Krakow is as beautiful as everyone told me it would be. I can see where the comparisons with Prague originate, and I can tell why it’s known as one of the more touristy cities in Poland. As a city, it looks like it’s doing very well with so many stores, malls and tourists. It was actually a little overwhelming. To get from the bus station to my hostel I was somehow rerouted through a massive mall that borders the train station. It was impressive, to say the least.
Like I said about Budapest, Krakow is a lot like any other nice, big city where pictures just seemed irrelevant or impossible. My hostel was located on the main market square, and that weekend there was a festival in the middle of the square. All kinds of music from jazz to children in traditional costumes played outside our hostel window from morning to night. Let me brag just a little and say that I am pretty good at picking hostels. On this whole trip I was 6 for 7, not too shabby.
But to be honest, the thing I’ll remember most about Poland is Auschwitz. The holocaust is something I’ve seen in movies, learned about in school, read about in newspapers and novels, but actually being at the site of one of the largest massacres of the holocaust put what I already knew as horrible into even more perspective. I was on the verge of tears from about 10 minutes into the tour up until it ended 3 hours later. I don’t think I can articulate how horrified I felt walking through the hallways were children, separated from their parents, were used for medical experiments or looking at the pictures that line the walls of the men incarcerated in the camp’s early years. Their shaved heads and striped shirts, the short description of their ages and professions. The looks on their faces: some looking so determined, some scared, some confused.
As I walked through this place where humans completely forgot what it means to be human, I felt more and more confident that I want to be actively involved in making sure this never happens again. The scary thing about the ability of humans to forget what it means to be human is that it isn’t just an event of the past. It’s happening in some country, some home, right now. Isn’t that sad, that we will probably always have to remind ourselves and others that humans deserve respect?
The trip to Auschwitz put a bit of a damper on the rest of my Poland experience, but it’s not something I regret. Poland is a beautiful place, and it is amazing to see the resilience of a country that has been through so much.
