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Czesc, from Krakow, Poland!
An unscheduled detour from our original itinerary, Krakow, Poland, has proven to be a real gem in our travels! Des Acosta, our host in Prague, sang its praises and convinced us to go and see it for ourselves.

JENNI: Krakow is one of my favorite places so far in our trip…its unique blend of beautiful and not-so-beautiful is truly magical. Our train arrived in Krakow early in the morning, which has come to be my favorite time of day in a new city. The weather is crisp, giving us just a tiny hint of what winters must be like here, and I feel a sense of energy here although I can't explain it. The people seem more friendly here than in Prague - smiling in return, making an effort to understand and help - and once again speaking English, which, again, is more prevalent than my expectations. Poland has been free of Communist rule since 1989, and most people, especially the younger ones, know at least a little English. They learn that in school now, instead of Russian. We are told that many older people understand Russian more than English, although they pretend to have forgotten it.

JOE: The third largest city in Poland (population 750,000), Krakow proves to be a wealth of sightseeing opportunities. Back when Pope John Paul II was Karol Wojtyla, he was archbishop of Krakow. The Pope's hometown has a 10th century castle, a 13th century church, and a fantastic plaza where children play among the pigeons. We have spent countless hours just sipping coffee and watching the little kids giggle and fruitlessly chase the birds. As we walk around the Old Town, we hear Italian, German, English and only some Polish spoken in the tourist areas. Street musicians (my favorites are the Gypsy bands) roam around the square playing for the droves of tourists, as Krakow has become quite the attraction in recent years. Here's one for you New-Agers. Krakow is said to be one of the mystic energy centers of the world. The Wawel castle allegedly has a stone that is believed to "bestow a sense of inner calm and relaxation" on those who rub their backsides on the castle wall. (We were already relaxed, so we skipped the stone-rubbing). In sharp contrast to Krakow's legendary charm, we also took a day trip to a place that still gives me chills of horror: the infamous Nazi death camp of Auschwitz.

JENNI: It's about an hour and half bus ride to Auschwitz and its bigger cousin, Birkenau. The difference between the two concentration camps is their size and efficiency; Auschwitz was built first and is more compact; its one gas chamber ultimately proved too small to handle the number of people and murders required. So the nazis built Birkenau, using old existing barns and the sweat of Auschwitz prisoners, complete with a railway going directly into the camp and four gas chambers. This complex was the biggest killing factory ever made by man. Although no complete records were kept, historians estimate some 1.5 million people were put to death in these camps.

Many of the buildings at Auschwitz are preserved in their original form, but most of the interiors have been reconstructed to house the exhibits. Only a few interiors have remained intact - the most powerful is the "prison-within-a-prison", where the particularly bad prisoners were kept before being executed. To be a particularly bad prisoner was easy - just stop to catch your breath during your 12-hour workday. Or do anything that smacked of spirit or morale. Or help a prisoner in any way if you lived on the outside. Or anything else you can think of. Generally, these people were sentenced to death in a cursory trial that might only last minutes. The Execution Wall is where most of these people were shot to death, naked. As you enter the courtyard of this wall, a sign reminds you that this is the scene of thousands of murders, and asks you to act accordingly. A similar sign is posted near the gas chamber. Birkenau, a short distance away, is vast. Many of the barracks were wooden and no longer exist save for the chimneys. Others are brick, made from the destroyed homes of the townspeople who used to live here before the Nazis evacuated them. Most had dirt floors that would quickly turn to mud, and big gaps in the ceiling and walls that let in the cold winter wind. The bathrooms were big holes in long troughs, and were cleaned by the most educated prisoners - doctors and teachers. Miles of emptiness surrounded the two camps, contributing to the sense of complete isolation for the prisoners. Once they were loaded on the train from wherever they came from all over Europe, they never saw the outside again, unless they survived until the Liberation. The railway stopped here in the middle of the camp, where the "Selection" sometimes took place. That's when doctors would look over the incoming prisoners to decide if they should live (and work) or die. Only about 25% of the new arrivals would be used for work. The remaining people were sent immediately to the "showers" that were never hooked up to any water supply and were in fact, the gas chambers. Sometimes the "Selection" never happened, and the entire trainload would be sent to their deaths. The gas chambers are destroyed now; they were razed by the Nazis as they retreated into Germany when the Allies advanced. But the museum has rebuilt one of the chambers and one of the incinerators where bodies were cremated.

These camps are as you would expect: depressing yet interesting, fascinating and horrific. But I felt strangely untouched by the visit. I was very disturbed by the apparent indifference of the tour guide who must give these explanations several times a day. Therefore, the information she spews out by rote means nothing to her anymore. The large, loud crowds also had a serious impact on the reverence of the place. Despite the signs requesting respect, many people talked loudly and allowed their children to run and jump, even in a room as ghostly as the Auschwitz gas chamber. I left angry and disappointed. I felt that I had cheated the memory of so many people who died here by not feeling more of an impact from the visit. I'm thankful for my past visit to Dachau (Germany), where that guide's knowledge and respect for the camp left me with a greater understanding of what the prisoners must have experienced.

JOE: The tour guide truly was a brutal storyteller who didn't show a lick of passion or emotion. The reason may be the fact that the museum is run by the Polish government and it seems like they only let their own, government guides do the touring. Once, as our guide was telling a compelling story about a Catholic priest who volunteered to trade places with a prisoner, the group was starting to get teary-eyed. The priest, Maxymilian Kolbe, was starved, tortured then executed. It turns out the prisoner he replaced lived a long life to the age of 94 and only passed away a few years ago. Just as I got a lump in my throat, the guide unblinkingly finished her sentence and beckoned us to move on. But she got the point across with the cold, hard facts and the sheer horror the people here must have suffered. "Dante's Hell had nothing on this place," she drones. And you strongly get the picture she was right. The museum curators have done a very impressive job with the details of the displays. They have hundreds of photographs taken of Jews, Gypsys, Poles, political enemies, homosexuals and German criminals who were brought here by train to their death. There are huge piles of women's hair; braids that were cut off and were on their way to a German plant for use in making cloth. There is another giant pile of little shoes. They are the shoes of thousands of children who were mercilessly killed here. Another display has a massive pile of eyeglasses, and yet another has a pile of the poison gas cans used to kill the prisoners. The details and the sheer numbers dare any one of these racist revisionists who claim that "no Jews were killed during World War II" to cling to their views. There's no way they could keep believing that nonsense after visiting this museum because the facts are so overwhelming.

In the end, what is most striking to me about Auschwitz is its vibrant color. Its green fields are overgrown with little yellow weed-flowers peeking through the ruins of the red brick former death-barracks. Your mind tells you this place is supposed to be Black and White like the monstrous documentaries we've always seen of World War II's concentration camps. But in person, it's in vivid technicolor. And somehow that makes it that much more real.

JENNI: Like the Czech Republic, Poland has a history of being betrayed, overtaken, and ruled by its neighbors. Shortly before WWII, Poland leaders signed non-aggression pacts with both Germany and Russia. A few short years later in the very beginning of the war, those countries attacked Poland from both sides in a secret alliance of their own, kicking off a systematic annihilation of the Polish people and their spirit through concentration camps and Communism. Krakow, like Prague, escaped the devastating bombs of WWII, and also like Prague, came under Soviet domination after the war. It has resulted in a unique blend of architecture, both beautiful and ugly. Rynek Glowny, the main square, is surrounded by beautiful buildings with 17th and 18th century architecture and pastel facades. But move beyond this heavily touristed area and you get blackened-by-pollution concrete apartment blocks built with no imagination. We visited a suburb here called Nowa Huta built by the Soviets as a "gift" to the Polish people. The drab, gray neighborhood was supposed to be a "true workers paradise" where the residents were supposed to happily toil the day away at the steelworks plant and go home to identical homes. But Nowa Huta had no church, which to a country that is 95 percent Catholic, was a serious insult. For 20 years the people of Nowa Huta fought for a church in their community, and eventually won.

JOE: Krakow also has more than its share of older history; of medieval and renaissance sights. And they are lovely to see. But, much like this kid who is using a statue to hold his backpack, I am feeling irreverent about these monuments. Actually, I'm growing annoyed of the concepts that these statues and buildings represent. The stories almost always begin and end with egotistical monarchs cruelly dominating their kingdoms (through religion, intimidation and murder) for centuries. Then they force the masses to build giant castles and monuments to honor the ruling families. Generations later, we still see the castles so we mindlessly pass on the fairy tales about these thugs who had them built. Our children then grow up believing the fairy tales about being princesses or a knights. But, in my opinion,children should know that this is little more than gang warfare. That's right, it's the Crips and the Bloods in suits of armor. Their "colors" are their flags and differently-shaped helmets. Their turfs are protected by their serfs. The only thing more interesting about the medieval killers is that they had a better flair for the dramatic. Take the two brothers who made these two towers of the St. Mary's Church in Krakow's Old Town. The slow, methodical brother was taking his time making the beautiful tower on the left while the careless, hasty brother was working on the uglier one on the right. During the construction, the careless brother realized his careful brother's work was going put his own to shame, so he killed his brother in a fit of jealousy. Nowadays, a live trumpeter announces every new hour from the prettier tower. But the song abruptly cuts off. It just stops right in the middle of the song. It's a tradition based on a real-life murderous incident back in the 13th century. Legend has it that the town trumpeter was blaring out a warning that the town was being invaded. The story goes that the trumpeter was shot dead by the invading Tartars right in the middle of his song!

JENNI: One of the local points of pride is the Wieliczka Salt Mine about 7 miles outside Krakow…for thousands of years people have used the Salt Mines as a resource for trade, employment, revenue, (recently) tourism, and of course, salt. There are vast, football field-sized chunks of salt interspersed through the earth, and a continuous thick "thread" of it at very deep levels. But what makes the Mine fascinating is the artwork that the miners carved into the salt and the chapels and sanctuaries they built down there - all out of salt. When a chunk of salt was found, the miners would burrow a passage right through the center of it and then dig outward all around, creating huge rooms sometimes 38 meters high and just as wide. Sometimes they would abandon these rooms; sometimes they would create grand halls like this one where everything is made of salt. The floor, the walls, the ceiling, the chandelier, the altar, the artwork on the walls…the only things not made of salt in this room are the people! Even this statue of the current pope, Pope John Paul II, is salt. What I want to know is how these miners found the time to carve all these sculptures of salt…weren't they supposed to be mining it instead? I should have asked that question of the guide…

One of the first rooms created was a small chapel the miners would pass on their way into work each day. Dedicated to St. Anthony, the patron saint of "looking diligently for something" this chapel saw its first mass in 1698. Lots of religious symbols and rooms down here, but also fanciful scenes depicting legends, storied dwarves, and history of the mines. One particularly large room housed a German aircraft construction facility, worked by Jewish people accommodated at a camp at ground level. When the allies came close, the equipment was hastily removed and the Jews moved elsewhere. Story has it that two Jewish boys took advantage of the confusion and hid in the mines…the miners found them days later and safely harbored them until the end of the war.

The air down the mine is supposed to very good for people with asthma…and it works! I've been having trouble breathing in the last few weeks, mostly because of allergies, but down in the mine my lungs felt clear. There's even a spa in the deeper levels where people go spend 6 hour a day just breathing. I'm afraid I have more things to do than just breathe for 6 hours a day, so I'm not scheduling a trip for the spa! But we are scheduling an overnight train to Budapest, Hungary! Better go do that before the travel office closes. More to come from Hungary!