Thursday, May 2
Having slept the sleep of the dead all night (or perhaps it was just not having two sets of four paws climbing all over me all night), I jumped out of bed as soon as the alarm went off. I didn’t feel 100% rested but certainly had broken the back on the jetlag.
After a great shower (awesome water pressure, passable hair dryer) I had the hotel’s included breakfast. It was a nice buffet spread, although with some odd choices, like salads, tomatoes and olives and some pickled veg. I stuck with eggs, a croissant with sour cherry jam and a small yogurt with coffee and OJ. That got me on my way.
I’d pre-booked a ticket to Oskar Schindler’s factory museum. I had plenty of time to walk the 2 miles to it, but didn’t want to expend the energy so early, so I caught an Uber. We’ve used Uber in a lot of different cities now, and Krakow limits where you can pick one up in order to tame traffic in the historic city center. It was about a 3 minute walk to the nearest place I could grab an Uber. The car was clean and the ride about 10 minutes. The area the museum is in isn’t a place I’d normally go as a tourist (it was after all a factory and is still in a very industrial area) but no worries, there were plenty of people there. As we approached the museum, I saw a lot of groups of people all dressed the same, and realized it was four bus-loads of tourists all waiting to visit the museum. Thankfully I pre-booked the ticket. When I left the museum around noon, a sign was posted saying that tickets for the entire day were sold out.
The Schindler factory is now one of the best places to learn about the history of Jews and the Holocaust as it took place in Krakow. Very little of the museum is about Schindler himself. It was here though that I was reminded of the shortcomings of my public school education...so much I don’t know and embarrassing to admit it. So I ended up learning a lot, particularly about the build up to WWII and why Poland was a target. Their resistance was impressive though and they are a tough lot. The exhibits really stepped me through what happened in Krakow, almost to the month from 1939 through to the end of the war. How it all happened and how people survived it continues to perplex me. I’m not sure I’d be that strong.
The factory itself is in the ghetto area and what made Schindler unique is that he housed the Jews who worked for him on the grounds of his factory, and fed them better than Jews in camps and also provided medical care when needed. At one point the authorities were trying to force him to make his employees live in camps, so he built a camp nearby where they would live, but treated them as well as the employees who lived on site. What makes this all the more remarkable is that Schindler was a German Nazi himself. He was only in Krakow to make money.
It was interesting to see the room that was the office in the movie (I’d just watched it in preparation for coming here) and also his actual office (which was not in the movie).
At the entrance to the Schindler Factory, there is a 35 minute documentary film about the genesis of the Holocaust here in Krakow. As I was one of the first people in the door and eyeing the massive crowd on the sidewalk behind me, I opted to skip the film and head straight through the exhibits. That paid off well. I don’t know how I’d have managed otherwise. There were lots of labels with densely packed text. Had the rooms been even half capacity, navigating and reading what I wanted would have been near impossible. About half way through I could look through a glass wall to exhibits behind me and they were bumper to bumper people. I made the right call. I got through most everything before the large school groups and tour groups caught up with me (they clearly weren’t reading everything!)
A sad part of the Schindler story though is that for all the people he saved by keeping them on his payroll (not just his employees but all the generations that resulted from them staying alive), he died poor after several failed businesses. He was buried in Israel at his request, but received posthumous commendations for his efforts.
Leaving the museum I walked back to the main part of Kazimierz, the Jewish Quarter. At that point, I was at the end of Rick Steves’ walking tour, so I decided to do it in reverse, rather than walk to the start and backtrack. It didn’t make a difference doing it out of order, it was just more efficient.
My first stop was Ghetto Square, where there are 68 chairs set out in the square, one for each 1000 Jews deported from this square (either to work camps or death camps). It was chilling to think that the “selection” or sorting process took place right here. Also on this square is the Pharmacy Under the Eagle, which was run by Tadeus Pankiewicz, who aided the Jews even after his pharmacy was caught within the boundary line of the ghetto. He did everything from hiding belongings for safekeeping to funneling money and communications in and out of the ghetto for the Jews inside it. This was an interesting little museum with a very interactive display quality to it. They encourage opening drawers and doors (where stories or artifacts or photos are hidden), sniffing bottles of “pharmaceuticals”, picking up books or newspapers, etc. everything but “consuming them”. Ha!
From here I ventured further into the neighborhood and found an assortment of food trucks (there were several clusters of them around here). I had a pressed sandwich that had falafel, salad and french fries all together in it! That’s efficient. It was quite good (and massive!) but very filling. Just the right energy to keep me going.
I continued on with the walking tour. I went through a few squares and passed through the passage made famous in Schindler’s List (you’d know it if you saw it, it hasn’t changed a bit). There was one more square with several food stalls and some vendors selling used goods, everything from old military medals, knives and handicrafts to used vinyl albums by The Smiths!
The first synagogue I went to was the Isaac Synagogue. It was very simple and stark, but had a lot to say for itself. The walls were painted with the prayers for those worshippers who couldn’t afford the books for themselves, much like the stained glass windows in Christian churches. The most impressive synagogue though was the Old Synagogue, which was sunken down so that its foundation was below street level, but on purpose since no Jewish building could be taller than a Christian building. I must have spent over an hour here, reading everything that was posted about the history of Judaism in Krakow as well as the tenets that make up Judaism and its holidays. Again, not something I knew before, but I was soaking this all up like a sponge. My travel guide says this is the oldest surviving Jewish building in all of Poland, built in the 15th century. It was fascinating.
My walk continued past the building where Helena Rubenstein (the cosmetic magnate) was born to the Old Cemetery. It was used from the mid 1500s until the 1800s and having buried a significant number of Jewish intelligentsia here, is considered one of the most important cemeteries in Europe. Yet it was totally destroyed in the war and excavated and reconstructed in the 1950s.
It was a gorgeous day, high 60s and bright sun, the kind of day we wait for all winter in Boston and only get a couple of before spring flips to summer and it’s 80 and humid. I skipped the tram back to Old Town and walked, and made it in the same amount of time as I would have if I took the tram (I literally met it at the stop closest to my hotel).
At 4:00 I took an hour long break back at the hotel to rest my feet and back. I headed back out to survey the area around the hotel, did a bit of shopping and browsing around. The area around the main square, which was pretty empty at 8:30 this morning when I left the hotel, was packed chock-a-block with strolling humans again. I can’t tell whether this is the norm or just because it’s a holiday week (yesterday and tomorrow). At least there’s car traffic, just the odd tram or two you have to watch for.
Dinner tonight was at a Georgian restaurant near the square. I stumbled on it and remembered how good Georgian food was in Moscow. This was pretty good and a great find on short notice! I had eggplant thinly sliced and rolled with walnut paste and pomegranate seeds as an appetizer. The main was a Georgian bread baked with cheese and spinach (like a sauceless deep dish pizza, almost) with pickled beets and cabbage on the side. Dessert, of course there was dessert!, was a chocolate layer cake with the best dark chocolate ice cream I’ve had in a long while. I had two glasses of white wine and a glass of red dessert wine. Miraculously all this cost $23! (Forgot to mention last night’s meal was $32!). This is certainly not a budget breaking trip so far....
Several times in walking on the pedestrian street to and from the hotel to the square, I’ve passed his hole in the wall where all the patrons are standing out on the sidewalk drinking this bright red liquid in crystal glasses. Curious, I popped in tonight and learned it’s a sort of Polish spirit made from cherries. Of course I had one and joined the throngs on the sidewalk. It was quite good and will likely be my stop for the next few nights!
A lot of the servers at food stalls and shops here have tip jars out at home, but almost all of them have signs on them indicating what they’re saving for. “Tips for travel to Georgia” (the country, I’m guessing, I can’t see Atlanta being a big draw to the Poles). Or Spain. Or Italy. My favorite though was a busker playing guitar on a side street, and his sign said “Travel to Cambridge, tips for MBA at Harvard”. Yep, he got a tip from me. Any little bit helps.
That’s it for today. I’ve managed to stay awake almost until 10. I’ll sleep in a bit tomorrow since my Secret Food Tour doesn’t start until 11:30.
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