Krakow - Day Two

Fridayday, December 28, 2007 – 7:30AM

Awakened suddenly, hurriedly dressed and out the door. Informed on the way we were going to Wieliczka Salt Mine, one of the most “eagerly visited tourist sites in Poland”. I tried not to fall asleep on the way, coffee deprived as I was, and when we got there I was happy enough that they hadn’t left me in bed, as it was quite interesting a very beautiful. Obviously this salt mine is no longer used to mining salt; it is strictly a tourist attraction. And rightly so. 101 metres below the ground is the world chapel of St. Kinga, which has beautiful carvings and sculptures and even chandeliers made entirely of salt. There was a large statue of Pope John Paul II (Jana Paula II), which we all took our picture with, but then very unfortunately and much to my frustration and disappointment, I somehow foolishly managed to clear my memory card of all pictures. Needless to say it was not my finest moment. But all that aside. There was also displays of how salt mining worked, and how back in the day, when a man wanted to marry a woman, it was good if he had big hands, because in order to marry her he had to pay a dowry for her to her parents, and so he would go to the salt mines and he was allowed to take a two-handed handful of salt in order to prove his worthiness. The bigger his hands, the more salt he could take, and since in that area at that time salt was more precious than gold, the more salt he brought, the more likely he was to get the girl.

The deepest part of the salt mine was 125m, and from there you could use email and mobile phones, and there was also a restaurant, so you could say you had eaten 125m below ground. However, the food looked utterly devoid of edibility, so we continued on our way.
Luckily in order to get back out of the salt mine you were not required to climb the approximately 80 billion stairs it took to get down. Instead, we got to use the lift, which was much more claustrophobia-inducing, but faster. I got crammed into a tiny corner and pretty much just held my breath for 5 minutes until I could get out – and then I panicked. I was proud for holding it in that long, but I really don’t like small spaces when they are made small because of people. I also don’t like elevators, so it was a very bad combination. But still kind of fun, I guess.

As we were leaving I bought a block of salt for 1 zloty, which is about 25 cents :D and then we continued on our way to one of the main reasons we came to Krakow (I just learned it was spelled “Cracow” in English, but never mind): Auschwitz.

Auschwitz was a very sobering experience. It was a place I had always wanted to go, but once I was there I realized I had not prepared myself for all the things I was going to see. We walked around, from bunker to bunker, looking at the displays. The living quarters, the descriptions of work, and life in the camp, the grotesque pictures on the walls of men, women, and children, naked and starved nearly to death. Three things impacted me the most while I was there: the first was the displays of all the shoes that were taken away from the people who came to this camp. There were thousands and thousands of shoes, piled up to the ceiling and placed behind glass. They were all torn apart, searched for money, etc. But the thing that hit me was that each pair of shoes represented a human being who lost everything they owned, and for most of them, even their lives, for the sadistic pleasure of one man.

I was also struck by the descriptions of the torture many of these people were put through, and the experiments done on them. Babies being starved... it all just roiled me with anger and saddened me at the same time.

Lastly, I was abhorred by one quote of Adolf Hitler: “I freed Germany from the stupid and degrading fallacies of conscience, morality... we will train young people before whom the whole world will tremble. I want young people capable of violence, imperious, relentless, cruel.”
The last portion that we went through at Auschwitz was the gas chambers, where thousands of Jews, Poles, Gypsies, and even some Germans, if they didn’t live up to Hitler’s standards, lost their lives.

Words are not sufficient. Let me just say that I would highly recommend for each person to visit this place if they have the chance at some point in their lifetime.