Brom goes to the castle

Coocoo

Over the last few days we stayed in the Polish city of Kraków. It's not as big as Prague was, but it is still very beautiful. It is a lot more cozy as well because it isn't as big. After our visit to Auschwitz on Wednesday we had our first little tour of the city with a very nice guide called Pawel. He showed us the Old Town. 

The Cloth Hall in the center of the square in Kraków

He told us a bit about the history of the city and why it was built where it was built. He talked about King Casimir and Jan Matejko who we had to remember, because he was the person who fought to keep Polish culture and tradition and Pawel (or Paul) wouldn't have spoken Polish if it hadn't been for this Jan. 

Gera and the pigeons

Then after our tour to the salt mines yesterday, Mara contacted Pawel again for another tour. This time through the Casimir quarter and the Jewish quarter within and the Jewish ghetto. He showed us some more churches, explained about Poland and Lithuania and showed us the Jewish quarter.

Some of 'Schindler's List' was filmed here

We got out several times to see things a bit more up close, like one of the last remaining court yards within the Jewish quarter, the inside of a plain church (Corpus Christi Basilica), which was stunning and near the Schindler Factory. Pawel was able to tell us a great deal. He was very happy as well, because he had been told he spoke good English and could now become a tour guide at the salt mines! 

7 saints of Poland, third from the right is Pope John Paul II (who is not yet a saint)

At the end of our trip we asked where it was 'good eating' and he dropped us off at a really fancy restaurant that served Polish/Ukranian food. Yesterday's yum was Mara's dessert. Mmmm...

I know I said castle, but GET ME OUT OF HERE!

Today we had several options. We could go and visit the museum of Schindler's factory, or do a walking trip through town or go to the castle. I voted castle and Mara and Gera thought that was a good idea! We did several tours. We saw the jewellery and pretty things, we saw swords and guns and canons (not good, I am a pacifist you know). Then we tried to find the dragon. 

I can't see any dragons

Before anybody could build the castle, they had to slay the dragon first! I didn't think that was very nice, but I do like castles a lot as well... We didn't find him down below, but outside there was a dragon. And he breathed fire! Mara jumped almost a meter when he started doing that, which was very funny. 

I didn't want to be too close to its mouth

Then we got a tour of the castle grounds. Our guide explained a bit more about the history of Kraków and then showed us the gardens and where the king had to walk before taking a bath and where the queen lived and what view she had. It was very interesting and we were able to connect some of the dots between the different stories we heard.

The last remaing bit of wall of the Jewish ghetto

We went back to the hotel early though. Mara and Gera are quite tired after so many days outside and they have to do some repacking and finding out how to drive tomorrow. Because tomorrow we are going to Hungary!

Yum!

Brom licks the wall

Coocoo

After yesterday's tour, today's tour was completely different. Because today we went underground! And not just to the basement of somewhere, but deep down into the earth. The deepest was 135 meters below the surface (about 443 feet). A very long way down! 

It was salt, I tasted it!!

We walked down a lot of steps. And I mean a lot! Like 800 of them. Or perhaps more, because Mara lost count after only 40-something. The first level was only about 60 meter below the surface and there we were told about the mines. Which were very special mines, because they didn't produce coal or diamonds, they produced salt.

We weren't allowed to touch King Casimir, so please don't tell anyone!

We walked on the salt, the walls were made from salt and the ceilings as well. Everything was salt. Apart from the wooden struts that were everywhere, because without them, the mines would collapse! But it was even more special than that.

I think this is Clumsy

Some of the miners thought it was not enough just to hack at the salt, they decided they could make figures out of them. And not just tiny ones, really really big ones! I saw a king and dwarves and a Mr Goethe, knights and a princess and the best of all: two churches! Made of salt!!!

All the dwarves at work

It was beautiful. My favourite were King Casimir and the dwarves. They were just like the ones from Snow White, but the guide said women weren't allowed to work in the mine at all, as it was considered bad luck! It wasn't until the 1970's that the first women were allowed to work in the mine as tourguides. And we had no bad luck at all with our lovely guide.

The church

The second church we saw was also the best of the two. There used to be salt everywhere, but once they had cleared the salt from that 'room', it was a big room and a total of 3 miners made the church. 

The Last Supper

They carved the reliefs in the wall, the statues, everything. It took them 68 years, but they had to work on it after their normal job. 

Me in a guide's uniform!

Because we were so deep underground, I was quite worried for all those people: how were they going to get back up? But there were some lifts and they were really funny. First they were tiny. We thought four people to a lift was enough, but they squeezed in another five! 

See: 135 meters deep!

And when we went up, we heard chattering all the way. When we got back to the surface, we saw there were three lifts in total, one right on top of another! How brilliant!!

Yum!

Brom follows Anne

Coocoo

Do you remember Anne? I wrote about her a few days ago, when we went to visit the first camp she was sent to after they were discovered in the 'Achterhuis' in Amsterdam. As I said, she and her family and her other housemates left on the very last train to leave Westerbork and were sent to Auschwitz.

Auschwitz I with its brick baracks and high voltage barbed wire fences

There were three areas in Auschwitz. The original part or Auschwitz I, where mainly Polish nationals and Russian prisoners of war were held, but also Jewish prisoners. They were basically forced to work and starve, since especially the Russians and Jews were viewed as sub species. But it was in this camp the first working gas chamber of the area was made, using Zyklon B.

Entrance to Auschwitz II (Birkenau)
The train entered through the gate under the tower.

Auschwitz II (Birkenau) was the main Jewish camp, which became known the world over as the extermination camp. Several large gas chambers and crematoriums built especially to eradicate the Jews of the world. And then there was Auschwitz III (Monowitz) which was built especially to house workers for the IG Farben factory, since the main camp was too far from the site. Plus there were about 45 bigger and smaller subsidiary camps in the area, most catering for the industry. 

The 'station' on the right hand side.
Selection took place right where the group of people is.

When Anne and her family left Westerbork on September 3rd in 1944 they were put into cattle cars and together with about 1,000 other prisoners they travelled for 2 days before arriving at Auschwitz II (Birkenau). As soon as they got off the train they were forced to make two lines: men and older boys on one side and women and children on the other side. Anne could probably not even say goodbye to her father, before he was forced to stand on the left, while Anne and her sister Margot and her mother were forced to the right. 

'Planned' for 7-8 people to a bed, but it was more common for more, anything up to 20.

Most of the prisoners who arrived were killed within 1 hour of arrival, but Anne and her sister and parents were 'lucky', they were deemed fit enough by the doctor to work and they were sent to the camp instead of to the gas chambers. Father to Auschwitz I and the women stayed where they were. 

Twins got 'special' treatment. Here two 15-year old Polish girls.

It must have been strange for Anne to enter the barack where she would spend her time. Instead of a bed, there were bunks, the lower ones being on open ground. Sharing with a lot of other women and girls, sometimes so many that if one person turned, all the others had to turn as well. 

An original drawing on one of the walls in a washroom at Auschwitz I

There were lice and fleas, other creepies and rats as big as cats, that fed themselves on the dead and even on the living at some point, because they were too weak to fight them off. After a short while Anne developed scabies and was put in the scabies ward, which was separated from the camp by a high wall. Margot went with her. That was probably the last time they saw their mother, because only 6-7 weeks later a train left for Bergen-Belsen and it is very likely Anne and Margot were on it. Their mother died in Auschwitz II in January 1945.

Count the towers going off to the right. They just seem to go on and on!

Seeing the site for ourselves was incredible. Seeing the documentaries and films doesn't prepare you for the sheer scale of Auschwitz II (Birkenau). Most of what is standing right now are chimney stacks, but even then it is mind blowing and scary. Eighty percent of people arriving were killed within an hour of arrival and never stood a chance. 

Write your name on your luggage, so you can get it back after the 'shower'
Of course they never did and the contents were sorted and sent to the Reich..

Mothers and children, old people, the handicapped and everybody the 'doctor' thought was not fit enough for work. And even if they did survive that first hour, sleeping on the cold ground, living on meagre rations, being worked to death, being forced to stand in the cold for hour upon hour killed many more. 

Two chimney stacks to every wooden barack

As with Westerbork I didn't want to be in any photo and felt sorry especially for all those children who never got the chance to cuddle a teddy, to go to school, to swim in the river and to enjoy their childhood the way they should. 

Polish teachers and doctors, locksmiths and farmers.

Brom on the road again

Coocoo

Today we were back in the car. Mara and Gera were quite happy with that (both having blisters from all that walking), but I could easily have stayed in beautiful Prague a bit longer. But, Mara says the new place we were traveling to was beautiful as well, so I guess it's okay.

I think I have the best view

First we had to find our way to the motorway. Because we haven't got a nice man or woman telling us where to go (no gps), we had to do it by the book once again. Fortunately we could check it online and we were fine. 

Wang (or Vang) Stave Church

Our first stop was in Karpacz. We thought we had taken the wrong road at some point, but we were too impatient, so we had to go back and continue on the road we were on in the first place. 

Isn't it lovely?

Karpacz is a town in the South of Poland and we went there because Mara had seen there was a Norwegian church there and she wanted to see it. We finally made it to the church and it was very beautiful. 

No, I didn't take a bite out of the tower...

The people who had rebuilt it after it was taken down from Norway and brought to Poland, hadn't understood what was supposed to be on the in- and outside, so some parts were wrong. But it was still very beautiful. We went inside as well and there were dragons carved in the wood.

A little piggy at Meissen

After that they had a small lunch of sausage and drink (I'm a vegetarian don't you know and they didn't do cakes) and then we drove on. To the hotel in Kraków. It was a long way on the motorway and quite boring as well. Large fields that stretched into the distance and almost completely flat. Fortunately after a while there were some hills and it became prettier. 

On the Charles Bridge in Prague

Mara and Gera were worried about the road though, we had to pass a big town (Katowice) around rush hour time, but we hardly saw a thing. And we made it to Kraków in good time. Almost right on the dot. It was a bit scary with the road signs though: would we see them in time? Plus it was difficult to read the Polish: so many letters!

Mara, which river is this?
The Vltava or Moldau Brom!

But we did and we made it to the road where our hotel was supposed to be. Where it wasn't! However, Mara knew it was and Gera made us turn around at the lights and drive back and there was the sign to the hotel.

Waiting for a tour to start

Since Mara didn't take that many photos today (she was the designated driver), I will show you some more from our trip so far.

Hello!