Prague 2, October 26, 2017

October 26, 2107 Prague 2 Day 25 of trip

Good breakfast and then set out for the Prague Castle. Unfortunately, I got on the wrong tram line. I did not realize the mistake until we did not make the turn to go through Republic Square. We got off and then got back on in the other direction to go to the Jerusalem Synagogue which is in a residential neighborhood a few blocks from Wenceslas Square.

Unlike the synagogues in the Jewish Quarter (I planned to go there but there wasn’t the time) this is an active synagogue, albeit with a small congregation. It is very colorful on the outside and is a weird combination of Moorish and Viennese Art Nouveau architecture. There was an exhibit on Czech American Jewish relations in which one of the pictures showed several visiting American rabbis. One of them was the rabbi in the Bronx who officiated at my bar mitzvah. This synagogue was recently restored and was built in 1905-06 to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of Emperor Franz Joseph’s rule, who was relatively liberal and tolerant of Jews.

We then boarded the Green Line Metro again and  rode three stops across the river to get to Prague Castle. The Castle is up on a hill and dominates the Prague skyline.  Rather than climb the steps and experience a 30-minute climb, we boarded the #22 tram, but we initially went in the wrong direction. After reversing direction, we got off at Prazsky Hrad, (“Prague Castle”) across from the Castle’s main entrance.

The Prague Castle is not just a castle, it is a sprawling complex that encompasses a wide range of buildings, institutions comprising Czech power and sights. For more than 1000 years the leaders of most Czech institutions have ruled from this complex. It was almost overwhelming and hard to figure out which things to see and which tickets to purchase. We had to decide among the top church, the former royal palace and an assortment of art and history museums.

Entering the complex through Castle Square we observed the hourly changing of the guard by very stiff soldiers. We proceeded through several large stone gateways passing through the first courtyard until we emerged into the large second courtyard.

We purchased a limited combination ticket and passing on the St. Vitus Treasury, we went into St. Vitus Cathedral.  This is the Czech national church where kings were crowned, royalty buried, and the crown jewels were kept. The ubiquitous St John of Nepomuk has his tomb here. There are two soaring towers and a nave that goes on forever. The main attraction here is the Mucha Stained Glass window, created in 1931 which tells the story of the Czech people and nation.

After exiting the cathedral, we entered the vast third courtyard and were greeted by a granite obelisk. It was built in 1928 to celebrate the 10^th anniversary of the establishment of Czechoslovakia but broke in transit. Perhaps fitting since the nation only lasted 75 years before it split into two countries.

On the right side of the courtyard is the Old Royal Palace. We had decided to pass that and instead entered the Story of Prague Castle Exhibit located in the cellars of the Palace. This was a terrific exhibit not only of the history of the castle, but also of its kings and more broadly the history of the Czech and Bohemia nations. Plus, it had good English descriptions. The next stop was the Basilica of St George. This is one of the oldest structures in the castle dating back to the 12^th century and was originally constructed in 920 by Wenceslas’s dad. Opposite this structure was the Institute for Noblewomen established by Maria Theresa to educate aristocratic, but impoverished woman.   

After passing some residences for soldiers and craftsmen, we entered Golden Lane. This is a picturesque, winding crooked street with lots of little houses that formerly housed servants. Kafka briefly lived here, and they were occupied until WWII when the Germans took over. Now they contain displays of the “olden” days with medieval torture, metal working and pub exhibits. There were also lots of gift shops.

We were then funneled down a tight, stepped corridor and through a fortified door that spilled us out onto a scenic rampart with a commanding view of the city. A good picture spot. Then we walked down a very long stairway to a tram stop which took us back across the river to Republic Square. There we had some beer and sausages from street vendors before going to the Museum of Communism.

It is housed in new quarters on the second-floor nest to a MacDonald’s. It tells the story of communism in Czechoslovakia from its origin, the dream, the reality the nightmare and finally the Velvet Revolution which wiped it out. As you get off the escalator that takes you to the entrance to the museum’s exhibit, you are greeted by a giant Red Star. The exhibit starts in 1918 with a brief description of the establishment of Czechoslovakia largely through the efforts of Tomas Masaryk (there is a statute of him in Washington DC.) and his friendship with Woodrow Wilson and its weak and divided structure encompassing many minorities including lots of Germans. That lead to the Munich Agreement (the Czechs call it the Betrayal) whereby Britain and France abandoned Czechoslovakia to Hitler who ultimately overran the entire country (except for some small portions that were given to Hungry by Hitler and grabbed by Poland.) Communism came after WWII when Czechoslovakia was “liberated” by the Red Army (although Patton’s US Army initially occupied the western part of the country and could have taken Prague but was held back in deference to our Russian allies per the Yalta Agreements.). The communists won a plurality in the 1946 elections and two years later pushed the foreign minister out a second story window and the democrats out of office.  Rigged elections were then held and the country became a one-party state. There were exhibits on communist economics, “they pretended to pay us, and we pretended to work”, propaganda posters, everyday life under communism and a spooky interrogation office. There were lots of protests and a big exhibit on the Velvet revolution. I found it to be a very interesting exhibition and we stayed until closing at 8.

Then we walked over to a restaurant near the Estates Theater. It was in a basement and we had a heavy Czech meal. Took the tram back to the hotel.

Jerusalem Synagogue

Outside Prague Castle

First Courtyard Prague Castle

Mucha Stained Glass

Charles Bridge Tower from Prague Tower

Entrance to Museum of Communism

Prague Day 1 Oct 25

October 25, 2017 Prague 1 Day 24 of trip

The overnight Krakow to Prague train departed almost exactly on time. We were escorted to our cabin by a steward. The cabin was small, but functional. Bunk beds, a sink and a luggage compartment. The toilet was down the corridor.

While riding in Poland the tracks were not very smooth, the train generated a lot of noise and seemed to move at a reduced speed. However, at some point, presumably when we crossed into the Czech Republic the train picked up speed and there was less noise and bumps from the tracks. The upper bunk was narrow, but the swaying of the train gradually put me to sleep and I was rested when the train began to slow down outside of Prague. The porter brought us a cold, but substantive breakfast and hot drinks about 6:30 am.

We arrived on schedule in Prague’s main train station on the east side of town at about 7:00 am. It took a while to find an ATM to get some Czech currency but after that since we were unsure where to go and dragging luggage we got into a cab and rode to The Three Crowns Hotel in the Prague 3 neighborhood at Cimburkova 28. This was a little bit outside of the Old Town area, but located between a tram and bus line that would take us downtown in less than 10 minutes.  

Fortunately, our room was ready, and we went up to the fourth/top floor to find that we had a spacious room with a large bathroom.  After showers and a brief nap, we went down for breakfast. The hotel had a wonderful, expansive breakfast buffet.

We then began a search for a DHL office to mail some documents needed in the USA for the closing of the sale of my spouse’s late father’s business. That proved ultimately to be unsuccessful notwithstanding the assistance of the hotel concierge. We walked about a mile up a hill to what we thought was a DHL office, but it did not exist. Finally, we found a Czech post office. We paid a pretty penny for delivery (it never arrived in the US.)

We then took the Metro a couple of stops downtown to Staromestska. That dropped us off in a modern business center a few blocks away from the Old Town area. The Metro is modern and efficient. I was told that all Prague residents pay a monthly transit fee and then ride for free.  Our ride was cheap by western standards.

We walked into the Stare Mesto, Old Town, area which is centered around Old Town Square. The Square was bustling with activity and surrounded by interesting structures. The old town and the square date back to the 10^th century when a marketplace and settlement grew up on the east bank of the Vltava River that was part of the Great Moravian Empire. The 13th and 14^th centuries were an extended period of prosperity and power for Prague when it became the center of the Holy Roman Empire (neither holy nor Italian, but powerful) culminating in the rule of Charles IV, who among other things built the bridge that bears his name. Alas the 15^th century witnessed the beginning of disastrous religious strife and intolerance that began in and ultimately devastated Bohemia, but eventually engulfed most of Europe in the Thirty Years War. Jan Hus was the Czech lands foremost, and one of Europe’s earliest (he preceded Martin Luther by over 100 years) Protestant, Christian reformers. Like Luther he criticized the practice of selling indulgences and that landed him in the Pope’s black book.  In 1410 he was excommunicated and that lead to efforts by him and his followers to rid themselves Roman and foreign authority. In 1415 Hus was invited to a conference to recant his views with the understanding that he would be granted safe passage. He attended, refused to recant and was burned at the stake. He was about a century too early.

His followers, the Hussites, kept fighting for two centuries, ultimately storming Prague’s Town Hall and literally tossing several Catholic councilors out upper story windows, “defenestration”, and although they met with initial success, they were ultimately defeated which opened the door for the Austrian, Catholic Habsburgs to come in. Austrian power was solidified in 1620 when they prevailed over the Bohemian and Moravian nobles in the battle of Bila Hora (“White Mountain”) where the rebels were brutally crushed. That ushered in 300 years of Austrian rule.

The square has a large monument in the middle honoring Jan Hus and his followers for their efforts to free the country from Austrian rule. The faces of his followers seem bitter. However behind the Hus statute are a mother and child, symbolizing the rebirth of the Czech nation. Just off the larger square is an area named after Jan Palach a university student who in 1969 set himself on fire in Wenceslas Square to protest the Soviet invasion. On the memorial plague his face has a ghostly death mask.  

Looming over the square is the twin Gothic spires of the Tyn Church. It is topped by a golden image of the Virgin Mary made from a melted down Hussite chalice. Although very impressive from the outside, the interior was heavy and dark. There was a ticket office in the Church for concerts and we purchased tickets for a concert later that evening. We watched a Swedish street performer for a while and then walked to the far side of the square to observe the Astronomical Clock. This is housed in the Old Town Hall. The four figures beside the clock represent: Death, a skeleton, Vanity, a mirror; Greed, a Jewish money lender; and the Pagan Invasion, a Turk. The four figures below represent the Chronicler, Angel, Astronomer and Philosopher. On the hour Death rings a bell and inverts his hour glass and then the 12 Apostles parade past the windows above the clock. There was a huge crowd gathered for this event which took about a minute. The clock was built in 1410, but improved in 1490 by Master Hanus, who was allegedly blinded after his work was completed so that he could not replicate it elsewhere. (We heard a similar story about an artist in India associated with the Taj Mahal.) The center of the clock face has a map of the then known world with Prague at the center. On the side of the clock tower are 27 crosses marking the spot where 27 Protestant nobles were beheaded following the battle of Bila Hora. We did not climb the tower, too many people and a steep price, but instead crossed the square and walked into the Tyn Courtyard, formerly called Ungeltu.  This was a very picturesque courtyard. It was established in the 11^th century originally as a medieval fortified hotel with a trading center and a customs office for foreign merchants. Now it houses shops restaurants and hotels. Next to the U Ungeltu shop is the House of the Black Bear hotel whose façade is adorned with a statute of St. John of Nepomuk (Statutes of him are ubiquitous throughout the parts of the Czech Republic we visited, seemingly almost as ubiquitous as Ataturk in Turkey.) He was tortured and then drowned in the river in the 14^th century by the king after refusing to divulge the confessional secrets of the queen, and a bear in chains.   

Continuing our walking tour, we went to the Church of St James, a giant Gothic church that was originally built in the 14^th century and renovated in the 18^th century. Inside it had an over the top tomb of Count Jan Vratislav, a large pipe organ and a shriveled human arm that is allegedly the remains of the arm of a thief which was so tightly grabbed by the Virgin that his arm had to be cut off to escape.

We made our way to the Museum of Czech Cubism. The building was built in 1912, but it still looks modern. From there we went to an open triangle area that was a former fruit market. Now it has lots of restaurants and at the end it has the Estates Theatre which is Prague’s oldest theatre. It hosted the premiere of Mozart’s Don Giovanni in 1787. Alas the interior was accessible only if one attended a performance.  

We walked back through the fruit market along Celetna Street to Powder Tower. This is almost 200 feet tall and was begun to be built in 1475 as one of the Old Town’s 13 gates. The road to Vienna began here. In the 18^th century it was used as a gun powder magazine, hence its current name. It has sculptors along its sides and is topped by a trapezoidal roof.

When we passed through the Gate we left the Old Town and entered a big busy intersection. On our left was Municipal House, a big cream-colored building topped by a green dome. This striking 1911 building is the best example of Czech Art Nouveau architecture. It has an elaborate wrought iron balcony, bronze Atlases holding lanterns and lots of stain glass windows. In 1918 Czech independence was announced form this balcony. The bottom floor houses an Art Nouveau café with impressive chandeliers.

 We then walked into Republic Square. It is a transit hub and is flanked by several large malls and department stores. We had a small bite to eat from street food vendors and then walked back past the Municipal House on a street called Na Prikope where the old city wall once stood. The street name means “On the Moat” and the street lies on the former moat that protected the wall and the Old Town. Old Prague was protected on two sides by the river, crossed only by a fortified bridge, and on two sides by moats and walls. The non-wall side is lined with modern buildings, but we were unable to find the Museum of Communism notwithstanding the fact that we were in the courtyard that the guide book directed us to. In fact, we learned that it had recently relocated to a street off Republic Square.

 Putting that off for the next day, we walked into Wenceslas Square. This is the heart of New Town. Originally founded as a horse market, it now has all the trappings of a modern commercial oasis, department stores and malls, high end chain stores and fast food restaurants. However, the Square has been witness to a lot of modern history. In early 1968 Alexander Dubcek took over the helm of the Communist Party that was headquartered on the Square. He began a reform program, called the Prague Spring that attempted to tiptoe away form the Russians and liberalized Czech society. Alas, that did not last long. As I distinctly recall reading in the NY Times on the subway on my way back from my job as a lady shoe salesman (one of the worst jobs I ever had) in late August 200,000 troops from the Warsaw Pact rolled into Prague and crushed the Prague Spring. The Russian tanks chewed up the pavement in Wenceslas Square and killed 72 Czechs and Slovaks. You can still see bullet marks on the walls of some of the buildings I distinctly remember wondering why the US and western governments allowed this and feeling bitterness toward the Russians and great sadness for the Czech citizens.   Yet 21 years later the children of those citizens brought about the Velvet Revolution that culminated in Vaclav Havel appearing on a balcony in the Square announcing the end of communism in then Czechoslovakia.

Interestingly, while we were there the news outlets were reporting on the consolidation of power of a nationalist euro sceptic ruler who was supported by the remnants of the Communist Party that typically receives about 10% of the vote.  

We then left Wenceslas Square and walked downhill on Na Mustku (“along the bridge” that crossed the moat) which became Melantrichova,  street filled with upscale shops and then the museum of sex machines. No time for that as it was beginning to get dark and we were on our way to our concert.  We passed through the Old Town Square again and exited on to traffic free Karlova Street which was supposed to lead us to the Charles Bridge. However, that street twisted and turned, and the promised street signs did not keep us on track. Karlova is a touristy, feeding frenzy, commercial gauntlet that seemed to have many shops selling Russian artifacts. The only respite from the commercialism on this street was Charles University which dates to the 14^th century and was the first University in Central Europe. Johannes Kepler worked here.

Karlova spills out onto Charles IV Square. He was the Holy Roman Emperor in the 14thcentury who ruled over a vast empire that stretched from the Low Countries in the west to the Balkans in the east. That was the highwater mark of Czech power. He now appears on the 100-koruna bill.   

At the entrance to the Charles Bridge is a huge statute of Charles and a bridge tower. In 1342 a flooded Vltava washed out the existing bridge. Charles IV, a numerologist, decided to build an entirely new, stone structure. The foundation for the new bridge was laid on July 9, 1357 at 5:31 am. Written out in digits this comes out in a numerical palindrome (the same numbers back and forth), 135797531. This remained the only crossing of the river in Prague for almost 400 years.

It was too dark by now for good pictures, but crossing the bridge a crowded, festive structure, we passed many statutes that lined both sides. The most impressive was the one of St. John of Nepomuk, (see above) whose plaque marks the spot and shows how he was tossed off the bridge. When he hit the water five stars, a sign of purity, allegedly appeared. The statutes of Cyril and Methodius, two brothers who arrived from Greece in the 9^th century to introduce Christianity to the Slavs were also impressive. Looking downstream we could make out a huge terrace topped by a giant metronome. This was the site of a 14,000-ton statute of Stalin built in 1955 which preceded two lines of Communist heroes, one Czech and one Russian (Socialist unity). The following day In the Museum of Communism, we saw pictures of it and its destruction in 1962.

We crossed the Bridge and entered the Little Quarter. We passed the Lennon Wall. This was a nothing wall, but after Lennon’s death in 1980 people would spontaneously cover the wall with memorial graffiti at night and the next day the police would paint it over. This was repeated nightly until independence came in 1989. We continued up the hill to the Little Quarter Square which is dominated by the Church of St. Nicholas. Across the square we went into the associated Jesuit college for the concert. It was held in a beautiful hall where we listened to classical music for 90 minutes.

We walked back down the hill and caught the tram back to our hotel. We ate dinner at a small Italian restaurant near the hotel to which we di not return until about 11:00. A long day.

Hus Monumnet

Street performer  n Old Town Square

Astronomical Clock

Municipal House

Powder Tower

Concert Hall

October 24, 2017 Krakow day 3, Day 23 of the trip

October 24, 2017 Krakow 3 and Night Train to Prague Day 23 of trip

Last day In Krakow, but we are not leaving on the overnight train until 10:00 pm and since we cannot leave our luggage in the apartment, we had to store it in lockers in the train station. So, following breakfast we carted our luggage over to the train station and stuffed it into the largest storage lockers we could find. That required lots of Polish coins which I obtained only by purchasing some unneeded, but still eaten food.

Next problem was our night train tickets to Prague. I purchased them in the US but could not print them. Instead we were instructed to provide the address of the place we were staying in Krakow for delivery 3 days prior to the train departure. However, since our Airbnb there was an apartment and the owners were nowhere to be seen, there was no one to accept delivery from DHL. After several frantic phone calls, I found the location of a DHL office just outside Krakow where our tickets were located. So, using some of our surplus zloty we took a cab to get train tickets. That trip was a real adventure since the cab driver did not speak fluent English and I was not sure that he knew exactly how to get there. After several wrong turns we finally found the small DHL office in a small strip mall. We finally got the tickets and drove back without incident through Jagiellonian University to Wawel Hill just on the outskirts of downtown.

This hilltop and its structures embodies a millennium of Polish history and we were told that to the Poles it embodies the Polish nation and is a symbol of national identity. Its great castle was the seat of Polish kings for almost 500 years from the beginning of the Polish state. Even after the capital was moved to Warsaw, the Cathedral remained the site of royal coronations and burials.  

It is now a museum which contains five separate sections, each requiring a separate admission. We climbed the ramp and visited the Royal Cathedral first. This is the third church on this site, the first dating to the 11^th century. The current Cathedral is a gothic structure with lots of chapels and crypts that surround the basic structure. We entered through a massive iron door manned by a guard dressed in medieval garb. Adjacent to the door were huge prehistoric bones. Inside the cathedral there were lots of sarcophagi, tombstones and altarpieces. I ascended the tower which had 70 steps and the Sigismund Bell. That was cast in 1520. It is massive, 2m high and 2.5 m wide and weights 11 tons. It takes 8 men to ring it which happens only on important church holidays or state events. Impressive views from the top. We also descended into the Crypt of St. Leonard, which is the only remaining part of the 12^th century cathedral, and the Royal Crypts which contains, among many, the body of Tadeusz Kosciuszko, who fought in the American Revolution, lead an unsuccessful revolt against the Austrians and has a statute of himself on horseback outside the Castle complex. The last chapel we saw was the Holy Cross Chapel that had 15h century frescoes and a big red marble sarcophagus.

Next, we went to the Royal Palace. The Renaissance building we toured was built in the 16^th century. A palace occupied this site as early as the 11^th century. It is a three-story structure that surrounds a large courtyard. The facility was repeatedly sacked and vandalized by the Swedish and Prussian armies until the 19^th century when it was occupied by the Austrians who converted it into a military barracks and hospital. Restoration commenced after WWI when Poland became an independent state but was interrupted during WWII when the Nazis made it their headquarters. The State Rooms are a never-ending chain of restored rooms and chambers that are crammed with period furniture, paintings, tapestries and works of art. The Halls of Senators and Deputies had impressive and ornate interiors. We skipped the Royal Private Apartments and Crown Treasury.

The Wawel Cathedral Museum contained lots of treasury and religious objects, but not a single crown. The Prussians made off with them and melted them down. We went to the edge of the grounds and peered down at the Vistula River and a fire spitting bronze dragon.

We descended the ramp at the bottom of which I negotiated with a street artist for a picture. I caved on the final price when he pointed out how little 10 zloty meant to me but meant a lot to him. We took a trolley into Kazimierz to the Ethnographic Museum. It is housed in a building that was originally constructed in the 14^th century and previously served as the Town Hall for Kazimierz. The exhibits showcased traditional Polish villages, costumes, crafts and religious customs.

We attempted to go to a few restaurants in Kazimierz, but the wait times were too long, so we took the trolley back to old town and ate the upscale restaurant that we were unable to get into the first night we were in Krakow. The service was very impressive, and the food was very good, but the drawn-out process left us short of time and we had to race to the train station. We made it with 6 minutes to spare boarding our sleeper train after freeing our luggage from the lockers.  

Sigismund Bell

Royal castle

View from Wawel Hill

Auschwitz/Birkenau, October 23, 2017

October 23, 2017 Oswiecim/Auschwitz-Biekenau

We had pre-purchased round-trip train tickets for our trip to Auschwitz (that is the German name for the medium sized industrial Polish town near the camp). I had read that the bus trip was more efficient, but that the train trip was more scenic and provided a more realistic view of Poland. It was a short walk to the train station, Krakow Gtowny which was well laid out and easy to navigate. We quickly found our platform and were early, so we waited a while on the platform. The train was quite old fashioned. The rest room was an enclosure with a hole emptying onto the track. The countryside that we traveled through appeared to be decidedly less prosperous that the Krakow area. Very old looking tractors, few motorized vehicles, some animal pulled carts and farm equipment and lots of thatched roofed structures. Perhaps this apparent lessor economic condition in the countryside is a reason for the election of the nationalist, euro skeptic Polish government.

It took about two hours to get to the Oswiecim train station. Not very large or impressive. We then had a pleasant walk of about 1.5km to the Auschwitz museum site.  

I had very mixed feelings walking into the Auschwitz complex. For almost all my life I had heard about the Holocaust, grown up with people who had been in this or other concentration camps, read and seen movies and TV shows about the millions of Jews and others killed as part of what was the largest attempt at genocide in human history and been both mortified by the result and mystified/fascinated by the motives of the leaders of this activity and how the people who had actually carried it out could have done it. Alternately I hated Germans for doing this but reminded myself that most current Germans were not even alive when this happened. But all that was academic. I wondered how I would have reacted if I had been placed in such a position. Would I have resisted carrying out such orders? Would I have fought against such actions?  Although I anticipated a grim experience, I felt that visiting this site could be an essential element in better understanding the full evil of the Holocaust.

Before our 12:30 pre-reserved, compulsory English language tour we checked our bags and toured the outside museum exhibits. Initially we viewed a movie that primarily focused on the liberation of the camps by the Russians in January 1945.

The tour guide was excellent. Much of the following was what I learned from her, a collage educated descendent of Holocaust survivors, but also from Bloodlands, a book on the killings in Eastern Europe between 1933 and 1945 by Timothy Snyder, a Yale History professor. Auschwitz I, where we were, was established by the Germans occupiers in 1940 on the site of a former Polish army barracks. It was originally intended as a prison for Polish political prisoners and was essentially a work camp. The Nazi plan to exterminate all the Jews was in full swing then, but it initially was being conducted by special units within the German SS that following the German army who were charged with killing Jews in the areas conquered and occupied by the Germans. This was accomplished primarily by shooting and to a lessor extent, physical violence. About 2 million Jews were killed in this manner in eastern Europe during the first two years of the war. However, this process proved both to be too inefficient and physiologically damaging both to some of the German soldiers who carried out this task and to the people they were corresponding with back in Germany. (I wonder if anyone in the German army was missing those millions of bullets as it ran out of ammunition at Stalingrad.) In response, the German leadership decided to establish mass, industrial scale extermination camps to kill the Jews and others on the Nazi undesirable lists.

That lead to an upgrading of Auschwitz I by adding gas chambers and crematoriums, but the real expansion took place with the building of a much larger, new, second camp at Birkenau about 2km west of Auschwitz I.  Birkenau was massive and built as an efficient, industrial killing facility. It had 300 prison barracks each of which was built to accommodate 300 people, 4 very large gas chambers that could asphyxiate 2000 people at a time and electric lifts to transport the bodies to the accompanying crematoria. Eerily the train tracks, which were a spur from the same train line we rode on, ran directly into the gas chambers. It was at Birkenau where most of the killing of the estimated one million Jews and one million other victims occurred. Ironically, most of the Jews killed at Birkenau were not Polish, but rather from western Europe and other eastern European countries, most notably Hungary in late 1944 after the Germans installed a puppet government there.

The tour began in Auschwitz I. When the Germans fled in early 1945 before the advancing Red Army they only partially destroyed Auschwitz I, although succeeding in destroying most of Birkenau.   There are about 30 remaining two story, red, brick buildings in Auschwitz I. The tour took us through 13 of them, all which house museum exhibits. After completing that tour, we took a bus to Birkenau. That was very bleak. There was a huge area surrounded by barbed wire and lots of guard towers that stretched as far as the eye could see. There were some surviving wooden barracks that were crudely constructed that gave testimony to the harsh conditions the prisoners were held in.

At one end, near the site of a crematorium, there is a large memorial. At the time we were visiting there was a school group from Israel that was holding a memorial service. The guide told us that German school groups are frequent visitors, but that was not true for Polish children. She discussed that while many/most Poles did not participate in the Holocaust activities, there were many who collaborated with the Germans in these activities. I left feeling emotionally exhausted.

When we finished it was about an hour before our train departure, so we took a waiting bus back to Krakow. The vistas from that trip were not quite as depressing as from the train, but they were not uplifting either. The bus dropped us off next to the train station we had departed from 10 hours earlier and we marched back downtown to again checkout the main square at night and again go through Cloth Hall. There we stopped in at a cafe and had some drinks while we watched the world pass by.  

We had dinner at a small Polish restaurant off the square. No pirogis, but Polish stew and beef. Walked back to the apartment along the usual route. Getting very familiar with the art exhibit.

P.S.I wonder if the law passed in Poland after my visit that precludes and makes it a crime for anyone to speak negatively about the Polish role in the Holocaust or to attribute any Polish complicity in the killings will preclude the Auschwitz guides from freely discussing this subject during their tours.          

Krakow train station

Auschwitz Barracks

Birkenau Barracks

Birkenau Train spur

Krakow Day 2 October 22, 2017

October 22, 2107 Krakow 2 Day 21 of the trip

We had breakfast in the apartment from the food provided by the hosts. Eggs, sausages, bread etc.

The first activity was to go over to the very nearby train station, Krakow Gtowny, to do a dry run for the next days train trip to Auschwitz. It was well maintained and easy to navigate. It had lots of shops, ample ticket counters and importantly for our last day, large luggage lockers.

We set out for old town, this time in the daylight without any wrong turns. On the way to old town we passed through a park that was illuminated with a carpet of fallen autumn leaves and had a memorial to Pope John II. We then turned down Lubicz, this time the right way, walked passed a model shoot on a pedestrian bridge, under a large overpass and along the remaining city Defense Walls. The Barbican is a circular bastion with seven turrets that was part of the wall structure. We toured a small museum there. It used to be connected to the Florian Gate by a narrow passageway over a moat. Now we just walked through the gate into the old town. I was hoping to go to an art Museum that is along the Wall, which housed da Vinci’s painting, Lady with an Ermine, the city’s most valuable painting, but it was closed for renovation.

We entered old town by walking down Florianska St to the northeast corner of the square where St. Mary’s Basilica is located. Its two red brick towers of different heights dominate the square. There has been a church on this site since the 1220s, but construction of the current structure was begun after the Tarter invasion 30 years later. The main church entrance can be used only by worshippers. Tourists such as us had to enter through a side door on the southeast side. We did not climb the towers, from the tallest of which there is an hourly bugle call, but the interior had many stained-glass windows and colorful wall paintings. There was a large organ.

We then crossed to middle of the square to Cloth Hall. This building was once the center of Krakow’s medieval clothing trade. It was created in the 14^th century when a roof was put over rows of stalls. Following fires, it was rebuilt first as a Gothic structure and then in Renaissance style. In the 19^th century exterior arcades were added. The ground floor is now a very busy market for food, crafts and souvenirs.  The outdoor area under the arcades house lots of cafes.

When we emerged, it had begun to rain. I had planned to go into the Rynek Underground, but contrary to the guidebook’s description it was closed on Sunday. While we took umbrellas on the trip, we neglected to bring them with us that day.  Instead we decided to go to the Jewish Quarter in the Kazimierz neighborhood. As we walked down Sienna to the trolley stop it began to rain harder. We were approached by a driver of a clear plastic, enclosed, electric powered small vehicle who offered to provide a two-hour tour of the Jewish Quarter and Kazimierz. She agreed at the end of the tour to cross the river and drop us off at Schindler’s Factory so I agreed to the tour. I suspected that we were paying too much, 200 zoylets, but it was raining and there were lots of blankets in the vehicle.

Kazimierz, formally a city, now a part of Krakow, was founded in 1335 on the south side of Krakow by Kazimierz III Wielki one of Poland’s greatest kings. He not only greatly expanded Poland’s territory, but he also laid down solid legal, economic and educational foundations for the country. Also passed laws making Poland a haven for Jews for centuries.  Thanks to his patronage Kazimierz grew rapidly to the point that it rivaled Krakow in importance. There was a plaque which said that Kazimierz found Poland built of wood and left it built of stone.

Initially not many Jews moved to Kazimierz, but in 1492 the Jews were expelled from Spain and Portugal and many found their way to Krakow. However, two years later they were expelled from the walls surrounding Krakow by the then Polish king, Jan Olbracht, and tens of thousands moved to Kazimierz. They were required to live in a proscribed area, adjacent to, but separated by a wall, from the Christian area. Over the next few centuries Jews from all corners of Europe settled in Kazimierz and it became one of the largest Jewish community in Poland. When the walls were torn down in the early 19^th century Kazimierz became a predominately Jewish neighborhood.   

Less than 10% of Krakow’s Jewish community survived WWII and the Kazimierz district fell into disrepair under the communist rule. Now the district has regained some of its Jewish character, but seemingly primarily as a tourist attraction. On the tour we visited 4 of the 7 surviving synagogues, but all seemed to have none or a very small membership and seemingly depended upon entry fees by tourists to survive. The Old Synagogue is the oldest in the country dating to 1557. It has been rebuilt several times, most recently after WWII. Still raining, we next went to the Remuh Synagogue. This was established in 1558, and it is the smallest, yet it is one of two that are still active synagogues. Attached to this synagogue is a cemetery established in the mid-16^th century which contains hundreds of restored Renaissance era tombstones. Next was the High Synagogue, so named because the ground floor is occupied by shops, including a large bookstore, and the prayer hall is on the second (the Europeans call it the first) floor. This was built in 1560. Klezmer concerts are held here nightly. Finally, the Isaac Synagogue is a large building that was constructed in 1644. It has stucco walls that are decorated with wall paintings. There was an interesting exhibit on Polish Jews here. We drove through the ul Szeroka, an elongated square that is rimmed by restaurants, bookshops and tourist shops. I imagine in better weather it is busy, but today there were few people around.

We then crossed the river Vistula into the Podgorez neighborhood. This is still largely a working-class neighborhood, but it was here that the Germans herded Krakow’s 60,000 Jews into a newly constructed ghetto, before ultimately shipping most of them to death camps. The ghetto was centered around what is now Plac Bohaterow, Ghetto Hero’s Square, a memorial park, which has lots of empty chairs representing victims, including small chairs for children. On the edge of the park is the Pharmacy Under the Eagle. This museum recreates a former pharmacy whose owner, a non-Jew, Tadeusz Pankiewicz, protected Jews during WWII and provided medications to ghetto inmates.

We were then dropped off at Schindler’s factory.  This is the former enamel factory of Oskar Schindler which is now an impressive interactive museum that covers the Nazi occupation of Krakow from 1939 to 1945 and Schindler’s efforts to protect his Jewish (unpaid) workers. It was a fabulous, well organized and very informative museum that we stayed in for 6 hours until closing at 8.

When we emerged, it was till raining and cold, so we took a cab back to the city. The driver had his wife in the front seat and we had a running commentary about the city and its neighborhoods. We wanted to go to the Milk Bar for dinner, but it was closed on Sunday evening, so we ended up at the driver’s recommendation at a very small all pierogi restaurant off the main square. Lots of locals and it was a tasty and filling meal at a small price. It finally stopped raining so walked back to the apartment along the usual route past the art exhibit, through the underpass, along Lubicz and through the park.     

Park near our apartment

Cloth Hall

High Synagogue

Ghetto Hero's Square

Krakow, Day 1 October 21, 2017

October 21, 2017 Krakow 1 Day 20 of trip

We arrived in Krakow about 3:30. That made us about 16 hours late. The airport is named John Paul II, originally Karol Wojtyla, after Krakow’s most famous modern citizen. The people in the airport were overwhelmingly white, a sharp contrast to the diversity in our prior stops.

Our baggage came quickly and while waiting I found an ATM to get Polish money, zloty. With people waiting in line behind me I got confused about the exchange rate and withdrew too much money.

The airport was easy to navigate and after collecting our bags and money, we went out to the reception area to find the ride that I thought had been arranged for us by the Airbnb host. It was not to be found, probably due to our delayed arrival. A driver approached us and initially I turned him down, expecting that we had a ride. The airport is about 15 km west of the town center and I had read that there was a train connection to town. I briefly considered using it, but we had lots of luggage and I was not certain where our lodging was, so when the driver later came back to us, I spoke with him. He initially wanted 150 zlotys, but I negotiated him down to 90, the same price I was told to pay by the Airbnb host. Turned out he was not a licensed taxi driver. We walked to the parking garage to get into his well-maintained, late model German vehicle and I was instructed to sit in the front, I assumed to make it appear as if he was not carrying passengers for hire.

The drive into town took us along a modern highway that went through a wooded area. As we approached the town we initially passed neighborhoods of two story row houses and then entering the town there were lots of mid-sized office and apartment buildings.

Our driver was unable to find the exact location of the Airbnb. To be fair it was on a one block street. He was finally able to find it with assistance from the GPS on my phone. As promised we were greeted by a friend of the owners. He was a young man on roller blades. Helped carry the bags up the stairs and explained the apartment, but then he was off. The unit was a one-bedroom loft apartment on the 3^rd floor in an apartment building. The apartment was very nice, clean, spacious, a breakfast stocked kitchen and a large living/dining room. However, I was surprised that it was a unit in an apartment building. I had thought that the Airbnb units were in the owners’ homes, but that was mistaken. This clearly was an investment Airbnb unit. We never saw the owners (who on the website were described as very helpful) or the friend again.

Someone should write a history of Krakow, from what I learned it would read like an epic novel. T became the capital of Poland in 1038 but was burned to the ground by the invading Tartars in 1241. The city was revived and thrived in the 14^th century under the leadership of Kazimierz the Great who facilitated the founding of Jagiellonian University. However, its status slipped in 1596 when the capital was transferred to Warsaw. The decline accelerated in the 18th century under the Austrian empire when the city was relegated to a provincial capital. Between the world wars after Poland regained its independence Krakow thrived, but under the Nazis the city’s academic elite and Jewish community were slaughtered. Under the Communists after WWII the city was enveloped in a cloud of pollution from the massive steelworks built at Nowa Huta, only 10 km outside the city. That has now been cleaned up and Krakow is now Poland’s second largest city and rivaling Prague as an Eastern European tourist destination.

After unpacking and settling in we took off, (it was now dark) to explore Krakow and get some dinner.

We walked through a small park which had a statute and memorial to Pope John. I intended to walk to the Old Town area but turned 180 degrees the wrong way along Lubicz. When we came to the Opera Krakowska house at Mogilskie roundabout, I realized that we were going the wrong way. A very impressive, modern, red brick building, but our schedule and its programs, which advertised music from Verdi to Bernstein, did not mesh.

We then boarded a street trolley, I thought that it was going in that direction, to resume the trip to Old Town. Not many English speakers at the trolley stop. A cheap ride with fares based on time of time rather than its length, so I guessed that it would be a brief ride. The trolley line did not go into Rynek Glowny, the main square, (none of them did) but skirted the square’s east side. We got off at Sienna and walked up that street looking for food. We picked out a place that two British tourists highly recommended, but they could not accommodate us on Saturday night without a reservation.  Sienna has lots of upscale shops and restaurants, but we continued into Rynek Glowny.

This is a very large square that had lots of activity in it. It is 4,000 sq. meters and the largest medieval town square in Europe. Its layout, based on that of a castrum (Roman military camp), was drawn up in 1257 after the town was burnt to the ground in 1241 by marauding Tatars.  There were lots of horse drawn carriages going around the square which is dominated in the middle by the lit-up Cloth Hall. Overlooking the square on its northwest corner is the massive St. Mary’s Basilica. From the higher of the Basilica’s two towers there is an hourly bugle call. It has only 5 notes and breaks off in midbar. This arises from the legend that a watchman was sounding the alarm when the Tartars invaded, and he was cut off in midbar when an arrow pierced his throat.

We took a short shopping detour in the Hard Rock Café and then proceeded up Florian ska St. in search of food. It is a bit of a tourist street, but we found a small Polish restaurant and ate lots of pierogis and drank beer. These are Polish raviolis that are stuffed with a variety of fillings. Good meal at a reasonable cost.

After the Tarter invasion the city surrounded itself with a 3 km long chain of defensive double walls complete with 47 towers, eight main gates and a wide moat. In the 19^th century the moat was filled in and has become a park, the Planty, that rings the Old Town. Most of the walls have been demolished, but the gate at the end of Florianska St remains. So, we walked up to that after dinner and then along Basztowa and through a long tunnel back to Lubicz and then to our apartment by about 11.    

The Opera House

Cloth Hall in Rynek Glowny

Athens to Munich to Krakow, Oct 20-21

October 20 and 21, 2017 Final Day of the cruise, Trip days 19 and 20 Athens to Munich to Krakow

We had breakfast on the boat and then departed about 8:30. Took a cab back to the hotel. Our friends checked in and we checked our bags, we then separated as they went on a food tour (I was not interested in eating anymore) and we went to a tour of the National (formerly Royal) Gardens behind the Parliament. Nice peaceful area in the middle of Athens’ bustle. We then walked to the National Historical Museum. We caught a free day. The museum is housed at Plateia Kolokotroni in the former Parliament building on the steps of which Prime Minister Theodoros Deligiannis was assassinated in 1936 leading to a restoration of the monarchy and the installation of a right-wing military government. However, that government resisted the demands of the Italians for free passage of its troops and defeated them in a short war in 1940. However, the next year the Greeks were overwhelmed by the Germans and experienced a difficult occupation. 

The museum’s exhibits are heavily focused on the War of Independence. It had an entire wind devoted to the British poet Byron who came to Greece to fight for the Christian Greeks against the Muslim Turks. He was killed in 1824 as part of a siege. There was an extensive collection of Greek royalty and heroes’ portraits including one of Laskarina Bouboulina. She was the only one whose name was not under the portrait. It was explained to me that as the only woman in the gallery and given her fame in Greece, it was not necessary to list her name. There was also a model of the ship she financed for the War.

We then walked to the Jewish Museum. The building was nondescript on the outside and locked. We were admitted through an intercom system. Its exhibits traced the history of the Jewish community in Greece back to the 3^rd century BC using a collection documents, religious artifacts, costumes and folk art. The Greeks largely participated in the Nazi roundup and deportation of the Jewish community and only about 10% survived WWII. There was a small reconstruction of a synagogue as well as information on the synagogues throughout Greece.

While there we met the tall man from Montana from the cruise. He greeted me, “so another member of the tribe?” We then walked back to the hotel and picked up our luggage which we dragged a few blocks to the airport bus stop at Plateia Syntagmatos. The bus ride was uneventful, but it provided a daylight view of the non-tourist part of Athens. It did not look bad.

We got to the airport early and went to an airport lounge. It was the worst lounge I have ever visited. The food was limited and mediocre. there were few electrical outlets, and some were broken, and the Internet service was weak.

I did not pay for bags on line, so Lufthansa charged us an excessive amount for the two checked bags. The flight took off on time and was uneventful until we landed in Munich. Then we were told that our connecting and the last flight to Krakow had been canceled. We learned that it was due to a heavy fog in Krakow. Lufthansa customer service booked us into a near airport hotel, arranged for transportation, gave us meal vouchers and rebooked us on an early afternoon flight to Krakow. That wasted a lot of time since we were too far from Munich to go into town, but the earlier flights were connections and would not have gotten us into Krakow much earlier. It was a big contrast to what a US domestic airline would do in a similar situation which would be to say, sorry we are not responsible for weather delays and send us on our way. The hotel was equivalent to a Marriott Courtyard. Had a buffet dinner, with no dessert, but beer was included with the voucher.

The breakfast was very good. I spent most of the morning on the hotel computer printing out the train tickets to Auschwitz and subsequent train trips. It was hard to get to English on the computer and the keyboard layout was different. We went out to the airport early since there was no mid-day transportation to the airport. The airport lounge was in a different terminal that we were able to walk to easily. The lounge was quiet, good food and drink and effective Internet. However, getting to our gate was a trial and we almost missed our flight. We were told that there was a bus to our terminal. We went to the waiting area for the bus indicated by the signs. The door was locked, but when the bus came passengers disembarked form the bus, entered the waiting area and the door quickly shut so we missed the bus. We go on the next bus and as it traveled to several stops we realized that we were locked into our compartment in the bus.  In hindsight I think that was because the bus was passing through secured and unsecured areas of the airport but as we were on it I was wondering if we would be able to get out. When we finally were able to get out of the bus we had a long walk through the terminal past lots of shops and after we got to the gate we had to take a bus to the plane. Just made it.

We arrived in Krakow about 3:30. Poland does not use the euro, so I had to change currency. I took out too much local currency.  I thought that the Airbnb had arranged airport transportation, but when none materialized we took an unlicensed taxi to the Airbnb. I realized that he was unlicensed both when he had me sit in the front seat and when he could not find the place until I gave him my GPS. (it was hard to find, and it was on a 1 block street.)

As promised, we were met at the door by a friend of the Airbnb’s owner/manager. He was on roller blades and helped carry the luggage up to the third floor on them. The apartment was good. It had a separate, spacious bedroom, a loft and separate living and kitchen areas. There were even breakfast foods for us in the refrigerator.  

We left the apartment seeking dinner and intending to walk to the old Main Square. Instead I made a wrong turn and we were walking away from where we wanted to go. We visited the Krakow Opera House, a handsome and modern building. There was a performance that night, but it was sold out. After realizing my mistake, we took a tram back to the central area. It skirted the main square and we got off at Sierra Street. There were lots of upscale shops and restaurants there. We attempted to eat at one, but it is Saturday night and we did not have reservations. We walked up to and around the Main Market Square, Rynek Glówny. It is a very large open space that is the site of the Cloth Hall, a Renaissance-era trading outpost, and St. Mary’s Basilica, a 14th-century Gothic church. We stopped in at the Hard Rock cafe and purchased a tee shirt for my friend who collects such shirts.

We ate at a local restaurant on Florianska Street, a main shopping street. I had perogies. They were very filling.

We walked back to the apartment through an underpass and through a small park.  Tired and went right to sleep.  

Former Greek Parliament Hall

Cloth Hall, Main Market, Krakow

Jewish Museum, Athens