Poland | Blissfulbritt

Had it not been for my interest in visiting Auschwitz, Kraków would not have been a city high on my list of places to see. After spending a few days exploring the city, I can now say it should have been. In fact, I feel the need to go back because there are parts of the city I didn’t spend much time in because my trip was only four days.

Getting from the airport to my hostel was simple by bus, and I chose a place within walking distance of the Old Town area and the Main Market Square. I arrived around 5pm, so I spent the final daylight hours on my first day walking the city. I splurged for dinner and bought my first taste of pierogi’s.

It was in that moment I realized how insanely cheap Kraków is.

My pierogi’s cost 10 Polish złoty, which is the equivalent of about $2. I spent the 10 złoty I was gifted from Arlene, a woman I met in Luxembourg last month. She had just visited Poland, and when I told her I was going the following month she gifted me the 10 złoty. Thanks for the meal Arlene!

I headed back to my hostel for an early night because I had the Auschwitz tour the following morning at 5am. I had every intention of sleeping, but a combination of the pierogi’s (holla food sensitivities!), no AC in the hostel (Poland is humid!), a room right next to the LOUD tram running all night, and the guy on the bunk next to mine with the worst case of bruxism I’ve ever heard – I slept MAYBE two hours.

Seriously, I thought he was going to wake up with no teeth.

Needless to say I felt like hell the next day, and after that I cancelled the remaining two nights in the hostel and booked an apartment. I’m getting too old to sleep in a dorm with other people, because I never sleep well when I do. Day two started at 4am thanks to not being able to sleep, so I walked around before my tour to Auschwitz. I returned to the city around 1 pm after the tour, and once I arrived back in the city I did more exploring by foot.

I found my way to Wawel Royal Castle, and spent some time wandering the grounds. It’s free to walk the grounds and to enter the cathedral, which was enough for me to see. Buried in the tombs of the cathedral are some of Poland’s most important people (not that I know any of them), but I didn’t need to know that to want to go inside. I’m all about seeing the inside of a European cathedral.

Cathedral aside, the grounds of this castle were stunning. Likely some of the most beautiful I’ve seen, and the cathedral exterior is the most eclectic cathedral I’ve seen.

It’s like whoever built this couldn’t decide what design look they wanted.

Unfortunately the time I decided to visit Wawel was the time everyone else decided to visit. Including a TON of school kids. I walked into the cathedral and had to walk right back out because the crowd was giving me anxiety. That plus I had coffee and ate a brownie before…two things I typically avoid. Whoops. I still felt like I saw enough though.

Delicious, but actually not worth the anxiety it brought. Food is medicine ya’ll.

To balance my sugar and caffeine splurge, I grabbed dinner at a traditional Polish restaurant…where I ordered a chicken salad. What can I say, I had to stop splurging. I ended up offering to share my table with two other travelers, who happened to be German. We chatted about Germany and they were lovely dinner friends.

As I started to head back to my apartment I walked past Church of St Peter and Paul. Out front was a sign advertising a classical concert…in ten minutes. It was perfect timing, and I bought a ticket (cost me about $15, again so cheap.) I didn’t go to a classical concert on my last trip (trying to go in as many new countries as possible), and I was excited to see one in Poland. The venue was beautiful and the music was mesmerizing.

When I exited the concert it was dark, but I didn’t feel at all unsafe. Typically I don’t like to be out at night alone, but this city was still very much alive. I slowly walked back to my apartment through the city park soaking in the hustle and bustle of those around me.

It was my favorite evening of the trip.

My third day I booked a tour to the Wieliczka Salt Mine, which turned out to be WAY cooler than I expected. I booked the tour because I didn’t know what else to do for the day, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it. The mine also has a health resort, good for those with respiratory problems. The air is the cleanest air I will ever have breathed due to the salt killing the bacteria.

When I first started to climb down the stairs into the mine, I felt a bit of panic and claustrophobia, but once I was down below the surface of the earth I felt ok. There are still old routes within the mine that miners used to take, however the mine is no longer used for mining. It is still considered active though because the evaporation of water that leaves salt above ground is collected and sold.

I regret not buying any salt, instead I bought salted chocolate for my mom, and ate half of it. Scheisse.

Salt brine saltier than the Dead Sea.

King carved out of complete salt.

There is an active church within the mine where people can come to get married, and there are carvings in the walls portraying the life of Jesus. It was such a unique room within the mine. Our tour guide told us that because of the bacteria killing properties in salt, we could lick the walls (or floor.) No one took him up on it, but I did after we left the church.

I figured licking Jesus would be a bit inappropriate.

NaCl Last Supper.

The salt mine tour was only about three hours, bringing me back to Kraków in the early afternoon. I headed to the Old Town area to get some food. The outdoor market in the Old Town is like a giant year round farmers market, and I loved it. I bought my pierogi’s from here on my first day, and on that first visit I saw a place cooking chicken and veggies.

This was the most expensive meal I had in Kraków, costing me a total of around $12. I was shocked by how “expensive it was” after spending so little the previous meals I had eaten. Then I realized how ridiculous I was for thinking $12 was expensive. The boiled potatoes, veggies, and chicken were amazing and worth every penny.

I stood at an outdoor table under an umbrella in the rain with people around me speaking languages I couldn’t decipher. It was a meal I shan’t soon forget. After I ate I wandered some more, and bought a ticket to climb the towers of St. Mary’s Basilica for a better view of the city. While waiting to enter the tower I saw a guy that sat behind me at the concert the night before.

He recognized me and stopped to say hello. He was from Brazil, but living in Ireland. We exchanged a few words, and he continued on.

Tower from the ground.

My fourth and final day in Kraków I checked out of my apartment and walked over to Oskar Schindler’s Factory. The museum opens at 10 am, and I was in line by 10:30. I spent a little over an hour walking through the museum and by the time I came back out the tickets for the day were sold out. Needless to say I made it just in time.

While I was waiting in line to enter I met a lovely couple from Belgium. They were on a road trip and planned to stay in Poland until they ran out of Polish złoty. They hadn’t booked their place to stay yet for the night, and everything about what they were doing made me smile. One day I hope to live a life like that with my husband. The woman tried to marry her son off to me, but then we got separated within the museum. Drat.

This museum was not what I expected, it was very cool, but I was hoping for a more authentic feel of the factory. The museum is built in the factory where Oskar Schindler worked and saved the lives of over 1000 Jewish people, but there was so much done to the building for the museum that it didn’t have the factory feel to it.

Either way, I’m glad I came.

My last stop before heading back to the airport was a very quick walk through the Jewish Quarter, which I regrettably didn’t spend more time in. Should I be lucky enough to visit Kraków again I will spend more time in the Jewish Quarter. I will also eat hummus, lot’s of hummus.

My trip to Poland was just what I’d hoped for, and there was very little stress on this trip (aside from poor choices regarding food, but that was to be expected.) Poland is beautiful, and the park that ran between the city was something I continue to miss in Germany. A park with benches and tall trees and a path.

I feel completely comfortable traveling alone to other countries now which is such a great feeling. I am confident when navigating public transportation regardless of language barriers, and I daydream of the day when I will travel for longer periods of time without having to return to a home base, or to a job.

Until then, I will check off new cities as often as I can.

Q: Where is somewhere you visited that pleasantly surprised you?

When writing a blog post about a place like Auschwitz, it’s hard to know where to start. My intention for writing this post is to share some photos and words with my family, my friends, and those who might never be able to visit. I feel the need to emphasize my respect for Auschwitz, because I always feel a bit odd when I express my interest in the Holocaust.

I believe that if we talk about these horrific events, it keeps the topic alive and in doing so will hopefully prevent them from happening again.

Auschwitz has been on my list of places to visit for as long as I can remember, and after walking through the camp I struggle to put into words what the experience was like for me. I admit I felt a bit numb while I was there, mostly because I think the tour I took moved too fast and I didn’t have time to process what I was seeing. It wasn’t until days later while preparing photos for this blog post that the wave of emotions hit me.

Ultimately no one will ever feel the emotions felt by those who entered this camp to live, work, and die.

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My intention for this post is to share a brief view into the largest immediate death camp founded by the Third Reich authorities. Auschwitz has three main camps, Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II (Birkenau), and Auschwitz III (Monowitz), as well as many sub-camps. I was able to visit Auschwitz I and II. In the first years of its existence (June 1940 to February 1942) Auschwitz functioned similarly to the concentration camps founded in Germany before the war. Most of the people brought to the camps were Poles.

At the time Jewish people accounted for only a small percentage of the inmate population.

This hurts my heart.

Before visiting Dachau, I assumed most inmates were Jewish, but in the beginning that wasn’t the case. Anyone who was perceived as a threat to the Nazi’s could be sent to one of the many concentration camps around Europe. Upon arrival to Auschwitz II-Birkenau, anyone deemed unfit for work was killed on the spot, including pregnant women. A German doctor would decide whether or not someone was fit for work just by looking at them.

A swift hand gesture to the right or left determined if one was meant to work to death, or proceed immediately to the gas chambers.

Many people were told they were going somewhere that would provide them a fresh start, they weren’t aware of what they were about to endure. This was a common theme for the German SS authorities, telling the prisoners something to make them believe death was not coming. One of the most well known examples of this was telling prisoners they would be taking a shower, when really they were taking their clothing off to enter a gas chamber.

Auschwitz II-Birkenau rail tracks from entrance.

Auschwitz II-Birkenau cattle car bringing in upwards of 80 people crammed into this box. Often took over a week to get here and many died inside these transportation cars.

At Auschwitz I the gas chamber was small, and in the room next door was the crematorium. At Auschwitz II the gas chamber was much larger, however there is nothing left of the gas chamber or crematorium because upon the liberation of the prisoners the German Nazi’s blew up as much evidence as possible to try and hide what they did. All that remains at Auschwitz II is ruble and ruins.

Canisters that held the pellets for Zyklon B, a chemical used in the gas chambers.

Auschwitz I – hole in the ceiling where the gas would be dropped down into the chamber.

Auschwitz I

Auschwitz II ruble and ruins.

Gas chambers are likely the first thing most of us think of when we think about the method of murder in these camps, but the high mortality rate among inmates also resulted from malnutrition, atrocious sanitary conditions, diseases, physically exhausting manual labour, and executions. At Auschwitz I, those who didn’t die soon or at all, lived in old Polish army buildings.

Upon first glance, the buildings almost look nice.

At Auschwitz II-Birkenau, smaller farm houses were used for housing. Some of the buildings were old horse stables. From the outside, these also don’t look so bad. It was the unfit living conditions on the inside that made these horrific. No proper ventilation, too many people crammed into one space, being locked in, using the farthest bunk from the door for the bathroom, no heat, and no air flow.

Auschwitz II-Birkenau

Auschwitz I

Auschwitz I

At Auschwitz I each building has a block number and the buildings were intended to house around 700 people, but had upwards of 1200 people at points. Originally there were no beds in these buildings and prisoners were forced to sleep on their sides on the floor due to overcrowding. Eventually the buildings had beds, but even then there were too many people forced to sleep in one bunk.

Of all the blocks, block 11 is the one I will never forget. Known as the “death block,” this is where the camp jail was. Prisoners would be sent here to starve, and to spend their time away from work in standing cells. They would literally stand for the entire night in a tiny square, and then be forced to work again the next day. This memory continues to haunt me a week later. When exiting block 11 there is a death wall, where prisoners stood naked and were shot in the head.

I felt physically sick looking at this wall.

The personal belongings of prisoners were kept by the Third Reich, and some of the items were found and collected upon the liberation. There is a room at Auschwitz I with actual belongings, including glasses, suitcases, shoes, prosthetic limbs, pots and pans, toiletries, and human hair. Each prisoner had their head shaved, and the hair was used to make items for the German soldiers – things like socks – but not all the hair was used.

The hair and the children shoes got to me the most.

Auschwitz is one of those places I think everyone needs to visit at least once in their life. I would like to go back and be on my own time someday. There were many rooms we skipped on the tour, and I’d like to see the areas I missed. My words on this page provide a very brief look at the camp, and anyone interested in learning more should not only visit for themselves, but should also read more about the history. I continue to learn more each time I visit a concentration camp.

Auschwitz II-Birkenau bathroom.

The sanitary conditions, the medical experiments, the torture, the murder, the punishments, the inhumane living conditions – the number of people who endured this life is heartbreaking, and I continue to wonder how humans could do this to each other. This visit continues to put things into perspective for me in my own life, and I find myself having flashbacks to my visit whenever I have negative thoughts.

I was saddened and surprised by the amounts of people I saw taking selfies, or taking group photos, or having others take photos of them smiling while posing in front of areas within these two camps. Part of me felt guilty for taking photos at all, but I knew I wanted to share my experience with my family back home. This is a place of remembrance, and posing for a photo or a selfie is so unbelievable inappropriate. If you do have the opportunity to visit, please remember this.

Freedom is often something I take for granted, and I have to remind myself how blessed I truly am. This post is in remembrance of those who lost their lives simply because they were themselves.