The lighthearted part

(By Angie)

When we were looking up airbnbs for Krakow, one caught my eye. It looked really nice and I thought the name was pretty funny. It was Krakwow. Little did I know that the people who owned that airbnb had called their whole company Krakwow. Makes me think of Crack – wow… probably not what the Polish people intended in creating their company.

Despite the funny name, it was a great place to stay for about 9 days. One thing we loved was the air conditioning in the living room – a treat after the extreme heat of Berlin.

The airbnb was inexpensive and so allowed us a place we could explore at a slower pace. We had the time margin for someone to get sick (which Asher did). But it was okay because we were there so long, we didn’t need to cram in all the sights in a couple days.

We had time for things like letting the kids sword fight in the old town, or going to a certain restaurant just because it was rumored to have a playground inside (it did – and a ball pit). We had time to go to a outdoor playground and a splash pad, which the younger kids enjoyed. Our time in Krakow with kids was less about museums and more about normal life with some fun extras thrown in. (We needed some normal life!)

Poland is the first country on this trip that neither Chris or I had been to before.

We were told that the people in Krakow might be a little less friendly than people are in other parts of Europe. Generally people in the tourist industry were friendly enough. People that weren’t in the tourist industry seemed more stand-offish.

Then there was the lady who flat out scared me. Alexander and I had a bad experience with a barber. She yelled at us that she didn’t speak English (in perfect English) when I attempted to ask her if she could give him a haircut. The Barber seemed to be channeling the ‘Soup Nazi’ from Seinfeld. That was a bit traumatic. Most other people we encountered were fine.

Krakow has an awesome old town square, with buildings older than many others in Europe. Krakow didn’t sustain a lot of damage in WWII, so most of its historical buildings from before that time survived through the war, where other cities weren’t so lucky. The buildings date back to the 13th century! Such a lovely place to just spend time.

One favorite day from Krakow was visiting the Wieliczka Salt Mines. We descended nearly 400 steps into the mine. The tour took us within the labyrinth of tunnels, visiting underground lakes, statues made of salt, seeing salt ‘crystal’ chandeliers, salt art carvings, and even two underground chapels (it was a dangerous job and it helped to have God on their side). We were underground in the mine for nearly 3 hours. We weren’t sure how the kids would feel about it but they had a lot of fun.

Another touristy day was spent exploring Wawel Castle, it’s gardens, and the nearby Cathedral.

Another memorable day was when the kids discovered a place near our apartment where they could learn to throw axes and knives, as well as shoot air guns. While I was slightly worried about them doing those things, I knew they’d have fun. After talking to the instructor, it seemed like he would help us be safe.

We went ahead and spent 90 minutes at the axe throwing club. We all learned how to throw different kinds of knives, ninja stars, and axes. Alexander and Asher also got to shoot air guns. Quite a day!

The more serious stuff

If you ask most Krakow tourists, they will tell you that no visit to Krakow is complete without a visit to the Auschwitz concentration camp memorial. Visiting a concentration camp should never be “fun”, nor is it necessarily an appropriate activity for kids, but Chris felt it was very important. I had my reservations, but hoped the kids would either be educated or oblivious. We did find a kid-friendly movie to show them ahead of time to introduce the topic: “When Hitler stole pink rabbit,” and we talked about the Holocaust with the kids.

Ironically, our time at Auschwitz was very physically uncomfortable – hot enough to have a heat advisory. Our discomfort seemed fitting given all the suffering that happened there.

Alexander was moved enough by the experience to create another journal entry – after a considerable amount of encouragement from Chris. We will let Alexander share his thoughts and then Chris will fill in some details.

A Review of Auschwitz – by Alex

When I got up I thought, ‘what am I going to do today?’ Then I remembered we (my family) were going to Auschwitz. Now I have mixed feelings about that place because horrible things happened there however I’m not frightened. Getting to Auschwitz was easy – just across the street from our AirBNB and you’re there at the bus stop. On the bus ride I expected they would play a documentary about Auschwitz or at least have someone to talk about Auschwitz, but they did neither.

When we got to Auschwitz, I collected the audio guide and the tour started. Now if you don’t care about history then all you see here is a lot of buildings with stuff inside. In Auschwitz thousands of people were murdered. There was a pile of smashed glasses the size of a car. There was also a room filed with thousands of shoes. The sight of these made me feel weird because every pair of shoes makes a person.

Later we got back to the bus and drove to another concentration camp. At the other camp they showed us the gas chambers and the camp had train tracks and a train. There were two stops, one
was where everyone worked their butt off and the other stop was the gas chambers. After we explored more we left and said good bye to Auschwitz.

Dad’s Footnotes:

I will admit that it took a lot of prodding and encouragement from me to get Alex to write about this visit but I am very proud of his reflection. I had to correct a lot of spelling and I added a bit of punction but all of the above are his exact words – and maybe I’m just being a Dad but I think they are pretty profound.

If you’re not aware, Auschwitz was arguably the worst of the Nazi concentration camps. Before Poland was conquered by the Nazi’s, Auschwitz was a Polish military base. After the Nazi’s conquered Poland, they converted the base to a concentration camp, primarily for displaced Jews. Initially it was a forced labor camp and the victims died from exhaustion, lack of nutrition, lack of hygiene, or Nazi “justice”. E.g., a prisoner might be executed by a firing squad for stealing an apple.

As early as 1941, the prisoners started building the second concentration camp 2 kilometers away at Birkenau. This camp, also called Auschwitz 2, was 40 times larger than the original and was nothing short of a murder factory. Birkenau is the second camp that Alexander mentioned in his journal entry. The train going into the camp is the iconic picture that I believe most people would associate with Auschwitz. A train full of prisoners would arrive at the camp and be sorted – at the first stop – into those who could work and those who would immediately be murdered – at the second stop.

Some of the more impactful parts of the Auschwitz tour

The “Canada Barracks” were they collected and sorted goods stolen from the victims of the camp was intense. This included the large pile of wire rimmed glasses and shoes that Alex mentioned in his journal.

The shoes were the first thing I saw that triggered an emotional response in me. Specifically the many pairs of children’s shoes. Other hoards in the Canada Barracks included many hundreds of pounds of human hair that had been woven in to a burlap like material or stuffed into sacks like wool. There was also a massive pile of luggage with handwritten addresses on it. As people were sent to the camps they were instructed to write their names on their luggage so it could be routed to them. This was a lie to placate people about to be murdered.

We saw the starvation cell where Saint Maximillian Kolbe was martyred. As a prominent Saint from the 20th century we were all aware of his story. While imprisoned at Auschwitz, Saint Kolbe volunteered to take a punishment in place of another prisoner. The cells are small, dark, underground and stifling. It was hard to breathe just while we briefly walked past the cell and we had large industrial fans to help with air flow. Suffice it to say I have new prospective on the measure of his sacrifice.

The latrine building in Auschwitz 2 that was two long concrete benches with 60 holes at regular intervals (no stalls, seat covers, or sinks).

They walked us through a gas chamber and past a cremation chamber.

According to the tour, at least 1.3 million people had been murdered and cremated at the Auschwitz camps. When the kids asked why we were always talking about history I told them that it is important to study history because we don’t to let it happen again. I felt vindicated when I saw a more eloquent version of what I was trying to say prominently displayed at the Auschwitz memorial:

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

George Santayana

Our tour guide concluded the tour with another profound quote though I’m not sure who to attribute it to.

“It happened. So it could happen again.”