Away for Now: Jewish District and Ghetto

The breakfast buffet on Friday (Nov. 4th) morning was quite uniquely un-American.

Antipasto, cucumbers, olives....let's just say it was more savory than sweet. I ate quickly so to meet the others in the lobby at 9ish for the next tour.

We walked to the Old Synagogue in Kazimierz (pictured above) to start a tour centered around the Jewish population in Krakow's Kazimierz and Krakow's ghetto. The next day we were going to visit Auschwitz, so this tour was a good way to ease into the topic.

Past this gate is a famous Jewish cemetery

Our tour guide for this was also really good (it was nice out, too, so he had that going for him!) Here are two pictures I got of the Izaak Synagogue. He told us the story below:

"The founder of the synagogue is the hero of a well-known legend deriving from the Tales of 1001 Nights. Ayzik Jakubowicz, a pious but poor Jew from Krakow, dreamed that there was treasure hidden under the old bridge in Prague. Without delay, he made his way there. On arrival, it turned out the bridge was guarded by a squad of soldiers and that digging was out of the question. Ayzik told the officer about his dream, promising him half of the booty. The officer retorted, "Only fools like Polish Jews can possibly believe in dreams. For several nights now I have been dreaming that in the Jewish town of Kazimierz there is hidden treasure in the oven of the home of the poor Jew Ayzik Jakubowicz. Do you think I am so stupid as to go all the way to Cracow and look for the house of this Isaac the son of Jacob?". Ayzik returned home immediately, took the oven apart, found the treasure and became rich. After this it was said: 'There are some things which you can look for the world over, only to find them in your own home. Before you realise this, however, you very often have to go on along journey and search far and wide.'"

(You can see the back of me with the "Brown" hat in the group photo, left)

After walking through more of the Jewish district, we arrived at Plac Nowy Flea Market (it's been around for 200-something years!) The main circular building in the center had walk-up-windows with lots of different vendors selling their variations of zapiekanka, a traditional Polish "pizza" (basically its an open sandwich, with cheese and toppings melted on half of a baguette). Our tour guide called it "communist pizza" (I have honestly no idea why) and told us we had to try some.

Marisa before trying it (right): "I don't know about this. He called it communist pizza..."

The second half of our tour was sobering; we visited a Jewish ghetto. I've read a fair amount about the topic, so most of what the tour guide said I had known already. But it is a completely different experience to put an image to that knowledge!

The movie Schindler's List (more on this later), was set here because much of the architecture has remained unchanged since the 1940's. The photograph below shows the stairway used in the in the scene in which Mrs. Dresner hides from the Jewish police who were helping the Germans to round up the Jews for "transportation to the East", a euphemism for taking them to the gas chambers:

http://www.scrapbookpages.com/Poland/Kazimierz/Kazimierz01.html

And here as it is today:

Everything looks the same structurally, but there is now a cafe and some other shops in the buildings. I like that even though people have "moved on" in a sense by continuing about their daily life there, the businesses still pay tribute to the tragedies that took place here (below):

After the Jews were thrown out of their homes here, they were forced over Vistula river to an isolated ghetto:

We walked across this bridge too. It's a strange feeling...the view out on the river was beautiful, but I kept thinking about how I was walking on a path that so many people had walked years ago with much different emotions!

Across to the other side:

Krakow Ghetto & Deportation Monument (below):

From an artist's perspective, it's a really cool monument. Our tour guide skimmed over it somewhat so I researched it and this is what I found: "It includes 33 steel and cast iron chairs in the square and 37 smaller chairs standing on the edge of the square and at tram stops. The memorial's chairs are part of the bus and tram stops and are used by locals awaiting transportation, suggesting that anyone can be a victim." One thing the tour guide did say is that there is symbolism behind which way the chairs are facing.

Before the tour guide dropped us off at the Schindler's Factory museum, he pointed out one more thing that sent tingles down my spine:

This is a portion of the ghetto wall that the Nazi's built in between buildings to slowly close the Jews in. The shape of the wall is particularly creepy because it looks like a long line of tombstones (Yes, it was deliberate). A lot of Jews were convinced to move to the ghetto because they thought it would be a safe place...soon, though, these walls started to go up, and there was no escaping to the other side of the river. He told us several accounts of people who wrote about the gnawing feeling they had when they saw the tombstone structures. I can't even imagine what that fear must've been like. I think I would rather be killed on the spot than live in fear for months and months like they did.

We went through the museum next, and learned about how Schindler saved hundreds of Jews by employing them in his factory to make bullets for the war effort...I was really looking forward to seeing this and was actually a little disappointed. The museum itself was great, but another tour guide led us around. He kept rushing us through and seemed annoyed that we were "ignorant Americans" (I think the language barrier made it difficult for us to get his jokes...and thus made us seem uninterested). Nevertheless, I ended up lagging behind so I could read the captions of the photos he kept skipping over. The museum was the only so-so experience of an overall amazingly-planned trip.

Back in the center of the city, Kara, Marisa and I wandered around window-shopping and trying to decide where to eat. We looked into a wax-figure museum, and in the lobby we saw a Hillary Clinton and a Donald Trump "debating" on a stage. (Boy, has it been interesting to watch the election through an international lens!)

Kara and I were momentarily distracted when we witnessed a man propose to his girlfriend in the city square. We spent at least six full minutes watching them, and then walked away and walked back to watch them again. (Marisa made fun of us for being so excited about it, but it was SO dreamy!) This led to a dinner table conversation that pretty much revolved around engagements, weddings, and dreams in general. (Sigh.) I learned so much about both Marisa and Kara that evening: things I didn't know even though we see each other every day at home.

(Funky heating lamp for the outdoor table made my pictures all distorted)

We finished off the night at this chocolate shop near our hotel. I ordered hot chocolate, but it was more like eating thick chocolate soup. So rich we could barely finish!