Krakow and Teaching Prague to Bucky 21.10.10

Damn I wish I didn’t take so long off in between posts! Too much has happened for me to even attempt to write everything down, but I’ll do my best to get the highlights.

First and foremost in those highlights – my weekend trip to Poland! CIEE, the program I’m on, has three big out of the country trips that they help to organize (in addition to all of these cool trips within the Czech Republic) to Berlin, Vienna and Krakow. This past weekend was Krakow (Vienna is in a few weeks and I’m really excited)! Eva, our guide, organized the entire trip for us, so we didn’t have to worry about anything except where to eat. Eva is awesome by the way! She’s a professor and a tour guide in her spare time so she’s really knowledgeable, which is always fun, but she sprinkles in healthy dose of good humor, laughter and a spry sense of humor to brighten everything up.

The biggest reason I signed up for the school version of Krakow instead of trying to see the city on my own dime was because their trip went to Auschwitz. Going to Auschwitz on my own would have eaten an entire day on my own but only took a few hours of the first morning with the program because we had our own bus. It’s not that I wanted to see Auschwitz, it’s not a sight you look forward to, but I felt like I almost needed to see it in order to understand. I can assure you however, that after seeing it, I do not understand the Holocaust any more than I did before and actually cannot say that I understand any of it anymore.

I went to a Jewish day school until the third grade and by the time I left and transferred to a secular school I knew more about WWII and the deaths of six million Jews than I did about the American Revolution and George Washington. That number, 6,000,000, is repeated so often that I became desensitized to it. No, I never lost sight of the fact that it’s a big number; even after 1,000 iterations, I would never say it’s small. Still, it is a number and that’s how it’s presented. A digit, large though it may be, stripped of the lives it represents. How then are children supposed to understand what the Holocaust actually meant, what it was and how it came to be?

I still don’t know the answers to these questions and I would be surprised if anyone really did. As with many calamities befalling a religious group it was once claimed that it was god’s punishment for some sins committed in the past, but I don’t believe that. There is no rational explanation for the Holocaust, the systematic, state-sponsored, murder of six million Jews and hundreds of thousands gypsies, homosexuals and mentally disabled. When talking about numbers like that though, it’s easy to lose the trees in the forest. The numbers are staggering enough on their own – six million Jews is about three times the current population of Paris or twice that of Berlin – but even one murder would have been too many.

Now back to the trip and how I got back to the micro situation. We started our tour of Auschwitz at eight in the morning and were walking through the Auschwitz I as the dew was lifting. Some of the barracks have been converted into museum exhibits to commemorate the events that took place there. The exhibits walk you through the daily life of the prisoners in the camp (many of the initial prisoners in Auschwitz I were Polish POWs) but where it really excels (if you can even say that) is the paraphernalia that has survived. Warehouses of suitcases, glasses and tins remained in Auschwitz after the Nazis burned the camp during their exit – evidently they didn’t find them valuable enough to bring with them in their hurried escape in front of the Allied forces. The two that carried the greatest weight though were the shoes and the hair. Thousands upon thousands of shoes piled into miniature mountains stood as a memorial to those whose feet no longer wore them. The shoes came in all sizes from adult to infant. And then there was the hair. The Nazis shaved the prisoners’ heads and burned or recycled it, but they didn’t have time to use it all and some of it remains. That makes it sound like there wasn’t a lot, but there is more hair in this exhibit than I ever want to see again in one place. This hair, which belonged to, someone just hours before they were killed and some of which remained in braids. The braided hair was what set me off. That’s when I saw the trees in the forest. That’s when I realized that six million was not just a number but it referred to six million individuals, six million people with families, with their own histories – six million stories.

I wish that was the end of the tour and from there I could go to the bus and try to think about a happier subject, but after finishing the tour of Auschwitz I with the crematorium we went to see Auschwitz I’s big demented sister, Treblinka. Like Auschwitz I, Treblinka manages to arouse sensations long dormant within; emotions you wish would remain that way. Treblinka, a death camp, the last stop for millions of souls, raises questions I didn’t want to face. Questions that I wish I never had had to ask.

The tour of Treblinka ended in front of the destroyed crematorium and gas chambers and we were given thirty minutes before we had to return to the bus. I walked around the rubble to see the other side where a memorial had been erected “to the memory of the men, women and children who had fallen victim to the Nazi genocide.” The memorial was in front of two small ponds in which the remaining ashes left in the crematorium had been gathered and deposited.

The only “nice” part of the experience came at the very end. In front of the destroyed gas chambers and crematorium a tour group of Israeli teens gathered and led by a young girl sang a beautiful prayer in Hebrew, while some of them waved and others draped themselves in Israeli flags. In the desolate landscape that is Treblinka the sweet notes of the prayer stood in stark contrast to their surrounding and provided me with a brief respite from hours of dark thoughts about how the Nazis had dedicated themselves to the eradication of a foreign people. 65 years ago, the murder of millions of Jews had taken place on those very grounds. 65 years later, Jews had returned, this time freely, to remember. May we never forget.

I don’t know how to transition from Auschwitz and Treblinka. I don’t think there really is a smooth transition. So I’m thankful to Eva for giving me a few hours between Auschwitz and Krakow to process and orient myself before trying to put on a happy face and explore the city of Krakow. Unfortunately, I don’t have that capability with the blog, so I hope you can bear with me.

By the time we got into Krakow we were all exhausted and Eva hadn’t put anything on our itinerary in anticipation though she did offer to take us on a short walking tour to orient us in the city. Most people went and took a nap (remember, the bus departed Prague at midnight and we were awoken to breakfast at 6:30, so the only sleep we had was that which were able to grab on the bus) but I wanted to try and normalize my sleep schedule after my late night prepping for my Charles IV presentation last week.

Krakow is a really interesting city and one of my features is the divide between the old and newer parts of the city. If you look at Krakow from a bird’s eye view you see a “green line” that surrounds the city. That line, which is really a park, is built on the land where the castle walls had stood. The park is both very pretty, especially in fall (can I get a hooray for fall?) but also functional historically as it preserves the old borders without dividing the city.

Eva took us to the main square in Krakow’s old town and started pointing in various directions and telling us what we could find if we walked that way. She also mentioned that using your Czech could be a little dangerous as there were instances of innocuous Polish verbs that were spelled identically to one of those four-letter verbs not used in civilized conversation in Czech. And with that warning, we were set loose.

I stuck with Devin who seemed to have an idea of what he wanted to see and where he was going (always a good thing for a directionally challenged individual like myself). Together with Harison and Andy we ventured into the unknown and discovered little pieces of Krakow. We started in the cloth market – one of the oldest markets in Krakow historically traders traded, you guessed it, cloth. Today it’s a bit more of a bizarre with small knickknacks, some furs and artwork for sale. Though I was enamored with some very colorful boxes, I survived the market without opening my wallet.

As we were exiting the square we noticed some wooden pianos that were painted. For my fellow Minnesotans, the pianos reminded me of the Peanuts gang that sprang up around the Twin Cities following the death of Mr. Schultz at the beginning of the millennium, but instead of Snoopy and Charlie though, they were pianos. It was only later that I learned the pianos were in memory of Chopin who died 200 years ago and had visited Krakow on several occasions and was Polish (another fact that I learned later).

The four of us walked around for a little over an hour, making a quick circuit of the old town while wetting our appetite – for the city and for some Polish pirogi. We found some pirogi for dinner, and they were good.

We went to a posh little restaurant not far from the hotel for dinner called The Baroque. The restaurant was recommended to us by the hotel as having good pirogis (they weren’t lying) and because they could offer us a discount – 5% off the bill? I’ll take that, thank you. Andy didn’t make it to dinner, but Martha filled the vacancy and the four of us had a really fun dinner talking about everything, from Movies to Cosmo to Major League Baseball (can you guess my least favorite topic?). After dinner we stopped by a bar called Dog in the Fog (Will Always Find His Way Home), but since I hadn’t napped and was barely functioning on my few hours of sleep over the previous three days, I didn’t even stay for the first beer and went to bed. Call me lame, but I prefer to wake up in the morning alert and ready to go instead of weary eyed and exhausted.

Saturday morning was our big touring day of Krakow and Eva organized a tour of the Jewish Quarter, the Jewish Ghetto, the Castle and Old Town. Interestingly, the Jewish quarter, not the Jewish ghetto was in greater disrepair in the early nineties when Steven Spielberg began shooting Schindler’s List, and as a result, the movie, which depicted the ghetto, was actually shot in the Jewish quarter instead of the ghetto. Schindler and the movie would remain focal points of the tour, coming up again and again as we walked the streets of the Jewish quarter and ghetto.

I think the most interesting point that our tour guide made in relation to Schindler and the subsequent biopic was how the movie could be considered responsible for the revitalization of the Jewish quarter, which today was one of the nicest neighborhoods in the city.

Our tour included visits to the oldest synagogue in Krakow, Ghetto Heroes’ Square, the castle, palace, cathedral, and basilica among others. Due to time constraints, the tour kind of rushed us through the Jewish ghetto, so Devin, Martha, Harrison and I returned afterward to explore it more on our own.

Before returning to explore on our own though, we took a break in touring for lunch and ice cream. The tour concluded at the cloth market, so we were very centrally located, but the directions Eva gave us for a traditional Polish restaurant were lost in translation. Fortunately, Martha was prepared with her Lonely Planet guidebook and found a little restaurant a short walk away for us to try. The restaurant, completely vacant other than one other patron, was quaint to say the least. The walls were painted a rich green and each table was set as if to host a banquet reminding me of a scene from a book describing a royal feast. Even though lunch was quite filling, we felt obliged to follow it up with some dessert.

One of the first things Eva told us about Krakow was about an ice cream parlor that she found last time she was in town which served “buckets” of ice cream. Finding this promised land of iced cream and sugary goodness became our mission of the trip. We searched the day before and found an ice cream shop that seemed like it could qualify, but since we couldn’t find “buckets of ice cream” on the big board we decided to try again the next day. It turns out that we had actually found the right store and had simply ordered incorrectly. Now, it should be mentioned that a bucket in America is different than a bucket in the Czech Republic or Poland, but when we returned on Saturday, we found the menu and saw options we were previously unaware of. We settled on these…

And they were good!

Okay, so after the ice cream we made our way back to the Jewish Ghetto so that we could get a better look at Ghetto Heroes' Square, the remaining pieces of the ghetto wall and actually walk through the Schindler Museum, which had been recommended to us as one of the best museums in Europe, with a permanent exhibit on WWII in Poland and Krakow but didn’t focus exclusively on the story of Oskar Schindler and his life. The reviews were spot on! Starting at Ghetto Heroes’ Square we appreciated the public art dedicated to the memory of the Jews who lived in the ghetto before trying to find the remaining ghetto walls and the museum.

The chairs in Ghetto Heroes’ Square are supposed to commemorate the over crowdedness of the ghetto which forced so many Jews to leave their furniture in the square because they didn’t have room inside the walls, the lost lives (as the chairs are now empty and isolated) as well as provide a rest for the weary today. After the square, we started walking toward the museum and ghetto wall – or at least the direction I thought they were in. Though it turns out I was walking exactly opposite the museum and ghetto wall, I remain convinced that I heading the same direction as the bus had gone only a few hours before. After making a few turns though and not knowing where to go next, I stopped when I saw a tour guide coming and asked if he could just point us in the right direction. He instead insisted on us joining his tour since he was going there anyway. It was a free tour so we joined and though we tried several more times to embark on our own, the guide was convinced that we would get lost and that it would be better just to wait a few extra minutes and go with him. It turned out to be educational and he showed us a cool tunnel on the way to the museum, so I don’t have any complaints. Besides, we got to the museum without getting lost again, which is always a plus.

The museum is really fascinating and incredibly put together. Each room has its own theme and as you travel from room to room you are transported to a different period and place in history. Some of the rooms are terrifying in their presentation (two rooms in particular – one with three large flags of the Nazi party hanging floor to ceiling and positioned in a way that you could not go around them but were forced to walk through them and the very next room which had swastika tiling) but those too passed. One of my favorite rooms was the room for the Krakow ghetto which was designed to feel like a suffocating space with the walls appearing as the walls of the ghetto (which also resembled tombstones in a Jewish cemetery) but aside from the awesome power that the room held, the some of the documents that survived from the ghetto were in the room including notes that Roman Polanski wrote as a child before escaping the ghetto. Say what you will about the man, it was really inspirational to see into the mind of the young storyteller.

We had been told that the museum requires at least two hours and that some people even spend four hours in the museum in order to see it all. The layout of the museum follows the IKEA model, that is, you are forced to walk through the entire museum in order to reach the end. We had a little over two hours before closing when we arrived but we were still rushed through the last room by the employees who were closing the museum for the evening. I think that’s honestly the best accomplishment of a museum – to keep its visitors interested for hours that they don’t want to leave. So, if you ever find yourself in Krakow, make sure to dedicate a few hours of your stay to the Schindler Museum, it’s worth it!

By the time we left the museum, the sun had set and darkness had descended on Krakow, leaving us to navigate our way back to the city center by moon- and streetlight. Did I mention that I’m directionally challenged? Well, we decided to take the tram rather than walking since Devin and I had already bought return tickets (look Ma, I’m learning!). Unfortunately, the map for the tram didn’t have major landmarks on it and instead listed only the names of the stops, so I was able to convince the group that I knew where we needed to go, insisting “I got this” several times to Devin. Turns out, I was about a kilometer off, but don’t worry, I had it. Martha had a compass in her bag (because who doesn’t carry a compass at all times?) and a map so I was able to get us back to the hotel without asking for directions. Though I think the others were not happy that I took them out of their way, I’m confident one day they’ll thank me. I mean, if I hadn’t gotten them lost, they would never have seen that part of the city. I’ll patiently wait for my thank you cards.

Saturday evening was certainly one of my favorite nights abroad so far! After an awesome Indian dinner we explored the local nightlife a little and met up with most of the rest of the program at a bar and club not far from the restaurant. Without cash or desire to borrow, I spent the night sipping on the remaining tonic from my friends’ gin and tonics, but that didn’t get in the way of me having fun. In fact, some times I find it equally entertaining to sit back and watch people interact. Inebriated individuals will ping back and forth with an almost inhuman energy, jumping from room to room, conversation to conversation, and topic to topic with no hesitation. I spent nearly two hours at the club just trying to keep up with my friends before a few of us called it a night and headed back to the hotel.

Arriving back at the hotel around two, my fun for the night really was just getting started. Back in the states, Madison was playing host to the Ohio State Buckeyes, so I pulled out my laptop, hopped on the hotel’s wireless and tuned in to watch the Badgers beat the number one team in the nation for the first time in 30 years with Laura. I stayed up until nearly five to catch the final seconds and watch as 5000 students rushed the field. Living abroad is a tremendous experience and one I’m sure I won’t be willing to trade for anything in life, but at that moment, when I saw the Badgers beat the Buckeyes, when I knew my friends were rejoicing on the field in Camp Randall, I wished I was home to participate. I’ve been homesick a few times on this trip, but this I think was something else. Sure, I missed home, I wanted to be at school and celebrating with my friends, but that was also one of those moments when I realized just how special Madison is.

That makes it seem like I didn’t realize how amazing Madison and the University of Wisconsin are before, which is not true, just that I have a new found appreciation. I have not always been the biggest fan at the sporting events I have attended as a student at UW (sometime even cheering for the University of Minnesota or Duke), and I have been criticized for my distinct lack of Badger apparel. I don’t know if I’m ready to cheer against the Gophers or Blue Devils yet, but this week has been eye-opening in how much the University of Wisconsin – Madison means to me. It’s as much a part of me at this point as my hometown or my high school. It’s where I have met my best friends, where I have learned who I am, and where I have grown up.

So what does this mean? Well, I don’t know yet, but I’m excited to find out. In the short run, I am trying to catch up on lost time by buying some Badger shirts and Teaching Prague How to Bucky.

To quickly wrap up my trip to Krakow before getting into the video – on Sunday we visited Krakow’s salt mines. I’m not a huge fan of mines – call me crazy, but a collapsible corridor several hundred feet below the surface of the earth just doesn’t seem like a place I want to go for fun – but these mines were better than most. At least these didn’t combine collapsible and subterranean with claustrophobic like the silver mines in Kutna Hora.

From the mines we made the seven hour bus ride back to Prague which is increasingly feeling like home.

When I got back to my flat I saw that I had a message from Lisa asking what time I would be free to shoot a Teach Me How To Bucky movie. I’d seen the Zooniversity edition start popping up on Facebook a week or two ago at this point but hadn’t given any thought to making our own version. Lisa clearly had bigger plans and so we found some time to get some work in. I don’t think I’ve made a video since I was kid with my brother and our neighbors using our over the shoulder VHS video camera. Sunday night, in between working on various assignments, I would think about how we could pay homage to the original video while showing off Prague. Personally enamored with the pedagogic components of the song, I wanted the video to follow the story of Badgers abroad teaching the country to Bucky.

Ultimately, Lisa maintained creative control of the video (and no complaints here – it’s AWESOME), but I think some of the things I wanted in the movie are represented in the final cut either consciously or otherwise. Aside from having an awesome time going out with Lisa, Tessa, and Bara to shoot the movie, a few parts stand out in the movie. First and foremost, the little girl who is dancing with Lisa and me in front of the statues was just out with her father as he took photos of the statues when we arrived. In broken Czech, I asked her if she wanted to learn how to dance. In Czech, where verbs can assume the pronoun, that sentence becomes three verbs: Chceš se učit tancovat? Initially her father wasn’t the biggest supporter of the idea (something about a stranger approaching his five year old daughter asking is she wanted to dance didn’t sit well with him, I don’t know), but the little girl wanted in and the father eventually acquiesced. Another of my favorite parts of the movie comes when the break-dancers get screen time. Though I wasn’t there for the filming of that segment, this crew is always at the metro stop I take to go home from school (they’re literally the best part of my day every day). I haven’t had the courage to talk to them yet, but I mentioned them to Lisa and she got them to participate; I’m hoping that this means that if I do eventually get the courage to talk to them, they will be willing to teach me a few moves that I can bring with me back to the states.

That’s my week. Give or take a ton of details that I wish I could remember or had time to write about but hopefully eight pages will satiate you until I have time to post more. Also, remember to check shuttersandsounds.wordpress.com for pictures that I haven’t had time to post on this blog.