, gleaming chandelier, deep carpeting and a doorman and thought, “there’s just no way can I afford this but maybe I could splurge for one night and find some place cheap in the morning.” After a fair amount of linguistic tango (he spoke no English. I spoke no Polish and his accented German was light years beyond me) we got to what became the norm for the remainder of my stay in the country, charades. It worked magnificently. He showed me the cost for a night, some thousands of zlotys. I asked, somehow, "what’s that mean in dollars." Amazingly, he had the exchange rates. A room for one, breakfast included, WITH PRIVATE BATHROOM (luxury city!) was $15.00 USD a night. SOLD! I indicated that I would like to stay for 4 nights. After settling in I went out in search of a money exchange kiosk, bread, cheese and beer. You know, the essentials.
After a couple of days wandering, I thought I’d take an english language tour of Auschwitz/Birkenau. I know, way cheery and uplifting but I couldn’t be so near what had once been Hell itself and not go. I boarded the van and, after two straight days of charades, mime and broken (OK shattered) German for communication, I was thrilled to hear and communicate in English. Two of my fellow tourists were Peace Corp workers on vacation from the Ukraine, another was a history professor from the University of Canberra. We were all chatty and, now that I think of it, oddly upbeat until we passed through the gates of Birkenau. From the main guard tower Birkenau was a flat seemingly endless,snow covered lifeless plain. There weren’t even any birds. No book’s description, no movie scene could have prepared us for what we saw over the next few hours.
Auschwitz, strangely, infuriatingly, looks from the outside like a 1940s New England boarding school.
Hannah Arendt’s book came to mind: Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. Though we’d exchanged only a few good words on the bus and had been silent throughout the tour, my new friends and I had formed a bond of sorts. We were herded to the gift shop (!!!) and cafe (!!!) for coffee and a snack before heading back to Krakow. All I could think was -- “yeah right, I’m gonna send postcards from Hell. ‘Wish you were here?’”
Once back in Krakow we decided that a very focused pub crawl was in order and Polish potato vodka was the drink of choice. This, as could have been expected, failed to reboot our happy souls. Spending just a few hours in a place that even Dante couldn’t have imagined took quite a toll. So, we went for a second night of potato vodka fueled pub crawling after which my friends poured me onto a midnight train bound for Berlin.
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