Dear Friends and Family,
Happy belated 4th of July! I hope that you are all having a wonderful summer and enjoyed a very nice Independence Day holiday! I am writing to you from Kharkiv, a large city in the east of Ukraine, which was once the Ukrainian capital during the time of the Soviet Union. I am here to prepare for the upcoming ABCamp while enjoying spending time with my clustermate, Whitney, who lives and works here in Kharkiv.
It has been a very very busy month and a half for me, of which I wrote about the first part in my Russia blog. Following my return to Ukraine I headed to L’viv to stay with my good friend, Kari, whom I visited for my birthday and from there I began my leap into Europe. My first stop was Krakow followed by Prague and ending in Budapest before heading back into Ukraine. I want to share with you some sites and pictures from these cities but due to all the pictures, I am splitting up the posts into their three perspective cities.
This 3-city tour began with plans to travel from Ukraine to Budapest with fellow NU alumna, Meaghan, and expanded to include a trip to Krakow and then simply made sense to connect the two cities with a stop in Prague. Krakow had only been a city on my list of places I would like to visit for about 2 months. In April, following the tragic plane crash which took the lives of the Polish President, his wife and many Polish government officials, I had a chance to watch some English language television and spent an entire afternoon watching the funeral of the Polish President and his wife. Though this was quite morbid, it ended up showing me the city of Krakow; including the insides of St. Mary’s Basilica, the Old Town Square, Wawel Castle overlooking the city and simply a lot of the beautiful architecture throughout Krakow. Through these images I determined I had to get to this beautiful ancient city and a short 2 months later I was there.
Krakow, which recently celebrated its 750th year, held the title of capital of the Polish state for over 500 years. The city is covered in Gothic and Renaissance architecture and has something beautiful to admire around every corner. I had to remind myself multiple times to look where I was going as I spent my entire 3 days in the city looking up and wandering around in awe of the unique facades of each building.
On my first full day in the city, I actually spent it touring two very famous sites outside of Krakow. The first in Polish is Oswiecim, but we know it as Auschwitz, the site of the largest attempt at genocide in human history. Auschwitz-Birkenau existed as a Nazi extermination camp from 1940-1945 and is the site where an estimated 1.6 million people died including 1.1 million Jews, 150,000 Poles and people of 27 nationalities in total. The morning of my tour was quite sunny and fairly warm which made fully feeling the effects of being in the Auschwitz camp quite difficult. Memories of black and white photographs of Auschwitz filled my mind, but walking through the barracks while the birds sang and the sun shined just made such a large number seem so unfathomable. Rooms filled with suitcases, shoes, eyeglasses, combs and brushes as well as women’s human hair; however, put the gruesome scene into better perspective. The Nazis had a plan for everything that was taken from the victims down to the hair being collected to make fabric for Nazi soldier clothing and blankets. Our tour included entrance into the barracks where prisoners slept 6-8 in a bunk bed as well as the prison barracks where prisoners were made to stand all night and were forced to work all the next day. One of the last stops at the Auschwitz camp was entrance into the first gas chamber, built to test the use of Zyklon B in the extermination of mass numbers of people. Originally prisoners were shot one at a time, but with the increase in number of prisoners entering the camps, the Auschwitz camp decided to test the chemical, originally used to get ride of lice on clothing, for use in the killing of prisoners. The chemical exists in small blue crystals and simply needs heat to turn into a deadly gas – the heat of enough bodies in a small enclosure suffices. As we entered the gas chamber, our tour guide pointed to the holes in the ceiling from which the crystals were dropped explaining that those near the hole died quickly, but those farther away had a few minutes before the gas would reach them. I cannot imagine the horror, which those people inside such gas chambers, must have felt before they passed away.
The Auschwitz complex actually consists of 3 camps, the second known as Birkenau and the third Monowitz. The Nazis successfully destroyed the Monowitz working camp, but failed to destroy all of Birkenau and most all of Auschwitz is left. Birkenau, however, was the site of the largest extermination with its 4 large gas chambers, each capable of asphyxiating up to 2,000 people at a time. We entered the camp and walked along the train tracks down to the remains of the 2 largest gas chambers and crematoriums (the Nazis blew these up before fleeing the site). As I walked along the tracks to the end which stands only a few feet from the entrance to the two large gas chambers, as far as I could see on both sides of me stood chimneystacks where over 300 barracks once stood. The camp held up to 200,000 prisoners and in the remaining weeks of the war, was used to kill 400,000 Hungarian Jews who were carted in by train and told to wait in line to be taken into the gas chambers. Photographs of individuals waiting with their families and personal possessions for their turn to go into the gas chamber, they were told it was into the shower, made my heart stop. As I looked at the pictures of these individuals, naïve to what was about to happen, I started to tear up. I wanted to yell out to them but what could I have done?
If you ever have a chance to see these camps, please do – only through education and understanding can we ensure that these catastrophes are not repeated.
In the afternoon, I was able to travel another direction outside Krakow to visit the Wieliczka salt mine, a working mine for over 700 years. Salt used to be one of the most valuable resources in the world, more valuable than gold or silver. The word “salary” comes from the Latin word for salt and the hand gesture of rubbing your fingers together with your thumb to represent money – comes from the Roman hand gesture meaning “pay me in salt.” Interesting huh? The tour took us down 135 meters underground to visit some 22 different chambers where salt was mined. The mine actually comprises of 300 km of tunnels and gets to 327m deep. The salt mine is interesting to visit as miners, on breaks from excavating, spent time carving full sculptures from blocks of salt. Such salt sculptures included the likenesses of Nicholas Copernicus and Pope John Paul II as well as a replica of Davinci’s The Final Supper. One of the best parts is the Chapel of St. Kinga, a chapel entirely carved in salt from its “marble” tiled floors to the chandeliers and the chapel’s altarpiece. Every bit of it is carved from salt taken from a part of the mine. I felt a bit like I was in a room of Willy Wonka’s factory as the guide said everything here is edible – though I don’t know who would want to take a bite out of a wall of salt!
On my second day, I spent my time wandering Wawel Hill where from Kings ruled the Polish state before the capital was moved to Warsaw in the 16th century. Inside Wawel Cathedral rests the tombs of many of Poland’s most famous rulers and humanitarians including that of St. Queen Hedwig who ruled in the 14th century and who financed the construction of Collegium Maius, the second oldest University in Europe and the place where Copernicus first studied astronomy. The Polish President and his wife are also now buried in the crypt of the Cathedral. It was quite an emotional moment passing such a freshly completed tomb covered in roses while the many onlookers teared up and prayed over the marble covered tomb.
Also on Wawel Hill stands the Castle. I chose to visit the Royal Chambers, which are filled with 16th century intricately decorated tapestries on the walls, and then the Crown Treasury and Armory where on display rests the “Jagged Sword” used in all coronations from 1320 onwards. My favorite part of Wawel Hill, however, rests under the castle and cathedral. Legend has it that a fire breathing dragon once terrorized the people of Krakow until one day, a group of boys covered a bag of sulfur in animal furs and laid it outside the dragons cave for the dragon to eat. The legend differs in that some say the dragon died simply from the sulfur overdose while others say that the dragon became so thirsty from the sulfur that he drank so much water from the Vistula River that he exploded. Either way, the dragon no longer terrorizes the people of Krakow and tourists are able to walk through the damp crevices of his cave and exit to see a large bronze dragon, which breathes fire every few minutes. Check out the pictures below!
My last day in Krakow began with a tour of Collegium Maius, a college founded in the 14th century. Inside we were able to see 16th century astronomical instruments, which were used by Nicholas Copernicus when he was a student at the College, as well as the world’s tiniest globe dating to 1510, on which the American continent is placed about where we place Antarctica now on the map! Following my tour I went back to Old Town Square just in time for the sun to shine for the first time since my morning at Auschwitz. I used this opportunity to climb to the top of St. Mary’s Basilica also known as the Basilica of the Assumption of Our Lady. From the highest of the two towers, a trumpeter plays a tune every hour on the hour to remember the trumpeter who, when the Tatars were invading Krakow, sounded the alarm to protect the city but was killed mid note by a Tatar arrow. I remember reading the book “The Trumpeter of Krakow” in 7th grade at Shattuck – but only recalled this when I reached the top of the tower and had my picture taken with one of the trumpeters hired to play this famous tune. The views from the tower were incredible and I’ve attached pictures below. I also had a chance to go inside the Basilica and look up to the heavenly painted ceilings and golden altarpiece. As I sat near the altar and looked at the pews where the Ukrainian and Russian Presidents had been sitting during the funeral, I felt quite accomplished for having gotten myself here to enjoy this marvelous city.
Enjoy the pictures!
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