It’s incredibly difficult talking about Auschwitz in an uplifting way, but maybe that’s the point. Between April 1940 until the liberation of the camp in January 1945, it is estimated that somewhere between one and a half million to two million people were tortured and murdered at the three Auschwitz camps. Between 85-90 percent of these were Jews – a staggering number of lives to have been needlessly taken in aid of Hitler’s Final Solution.

The gates to Auschwitz display the mocking slogan “work shall set you free”, but only death would free the inmates who were brought there. The mood around the camp is that of pity, shock and horror for the suffering that these men and women endured, but there are scattered stories of more positive achievements as well. St. Maximilian, who offered his own life so that another could live. The man he sacrificed himself for went on to live a full life after being among those liberated by the Soviet forces. The inmates who smuggled in explosives from a nearby town and destroyed one of the furnace rooms is great testament to the human struggle for survival, as well as the very few but successful escapes from the camp. Also, the liberation from Soviet forces in January of 1945 preventing Hitler and his SS from torturing their captives any further. Yet their final act in their legacy of pain was to take any prisoner that could walk on a final death march from Auschwitz. Endlessly marching prisoners away from oncoming liberation forces so that the maximum possible would perish.

In the words of the German philosopher Theodor Adorno, “No more poetry after Auschwitz”. The gas chambers, the hangings, standing cells, furnaces, the huge mountains of shoes, hairbrushes and briefcases which represent only a tiny fraction of those collected from prisoners, all add up the memory of a terrible time of Polish and European history. All of the brave men and women who were killed in World War II, whether fighting or struggling to survive the tortures thrust upon them all add up to the world we live in today. There is no sense in exploring endless “what-ifs”, but whilst imagining the terrors inflicted at Auschwitz you cannot help but feel incredibly grateful for the life you now have and how lucky most of us really are – all of which is due to in part, to everybody who took part in this and all other wars throughout history – no matter what role they had. It is impossible to find the good in the needless death of millions – but the world that leaves behind is still something that should be cherished and celebrated.

So there we have it – that was essentially my trip to Auschwitz which, whilst wasn’t exactly jolly, I can recommend as a must-see to anybody. Now I sense it’s time for something a little lighter for the next post… 🙂

Rock has a new face, and it’s wielding an accordion. Today was the first of two days celebrating all things that are Krakow in the market square. Actually I don’t have a clue of what it is, other than there’s a really big stage in the centre of the square. Despite humble beginnings of local school performances that manage to raise a chuckle, but not much else – this evenings was everything you could possibly hope for in a clichéd Polish rock band. From the baggy trousers, past the accordion-wielding mad man, all the way to the equally impressive bald goatee-sporting front man with his tin whistle. Rock on.

Yesterday, I stumbled across the scariest statue I’ve ever seen and will continue to haunt my dreams for the rest of my life. A dog looks mournful, with large human-looking eyes staring up at you while two large spidery hands appear to slowly close around it. Wanting to turn and run, but not being able to break away from “those eyes”, I had to draw nearer and see what was written on the plaque – forever fearful that upon stepping closer to the demonesque-statue, the ground would open up beneath it. I would be left falling into the depths of wherever it had come from while the dog howled its delight into the night.

Instead, the story of Dzok the Dog made me go “awwwwww” and whilst still a little sad, “that’s really nice”. The plaque reads “The most faithful canine friend ever. Epitomising a dogs boundless devotion to his master. Throughout the entire year 1990-1991 Dzok was seen waiting in vain at the Rondo Grunzwaldzkie roundabout to be fetched back by his master, who had passed away at the very site”.

All of which I found rather touching. Not least because a statue had been erected to commemorate the fact.

Just two minutes walk away lies the dragons cave where Kraak is said to have killed off the mighty beast by feeding it McDonald’s, or some such. So I couldn’t miss the opportunity to go see THAT. I can’t help but feel I might have built it up too much… There’s a machine out the front where you pay for your ticket which looks not too dissimilar to ones you’d find at a railway station, but instead leads you to see the scariest of scary caves. Once paying, the dot matrix printer spends a good half hour printing out a ticket with a picture of a dragon on it, just to get you really excited. Two steps to your right, and you hand the ticket over to the man behind the desk and are directed to the spiral staircase. About halfway down the staircase, meet a large group of seven thousand schoolchildren and walk very slowly behind them as the echo of every single one of them floats up the staircase and through you, threatening to tear your organs into tiny tiny shreds. The cave is all very well, but it’s really just a cave. There are no dragon bones, smells of things burning, rotting or dying, not even any “uhoh, look what we missed” dragon eggs carelessly hidden off to one side. In fact if I hadn’t read the legend already, I’d be very much left with a feeling of “oh”, by now.

But, once you’ve squeezed past all of the schoolchildren because their teacher’s telling some story in a language you don’t understand, and frankly – they’re taking their time… In the open air outside the cave is quite a large metallic dragon sculpture art form thingy. It’s a little bit modern art, but it’s still pretty cool – at least it’s a dragon, which is more than the caves had. I also learnt this evening that every now and then it breathes fire from the top in short bursts. Which is extremely entertaining to watch while the kids are climbing around on it, so they can get the perfect picture taken.

So what else have I been up to? Well, I beat up an old lady – which was fun. I’ve talked about people on the streets begging for money before, in Prague. There, they had a massive sense of servitude about them. Laying as flat on the ground as they can possibly be, arms stretched out in total silence with their face pointed directly at the ground, begging in total silence for money. In London, the story is quite different – one man, a dog, a blanket and looking very unshaven “spare some chaaaaenge?” … “Well F*** off then!”

Then there’s other more inventive kind. Again, Prague … “Excuse me, some banditos have stolen my wallet”. Banditos. How I laughed at the time. Or London…. “Hi, so, uhhh, I had this car, right. But it blew up. And now I need to raise enough money to buy a train ticket to Waterloo, so I can start a new business selling cups of coffee on a farm, to afford a new car and go and save my sister who has cancer. Did I not tell you about my sister? Well anyway, can you spare us 20p mate?”.

Now in Poland. They’ve only tried it once, but they won’t try again – I can assure you. Walking back towards my hotel, an old woman dressed entirely in black came running at me, “Please”, she sobbed, with her arm outstretched and cup full of money in her hand. “Please”, with tears streaming down her face. Damn, she was good. I don’t know what she needed the money for, but I suspect for some more onions to chop. I’m all heart, me. “No, I’m sorry”, I replied as I carried on walking. Well, she wasn’t having any of that. As she held out the cup even further, and her arm extended to twice its original size, I still carried on walking, right into said cup. The cup went flying, of course – scattering money all across the street. Convinced that if I helped her collect her change, she’d throw off her old woman disguise and steal all my things, I carried on walking while she foraged on the ground for what little money she’d collected. Street smarts. That’s me.

Determined not to feel bad about scattering the old woman’s livelihood across the busiest area of Krakow, I decided to hang around. What the hell, I’m a tourist – and frankly, I didn’t have anything better to do. So, I did. And sure enough, it didn’t take her long to have the cup outstretched to some other poor sod who again, sent the thing flying. Hag. I resisted the urge to go and kick her in the kidneys while she was collecting the change again, but instead wandered off chuckling to myself.

I’ll finish off with one last thing before I post. I’ve now left the Hotel City SM (I never did discover what SM stands for, but I’m pleased to report it’s not Sado-Massichist). Whenever I holiday, I generally stay in hotels, which whilst giving me all the creature comforts I could possibly desire – as a lone traveller it can prove rather expensive. So, it’s long overdue to have tried out this hostel malarkey and with the help of hostels.com I managed to book one for my last 3 days in Krakow. Not really knowing what to look for, I’ve gone for one with high ratings on the site, good security and a name that could also be used for a South Yorkshire pub. It’s a similar kind of approach I take to betting on dogs / horses and it’s never done me wrong before. So tonight is the first night at the Elephant on the Moon hostel. At £10 a night, I shouldn’t have bothered with the expensive hotel at all. I’ll write more about that tomorrow, once / if I’ve survived the night. Don’t want to count my chickens, and all that. But so far, it’s looking good 🙂

As I was saying before I realised my post had got too long… Yesterday, I went to the Wieliczka salt mines. There were two other people in my taxi / little red tour bus. Two older American women from California who had spend the last week and a bit doing the Eastern European tour from Prague, Budapest, Krakow before heading onto Warsaw. I haven’t met many well-travelled Americans before, but since they were doing a lot better than me, I didn’t like to say anything 🙂 “I was in Russia in 1973, but since it was the iron curtain days, we weren’t really allowed to go anywhere because we hadn’t pre-arranged it before.” And this one, this one’s my favourite…

“I was in London a few years ago. I went into a supermarket and saw the most amazing queuing system. Everyone in one line until a cashier was available, where the person at the front stepped forward. Five or six of them there were.” Great, a queuing story. Yes, I get it, I’m British – we love to queue. “So I took a photo of it because I wanted to show people back home. I thought we could use that”. Autotrader eat your heart out. “And this big black woman comes up to me ‘NO PICTURES’ she yelled. Luckily I had a digital camera, so I showed her the only picture I had. ‘There, I deleted it, I’m so sorry'”.

Well at least we gave a good lasting impression, anyway. I assured the poor woman that it was just that we’re very proud of our queueing. We don’t like the secrets to get to other countries. She understood, and I’m sure felt a whole lot better about the terrifying ordeal. To put it another way, I gave in to the stereotype. I sold my soul.

Upon arriving at the Salt Mines, we were shown where to wait by our driver, a time to go in, a ticket and a place to sit. One of the Californians went for a walk before sitting down, “There’s a bunch of very good-looking students from Finland or something, all acting very girly and silly out there.” “And they’re heading this way, right?” I asked. “No, they’re just messing around.” “You dissapoint me”, I replied trying to give it my best dissapointed looking face.

When they walked inside, they were indeed all very loud, ear drums burst and grown men cried. 16,000 students around the age 17-19 all tried to squeeze onto the remaining 4ft of bench next to me. When one fell off her friends lap and fell into the 12mm gap between her friend and me, she giggled “Excusez moi”. “That’s okay”, I promptly replied, giving her my winning smile. Charm, wit and a real conversationist. That’s me.

We continued to debate whether these students were French, Finnish or from deepest darkest Africa. Armed with my new knowledge that they spoke French and that they wandered off into the mine with a tour guide with a French flag on his helmet … I think I faired rather well.

There are a little under 400 wooden steps leading down the first 65 metres to the first-level chambers. Despite the signs at the top of the staircase saying “No Grafitti”, there is a rather impressive collection of names scrawled into the woodwork all the way down, and all the way through the rest of the mine. I don’t exactly support graffitti of this world heritage site, but the enormity of this collection of signatures is really quite astounding. We travelled 2 kms through the small part of the mine that is open for tours. We visited maybe 12-15 different chambers and every passageway in between was filled with people writing their names, countries or favourite music. I feel as though it has reached such a point of a self-evolved guestbook that it would be a shame to now cover up this part of the mines history.

When I’m wandering around mines and caves as I so often find myself doing whilst on holiday – I always think of Ali and her unhealthy love of all things that are rock. She’s also the only one to leave a comment so far, so deserves this special mention 😉 That’s probably going to put anyone else off leaving a comment at all, but oh well. Whilst I’m not sure your geological insight would have been particularly helpful in this visit, “Oh, oh, what’s that one ??” “Rock salt, Kevin.” “Wooooooow. What about this one!?” And so on… I’m sure you would enjoy a visit to Wieliczka all the same 🙂

When I’m wandering around mines and caves as I so often find myself doing whilst on holiday – I always think of Ali and her unhealthy love of all things that are rock. She’s also the only one to leave a comment so far, so deserves this special mention 😉 That’s probably going to put anyone else off leaving a comment at all, but oh well. Whilst I’m not sure your geological insight would have been particularly helpful in this visit, “Oh, oh, what’s that one ??” “Rock salt, Kevin.” “Wooooooow. What about this one!?” And so on… I’m sure you would enjoy a visit to Wieliczka all the same 🙂

Nonetheless, our tour guide was great, proclaiming that every sculpture we saw had been carved from rock salt from the mine. The first of which was Copernicus, the famous Polish astronomer who is said to have visited the mine. And if we don’t believe her? Well, “every visitor to the mine is allowed to consume up to three kilos of the rock salt. It is included in the ticket price. We only ask that you do not do so from Copernicus, as he would soon disappear if every visitor did that.” When you spend most of your time giving tours in a salt mine, you develop a certain sort of sense of humour. I was enjoying the tour immensely.

All of which was great news to the group of four american students in our now-extended group. Last seen with their tongues stuck to a particularly cold piece of rock-salt.

The most breathtaking part of the tour was on the third level – 135m down. The Blessed Kinga’s Chapel was completed in the early part of the nineteeth century, stretches 50m long and is made entirely of rock salt. Everything. The stairs, the altar, bannisters, carvings, even the chandeliers. And if that’s not impressive enough, this work wasn’t completed by teams of sculptors. Instead, it formed the lifetime-work of 3 individual miners working one after another. It is truly amazing and definitely worth the visit alone. Scenes from the life of Jesus adorn the walls including his birth and the infamous last supper. Towards the back is a newer addition, a large statue of Pope John Paul II, and at the front an altar where every word can be heard all the way to the back up in the gallery. The venue has been used for concerts, a banquet hall (for ex-president George Bush Snr.), and mass is still celebrated here every Sunday. You can even rent the entire hall out for weddings for the bargain price of 1,000 US dollars per hour. As our guide explained “A bit expensive but you never know. I guess you’d only want to do it once.” Perhaps it’s not for me, after all.

Also, the fake salt lakes added entirely for the benefit of the tourists. They used to run “fairy boat rides”, until a group of drunk Russians started rocking their boat, got trapped under it and drowned. When you’re stuck under a boat in salt water it is very difficult to swim out from under it. The salt keeps you afloat and contains very little oxygen (there’s the maximum of 33-34% salt in this water, more than the red sea). So no fairy boat rides for us. But thanks for telling us anyway – we weren’t disappointed before.

Having walked down even more steps than the original 400, we were lucky enough not to have to climb what would be double that to get back out. Instead, there was the smallest two-levelled fastest lift in the world to take us back to the surface. With everyone crammed in tight enough that the doors wouldn’t close, we managed to fit a massive 20 people into what I’m quite sure was originally the prototype for a Silverlink Trains carriage. The lift operator lit the fuse, and the lift ascended at approximately 12,000mph.

By this time it had started raining quite heavily. The bright boiling hot sunshine was gone, and the evening and night was full of very loud thunder and lightning. It seems like it was a good day to do the underground tour after all 🙂