Exploring My Polish Roots in Kraków

Dzień dobry, Poland!

 

What an adventure it was to explore my father’s hometown! I was not sure what to expect when it came to Krakow, but I was not disappointed. Poland was my favorite location we have visited so far for several reasons, and I wish we could have spent more than 3 short days in Poland.

 

May 22

Most of Monday was spent traveling form Paris to Krakow, Poland. We began the morning bright and early with a flight from Charles de Gaulle International Airport (which was highlighted by a sighting of an A380 landing and a Concorde proudly on display by the Air France hangar) with a short layover in Brussels, Belgium. Then it was on to Krakow, giving us an arrival time around 3pm by the time we got into town. Our first order of business was a site report about the Bloodlands, which included most of Eastern Europe during WWII, and the atrocities that took place in this region. The day was concluded with a trip into the old town square of Krakow, which absolutely took my breath away.

After entering through an old brick arch, I was met by a wide street of shops and restaurants, which then led to the town square. The town square was a bustling center of activities, ranging from breakdancing street performers to horse drawn carriage rides to diners enjoying the views from the various beer gardens. I was immediately struck by the humble beauty of this town, – its historical architecture and lively atmosphere gave it a personality unlike any other city I’ve ever experienced before. Here, it was not hard to imagine my father as a child, running around the town square with a obwarzanki (Polish pretzel) in hand, exploring the market, the church, and everything in between. Beau, Natalie and I decided to dine al fresco in one of the beer gardens in order to experience Krakow in the best way possible. We enjoyed a classic Polish dinner of various pierogis, paired with a large class of Zweicek (SP?) beer.

Better yet, we got to return to the Puro Hotel, which is the crown jewel in the assortment of hotels we’ve stayed at during this trip. The rooms, sparkling clean and refreshingly chic, were controlled by tablet and boasted features such as heated bathroom floors, color changing LED accent lights, a LCD flat screen TV (with English-speaking channels!), fluffy plush beds, touch-control temperature displays, and a toilet that actually flushed. In comparison to the hellhole that was the Ibis hotel, we had found ourselves in an urban Polish oasis, and to this day, we still cannot praise the Puro hotel enough.

That night, a group of us decided to go out and explore the Polish nightlife in downtown Krakow. We ended up at an underground club, where we proceeded to dance the night away with locals and other fellow travelers. As much of a bonding experience as we had in Bayeux chatting and snacking by the pool, I am now a firm believer in the notion that you truly don’t know someone until you’ve seen them dance. That being said, I now have a profound respect for some of the people on this trip that, up until now, had seemed fairly unassuming about their ability to cut a rug.

 

May 23

Our first full day in Krakow began by attempting to navigate the city by way of the tram system. While not as foolproof as the subway systems in previous cities, the tram was reliable and ultimately got us (close enough) to our destination, the Schindler Museum. Having never read the book or watched the movie (Schindler’s List), I had limited information on what the museum would actually be about. I was surprised to see that the museum was not about solely Oscar Schindler’s factory and his covert Jewish rescue operation behind it, but more about the history of Krakow as a whole. It covered the time periods from the formation of Poland, mainly focused on the post-WWI government and diplomacy of Poland, and how the German invasion in September 1939 affected Poland and, more specifically, Krakow. It was a very reading-heavy museum, containing more plaques and signs than it did artifacts and objects. While they were interesting to read, after a while it got very tedious, and I soon found myself either skimming the signs or just skipping some of them altogether. My favorite aspect of the museum was the way it was laid out. Each section of the museum was themed to fit the time period, and showed the progression of events in Krakow’s history. The Nazi Occupation Room featured several massive Nazi flags and banners, multitudes of Nazi propaganda posters, and a floor made entirely of tiles covered in swastikas. The room really gave you an immersive experience, which was all too telling of what it must have felt like to be under Nazi occupation, constantly surrounded by a very omnipotent presence. The Jewish Ghetto room was meant to emulate the feeling of being trapped inside the Krakow ghetto during the Nazi occupation. It featured a gravel floor, barbed wire fences, and a stark white lights, illuminating the bland, off-white walls featuring pictures of the actual ghetto. This atmosphere was meant to represent the bleakness of existence within the ghetto, and it was not hard to see how being trapped in an environment like this would rob people of their hope for a better future.

After the Schindler Museum, we had short break before our next meeting back in the hotel. During this time, Beau, Natalie and I took it upon ourselves to complete the “Bucket List” of destinations in Krakow that my dad had sent me. Such locations included the Wawel Castle, the Wawel Dragon statue, the Sukienice Market, and the Kosciol Mariacki church.

Thankfully, we were able to see all of these landmarks because the city is so easy to explore on foot. The architecture was incredible in both the Kosciol Mariacki and the Wawel Castle, and the Sukienice Market was teeming with people hunting for the perfect souvenir from the local vendors.

My personal favorite was the Wawel Dragon because dragons have been a favorite “animal” of mine for as long as I can remember, and I was delighted to discover that not only did the statue breathe fire every few minutes, but the mascot of Krakow was a dragon, making souvenir shopping for myself very easy.

Later that day, we had a group meeting in the hotel to discuss what we had seen on the trip thus far and what we had taken away and learned from each of the locations we had visited. I was once again impressed with the thoroughness in which my classmates were able to answer extremely thought-provoking questions and the depth in the lessons they took away from each of the locations they visited. It was interesting to see how each person interpreted the museums and cites we visited, and it introduced me to perspectives that I never would have imagined on my own.

The day was concluded by a quest to find the highly coveted Polish delicacy called gołabki for dinner. Being a personal favorite of mine, I was dead set on finding the most authentic gołabki in town. Based on the recommendations of a local waiter from a previous restaurant, a group of us visited Chopin Restaurant, which he claimed to have the best gołabki in Krakow. Upon ordering, we were dismayed to find out that the restaurant was sold out of not only gołabkis, but pierogis as well. I could not believe that a self-proclaimed authentic Polish restaurant was sold out of not one but TWO of the most quintessential Polish dishes. Brokenhearted and dejected, we left and began the quest for another Polish restaurant that served gołabki. Thankfully, good gołabki is not hard to find in Krakow, and we soon found ourselves wandering into an unassuming little restaurant called Polski Smaki.

I knew we had found the perfect place when I walked in and was immediately hit by a smell that instantly reminded me of my grandparent’s kitchen. I approached the counter and nervously asked if they served traditional gołabki with mushroom sauce, and I was soon presented with a steaming plate of two large, meaty gołabkis smothered in mushroom sauce. One bite and a dash of Maggi sauce later, I was in heaven. I won’t say that they were better than Grandma Stella’s homemade gołabki that my brother and I were basically raised on, but for the equivalent of $4 U.S. dollars, they came pretty darn close.

 

May 24^th

Our last day in Poland was a heavy one. We visited the concentration camp of Auschwitz –Birkenau in the afternoon, and for one of the very few times in my life, I found myself absolutely speechless.

To say that this visit was a powerful experience would be an understatement, and I still feel that the words to describe this place do not exist. We arrived around 3:30pm for a guided tour around Auschwitz I that would then continue on to Auschwitz II – Birkenau later in the day. Auschwitz I, at first glance, did not strike me as the foreboding, evil place that it once was – it was oddly serene there, with the tall trees swaying in the gentle breeze and the birds singing in the wooded backdrop. I was struck by how quiet the camp itself was – there was no outside noise aside from the birds, and it seemed as if the camp itself were a skeleton of a former living entity. We toured some of the reconstructed barracks that had since been turned into exhibits to display various photographs, maps and dialogues. The enormous gravity of the place struck me once I entered the “Evidence” building that housed artifacts of the victims that were recovered from the camp after the liberation. One exhibit chilled me more than any others: the seven tons of human hair that were recovered and on display in a massive case along the length of the room.

The guide explained how this hair was removed from the victims to be used in the production of textiles and cloths by the Germans during the war. To see these tangible human remains made it real to me: these were people, and even this massive amount of hair was not even close to representing the total number of people killed at that camp. I was shaken, and found myself walking through the rest of Auschwitz I in a bit of a haze. The trip inside Crematoria I, the only remaining crematoria left intact at Auschwitz, was downright disturbing in every sense imaginable. I wanted to get out as soon as I walked inside, imagining the tiny, dark room filled with living, breathing, people, which would then become suffocating, dying people. Although this experience was disturbing, I think it was necessary for people to experience that atmosphere to truly understand the gravity of the entire Auschwitz I complex and the atrocities that took place there, and how it has affected history ever since. To be standing in the location where so many innocent people lost their lives at the hands of evil leads one to understand why people must prevent any such type of evil from ever arising again.

We then transferred to the Auschwitz II – Birkenau camp, which was built as an addition to the original Auschwitz I camp after the order for the Final Solution was implemented.

The first thing that caught my eye was the infamous main gate, referred to as the Gate of Death. Surrounding the gate, miles of barbed wire fence, once electrified to deter any possible escapees. Upon entering the camp, I was at first shocked to see that there was not much to see. Most of the wooden buildings had been burned down and the crematoria had been blown up by the Nazis before they abandoned the camp. All that remained were the brick barracks, the guard towers, the train tracks, and the brick chimneys from where the wooden barracks once stood. They ranged as far as my eye could see, and sit was eerie to see their skeletal remains looming in the distance. The entire camp was silent – it was like standing in a vacuum chamber, with nothing to hear but the wind blowing through the old buildings, a sound so lonesome and haunting it chilled me to the bone. Visiting Auschwitz gave me a much better understanding of the operation of the camp and just how much planning the Nazis had put into the systematic extermination of millions of people. Seeing pictures of Auschwitz is terrible enough, but being there, standing on the same ground where 1.1 million people lost their lives, made me truly understand the seriousness of what happened there and connected me to the energy of the location in a way I never imagined possible.

It was as if I could feel the sorrow, pain and hopelessness flowing through the air, much like the way it flowed through the empty, abandoned barracks. It is an experience that was entirely unique, and I still find the feeling it evoked in me hard to put into words. That being said, I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to have gone to such a location, and can say that it truly made a lasting impact on me in a way that I will remember for years to come. I also think it is important that this place remains open to the public so that others may have the opportunity to have their own powerful experiences at this historic location.