We made it to our hostel, but we're off a day on our reservations, so we didn't have a room reserved for that night. They had a nicer room, so we ended up staying there instead, and then moved the next day. Krakow is a nice city. It wasn't nearly as cold as I had been thinking it was going to be. (Somehow, Poland always seemed the coldest place we were going to visit. Not true it turns out.) Cold yes, but coming from Prague, we did just fine.
We didn't really know much about the city, (really just the city close to Auschwitz) so we didn't have much of an agenda. On our map was marked the Wawel Castle, and I read a bit about it online. Turns out there is a legendary dragon there where you can go see his cave, and a statue that breathes fire. So we headed that way. On our way we bought a new money pouch and cameras. We were very excited. I got pretty much my exact same camera, and Amanda got one she had been thinking about buying for a while. Because of the exchange rate, we got a good deal.
At the castle, we went a bit picture happy (and that really hasn't worn off much). We were disappointed however to find out that the dragon area is closed all winter long. So I didn't get to see it. The castle itself though is interesting. Lots of different styles and building materials. We found our way to the apartments, which are three stories of stone arches, with another story on top of that. There were many buildings and courtyards. However, without a guidebook, we don't have a whole lot of information.
After the castle, we went to the Market Square. Most of the booths are closed because there aren't that many tourists there right now. But we did find a few fun things. There are dragon toys everywhere because of Smok, the dragon. Also, amber is really big there, so I got some earrings. Amanda was looking for a Polish hat, but we didn't find one to our expectations.
We did find an amazing church however. You have to pay a bit extra to take pictures inside, so we decided we didn't want to do that. But after going in, we changed our minds. It's really beautiful inside. The walls and vaulted ceilings are all painted blue with lots of gold gilding. There are elaborate statues and carvings and a giant alter which displayed the story of Mary. Eventually we found our way back to our hostel. We had soup and a sleep and were ready for our tour to Auschwitz the next day.
We watched a movie about Auschwitz on the way over which was really interesting. Then we went on a tour. We started at the actual Auschwitz camp, which although holds the famous name, isn't really the famous camp that everyone thinks of. That's Auschwitz-Birkenau. The actual camp of Auschwitz used the old army barracks, and housed mostly Polish and Soviet prisoners at the beginning.
It holds all the museum pieces, from hair brushes to shoe polish. I've seen the pictures of the shoes left there before, but it was something else to really see all the different shoes, and imagine what your shoes would look like on top of that pile. To see the remains of the glasses, knowing that these are just the ones that hadn't been sent on, and not everyone wore glasses. They have a display of the hair that was left, hair cut from the people after they were gassed. So much hair. And this is all that was left there. All that was left after they had made cloth from most of it. It's really incomprehensible to think of how many people really died there.
At least 1 million people were killed there. So many Jews that they never bothered to register the ones that were going straight to the gas chambers. You're standing in a group of 20 people, looking in the first gas chambers that killed an insufficient 500 people at a time, so they had to build ones that could kill 2,000 at a time. And even then, too often it wasn't enough. People had to wait in certain blocks if they were sick or couldn't work until there was enough room for them to be sent on.
Something I had never realized until I visited there was how even if you were part of the 30% to pass selection and became a prisoner, you weren't supposed to live. It was just a postponement of the death sentence. Most of the prisoners didn't live longer than three months among in the conditions of the camp. And they weren't supposed to. Because there would be a new "shipment" of Jews, so there had to be room for the new healthy ones. To be put in Auschwitz, even as a prisoner, was to be put in a camp made for killing. It wasn't a labor camp like some of them. Everyone there was intended to die.
They walked every day under a sign that said "Work Makes You Free." It was a complete mockery. The only freedom came from death. Standing in the watch tower at Buirnau, you look out over barracks and train tracks. Tracks that pass through the Gate of Death, where if they survived the trip to get there, some lasting as long as 10 days without food or water, they faced judgment and either an immediate or postponed death. Barracks as far as you can see, originally the size of a stable for 52 horses, holding over 1000 people each, crammed and ever being refilled by more and more train loads.
I was disappointed we didn't get to see the locations of the famous gas chambers or crematoriums, or the memorial that stands there now. Our tour didn't go there. We did see the rooms used to punish people. The Suffocation Room, where there was only a little hole for air, and if too many people were in there, they would all suffocate. The Standing Rooms, where four people would be placed without being able to sit all night, and then have to work the next day, for days or even weeks. Or the Starvation Room, used when someone escaped, they would pick 10 or 20 others to starve. One priest volunteered to go in the place of a younger person, and he survived the 10 days of starvation, only to be taken out and shot. Horror after horror. I still can't really wrap my mind around the amount of people killed there. They say 6 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust, but that number is so uncountable. Each one of those 6 million is an individual, a person with a story.
I'm glad I went. It was sad, but I'm glad. We got to see it in the snow. In fact, it was snowing that day, quite hard at times. It made you understand a bit more what it would have been like to stand out during role call for hours without all the coats and hats and scarves we were wearing. They caught the first commandant and he was hung on the grounds. They never caught the doctor who did the medical experiments.
[Vienna] That night, we caught our first night train. We wanted to go to Vienna (Wien). The train was going to Praha (Prague), Wien, and Budapest. The only car we could find that was going to Wien was a first class car. So we got on a different car, and found there were two other girls trying to do the same thing we were. But no one seemed to have a clue the best way to do it. We started our trip and tried to ask the conductor, but he didn't really speak English.
I kept dreaming we were missing our train. Then, at one thirty, one of the girls from before woke us and told us the train was splitting and we needed to get off. So off we got, and were standing at an empty station watching them split our train. The first class car took off, leaving the Prague half behind. We stood in the snow, hoping we hadn't made a mistake getting off. But then, just a few minutes later, another train arrived, head to Wien. We thanked the girls profusely and got to sleep the night away.
So this morning, we arrived in Vienna at 6:30am. We stored our luggage, and decided to head out and explore. (The other girls were going to breakfast and then to get a city tour bus.) It was freezing. I am becoming an expert on different kinds of cold. This wasn't the horrible unbearable cold of that first day in Prague, which froze your face and legs, and viciously cut through all your layers. This cold focused on your extremities. My fingers were frozen as soon as I took them out of my pockets. (We have discovered fingers in pockets stay warmer than fingers in gloves.) And my toes turned into popsicles. I was wearing two pairs of socks which I think actually made my feet colder. Also, I was wearing my tennis shoes. My boots, as ridiculous as my brother may think they are, keep my feet toasty.
We got to see the sun rise over the city. It was a quiet Saturday morning. We got an all day tram ticket and decided to ride around for a bit to find which places we wanted to explore more. We got out a number of times, and walked around. We saw the library and the parliament building, as well as a few churches and other famous buildings. The city in general is very pretty, covered with statues and fancy molding around the windows. It was better after the sun came out. We did stop for a while and got coffee, and met two teens who were going to a state ball that night. They were taking waltzing lessons that afternoon, and would get to dance the evening away in the same room as the Austrian Prime Minister. We were a little bit jealous. Have fun kids! (They asked us how old we were, and when we told them, I think they were rather surprised. Everyone seem to think we're about 19 years old.)
We got to watch the sun go down on a train to Graz where we'll be staying with a friend of Amanda's grandmother. Nearly there, so I should go.
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