Originally, my plan was to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau, but unfortunately by the time I came to book the free tour, it was fully booked up. I did say this trip wasn’t as well planned as Japan, right?
5th August – Krakow Jewish Quarter
I decided the next day to get a tram in to Krakow and go to the Jewish quarter, but because hadn’t really planned anything and got up later in the day, I didn’t have loads of time, so I went to the Galicia Museum, where to be honest I didn’t take many photo’s cause of the disturbing scenes as it shows a lot of the Jewish history in Krakow, including stuff during WW2.
The museum was founded by a British photographer called Chris Schwarz, who came to Poland to photograph traces of Jewish heritage. He was also photographing there during the solidarity movement again communism.
One piece of photography that stunned me the most, still makes me really sad and bring a tear to my eyes, is the one of the gas chamber from the main Auschwitz camp with a quote below it saying “Mummy, when they kill us will it hurt?”, “No, my dearest, it will not hurt. It will only take a minute”.
The Auschwitz camp leader Karl Fritzsch used to say to new arrivals “if there are some Jews among you, you may stay here for two weeks, priests three weeks, the rest, two months”.
Just what kind of monster do you have to be to justify killing people like that and after going to Japan and going to where both atomic bombs hit as well, it really hits home. It honestly makes me sad to think about how much pain and suffering was brought to people because of the Third Reich.
Afterwards it was off to the Jewish Ghetto Memorial, which to any passerby looks like just 70 bronze chairs in a square, but they all represent the lives lost in the liquidation of the Jewish Ghetto in 1943.
Afterwards I went to a restaurant called Awiw, where there was live music, and they server a mix of both Jewish and Polish food. For starters I got a Jewish dish called Cabbage Roll “holishkes”, which is ground meat wrapped in cabbage with a tomato sauce.
For my main, I got Bigos, which is a Polish hunters stew with venison, sausages, cabbage sauerkraut and mushrooms in it, and it came in an edible bread bowl, which made it even more tasty.
Join me next time on my adventure in Poland!!!
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