![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bironicI'm home, I'm safe, I had a nice time, and I'm wearing clean clothes: Life is good.
Taking advantage of Jet Lag Day (i.e., no work today), I've uploaded the 900+ photos I took to my computer and am going through them to find good ones to show you all. Because we were almost always on the move and many shots had to be taken out bus windows and the camera doesn't like taking clear pictures without the flash and the contrast seems off, etc., they're not as great as I'd hoped, but they're not all terrible either. /disclaimer
So here we go: an illustrated recap of the trip, day by day. If anyone has any questions or wants to see more pictures, please speak up; there are many more where these came from, and I'm never sure whether I'm talking about what you're curious about.
Please be warned, some of the concentration camp images may be upsetting.
Days 1-2: Flight to Poland, drive to Krakow.
All packed and ready to go!
Waiting to check in at JFK with 39 other participants and two trip leaders.
An attempt to capture the NYC skyline as we took off. Below it is a zoomed-in version. The sticky-uppy thing in the middle is the Empire State Building.
A burgeoning thundercloud as we left New York.
Polish countryside in the morning, from the plane window.
Deplaning at Frederick Chopin Airport in Warsaw. The guy carrying his guitar is staying after the trip for several weeks to busk on the streets of Tel Aviv.
The itinerary told us that upon arrival, we would immediately travel to Krakow and tour the city. What we didn't realize was that it was a seven-hour drive! Since it followed on our eight-hour overnight flight, we used the time to catch up on sleep. They also showed Schindler's List on the bus, because even though only one or two people hadn't seen it, our guide wanted some of the sites to be fresh in our minds as we were about to see them in person.
When we got to Krakow, we immediately saw this bridge, over which the Jews of the city were marched (as shown in the film) to get to the ghetto when it was opened.
In Krakow is a memorial in the square where ghetto inhabitants were routinely deported by train to concentration camps.
Behind the square is a pharmacy that was unusual for being inside the ghetto yet run by non-Jews. It served as one of the only sources of outside news for the Jewish population. Through a narrow alley beside the pharmacy was a small courtyard in which you could see some of the few remaining original houses of the ghetto. (Poor) people still live here.
A surviving section of the original ghetto wall.
A monument at the site of the Plaszow labor camp beside the city.
We drove past Schindler's factory next, but it was covered in renovation scaffolding and it was on the other side of the bus from where I was sitting, so I don't have a good photo for you.
Our next stop brought us two of the only remaining synagogues in the Jewish Quarter in Krakow, neither of which is currently in use, if I'm not mistaken—just one of many representations of how the war devastated Poland's Jewish population. This one, Isaac Synagogue, was ransacked by the Germans during WWII, and is now being used as an art gallery.
Like many other parts of Krakow and Poland in general, the Jewish Quarter's main square contained small memorials to atrocities committed during the war. This one reads in Polish, English and Hebrew: "Place of meditation upon the martyrdom of 65 thousand Polish citizens of Jewish nationality from Cracow and its environs killed by the Nazis during World War II." (I find it interesting that even all these years later, the plaque refers to Jews as being of a separate nationality from their fellow Poles.) If you are wondering about the stones on the memorial, leaving rocks on graves is traditional in Jewish culture, like leaving flowers or candles or photos. I've heard various explanations for this, including that rocks, unlike flowers, do not die.
We sort of speed-walked from the Jewish Quarter after dinner to Krakow's Old City, which felt the most European of anything we'd yet seen. Our guide didn't slow his pace from the moment we left the restaurant until we got back on the bus, probably because we needed to check in to our hotel and it was already after 10 p.m., so there weren't many opportunities to pause and take photos.
At the center of the Old City is the largest platz (square) in Europe, at 200m x 200m.
The square is bisected by a long indoor marketplace, which looks like this before you go inside:
And like this in a typical stall:
The street we walked down that connects the platz to the Barbican, or gatehouse, that once protected the city from just outside its stone walls. You can tell who was in our group by the white name tags.
The Barbican:
Day 3: Auschwitz concentration camp.
We stayed overnight in Krakow and then drove the next morning to Auschwitz-Birkenau camps, very near the German border. I was surprised by how developed the area was as we neared the camp; I'd been expecting more forest, after the stories of the few escapees who had to make their way through the woods to safety. There were some wooded areas, but they were thinned out towards the ground. I wondered whether it had been like that in the '40s too, making it even more dangerous for the few escapees to hide, or if there had been a fire or something recently that took out most of the cover.
Fun fact: Auschwitz train station (Oświęcim in Polish) is still in use today. (Not that you can really tell from this photo.)
A grassy plot just outside the Auschwitz site where 700 deceased inmates were buried when the Russians liberated the camp. It's a combination of people who died in the camp's final days and people who were too sick to live long after liberation.
A sculpture towards the back of the visitor's center.
Inside the Auschwitz grounds:
One of the infamous "Arbeit Macht Frei" ("Through Work, Freedom") iron gates, where Jews selected for labor rather than extermination entered the camp.
Auschwitz was ... very well preserved, albeit much of it via restoration, and I'm not sure how much of the greenery was there when the camp was being used, but with bright brick buildings on tree-lined paths beneath sunny blue skies, the place was pretty. Even the barbed wire fences were pretty. Which was odd and somewhat disturbing and interesting to contemplate: that these horrors could take place not only in harsh gray winters, but also in blooming, colorful summer.
Between the barbed-wire fences of two sections of the camp. I stood here imagining that it was a no-man's land for inmates, and appreciating what it meant that we could stroll through as we desired.
They built this gallows to hang the commandant of the camp, Rudolf Höss, after the war.
Inside a gas chamber. At the bottom is a thin metal memorial with a candle and some flowers.
Behind the gas chamber, a crematorium where the gassed bodies were burned. This one was reconstructed, though it used original pieces.
Something only the Germans and sonderkommando got to do: walk out of a crematorium.
Many or most, if not all, of the Blocks (bunk houses and other buildings) in the camp have been turned into museum exhibits. Together with the prettied-up/restoration feel I described above, I think that was part of the reason this camp didn't hit me very hard, whereas its larger sister camp, Birkenau, did. I think I would have preferred to look at the camp itself rather than at exhibits about the camp. It was like having to use a textbook when were standing on the grounds themselves.
Anyway, some of the exhibits: Empty cans of Zyklon B gas used in the chambers. So strange to be able to see the marks of can openers.
A common theme throughout all of the camps we visited was the attempt on the curators' part to try to communicate the incomprehensible: what the number six million means. Not only that, but also impressing on visitors again and again that each of those six million was a person.
Here were some attempts at Auschwitz: a fraction of the tons of human hair collected from prisoners before they were killed; suitcases Jews brought when they'd been told they were being relocated; artificial limbs liberated from their former owners; a hallway filled with shoes; items taken from children; faces of some of the female prisoners in the early days of the camp (before there were too many people to record everyone) when they first arrived.
One of the buildings showed the evolution of sleeping conditions in the camp from 1941 to 1945, starting with straw on the floor and ending with these bunks, which will probably look familiar if you've seen liberation footage.
Block 10, where Josef Mengele and others carried out their horrific medical experiments.
Okay, we'll break here at the halfway point of the Poland portion.
ETA: Next half is here.
Taking advantage of Jet Lag Day (i.e., no work today), I've uploaded the 900+ photos I took to my computer and am going through them to find good ones to show you all. Because we were almost always on the move and many shots had to be taken out bus windows and the camera doesn't like taking clear pictures without the flash and the contrast seems off, etc., they're not as great as I'd hoped, but they're not all terrible either. /disclaimer
So here we go: an illustrated recap of the trip, day by day. If anyone has any questions or wants to see more pictures, please speak up; there are many more where these came from, and I'm never sure whether I'm talking about what you're curious about.
Please be warned, some of the concentration camp images may be upsetting.
Days 1-2: Flight to Poland, drive to Krakow.
All packed and ready to go!
Waiting to check in at JFK with 39 other participants and two trip leaders.
An attempt to capture the NYC skyline as we took off. Below it is a zoomed-in version. The sticky-uppy thing in the middle is the Empire State Building.
A burgeoning thundercloud as we left New York.
Polish countryside in the morning, from the plane window.
Deplaning at Frederick Chopin Airport in Warsaw. The guy carrying his guitar is staying after the trip for several weeks to busk on the streets of Tel Aviv.
The itinerary told us that upon arrival, we would immediately travel to Krakow and tour the city. What we didn't realize was that it was a seven-hour drive! Since it followed on our eight-hour overnight flight, we used the time to catch up on sleep. They also showed Schindler's List on the bus, because even though only one or two people hadn't seen it, our guide wanted some of the sites to be fresh in our minds as we were about to see them in person.
When we got to Krakow, we immediately saw this bridge, over which the Jews of the city were marched (as shown in the film) to get to the ghetto when it was opened.
In Krakow is a memorial in the square where ghetto inhabitants were routinely deported by train to concentration camps.
Behind the square is a pharmacy that was unusual for being inside the ghetto yet run by non-Jews. It served as one of the only sources of outside news for the Jewish population. Through a narrow alley beside the pharmacy was a small courtyard in which you could see some of the few remaining original houses of the ghetto. (Poor) people still live here.
A surviving section of the original ghetto wall.
A monument at the site of the Plaszow labor camp beside the city.
We drove past Schindler's factory next, but it was covered in renovation scaffolding and it was on the other side of the bus from where I was sitting, so I don't have a good photo for you.
Our next stop brought us two of the only remaining synagogues in the Jewish Quarter in Krakow, neither of which is currently in use, if I'm not mistaken—just one of many representations of how the war devastated Poland's Jewish population. This one, Isaac Synagogue, was ransacked by the Germans during WWII, and is now being used as an art gallery.
Like many other parts of Krakow and Poland in general, the Jewish Quarter's main square contained small memorials to atrocities committed during the war. This one reads in Polish, English and Hebrew: "Place of meditation upon the martyrdom of 65 thousand Polish citizens of Jewish nationality from Cracow and its environs killed by the Nazis during World War II." (I find it interesting that even all these years later, the plaque refers to Jews as being of a separate nationality from their fellow Poles.) If you are wondering about the stones on the memorial, leaving rocks on graves is traditional in Jewish culture, like leaving flowers or candles or photos. I've heard various explanations for this, including that rocks, unlike flowers, do not die.
We sort of speed-walked from the Jewish Quarter after dinner to Krakow's Old City, which felt the most European of anything we'd yet seen. Our guide didn't slow his pace from the moment we left the restaurant until we got back on the bus, probably because we needed to check in to our hotel and it was already after 10 p.m., so there weren't many opportunities to pause and take photos.
At the center of the Old City is the largest platz (square) in Europe, at 200m x 200m.
The square is bisected by a long indoor marketplace, which looks like this before you go inside:
And like this in a typical stall:
The street we walked down that connects the platz to the Barbican, or gatehouse, that once protected the city from just outside its stone walls. You can tell who was in our group by the white name tags.
The Barbican:
Day 3: Auschwitz concentration camp.
We stayed overnight in Krakow and then drove the next morning to Auschwitz-Birkenau camps, very near the German border. I was surprised by how developed the area was as we neared the camp; I'd been expecting more forest, after the stories of the few escapees who had to make their way through the woods to safety. There were some wooded areas, but they were thinned out towards the ground. I wondered whether it had been like that in the '40s too, making it even more dangerous for the few escapees to hide, or if there had been a fire or something recently that took out most of the cover.
Fun fact: Auschwitz train station (Oświęcim in Polish) is still in use today. (Not that you can really tell from this photo.)
A grassy plot just outside the Auschwitz site where 700 deceased inmates were buried when the Russians liberated the camp. It's a combination of people who died in the camp's final days and people who were too sick to live long after liberation.
A sculpture towards the back of the visitor's center.
Inside the Auschwitz grounds:
One of the infamous "Arbeit Macht Frei" ("Through Work, Freedom") iron gates, where Jews selected for labor rather than extermination entered the camp.
Auschwitz was ... very well preserved, albeit much of it via restoration, and I'm not sure how much of the greenery was there when the camp was being used, but with bright brick buildings on tree-lined paths beneath sunny blue skies, the place was pretty. Even the barbed wire fences were pretty. Which was odd and somewhat disturbing and interesting to contemplate: that these horrors could take place not only in harsh gray winters, but also in blooming, colorful summer.
Between the barbed-wire fences of two sections of the camp. I stood here imagining that it was a no-man's land for inmates, and appreciating what it meant that we could stroll through as we desired.
They built this gallows to hang the commandant of the camp, Rudolf Höss, after the war.
Inside a gas chamber. At the bottom is a thin metal memorial with a candle and some flowers.
Behind the gas chamber, a crematorium where the gassed bodies were burned. This one was reconstructed, though it used original pieces.
Something only the Germans and sonderkommando got to do: walk out of a crematorium.
Many or most, if not all, of the Blocks (bunk houses and other buildings) in the camp have been turned into museum exhibits. Together with the prettied-up/restoration feel I described above, I think that was part of the reason this camp didn't hit me very hard, whereas its larger sister camp, Birkenau, did. I think I would have preferred to look at the camp itself rather than at exhibits about the camp. It was like having to use a textbook when were standing on the grounds themselves.
Anyway, some of the exhibits: Empty cans of Zyklon B gas used in the chambers. So strange to be able to see the marks of can openers.
A common theme throughout all of the camps we visited was the attempt on the curators' part to try to communicate the incomprehensible: what the number six million means. Not only that, but also impressing on visitors again and again that each of those six million was a person.
Here were some attempts at Auschwitz: a fraction of the tons of human hair collected from prisoners before they were killed; suitcases Jews brought when they'd been told they were being relocated; artificial limbs liberated from their former owners; a hallway filled with shoes; items taken from children; faces of some of the female prisoners in the early days of the camp (before there were too many people to record everyone) when they first arrived.
One of the buildings showed the evolution of sleeping conditions in the camp from 1941 to 1945, starting with straw on the floor and ending with these bunks, which will probably look familiar if you've seen liberation footage.
Block 10, where Josef Mengele and others carried out their horrific medical experiments.
Okay, we'll break here at the halfway point of the Poland portion.
ETA: Next half is here.
no subject
Date: Jul. 17th, 2008 09:16 pm (UTC)