First Impressions of Krakow

Photo: Gravestones at a Jewish cemetery in Kazimierz.

Today we said goodbye to Poland’s capital after three short days and nights, riding a non-stop train from Warsawa Centralna to Krakowa Glowny, a journey of just over two and a half hours. Although we left several parts of Warsaw unexplored, including the suburbs across the Vistula and the park areas to the south and distant west of the city. We’ll have to get to them on another occasion, I suppose.

After the less than ideal circumstances surrounding our previous train voyages – those that brought us from Gdansk to Malbork and then to Warsaw – I wasn’t exactly relishing the trip to Krakow. But these worries proved to be completely unfounded; the second class car was up to modern international standards, with only six seat compartment instead of the eight we’d seen elsewhere in Poland. The cars were also equipped with electric outlets for laptop use or whathaveyou, although I didn’t partake, prefering to nap between stints of viewing the countryside rather than trying to write. We had two traveling companions in our compartment (although of course we never talked to one another), one seemingly a German in his early twenties; the other a young professional that I assumed to be Polish. The German toted perhaps the most enormous suitcase I have ever seen used for train travelling; just over half of it fit atop the luggage rack above our heads, and it sat there so precariously I was half expecting it to slip off and smash us. (It didn’t.) The Pole kept himself entertained for the better part of the voyage reading what looked to be the Polish version of „Playboy,“ which of course illicited a few disapproving glances from my wife. Outside we sped through depot after small-town depot, past rows of pine trees, and between hills and over valleys. The ride, in my opinion, was actually somewhat less scenic than the trip to Warsaw, although after six days of travel it could also be that I’m simply becoming accustomed to the scenery and to travel again. Upon arrival in Krakow, we made our way from the train station to our lodging, a youth hostel on the city’s north side called the „Dizzy Daisy.“ I suppose it’s a sign that we’re starting to get older, but my wife and I don’t fit as well into such places as we once did, although perhaps we never fit all that well into them in the first place. The receptionists were two friendly if somewhat less than attentive Polish girls of perhaps 22 to 25 years old that seem to work here pretty consistantly, and perhaps live here as well, probably quite affordably. The double room we were given for just under 122 Zloty per night (about $40) is not exactly well decorated or highly equipped, but is clean and adequate. The room is situated on the fourth floor, comes with two basic single beds, nothing that could be called electronic, and shares a bathroom with the room adjecent to ours, which is apparently occupied although we haven’t seen our suitemates. (We never met them but on the final night we stayed there, one of them performed an extremely loud, drunken, and mostly incomprehensable rendition of "Paid in Full" by the 1980s rap duo Eric B. and Rakim. Further proof that this wasn't quite our crowd.)

The room is painted in a strange combination of green and yellow pastels, tones that would seemingly fit better in coastal Florida than in southern Poland. By Western standards it’s pretty drab, and compared to the place we stayed at in Warsaw, incredibly simple. But still, I like these sort of places; even if they aren’t that great of a bargain considering the very basic services available, one still gets the sensation of thrift and can focus on the experiences offered by the city itself, which is usually the reason one travels to begin with.

And many parts of the city were appealing at first glance; as soon as we stepped off the train, it was pretty obvious from the number of hostelling offers and tourist information booths that more visitors come here than Warsaw, for example. In the center of town we immediately headed to the market square, upon which St. Mary’s cathedral lays across like a square of color on some modernist painting. The effect is very unique, and the church itself was incredibly ornate; gold coloring completely covered the main alterpiece, which depicted the various trials and tribulations of the building’s namesake. The altar was set in front of an enormous stained-glass window, each section of which illustrating an aspect of the Bible. Other sections of the church featured huge crucifixes such as those we saw at the national museum in Warsaw yesterday.

Seeing this church was a pretty amazing experience because finally after seeing so many pieces in Poland that had been transplanted or reconstructed, here was an authentic Gothic church, intact, displaying its various treasures in the original form. After pausing to hear the hourly bugle call from the church’s towers, we stopped to buy what appeared to be a bagel for 1 zloty (others were selling for .90 zloty or 1.10 zloty, but isn’t 1 the perfect price? Certainly some street vendors are misreading the market) we battled through some dense pedestrian and tram traffic in a southerly direction toward Kazimierz, an adjoining district that served as home to a decent-sized Jewish community before World War II.

Here we visited a number of Synagogues that somehow survived the war, although the status of most of these buildings was unimpressive, particularly when compared to the Catholic buildings in the center of town. It seems pretty clear that many of these places have been more or less abandoned – and when one considers the sick truth, which is that they’re abandoned because the communities these places served were either viciously exterminated or scattered in order to escape this terror – it makes depressing sense. The Jewish cemetary adjoining the Remuh Synagogue – a burial place that was wrecked by the Nazis during their occupation of the city – has apparently been restored to some degree, but clearly this work was carried out years ago and my feeling was that the city does not do much, if anything, to keep such sites in good condition. In my mind this lends to some sense of conflict between the Polish need for developing a strong national character – a national character in which Catholicism clearly plays an important role – and the plight of the Jewish community that once lived in these cities as a sizable minority. My gut feeling is that it seems that the needs of the former Jewish community are rather overlooked in Poland – although again, this is a nation that through no real fault of its own no longer houses a sizable Jewish minority. Still, the needs of this former community are palpable, as was displayed by a photo exhibit at the Higher Synagogue that featured hundreds of photos – from both before the war and recently -- of the people and their descendants that once made up the Jewish community there.

There is this experience, then contrasted with the aspects of the Holocaust as popular culture and/or tourist attraction. Leaflets in our youth hostel (and in other places around town) advertise tours of Auschwitz using exclamation points and as if it were some kind of amusement park. In the Higher Synagogue itself, a bookshop sold books and other media specifically related to the Holocaust; while I found this uncomfortable if not somehow inappropriate, it is understandable, assuming the proceeds of such sales go to the improvement of the facilities there. But I do not quite understand the marketing of the sites of the former concentration camps or the need to provide bus tours there. There is clearly a need to deal with those issues with both sensativity and with practicality; obviously those are not a easy messages to convey, and furthermore, the topic itself is so emotional and difficult to grasp, it is perhaps no wonder that I find myself somewhat torn when trying to make sense of it.