The Jewish Quarter and Last Supper

We have largely accomplished our goals (with a misstep or two) and are very satisfied with our trip. So we let Saturday be our wildcard day. We planned to take the Jewish heritage tour, something that had been in the back of our minds since we walked to Wawel Castle on that first afternoon. For those of you who aren't aware, Saturday is the Jewish day of rest and we realized only too late that we were not going to get much touring done. It's not that we didn't know this really -- just a facepalm moment. We decided to explore what we could, anyway.


We started the day with a delicious breakfast from Claudia's bakery and cafe near our hotel. This family establishment has been nourishing and caffeinating us each morning this week, and we were grateful. I think my vacation sleeping habits have begun to wear off on Marcia, as our mornings have started later and later. Apparently, she hadn't slept this late since after her undergrad exams, but by 12:00 we were breakfasted and off, walking to the Jewish quarter. The center city used to be surrounded by a great wall, whose width had a footprint of nearly 30 yards. Now, this same area provided us a pleasant park path to the outskirts on the southeast of Wawel Castle.

We arrived in the main modern square, next to the Old Jewish Cemetery. There were the same sort of shops and restaurants we had seen in the main city square, but the main language was now Hebrew. The Old Cemetery was closed, of course, but we did manage to explore around its high walls and get a peek inside. Further we walked into Jewish territory and began to see more Hebrew and the expected Kosher restaurants started showing up.

Without great surprise, a light drizzle turned into a sloppy deluge so we ducked inside a Jewish bookstore to explore the wares. Inside and down the stairs in the cold stone hallway was advertised a traveling photographic exhibit of the Jewish Ghetto in Cracow, so we took advantage. The exhibit was made up of old pictures, either found in the dirt, in old family albums or even from spoils of war. There were depictions of how poorly the Jewish people were treated as they were lined up and herded onto trains destined for the death camps. But there were also joyous pictures of families at the beach or having a portrait taken; stories of resistance and the culture that survived.

The rain wasn't letting up, but there was one of the golf cart tour guides waiting outside this obscure museum. He was equipped with a plastic rain cover, so I convinced Marcia to take part of the dry, albeit expensive tour of the actual ghetto which was across the river... on our way back to the city square.

The tour was not very involved, but we did see two important parts of the history of the ghetto: Schindler's Factory and The last standing bit of the wall that surrounded the ghetto.



Our guide was undeniably Polish, but had grown up from age 9 to 19 in Portland so he spoke English very well. He was also the first person actually enthusiastic about talking to us. We asked him if he observed the same dearth of Americans as we did. He said that we were the second American group he had ever taken in his year or so of driving the tour-cart. He was particularly pleased to know that we were investigating our heritage. I think this disarmed him a bit from our strong tourist aura because he told us about Gospoda Koko, a true Polish restaurant off the main square in Cracow. We had a place for our last supper in Poland.

The restaurant was hard to find: usually a good thing. It was an unassuming place nestled into an arcade-style alcove. It was hot but it smelled delicious, of beets, cabbage and broth. The menu was all in Polish, so I mainly pointed and prayed. Marcia ordered Borcht and a sort of sausage thing wrapped in crispy-flaked covering. I got what ended up being pork necks with Ruskie perogis. Everything was delicous. We also received the obligatory beet mash with kraut. The past week had been so hot, large meals were unappetizing, but this night was cooler than the rest and a filling meal was welcome. And filling it was. The perogis were little starch balls filled with potato and cabbage and the pork necks were an excellent analog to North Carolina Pork BBQ.

With our bellies full and hearts contented, we took one last tour of the central Cracow square. It was dark by then and the stage they had been setting up all week was surrounded by a throng of Polish tourists. The group on stage was a Polish rock band whose lead singer was a vivacious lady with an electic violin. Combined with a traditional base guitar, drumset and the obligatory accordion, they were really rockin'. I wish I had remembered their name. You can get an idea of what these concerts looked like from the concert roster.

This has been quite a full week and I am happy that we did most of the things that were on my list: Auschwitz, the salt mines, Tatras Mountains(mostly), Bochnia and a communist historical tour. And with all this, we manage to squeak in some Polish food, culture and atmosphere. The major regret I have is that I hadn't learned any Polish for this trip. I think we would have had a lot better communication and would have been able to investigate things much more thoroughly if we had. We have plans to visit Warsaw and the northern areas of Poland, searching for the Orlowskis, and I will definitely have learned at least some Polish by then. But that is another adventure.

A Visit to Bochnia

"Good morning, Marcia. Um, do you know what time it is?"
"Yea, its 11:15. we both slept till 11:15!"

Our current theory is that we had been woken up during the week by the kids upstairs doing gymnastics or jumping-jacks and they had gone home yesterday. Our plan for today was to go to Bochnia, the city cited on the copy of my father's mother's father's father's baptismal certificate, under the name Bugajski (boogaiskee). It had been over 100 years since this document was created, but Bochnia was our biggest lead on our ancestry in Poland. It was worth a shot. Marcia went to a local travel agent and asked the friendly woman there if there was anyone who could show us around Bochnia. Sure enough, she recommended her father, Stanislaw Klimczak otherwise known as Leszek.

We had a light breakfast of pastries and coffee and Marcia ordered two large poppyseed rolls (which may, or may not last the ride home). Promptly at 1:00 Leszek arrived. He was a tall, middle-aged man with a severe face but a friendly smile. The trip was a short 30km from Cracow. No sooner did we leave the hotel did we encounter the Cracow weekend traffic. The bridge and roads leading out of the city were blocked and it took us just over an hour to go the 30 km. But like all of our other car rides, the scenery was gorgeous and we enjoyed the ride.

The traffic gave us an opportunity to talk to Leszek a bit. His English was not great, but by mixing in some hand signals and some Russian nouns I knew, we had a pleasant conversation. Pope John Paul II had been a prominent figure in our visit, so we asked what the Polish people thought about him. According to Leszek, he is their biggest hero, just above Ronald Regan. Because the Pope played such a huge part in uniting the country against communism, they now hold him as a Polish idol. Because of the strong feelings about communism, there is a bitter distaste for Russians and Russian Culture. It has become clear to me that there is a very large distinction between the Poles and Russians. I ignorantly thought I would be able to communicate with the poles with my amateur knowledge of Russian. They have different alphabets, but surely they sound similar enough, right?

We finally reached Bochnia and were kindly directed to the katolik cmentarz (Catholic Cemetary). We made sure to look up necessary Polish terms we would need for our trip in order to avoid... mis-communication. We weren't really sure of what we were looking for, other than the name 'Bugajski'. The cemetary was impressive, expansive and beautiful. Located on the top of a great hill overlooking Bochnia, these gravesites had a great view. The graves, themselves, were not the typical American gravestone. There were great marble slabs encompassing the entirety of the coffin(I imagined). The graves were all well-kept and we saw many matrons and mourners cleaning and polishing gravestones.


After twenty minutes of looking at all sorts of different polish names, we eventually came upon the grave of Stanislav Bugajski and Anna Bugajska. The 'a' ending is a feminine surname ending. We aren't sure if these are great great cousins or aunts and uncles... or if they are even related. But hopefully these names can lead us more in the direction of tracing our ancestry.

We also found a grave of Orlowskis. However, the Orlowskis are more widely know to have inhabited the Warsaw region of Poland. But know knows? Maybe our families are dually tied to Bochnia.

We asked leszek to take us to the town center and spent a few minutes taking pictures and walking around. We went to the St. Mikoloja Basilica, but there was a service in progress so we steered clear. The following are a few of the many views of Bochnia we brought back with us.

Pieniński Park

"I meet you, 9 o'clock. Tomorrow after day? Very good? Very good". Those were the last words we heard from Mieczyslaw on Tuesday afternoon. So, It was 'Tomorrow after day' and 9:00 in the morning. Mieczyslaw greeted us with a smile outside our hotel and we were on our way to the Pieniny (Peeaneeney) Mountain range in southern Poland. This region is called Malopolska, meaning 'Little Poland'. He warned us that it was a two hour drive, and seemed a little hesitant about taking us, but was up for the journey. It was sub-sweltering, but with the windows down on his aging Mercedes, we were cool enough.

We ventured South from Cracow for about an hour. Eventually, Mieczyslaw turned off the highway onto a smaller road, careening through small towns and quaint farms snuggled under the mountainside. 'Quaint' is probably the word-of-the-day for this trip. For the next hour, I was on the edge of my seat, waiting to summit the mountain and finally get full view (and pictures) of Poland. The road went up, and up, and finally I could see vast expanses of Poland (and checkoslovakia to the South). But there were still views of alpine-like mountains in front of us. I wondered when we would finally ascend to the top.

Although already worth the trip, my fears of disappointment slowly began to grow as the road gradually turned back down towards sea level. Little did I know that the plan was not to go to the top of a mountain, but to a popular tourist destination: A rafting trip down the Dunajec River. We arrived at the tourist point still ignorant of the fact that our destination was actually a river. Mieczyslaw directed us to get in line while he went to get us a ticket. Fair enough. But we still had no idea what the line was for. With no river to be seen beyond the line, I still had hope that we were waiting for some sort of cable car to take us to the top. We could smell coal burning and the line was moving very slowly. This suggested to my hopeful heart that the ride to the top was simply slow and popular. I was prepared to wait.

After about 10 minutes of baking in line, I went to investigate. I walked up past the line (politely) and went to see what the fuss was. The line seemed to end at a restaurant window. Still curious and hopeful, I kept walking and finally saw the river with boats lined up. After 5 minutes looking for Mieczyslaw, he told us that, of course, we were here for the river ride and that there was no cable car to the top of any mountain. Normally, I would be all in for a river ride, but I had come for some promised 'panorama' shots of Poland.

Our heads hanging and necks sweating, we slumped back into the car. But our mis-communication with Mieczyslaw continued. He was still adamant that he would show us the top of a mountain 'very good, very good' , but it was clear to us that he had given up and was ready to return to Cracow. We ate our first meal of the day in a nearby tourist trap, put the remaining lunch in the trunk and headed back to Cracow.

I put my disappointment behind me and enjoyed the silent ride home. I began to wonder if the mis-communication was an underlying cultural difference between Americans and Poles (or anyone for that matter). Was 'panorama' understood differently in different cultures? Did Americans value pictures of vast expanses from the pinnacle of a mountain, while the Poles valued other perspectives? The question is probably ill-posed and irrelevant, but it did enter my mind.

We felt culturally defeated that day, especially because Marcia heard Mieczyslaw utter something about 'Americani', but the cold leftover lunch was good and we were still excited for the next day. The trip had been beautiful and every bit worth it. We decided that Zakopane, the place from which we had been dissuaded, would be included in the next trip... and that we would do our research on the 'very good panoramas' next time.

Also:

PIES!

Our destination - communism, the blow of the red wind

Guest poster: Marcia Orlowski

Wednesday was hot, too hot to stay out in the sun. We sheltered ourselves in the shade of the trees and umbrellas at the street cafes in the main square. Few places have AC, not a fan to be seen. Our room has a fan and is in the shade most of the day, so it is tolorable even in the 90's.

My mission while in Poland is to find the best poppyseed roll in Krakow! Nick has decided to join me in this mission possible. After stopping into several cafes and bakeries, Dobja Polska Kuchinas, I came away empty handed today. Oh, no. A day without poppyseed roll. Now to find out if I can bring a suitcase full of the best one to London and then on to the US.

Early in the afternoon we asked the desk clerk here at Globtroter to help us set up a tour of the locations of east Krakow most involved in the communist control of Poland. This was wild, sad, and very moving tour for me, as we baby boomers saw many of the locations on the tour on the news on television.

At 4pm Michael of Nowa Huta Tours (translates New Steelworks) pulled up to our guesthouse in a red and white communist era van, the Polish made Nysa M-522. The Nysa groaned, belched, clanked, and kept us hot hot hot in the 90 degree weather as the windows behind the driver do not open. At times we cheered that the Nysa started up as we made what seemed like 25 stops along the 2.5 hr tour. Our driver has been speaking English for a year and was pretty good at describing what we were seeing and the history. He did have trouble understanding my questions in English. Michael is likely in his late 20s, has a young son and a daughter. He told us his wife has negative health effects they think from the Chernobyl nuclear facility explosion in Russia many years ago which sent plumes of gases over many parts of Europe. Michael grew up in Nowa Huta, lives in Nowa Huta, his father works in the steel mill, and his grandfather worked there as well. Suffice to say, Michael knew his history of Nowa Huta.



The history is that Soviet troops entered Cracow on Jan 18, 1945. Communist authorities suffered a defeat in the 1946 referendum in Krakow. They decided this was due to an imbalance in the society. So they decided to increase the working population of Cracow to have a better balance. Krakow has been a European center of students, learning, the arts, and a spiritual center for Poland. In the eastern sector of Krakow the soviets built the largest steel works in Europe in 1948 called Lenin steelworks. Coke for the steel mill was brought in from neighboring Silesia, the area where Grandpa Bugajski was born in 1892. In 1949 next to the steel works they created a new planned socialist model communist town named Nova Huta to house the people, engineers, and managers, and keep them under control and close to their work. Cheap concrete blocks dominate the apartment and office buildings.


I remember the fear we held in our bodies during the 50s as school children in West Frankfort. We would practice air raid drills. When the town air raid siren would blow the 3 nuns would line us up at the appointed moment and have us move swiftly in silence to the basement of the parochial school. Upon entering the basement they told us to take a chair and be ready to put our heads under the chair and pray for our lives. The communists could be there to take over our country and we had to be ready.

No churches were allowed until the 1970s after many years of residents struggling to have a church. Among these is the well known Ark of God, a modern style church in the shape of a very large ark. During martial law in the 1981-1983 Nowa Huta was the source of many riots which were depressed by the ZOMO stormtroopers which included 30,000 police, 70,000 soldiers, and 4000 tanks and armored vehicles. The steelworks is now operating under private ownership and has been renamed Sendzimir. The hospital in this poor area of steelworkers was built by charities from the USA.

We saw a travelling museum, From Opposition to Independence, about the years of struggle 1976-1989to end the communist rule. This included a film and numerous enlarged black and white photos of Lech Walesa, Pope John Paul II, activist priests, actors, authors, who played a large part in helping to give hope to the people of Poland under Russian rule. The union, Solidarity, was established in 1980 with Lech Walesa in the lead. The display of large format photos were in a broad circle in the middle of the display room as a symbol of the huge round table used for meetings over the years to bring the soviet era to a close. We saw many of these photos on the news in the 80s. The most moving photo was the one of Pope John Paul II with his head in his hands when he saw first hand what had become of his Poland. This was during one of his 2 return visits to Poland after becoming Pope. This presentation brought tears to my eyes with a huge sadness in my heart.

Another stop along the way was at a "spolem", a communist style milk bar, still in existence, subsidized by the city of Cracow for poor people to have a traditional Polish meal at a very low cost with a super low standard. Living in the Nowa Huta apartment buildings, which are privately owned now, is low cost living. There are many poor people in Poland after decades and centuries of war and rule by other countries. Their industries, agriculture, and social st­ructures are being redesigned and rebuilt as money and good leaders come to the front.

To offer you a sense of the centuries of history here in the buildings and stories, here is one of our last stops on the Nowa Huta tour. We stopped at the monastery called Bright Tomb, Jasna Mogila, established in 1225. It was named this becuase of its proximity to a prehistoric burial ground, said to be the burial place of Princess Wanda, daughter of the king who started the settlement called Cracow. The monument is a hill atop which you find a monument with an eagle to symbolize Princess Wanda's sacrifice for her country. The mound sits out in a field of wild flowers with a neighboring woods next to the Steeelmill. The monastery grounds and church is a beautiful place for contemplation. There is evidence of settlements in the Cracow area as early as 200,000 years ago.




Bottom line here is that the Poles we have met are proud to be Poles and are hungry to continue rebuilding their country. They are grateful for their freedoms and want others of their region to also have these freedoms.

Wish I knew how to speak Polish. Workers in the shops and restaurants know more than a few words of English so it is not easy to find out where you are, how to get to the next place, and so we have relied on those who understand more English and we are grateful for them. There are 2 Polish language schools within a block of our guest house. I'll have to check out an immersion course for sure.

Tomorrow we are off to see Castle Vavel which has the Zygmunt Chapel in honor of one of the 3 kings of Poland who were named Zygmunt. Those Zygmunt and Wanda names hold a lot of history here.

With Mieczyslaw and Back Again

*gasp*! *gasp*! The steel cage doors of the mine shaft elevator opened and we were free. The day was finally at an end and we were on our way to Cracow. But that was the end of the day.

My aunt Marcia and I woke up Tuesday, not knowing what to do, expecting to find some sort of bus tour or train ticket for the day. While our heads were spinning in the Cracow train station, we were approached by A taxi driver named Mieczyslaw Bas offering us a trip to Auschwitz or the salt mines. Thats 'Mishaslav'. Trusting Marcia's instinct, we hopped into his cab and were on our way to Auschwitz.

For the first half of the ride I was playing with my gps... just to be sure of where we were going. Once I was satisfied that we weren't being kidnapped, I relaxed and took some pictures of the scenery. The houses immediately outside of Cracow are very well kept, colorful and picturesque. However, as we drove further away from the city, the houses became grittier and more depressed.

The Polish landscape is gorgeous. One striking thing is that because of the rolling hills, the farmlands are strewn out in long rectangles instead of squares. It made for an different patchwork than that of farms in the US.

We arrived at Auschwitz-1 and the driver assured us he would pick us up in an hour and a half. We tried to find areas that were not overrun by tourist groups(still no Americans) and first came upon the creamatorium. This was the place where the Nazis would 'eliminate' the corpses of slain prisoners. Some rooms also served as gas chambers. There were many memorials in the 'room of ashes' and within the furnaces. Aside from the haunting memories of what happened here for so long, one of the most amazing aspects of Auschwitz was the industrial nature of the whole process. There were railcars and a sort of track contraption leading god-knows-what into those furnaces.

We made sure to visit the firing range within the prison walls. In the effort to hide the prison camps after Nazi defeat, the firing back-wall was dismantled. But the historical society that runs Auschwitz managed to reconstruct it to it's previous dishonor. Most of the bullet holes were filled with memorial trinkets and rocks, and there were many memorials on the ground, where so many people fell.

After Auschwitz, the driver convinced us to go to the Wieliczka Salt Mine today instead of waiting for later in the week. So we got back in the car and took the sobering ride to the mine.

Wieliczka is very close to Cracow and, as such, is a very profitable tourist destination. Tours in different languages left every 15 minutes. While waiting to get in the elevator, we walked through a door and down a flight of stairs... and then another... and another. We soon realized that the elevator we had been waiting for wasn't coming. After the 56th flight of stairs down, we began the 7km and 2.5 hours of walking tour undrground.

It was definitely as-advertised, all made of salt. There were a few wooden supports here and there, but the main chambers were all carved of salt. The tour was a bit fluffy, but the take-away lessons were solid. Salt essentially built medieval Eastern Europe. The leaders who established and supported the salt industry were portrayed in salt, as was Pope John Paul II. The main chamber was particularly amazing, simply because of its sheer size and the ostentatiousness of the miners and artisans.

After 2 hours, I was very ready to be ABOVE the 130 meters of salt rock. And this brings us to the beginning...


Back in Cracow, we ate dinner at a place named 'The Old Kitchen', where we noticed lots of Polish people eating. I ordered a traditional Polish dish of sausage and Kraut, while Marcia ordered little mushroom pocket delights. There was even a pickle bar with real Polish Pickles, red, green and orange saurkraut! It was a filling end to a busy day.

I miss icewater.

Kielbasa and Wawel Castle

I knew I wasn't going to get much sleep last night. After a brief stint of cricket yesterday afternoon, I went with my new friend Nick to the cambridge train station on my way to Kathi's house in London. I arrived at around 10:00; much later than I wished. She kindly fed me the chicken and jam that Marcia and she had made and we were off to bed, only to wake up 4 hours later at 3:30 to make our 7:30 AAA EM flight to Cracow.

We managed to drag ourselves through gatwick and onto the plane to poland. There, I was greeted by 3 young polish children, completely out of control oft their parents, who wanted to watch "Family Guy" on my laptop. Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep. After our arrival, we took a typical (harrowing) european back-country drive to Cracow along a beautiful countryside. One thing I noticed is that all of the new housing being built was in the style of the old housing. No ugly mc-mansions here. Although, there IS a slight taste of fast development.

The hotel we are staying at is called Globetroter. Yes, only two 't's. It has a gorgeous garden hallway (as you can see in the album. There is no air conditioning but the weather here is great; 70 degrees and sunny. All we'll need is a fan, anyway.

We ventured out onto the main square of Cracow for some dinner, and chose semi-randomly from one of the hundred restaurants on the square. This is a movie of the sights from our table, and some pictures of the food are in this album:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ti0zB3oHTA

http://picasaweb.google.com/Nick.orlowski/Poland#

I am not familiar with authentic Polish food yet, but it was about as one would expect from a tourist-y place in a downtown restaurant. From there, we took a walk into Cloth Hall, where nearly a hundred peddlers took up shop. There were nearly a hundred but, as with most tourist markets, there were only 3 types of shops: Those selling amber jewelry, those selling chess sets and pine trinket boxes and those selling Poland t-shirts (of which I plan to buy many). Some of the amber piece were quite striking; especially those with 'fortunate' imperfections.








From Cloth Hall, we let our feet take us Southeast to Wawel Castle, on Wawel Hill. One thing that struck us as we ascended the hill was that there were nearly no Americans or even English speakers. Certainly no stereotypical Japanese tourist groups... Perhaps they were all in Warsaw or at the beach. The castle was breathtaking. The gates were closed as it was nearing dusk, but we had a glimpse at the top of Krakow, with the steeples sprouting in the distance.

From Wawel, we took a walk along the river Wisla and headed back to the main square to rest our feet. We enjoyed a chocolate dessert with figs and almonds. I think figs will become a new ingredient in my future dessert recipes.

With our feet whimpering and our legs tired, we went back to the hotel and planned tomorrows festivities. Our tentative plan is to visit the Wieliczka Salt mines:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wieliczka_Salt_Mine

More to come tomorrow... I'm off to bed.

Photos

Currently, I am too tired and hungry to put specific pictures in the posts, but I will do so in the future. For the time being, here is the repository of pictures from which I will draw:

http://picasaweb.google.com/Nick.orlowski/MarcusWedding#

Off to dinner...