Krakow & Auschwitz/Birkenau

We were sad to leave Wroclaw as we had found only about 1/3 of the city’s dwarf statues. Big smiles when I spotted this guy at the train station, pulling his suitcase as he hurries for his train!

Our Sunday train to Krakow was the most crowded train we’ve taken on this trip. We had middle seats in a first-class compartment, but it was comfortable, and we had enough room. We arrived at our hotel with time to walk a bit in the Old Town. Our hotel is just a few hundred feet from this UNESCO World Heritage site. St. Martin’s Basilica stands on one corner of the Market Square in Old Town.

On Monday, we went on a full day tour to Auschwitz/Birkenau. The entrance had the same Nazi sign we’d seen at Terezin in the Czech Republic and Dachau in Germany, “Arbeit macht frei,” which means "work makes one free." 

The opposite was true. If not selected for immediate death, prisoners were used for labor, in the camps and outside on construction and road projects. Many concentration camp prisoners were also used in factories that produced weapons and other items that supported the German war effort. Prisoners, poorly fed with rampant malnutrition and disease, died from the overwork and starvation.

Auschwitz, a former Polish Army barracks, was not established until 1940, after some of the concentration camps in Germany. However, it became the deadliest because it was where the Nazis perfected their Final Solution, the gas chambers and crematoriums. This is also where Mengele and other Nazis carried out their horrific medical experimentation on Jews, Roma, and others.

This mound housed the Auschwitz crematorium from 1940 to 1943. During 1941 and 1942, a gas chamber was added and used. In 1943, all crematory activity was moved to Birkenau as its multiple larger crematories had been constructed there. 

Birkenau, about 2 km away, is more properly called Auschwitz II. It was the second phase of Auschwitz, opened for prisoners in 1941, and the numbers of people killed at Auschwitz, 1.1 million (90% Jews), include those killed at its Birkenau location. Trains were used to ferry people here from all over Europe. The tracks lead past barracks and directly to the gas chambers.

At the end of WWII, with the Soviet Army close to Auschwitz, the Nazi SS leaders burned and blew up the gas chambers/crematoriums. Five facilities: two at which Nazis could kill and cremate 1500 people a day, three smaller ones where Nazis killed 800 a day. Ruins are all that the Nazis left of these five buildings in hopes of hiding the activity that went on here.

The tour also took us by the barracks, housing 600 prisoners each on wooden platforms with practically no sanitary facilities. The laborers stayed here until they died or were executed when they could no longer work.

Since Auschwitz is about an hour and a half from Krakow, we didn’t return until late afternoon on Monday. Tuesday, we had no scheduled tours, so I took Phillip on a walk. An over 6-mile walk, to Krakow Castle and around Old Town. 

From the Krakow Castle rampart, we had a view of the Vistula River.

We did not go into this main part of the castle, but it had a nicely landscaped area.

Upon exiting the castle on the north side, we walked thru the entrance with the drop-down gate.

After the castle walk, we walked the entire circumference of Old Town via the Planty Gardens. The gardens were put in place where the city walls, dating from the 13th century, had been. These city walls formed a complex network of fortifications, towers, and gates, surrounded by a deep moat on the outer side. However, during the 1800s, the medieval city walls fell into disuse. During that time, Krakow was under Austrian influence and Emperor Franz I of Austria-Hungary ordered the dismantling of the old fortifications, filling the moat with soil and creating a garden in its place. Now, a pleasant park in which to walk. Oh yes, I verified from several sources that the circumference, not diameter, was 4 km. I’m not making the same mistake that I made in Busan. 

We saw these blue and white carts in many locations around Old Town. They are specific to Krakow and sell Obwarzanek Krakowski.

This is Obwarzanek Krakowski, basically a cross between a bagel and a pretzel. This food is protected and on the EU traditional food list, meaning it can only be produced and sold here. A tasty, albeit chewy, treat for 3zl (about 75 cents US). 

On the north end of Planty Gardens we found St. Florian’s Gate and a guard tower with a grass-filled moat.

To get back into Old Town, we walked thru St. Florian’s Gate.

This evening, we went back out to walk around, actually, to find ice cream for Phillip. It was dusk, and we got a nice picture of the Town Hall Tower, the only original remnant of the 15th century town hall. It's chilly here, the high today was about 45 degrees. The lights on the lower left are heaters in the restaurant patio areas. 

Tomorrow: another tour, to the UNESCO World Heritage site of the Wieliszka Salt Mines.