At the end of February, Will & I took a five-day trip to Krakow. This was a last-minute trip dictated by price. Will had five days off between brutal shifts and I desperately wanted to go somewhere. The destinations we most wanted to visit - Madrid, Dublin and Amsterdam - were either too cold, too expensive or too inconvenient in terms of flying. Krakow was inexpensive, needed just four hours of travel time and seemed interesting.
We felt enriched by the experience. Krakow was like a little Prague - a beautiful medieval city spared by WW2 bombs. It had delicious restaurants (we ate wild boar, venison and duck), buildings with character, traditional markets and cozy cafes. On our first full day, a thick snowfall covered the city with a white blanket - something we'd missed each winter after nearly a year living in Naples and years of living in the south.
But we also felt exhausted by the journey. We learned Poland spent much of the last 200 years in oppression - occupied by the Russians, then the Germans, then the Russians again, only to then be gripped by communism. It also was the center of the world's worst mass killing, as Auschwitz, the largest Nazi concentration camp, killed 1.5 million Jews, Polish political prisoners, gypsies, homosexuals and disabled people. Auschwitz sickened us.
Poland's sadness could be seen everywhere. On tours of beautiful castles, you learned its rich tapestries were hidden for years during the Nazi occupation. Some were stolen and never recovered. Our tour guide to visit a Catholic monastery, a cute older woman who brought us butter and cheese sandwiches for lunch and kept reminding us to EAT, told us of how her father was killed in the war and her mother died just 5 months after her birth. She grew up in an orphanage in Krakow. While our guide was frank about the harsh realities of her upbringing, she was not bitter. As difficult as life was (and is), many Polish people clung to their faith, developing a very devoted and spiritual connection to their religion.
Our visit made me realize how little I know of the world, and of suffering. We're so glad we went to Poland an
d met some of its resilient people and learned of its fascinating, but tragic history.
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