Sightseeing in Poland.

On the 24th I arrived in Poland for the first time, it was cold and the snow was starting to fall, I didn't know what I was to expect of this week, how much I would be seeing, what I would see. It was all so new to me. We were staying in the Jewish Quarter of Krakow, (Yes it is also where parts of Schlinder's List was filmed, but I don't want to go into that) We headed straight out to explore, I saw so much beauty in a city which once had been captured and tarnished by the Nazis. Seeing Wawal Castle, how it over looked some of the city, remembering that once Hans Frank lived there like a King, a king of a country his 'men' had captured. It was all very surreal to me. 

We walked to the Old Jewish Ghetto, to see the square with the chairs, The memorial’s chairs intrude to bus and tram stops and are used by locals awaiting transportation, suggesting that anyone can be a victim, and giving the sense of absence, that no one would sit on these chairs as the people who would... were deported. Just seeing the empty space, the chairs, the snow falling so peacefully. I felt a sense of complete loss. This square once had thousands of innocent lives waiting, just waiting.. they would soon be taken to some of the worse places, Plazow and Auschwitz, starved and weak, these people who were on the square would of been taken away, probably to be worked to death or die in the gas chambers. 

Near by the square, is the Schindler Factory, still in good condition (You are unable to go inside the actual factory) we didn't go in on the Saturday, I would later visit the inside with other friends. But the windows were beautiful, how they had the numbers of their tattoos written on them, once this factory was the place which saved a thousand Jewish lives from murder and brutality. The photo to the left is of the tiles inside the Schindler Factory (please excuse our feet) 

During the week we revisited the factory, to find a journey within its rooms, from life before occupation to the deportation of the Jewish population and how Schindler saved a handful of them from being murdered. It was haunting being inside the factory, with the propaganda posters on the corridor while Nazi flags hung from the ceiling. It was extremely haunting, for all of us in the museum together. I have always been highly sensitive to the children, seeing their little toys which would of been left behind in a rushed panic to leave the house. Seeing a mock built hideout for a family who didn't want to conform to the Nazis and leave their homes. It was extremely informative about their lives. At the end of the museum there is the Last Room of Choices, it's brightly lit with excerpts from correspondence and memoirs written on rolls similar to Torah scrolls, it was painful to see, as we could read some of the kindness which they found while suffering yet some were more painful, 'my sister volunteered for Transport to save her brothers' it was truly emotional. 

We then got to the Gestapo headquarters, it was smaller than I expected but I wanted to see the cells, they were so dark and empty, the walls scratched with messages from victims who had been tortured in such places. It was such a small space inside, with a little window in a few, the walls seemed to close in on us when we were inside the cell, I couldn't even imagine half of what the men who were locked in here had to go through once they had been caught by the ruthless men of the Gestapo and the punishments which were waiting for them. 

Auschwitz needs it own article, there is to many things to say about such a place, which can not fit into this small sightseeing one, and for most of it, Auschwitz is NOT a sight-seeing 'attraction' it's a historic area which needs to be preserved and kept for future generations to see what happens when we allow ourselves to hate another race, religion, sexuality and political belief. It ends with misery and death, and places like Auschwitz show us that.