Here I Dreamt I Was a Soldier and I Marched the Streets of Birkenau
Inspired (or rather horrified) by the Holocaust related exhibits of the Jewish Museum in Prague, I decided that a trip to Krakow would be incomplete without a daytrip to Auschwitz/Birkenau, two of the Nazis' most famous concentration camps.
And yes, horrifying they were. I walked through the bunkers in Birkenau (the larger of the two camps, constructed later in the war when the science of human extermination had been better perfected) and saw the scratches on the concrete walls. And I saw the tiny spaces where 4-6 people would squeeze at night after 10-14 hours of work. And the walls against which people would be regularly shot for disobedience or trying to escape. And the underground "dark rooms" where four people would be forced to stand in a space of 1 square meter overnight, often suffocating because of poor ventilation. And the mounds and mounds of human hair collected from the corpses after gassing, used to produce wartime clothing material. And the piles of shoes. And eyeglasses. And pots and pans. And suitcases.
And pictures on the wall of faces, along with the dates of their births and deaths.
And I wondered if each of them looking at the camera knew for certain that they would within a year or two die.
The tour was 3.5 hours long, and led by a made up late 40s Polish woman with extremely long fingernails who was able to very articulately recite to us the details of the concentration camps but almost entirely incapable of meaningfully responding to any questions from the tour group.
But while yes, it was bad, for some reason I was not as emotionally ripped apart as I was by the exhibits in the synagogue museums in Prague. True, what took place in Auschwitz was most definitely more extreme, even than the regular persecutions in the ghettos. But walking around in Prague, knowing that once there had been a large Jewish population, using these now empty temples and also knowing that now the Jewish population is miniscule was more disturbing. The fact of human removal was much more real in a city than in the now empty fields of Birkenau.
I took an hour and a half long bus to get there, along with two Japanese students I met the night before looking for a place to eat. They were nice, but not extremely easy to talk to.
That evening, after getting back to Krakow (which I like a lot), I checked out of my hostel and walked over to the Holiday Inn where I met up with Alice, old friend from college that I hadn't seen since January 2003. It is always good to see an old friend, but especially good to see ANYBODY of acquaintance after so many weeks of solitude. Sure, it is fun to introduce oneself and to make light chit chat, but it is also nice to tell and retell the old stories from college that I haven't found interesting enough or relevant to any of my friends back home. Talking to Alice, I re-remembered how much about college I've forgotten, just for lack of having anyone to discuss them with.
Does anybody in L.A. really care about the details of the cafeteria I ate everyday? Or the annoying guy who lived next door to me freshman year? Or of my freshman dorm? Or the two girls who used to drive me to bowling class because it was off campus? Of the Cosmic Cantina on Broad Street?
No. They don't. I think for people who go to college in places like NYC, it is easier to remember the details of college, because they are more relevant to people who didn't actually go there.
We had dinner in a Polish restaurant, I had stuffed cabbage. Delicious. The waiter performed some strange ritual where before serving the bottle of wine poured a small amount into a metal spoon, heated it on a giant candle and then tasted it himself.
It's nice to be here. I'm starting to feel sad that the trip will be over relatively soon.
And yes, horrifying they were. I walked through the bunkers in Birkenau (the larger of the two camps, constructed later in the war when the science of human extermination had been better perfected) and saw the scratches on the concrete walls. And I saw the tiny spaces where 4-6 people would squeeze at night after 10-14 hours of work. And the walls against which people would be regularly shot for disobedience or trying to escape. And the underground "dark rooms" where four people would be forced to stand in a space of 1 square meter overnight, often suffocating because of poor ventilation. And the mounds and mounds of human hair collected from the corpses after gassing, used to produce wartime clothing material. And the piles of shoes. And eyeglasses. And pots and pans. And suitcases.
And pictures on the wall of faces, along with the dates of their births and deaths.
And I wondered if each of them looking at the camera knew for certain that they would within a year or two die.
The tour was 3.5 hours long, and led by a made up late 40s Polish woman with extremely long fingernails who was able to very articulately recite to us the details of the concentration camps but almost entirely incapable of meaningfully responding to any questions from the tour group.
But while yes, it was bad, for some reason I was not as emotionally ripped apart as I was by the exhibits in the synagogue museums in Prague. True, what took place in Auschwitz was most definitely more extreme, even than the regular persecutions in the ghettos. But walking around in Prague, knowing that once there had been a large Jewish population, using these now empty temples and also knowing that now the Jewish population is miniscule was more disturbing. The fact of human removal was much more real in a city than in the now empty fields of Birkenau.
I took an hour and a half long bus to get there, along with two Japanese students I met the night before looking for a place to eat. They were nice, but not extremely easy to talk to.
That evening, after getting back to Krakow (which I like a lot), I checked out of my hostel and walked over to the Holiday Inn where I met up with Alice, old friend from college that I hadn't seen since January 2003. It is always good to see an old friend, but especially good to see ANYBODY of acquaintance after so many weeks of solitude. Sure, it is fun to introduce oneself and to make light chit chat, but it is also nice to tell and retell the old stories from college that I haven't found interesting enough or relevant to any of my friends back home. Talking to Alice, I re-remembered how much about college I've forgotten, just for lack of having anyone to discuss them with.
Does anybody in L.A. really care about the details of the cafeteria I ate everyday? Or the annoying guy who lived next door to me freshman year? Or of my freshman dorm? Or the two girls who used to drive me to bowling class because it was off campus? Of the Cosmic Cantina on Broad Street?
No. They don't. I think for people who go to college in places like NYC, it is easier to remember the details of college, because they are more relevant to people who didn't actually go there.
We had dinner in a Polish restaurant, I had stuffed cabbage. Delicious. The waiter performed some strange ritual where before serving the bottle of wine poured a small amount into a metal spoon, heated it on a giant candle and then tasted it himself.
It's nice to be here. I'm starting to feel sad that the trip will be over relatively soon.
posted by Jed at 8:47 AM
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