POLAND: Krakow, Auschwitz concentration camp, Zakopane
SLOVAKIA: Stary Smokovec
October 1999
STRANGERS
ON A TRAIN
A
sleeper train carried us from
No robbers gassed us, but it was a wild trip anyway. We were in the last car of the train, which hurtled through space in a crack-the-whip motion as if it were trying to catch up with the engine. We lay in our bunks holding on for dear life as we were whipped along. It was also very noisy: clickety-clack and bangedy-bang, punctuated by the startling BAM-WHIRR of a high-speed train going in the opposite direction a foot from our window.
To make matters worse, we had
trouble regulating the temperature in our compartment because the conductor
spent much of the trip shoveling coal into the car's furnace. This achieved two
results: our compartment was hot as hell and when we opened the window we got a
cloud of coal exhaust in our faces. The window would't stay open, so we
used two plastic coat hangers to prop it up, but this worked only if we propped it
all the way open. As the night got colder, we put on more and more clothing -
until we each had on thermal underwear plus fleece vests, jackets, ski caps and
gloves - topped off by parkas. When the train stopped, as it did numerous times during the
night, we hastily stripped layers of clothing off to avoid roasting. By the time
we arrived in
When we phoned from the
They were interesting people - well versed in politics, history, art and culture. They had strong personalities and loved to argue with each other on nearly everything. Fortunately, these arguments were made with love and respect. They were exhausting but also enlightening - particularly on history and politics.
The first morning of our stay we
breakfasted heartily on ham, cheese, bread and coffee, then drove to the Wieliczka Salt Mine a few kilometers south of Krakow.
Now a tourist attraction, this mine operated for
700 years; we explored it to a depth of 1000 feet. Afterwards, we stopped off
at a restaurant for an early dinner of beet soup, salad, goulash and mushroom
omelet, then fell into bed, stuffed and happy. The next morning, we had another
stupendous breakfast: a gelatin with hard-boiled eggs, grated radishes and
horseradish, plus light & dark breads, cured ham, two cheeses and excellent
dark coffee. Then our hostess, formerly a guide, took us on a full day's tour. We stopped in at the Green Balloon, once a famous
cabaret and now a stylish tearoom. We visited a bookstore to locate the English
titles of two books by Norman Davies that she recommended: God's
Playground and
She took us to Universytetu
Jagiellonskiejo - second in
Our hostess was Catholic, but - upon learning that Lou
is half-Jewish - insisted on taking us through Kazimierz, the old Jewish Quarter
of the city. We visited the only active synagogue and its cemetery. Another
evening we
went back to this part of town for an excellent Kosher dinner and an evening of Klezmer music. Prior to World War II, 70,000 Jews lived in
The two of us
took a bus a few miles out of
Krakow to the infamous concentration camps at
We entered under the ironic sign above the gate: ARBEIT MACHT FREI (WORK MAKES FREE) It certainly did. Work until you drop, then be freed of your miserable life. Most of the workers here were young males. Women, children and the elderly were sent directly from the trains to the gas chambers and crematorium. Political prisoners were tortured and executed at this camp, which was also the site of medical experiments - including methods of sterilization and inoculation. Various buildings now house photographic exhibits and camp artifacts.
There are huge piles of eyeglasses, dentures, hair, clothing, shaving brushes, suitcases
and shoes.
Somehow, the piles of worn-out shoes were even harder for us to bear than the
gas chamber. The shoes were stand-ins for their former owners - innocent,
pathetic, intensely vulnerable. We went into the gas chamber, lined with
fake shower heads to disguise it as a shower room. Overhead, we could see the
hole in the ceiling where the cyanide gas entered. This was a small chamber,
accommodating "only" 800 people at a time. The camp at Birkenau had a
chamber that gassed 2,000 people at once. (Parts of the film
"Schindler's List" were filmed at Birkenau.)
Of the 1.5 million people murdered in these two camps, 90% were Jews. The rest were political prisoners, gypsies, prisoners of war and "misfits" - including gays. About 800,000 of the Jews were delivered directly to the gas chamber on arrival. They were the "lucky" ones, dying in just 20 minutes. The others suffered far longer from the hard labor, extreme cold, lack of food and brutal treatment.
As we toured Auschwitz and
nearby Birkenau, we kept remembering the obnoxious Aussie we overheard on the train to
Back in Krakow once again, we slept the exhausted sleep of the overwhelmed. The next day, our host drove us to the station to catch a bus into Slovakia. As we climbed out of his small car, he put in a cassette tape to send us off with the American cowboy ballad, "Rambling Rose!"
STARY SMOKOVEC
The High Tatry Mountains
rise out of nowhere along the border between Poland and Slovakia, looking like miniature
Alps popping up in wheat fields. After a couple of relaxing days in the ski
resort of Zakopane, we took a bus from Poland through these
mountains to the Slovakian mountaineering village of Stary Smokovec, lingering
here for several days so Lou could recover from a bad case of flu. We stayed
in the huge Grand Hotel, whose aging elegance is still impressive by Central
European standards. With ski season a month or two away, it was nearly
deserted, and reminded us of the vast empty lodge in Jack Nicholson's film "The
Shining."
The only television channel in English showed 24 hours a day of motorcycle racing, indoor bicycle racing, snowboarding and women's wrestling. Joan didn't want to leave the room with Lou huddled miserably in bed, and she had nothing to read but our dog-eared Lonely Planet guidebook to Central Europe. So she watched Valentino Rossi win the SAME 250cc motorcycle race THREE TIMES. Because we were running low on cash, she went down to the village but couldn't find any place to get money. She eventually located the village's only ATM and was relieved when it accepted her card and spit out US$20 in Slovak koruna - within seconds. Ah, technology! We went on a wild spending spree. Dinner for two, including a 15% tip, in an excellent local cafe, plus four bottles of water, one large beer, six oranges, eight tomatoes, two rolls toilet paper, a plastic grocery bag, two boxes of Tylenol and one loaf black bread - all for a grand total of less than US$20!
In
Stary Smokovec they spoke Slovak, Polish and a little
German - but only a few words of English. We had an interesting time trying to communicate with the waitress in
the hotel restaurant. The menu offered two kinds of cereal: corn flakes and a
kind of soggy granola. We couldn't figure out how to order. Finally, Joan
resorted to the Lou Rose School of Finger Language - See
CZECH REPUBLIC - showing two fingers and saying
earnestly "corn flakes" and "nicht corn flakes," then putting
down the finger labeled "corn flakes." This resulted in a totally puzzled look
from the waitress, but after more miming, we actually got the soggy stuff we
preferred. This was followed by the rest of breakfast: coffee, smoked cheese,
lunch meat, deviled eggs topped with cheap caviar, rolls, rye bread and lots of
red bell pepper. All of the above cost $2.50 per person - not bad for an elegant hotel
restaurant!
Despite Lou's shakiness, we took a brief walk along one of the many beautiful forest trails in Stary Smokovec. This is a charming place; we wish we'd been able to enjoy it more. But Lou needed a doctor, so we caught a train into HUNGARY
DETAILS, DETAILS, DETAILS
GUIDEBOOK: Central Europe
(Lonely Planet)
FILMS: Schindler's List; The
Pianist
(1999 Prices)
STARY SMOKOVEC: Grand Hotel,
$47/double, including bath, breakfast and (stupefying) television. Fax: 421 969 44
2157
Lou and Joan Rose joanandlou@ramblingroses.net