The trip of a lifetime

After a 6-hour delay, we arrive to our destination. The station is part of a shopping centre filled with delicious cakes and pastry. We are angry and tired, but anger seems to win and we end up cueing up to get our cakes, they look yummy, big and cheap. The girl at the counter doesn’t understand the word ‘cream’ and everything comes to a halt for a few seconds. How bizarre! considering that  ‘cream’ is at the foundation of all things sweet and scrumptious. I goggle it, for the sake of it, and it comes up in several European languages, pretty much the same in all of them, Krém, crema (in at least three languages), krema (also in several languages), kremo (in Esperanto), kreem, kerma, crème, creme, κρέμα, even in Greek and Russian it’s the same (if you can read the cyrillic alphabet).

At the end we depart with two delicious polish pastries, whose pictures I google immediately after I return to London. They are called Drożdżówka, they are delicious, and I want to eat them again, soon. We leave our cake shop and station behind, and still half asleep walk to our hotel, aided by google map. The weather is grey and rainy, but by the time we get to our room, unpack, have a cup of tea and a quick rest, the sun comes out in all its glory.

The Old Town

Cracow’s Old Town is an amazing succession of huge squares and striking Italianate buildings, dating back to the sixteenth century. The centre is squeaky clean, pavements look gleaming and lustrous. No litter anywhere. I have never seen a town as clean as this. People wonder around in elegant attire. The pace of life is delightfully slower than what I am used to. And all around there is a sense of peace, calm, and order. Why am I so surprised? after all this delightful town was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, famous for its efficiency and infrastructures. I love it. I also love the little traffic outside the pedestrianised city centre; the way cars stop immediately, when you attempt to cross the road and wait patiently till everybody is safely on the other side. No automobile horns, no shouting, no aggressive driving. I don’t see anybody begging or sleeping in cardboard boxes either. I really didn’t expect such an affluent city. I look up the GDP of Poland, to see how well they are doing.

GDP growth rate for 2021 is 6.85%, an 8.87% increase from 2020

The GDP per capita for 2021 is $18,000, a 13.8% increase from 2020

If you compare it with Russia GDP per capita in 2021, $12,194, it’s quite good but if you compare it with the GDP per capita (US$) of the first ten countries in the European Union, it’s still pretty low.

Luxembourg 133,590

Ireland 100,172

Denmark 68,007

Sweden 61,028

Netherlands 57,767

Finland 53,654

Germany 51,203

France 43,659

Italy 35,657

Spain 30,103

[UK $46, 510]

It’s time to try some local food, and we do. The menu is crammed with meat, I try the only vegetarian option, some dumplings called Pierogi, and it’s a total disappointment. They are the equivalent of soggy ravioli with no sauce (this is how my travel companion described them), and I agree. Polish food doesn’t get many stars from us, with the only exception of Jewish food,  as we will find out the following day. Luckily, soon after the Pierogi experience, we discover that pastries are not the only good things in Cracow, there is also beer: cold, refreshing, punchy, and delicious.

Behind the imposing squares and quaint pebbled roads, we know that this is not the reason why we are here. Something menacing and terrifying awaits us.

The Ghetto Wall

The remnants of what was the biggest Jewish community in Europe (3.3 million in Poland, 60,000 in Cracow), can be seen anywhere, in the form of musical society of Klezmer music, bookshops, restaurants, and museums. Although the Jewish population at present is only 150 souls in total, it’s quite obvious that their presence feels much bigger. The past has never left Cracow. You can find the Shindler’s Factory Museum, on what once were the outskirts, and now is a trendy part of town with a sprawl of modern flats, fashionable bars and restaurants, not far from the beautiful Vistula river. In the same area you can see what is left of the Ghetto wall, not far from the infamous Zgody Square, the starting point of the deportations to death camps during World War II. Now known as the Ghetto Heroes Square, with its much loved Eagle pharmacy. Tadeusz Pankiewica, the owner, declined the offer to run another pharmacy and was the only Polish person left in the Ghetto, where he saved many lives.   

The best place of all is the square where our room was located, in the old Jewish quarter, with two synagogues, a memorial, and the comings and goings of tourists from all over the world, looking for signs of  life before the deportation. A few Orthodox Jews, probably from London, wander around the square, dressed in silk, as it happens to be Saturday.

The beautiful medieval streets of the Old Town and the Jewish quarter (Kazimierz) seem two worlds apart, but at the same time I cannot imagine one without the other. What is left of the Holocaust is very much part of Cracow, and the number of visitors are a proof  of it. I didn’t expect so much interest and calling it Holocaust tourism feels disrespectful.  Even so, I am glad there are people who want to witness a part of history that still baffles most of us for its gratuitous cruelty and unjustified hatred.

The Jewish Quarter

I’m leaving Auschwitz-Birkenau out of this, as the experience is too personal and there are no words able to describe the sufferings of the people who died or of those who lived through these monstrous circumstances. Nevertheless, I would like to repeat the words of our guide, ‘thanks to all of you for visiting this place. It’s because of you that we can still keep it open.’