Auschwitz to Out.

Krakow.

Went on the CIEE trip to Krakow the weekend after Denmark, unfortunately this excursion resulted in sleep deprivation and frostbite. The trip left Thursday night at midnight, so of course we had to go out first.

Three beers and a McDonalds run (ewww) later, we are on the bus, I’m wedged in the very back between two chatty best friends and their backpacks. I pass out after struggling to find a position in which my head doesn’t feel like its about to fall off, and unfortunately wake up once every 52 minutes for the next six hours. “Please don’t use the bathroom, it freezes in this weather.” The bus driver announces. Well HAH, take that, I have to pee. Rebellion!

We arrive in Poland as the sun is coming up, only to see...nothing. Just white; miles of snow a foot deep, everywhere. The sky is grey, and the light that manages to penetrate the thick clouds, covers the world in light blue. The perfect morning to go to Auschwitz.

We arrive at the camp at 7:45, after a brief stop to a student center where we pick up rolls and coffee. We are the first tour of the day, and one of only three that will be visiting the camp in this weather. The girl next to me is wearing ballet flats. Wow. Smart. For the next three hours she waddles around like a double-peg legged pirate.

Now for a turn to the serious:

Walking around the camp was more than surreal, it was to bizarre to even register as reality. I thought back to my 8th grade history class, the weeks and months spent on the holocaust, the pictures of sleepwalking skeletons, of children calmly walking had in hand with their pregnant mothers to the gas chambers and I can’t place those images in this barren stretch of land. The brick SS housing units are mostly empty, although a few of them have been converted into sparsely filled mini-exhibitions. One room is filled with women’s hair, I pause towards the end of the glass case and my heart stops; pigtails, blonde, short, definitely a child’s. The next case is full of baby clothes, another of mangled glasses, one of suitcases, marked with names for their falsely-promised reclamation. Another room is filled with pots and pans, another with mountains of shoes.

But I can’t fill these shoes, I cant place the hair, I can’t envision the thousands and thousands of dead attached to these possessions, perhaps it’s a defense mechanism, but when I look out at the barbed wire I do not hear the gunshots. On the contrary there is a deafening, piercing silence. The silence of suffering. That calm in the air after a storm; unnatural, heavy.

My hands grow cold even in their mittens, my sneakers are soaked through, and then I think of the barefoot buried, the rags of the tenants of torture.

The actual tour of the camp didn’t teach me anything new I hadn’t already learned in school, but that wasn’t the point. The point was connecting that learned knowledge with the wind and the biting cold; making Auschwitz more than a lesson, for the lessons make only the history, a reality, my visit placed fact in a real context, transforming all that knowledge into something greater, something tangible, a feeling, not despair, but reverence and respect for the strength of the human spirit, the power of survival, if not physical, a kind of moral, spiritual, survival, a survival that outlives us and hangs in the air in even the darkest corners of the world.

Anyway, enough seriousness, Krakow wasn’t all heavy, although WWII left the city in quite a depressing state; Krakow wasn’t exactly gorgeous, although there were certainly some better spots within the city. The churches we saw there were absolutely astounding; without a doubt the most beautiful churches I’ve ever seen. Gold and deep blues, stars and elaborate geometric patterns all over the vaulted ceilings, huge altarpieces covered in gold leafing, candles everywhere, cold gray stone meeting intense panels of paint.

The food in Krakow was also, surprisingly enough, delicious. I had perhaps the best meal I’ve had abroad that very weekend: Short ribs, mushroom soup (in un bread bowl, au bon pain style duh.) and a tall glass of “Piwo.” (aka Pivo, aka Beer. Polish and Czech are super similar, but one distinct difference is the Czech V’s turn to W’s in Poland.)

Tra la la, what else? The night life is decent, my good friends Peter, Chris, Emily and I made it out to a few clubs which were pretty fun, although a bit too sweaty at two in the morning. Some Polish guy handed me a post-it that said, (in polish, I had to ask a policeman to transslate) "You hathe the most beautiful eyes in the world." Tres flattering as far as unwanted attention goes, much better than an awkward dancing attempt. Nope, ain't gonna happen sir, mi dispiace.