Ghosts in the Ghettos of Poland

I spent a lot of time searching for traces of the millions of Jews and Poles who were murdered during World War II, but they aren't easy to find.  The ghetto walls have been torn down.  The blood has been scrubbed off the cobblestones and the walls of former Gestapo buildings.  The burned out synagogues have been turned into Catholic museums.  The cemeteries have only a few gravestones left to mark the millions of people whose bodies were dumped there.  Even the concentration camps and Schindler's factory have been sanitized.  

In Krakow you can still find a few Jewish museums, synagogues, hotels, restaurants, and cafes that represent this once vibrant community.  I saw the photos and sat on the new pews gazing at the reconstructed Bimah, but I couldn't feel their presence.  The closest I came was sitting on the steps, my tears masked by the pouring rain, as I looked at the parking lot across the street from the old synagogue in Nowy Sacz.

I could visualize the 400 young people being arrested at five in the morning on April 28, 1942, for being members of the Max Rosenfeld Library.  Branded as Communists, they were locked up in prison and forced to dance all night in the prison court, accompanied by an orchestra, while the SS wives and their children watched from the gallery.  All the while, Hamman, the chief of the Gestapo, shouted, "This is your dance of death!" 

The next day they were handcuffed and led by armed guards to the cemetery, where a large grave had been prepared for them.  They were told to undress, fold their clothing neatly, and lie on the ground face down.

The silence was shattered when Rabbi Yossef Moshe Zehman, a religious judge, stood up and said, "Have faith.  We suffer for all the sins of Israel.  The day of deliverance is not far away."  Then he addressed the Germans, saying, "Your day will come."

Then 24-year-old Ratzke Goldberg-Shpiro collected all her strength and spoke to the Nazis, "Don't think because you murder and bleed those who are not guilty, that you will win the war.  In any case, you have already lost, for those Jews that live through this war will take revenge upon you."

No one was surprised that she would speak out against the murderers, for she had always sought out those who were abused by fate.  The daughter of well-to-do Jewish parents, she studied in Vienna at university.  At 15, she joined the Borochov Circle, which taught both Zionism and Yiddish culture.  A talented actress, she performed eloquently in the best Yiddish and national repertory dramas.  

Her speech was cut short by a bullet.  Then more bullets rained down on the best and the brightest youth of Nowy Sacz.  Their bodies were dumped into open graves, along with the hearts of their people.

I wish I could say that I felt their presence sitting on the steps of the synagogue 71 years later, but at least I can bear witness to their bravery here and now on All Souls Day.

More than Pierogies and Kielbasas

I must admit I did not expect much from Polish cooking.  It seems pretty bland compared to other European cuisine, but I found the food in Poland pretty tasty.  Not once was I tempted to go to McDonald's or KFC.

In addition to the usual bread, meats, and soft cheeses, breakfast had some unusual items like zurek, a savory soup made with potatoes, kielbasa, and eggs.  Although I'm not usually a breakfast person, since it was included in the price of the room, I made sure to stock up.

Krakow is known for soft pretzels and Zakopane for oscypek, a smoked cheese made from salted sheep milk, so I had to try both.  Not what I'm used to, but not bad.  
 
Whether pierogies, roast chicken with onion, garlic and smoked bacon, or roast duck with apples, I found the meat fresh and subtly seasoned.  Most meals came with boiled potatoes with parsley or dill.

When I needed a change from Polish food, there were usually plenty of Italian restaurants with excellent pasta, pizza, and gelato.  It took me awhile to get used to pizza bianca with garlic sauce rather than tomato, but I grew to like it.

My most unusual dinner was at Hotel Perla in Jaslo.  They offered roast pork with potatoes and gravy served on a wooden platter.  The interesting part is that they weigh the whole platter before they serve it to you.  You can eat as much as you want because they weigh it after you're done and you only pay for what you ate.  I've been to steak restaurants where they bring half the steer to you to select your cut and to restaurants where they grill the food in front of you, but this was the first time I experienced anything like that.


Given the heat in August, I generally stuck to ice cream for dessert.  The locals say to look for the longest lines to see who has the best ice cream.  While I tried to sample as many Polish pastries and tarts as I could, purely for the purpose of research, of course, I especially enjoyed their apple cake with fresh cream.

The best thing about Polish restaurants was the the cost.  You can have a full meal with a drink for around $10.  You won't go hungry in Poland.

    

  

Elephant on the Moon Hostel

I chose this Eco friendly hostel because of its' whimsical name.  It reminded me of the little boy in Le Petit Prince.  Later I learned that the elephant is considered lucky in Poland and that the moon is a reference to sleeping well.  I like my explanation better.  TripAdvisor recommends this hostel and I can see why.  A short walk to Wawel Castle along the River Vistula, it is close to town by streetcar, yet far enough from the bustle of the city.  Reasonably priced private rooms, a substantial breakfast, and free Wi Fi.  There's a lovely garden with a fountain to relax from the horrors of Auschwitz and Birkenau and from wandering around the Old Town of Krakow.  The perfect place to read a book, meditate, or check your emails.        

The manager, Aga, and her assistant, Magda, go out of their way to make every visitor welcome.  They gave me excellent advice of what to see in Krakow and in southeast Poland and how to navigate the transport system within and outside of Krakow.  They arranged for personal electric golf cart tours of the Old Town and the Jewish Quarter for me and for tours of Schindler's Factory and Auschwitz.  They even arranged for a healing massage at a nearby hotel to soothe my aching muscles after my long flight.


I would highly recommend this hostel to anyone who wants to experience authentic Polish life.  I met some amazing fellow travelers from England, Germany, Austria, and Sweden.  I loved it so much I returned for a few days at the end of my journey through Poland.  It felt like coming home.  If you would like to find out more about the Elephant on the Moon Hostel, check out www.elephantonthemoon.com

Reliving the Holocaust

Millions of Jews, Poles, Gypsies, elderly and disabled people considered "useless feeders" by the Nazis died in World War II, but there are so few traces left of their existence.  The once vibrant Jewish communities are all but gone in Poland.  Synagogues burnt out and turned into museums.  Only a few broken headstones remain in deserted Jewish cemeteries, the rest of them used to pave roads by people now in unmarked graves.  They may have torn down the walls and barbed wire surrounding the ghettos, but no one will ever erase the blood spilled within them.

The ashes of people incinerated in Birkenau still covers the barren grounds, along with the possessions they left behind, including:

2 tons of human shaven from women deported to the camp
80,000 shoes
12,000 pots
6,000 pieces of art
3,000 suitcases
2,000 family photographs
40 kg of spectacles
460 artificial limbs
40 m of melted metal objects from the Canada warehouses.

Inmates were forced to send letters and postcards saying they were well, but most of the people who wrote them were dead long before their letters were received.   At Auschwitz there are archives of 8,000 of these letters and postcards.

The day I visited Auschwitz was extremely hot and humid.  As I walked around with a bottle of water and a chicken sandwich, I was well aware that this was much more than the inmates would have had to eat or drink.  They would have been given coffee flavored water for breakfast, watery soup for lunch, and more watered down coffee with a hunk of stale bread for dinner.  With these meager rations, they were expected to perform 12 hours of back breaking work and then stand for hours for roll call.

For a place so evil, I was struck by how benign these former army barracks looked until you saw their gruesome contents. Auschwitz will always be a reminder of how low human beings can sink, not those who were the victims of these depraved crimes, but their perpetrators.  The empty chairs below in the ghetto in Krakow commemorate the many people who are no longer here to sit in them.

  

Sacred Quests

People ask me why I chose to spend five weeks in southeast Poland.  It is easiest to say that I needed to do research for my third novel in the trilogy which is set during World War II.  That's true, but it's not the whole story.

As many of you know, I believe in reincarnation and that our past lives still influence our present.  I believe that we often choose to be born into the same families, although not always playing the same roles.  I believe that we store sense memories of traumatic events in our bodies that are triggered when we are ready to deal with them.  I believe that every lifetime is an opportunity to replay scenarios we need to master and to learn lessons we refused to learn in the past.

In my thirties I suddenly developed allergies to milk, mold, cats, dogs, etc.  I am not a fan of allergy testing or taking a pill to deal with the symptoms rather than the root cause, so I decided to deal with them through herbal remedies, yoga, deep muscle tissue massage, deep breathing techniques, and gestalt therapy.  It worked and today I am largely symptom free, but all that inner searching and physical prodding brought back memories. 

Not all at once but in small bits and pieces until one day I was driving through a Polish neighborhood in Chicago and I suddenly had to pull over because I was crying so hard I could not see.  It came to me, not in visions or in sounds, but in intense feelings that I had died in Auschwitz.  So where did that come from?   

Now you must understand that I was raised Roman Catholic and had never even met a Jewish person until I went to Northwestern University.  I do remember reading The Diary of Anne Frank and about the Holocaust when I was younger and crying my eyes out, but I cried when they wouldn't let Judy Garland enter the kingdom of Oz as well.  I'm an emotional person and cannot watch another person cry without joining them.  So I dismissed it.

Curious, I decided to visit a metaphysical friend and ask for more information from The Guys.  Don't ask me why we call them The Guys.  I guess it sounds more personal than The Entities, the Collective Unconscious, or the Akashic records and less pretentious than God.
 
Anyway, They/He/She/It answered my questions.  They told me that I had lived in southeast Poland with my family.  I was nine years old when my father was taken away with all the other men in the village.  My mother and my aunt, my sister in this lifetime, were taken to Auschwitz with me but then we were separated.  I had managed to smuggle in the tiniest teddy bear which I hid in the crook of my arm so they couldn't take it away.  They described me sitting on a wooden bunk bed (I have always detested bunk beds), delirious from fever.  They said that even after I died, my spirit could not leave that desolate place, staying there for two more years to help other children find the light.  My allergies were supposedly a physical memory I carried of that time, which I never wanted to forget.

Other than writing a poem about it, I just filed this memory away with other past life memories.  So why did I feel the need to reopen this old wound now?   I can't say for sure, but when I told The Guys that I was thinking of going to Poland, they asked, "Do you want to get sick?"

"Not particularly," I replied.

They told me that I would need to commit to regular meditation to strengthen my heart and solar plexus chakras, but that the trip could be very healing for me.  They also told me that I needed to stay longer than three weeks, but should be back in the States before September 11th.  I decided on five weeks after a friend told me that it was a transformational number and because the Nazis always grouped their victims in groups of five so it would be easier to count them.

I knew that it was going to be a difficult trip for me physically and emotionally and it was.  I really did not expect to enjoy the trip or to meet people with whom I felt a connection, but I did.  I did not become physically ill, but I sometimes felt exhausted and lonely. 

At the end of my sacred quest, I found my main character, Leah Marie Schoege, in Nowy Sacz, and the story continues.


        

Public Transportation in South East Poland To Be Avoided

AIRLINES:  I tried.  I really tried.  I took Polish LOT to Warsaw.  When we were delayed for two hours in O'Hare Airport, I asked the stewardess if it would be a problem making my connecting flight to Krakow.  N
o problem she said, but when we landed the story changed.

Silly me.  When I saw the stewardess holding the sign saying Krakow, I thought how nice of them to help us make our connection.  Not quite.  After much haggling in Polish, I eventually learned that not only had we missed our flight but the next flight would be another five hours around 10 pm that night.  We were given the option of waiting at the airport all that time, staying overnight at a local hotel and trying again the next morning, or taking a bus for five hours to Krakow.

Since I had booked accommodation that night in Krakow at the Elephant on the Moon Hostel (isn't that a lovely name) and I wanted to see the countryside, I chose the bus option.  It took quite a while to arrange all this and to retrieve our luggage before we finally set off in a minibus.

Before it got too dark, I did get to see some fields dotted with mustard colored houses with red clay roofs.  I tried to find out if there is some significance to this prevalent color scheme, but no one seemed to know why.  Mostly, however, I saw a lot of
McDonalds and KFCs along the two lane highways.

By the time I finally arrived at Krakow airport and took a taxi to my hostel, it had been almost 24 hours of traveling and I was exhausted.  Thank you, Magda, for staying up so late to welcome the weary traveler.

TIP:  If they offer you an upgrade to Business Class on Polish LOT, take it.  There is much more leg room and the flight attendants treat you much better.  Personally I won't be taking this airline ever again.

TRAINS:  Aga, the manager of the Elephant on the Moon Hostel, warned me that the trains were really slow and she was right.  I expected that the train station in Krakow would be old world elegance, but instead it's a platform in the parking lot of a mall with an elevator that doesn't work.  Thank you to the taxi drivers who helped me carry my luggage down the many stairs to the train platform and the friendly Polish guy who helped me carry them up the many stairs in Rzeszow.

TIP:  Avoid the trains, which seem to date back to the old Communist regime, and take twice as long as the private buses.

BUSES:  While very cheap, be prepared for delays.  I waited three hours at a bus stop on the side of the road in Nowy Sacz and was starting to eye the bushes in case of an emergency pit stop when the bus finally arrived.  When I asked what happened, the bus driver said he had to change a tire on the side of the road.  Very unsettling.  Three hours later we arrived in Zakopane.

You would have thought I had learned my lesson, but I thought what could possibly happen on the well-traveled route between Zakopane and Krakow.  I got a bus right away, stowed my luggage in the compartment at the rear of the bus, keeping my laptop and bag of souvenirs on my lap in the seat right behind the driver.  What could go wrong? 

We almost made it too, but just as we pulle
d into Krakow, the bus in front of us stopped suddenly and the bus driver had to slam on the brakes to avoid running into it.  Unfortunately the truck in back of us did not have such good brakes and slammed into the rear of our bus, pushing us into the rear of the other bus. OMG.

As we all stumbled off the bus, I could see that the rear window glass had shattered.  The bus driver had to pry out luggage out of the side of the dented luggage compartment and we all waited for the ambulance and police to arrive.  At that point I became the Ugly American and demanded they call me a taxi immediately.  Seeing I was adamant and not going to move off  to the side of the road like a good little passenger, the police called me a taxi and away I went.

TIP:  Avoid the buses if you can except for short day trips.  The best way to travel in southeast Poland is by taxi.  They are very reasonable and you can prearrange personalized city tours or travel between cities for a set price.  Don't expect much conversation if you don't speak Polish, but they are usually willing to stop for photo opportunities.  The cost is usually the same as if you rented a car for the day and you don't have to worry about how to drive a gear shift car, cope with roundabouts, gas, or parking. 

One more thing.  The best way to see Krakow is by electric golf cart.  They have tape recordings in English that give descriptions of the historic sites and interesting college students as drivers.  Krakow is apparently a Mecca for college students.
  

Travel to Poland

Travel to Poland

Who do you know who would go to southeast Poland all alone when they don't know a word of Polish and stay for five weeks to research a novel set during World War II?

That would be me.

If you are friends of mine on Facebook, then you know about some of my misadventures in Poland coping with infinite stairs, cobblestones, and public transport with a bum knee.  If not, then I am going to use this blog to share with you some of my favorite places and unforgettable experiences.  From urbane Krakow (pronounced Krakov) to Poland's version of Disneyland mixed with the Wisconsin Dells in Zakopane, I was able to visit places most Americans never see.



 I learned a great deal about this Eastern European country's tragic past and current struggles.  Every day I was surprised, sometimes pleasantly, and sometimes not so much.

So stay tuned for tips on what to do and what to avoid in beautiful southeastern Poland.  Pictured above is the morning fog over the lake and the Beskid mountains from Agroturystyka Barnilka, a lovely wooden and stone house built in the Lemko tradition, in placid Klimkowka.  With its friendly dogs, goats, and chickens and authentic Spanish and Lemko breakfasts and dinners, this is truly one of the most beautiful places I stayed in Poland.