Krakow, Auschwitz and street sausage

16/1 - Every hour on the hour in Krakow's St. Mary's Basilica, a man opens a window in the tallest tower and plays a 30-second tune with a trumpet for the whole Old Town to hear. It's a tradition that stretches back to the days when it was necessary to keep a lookout for attacking forces; in other words, it goes back centuries.

Krakow is older than the country of Poland itself. It's the city that gets its name from Krakus, the Polish prince who slayed the Wawel Dragon and founded the city over its lair; to this day there are various images of dragons around Wawel Castle because the Poles believe dragons fend off demons. It's the city that was essentially, surprisingly, untouched during World War II. It's a city that has had so many influences in architecture, including from the Nazis! 

But most of all...Krakow is cold. And under the oppression of snow at the moment. The flight into Krakow was a sight unlike any I've seen for quite a long time. Snow was all I could see for miles, and it was a nice change to step off the plane into the frigid, icy air, fresh from a recent snowfall.

I'm once again Couchsurfing, this time with Kristina and her boyfriend Thomas. Kristina comes from St. Petersburg, Russia, and Thomas is, conveniently, French, and both are my age. Their apartment is large and clean, and the bathroom is bigger than anything I've used in years! Luckily, I already feel like I'm friends with them because they speak a lot and have been welcoming. This feels like it will be a "normal" stay, whatever that means.

Poland marks the 19th country I've visited in my life, but I'm not here just to be here; I'm on a mission. The first thing I did when arriving in Krakow was sign up for a tour of Auschwitz, the infamous Nazi death camp during WWII that was the site of many a Jewish death. I know this journey will not be a happy one. In fact, I expect to be disturbed and traumatized by this. But, this is a necessary visit, one that is good for my education. Auschwitz should never be forgotten, because it was a travesty of human history. The tour will take place tomorrow. 

17/1 - The sky was gray and the Auschwitz and Birkenau camps covered by a layer of snow and packed-down ice. The air was near freezing. A small handful of snowflakes drifted down from the sky. A light breeze nipped at unprotected skin.

As I ride back to Krakow in the shuttle, it's difficult to explain exactly what I felt. Disgust? Sadness? Apprehension? It began as soon as we parked in front of Auschwitz. I felt light headed, an ever-so-slight reluctance to advance farther.

I was part of a tour with 20-25 people. The tour guide spoke into a small microphone that transmitted to a receiver we wore around our necks, which fed into headphones that covered our ears. We could hear her perfectly, even if we were lagging 30 feet behind. She had short hair and electric blue eyes. She spoke in a gentle, Polish-accented voice and seemed to really enjoy her job. She had the privilege of meeting several survivors, some of whom during their return to Auschwitz.

Upon having a glimpse of the simple, blunt and bleak entrance emblazoned with "Arbeit macht frei," I felt a chill quite unrelated to the cold weather. That familiar taste rose in my mouth and I felt a flash of nausea.

Throughout the tour when the guide told us of specific numbers and living conditions of prisoners, I furrowed my brow out of revulsion and at times made a face as if the odor of rotten eggs had permeated the entire complex. But there was no such smell, not even in the blocks where so many people were housed. I expected to detect a faint smell in them, but time has mercifully erased that particular memory in all of the facilities.

Stolen possessions of victims are still in Auschwitz. I saw a pile of eye glasses, a display of Jewish shawls and shoe polish, a collection of suitcases with names on them, a large mound of hair brushes and shaving kits, a clump of old leather shoes and a hoard of teapots and other kitchen utensils. People had no idea what they were in for. The guide said 80 percent of people were never actually prisoners; they were immediately sent straight to gas chambers upon arrival.

This heartless evil revolted me, and I felt my first serious wave of emotion. The presence of so many tangible items made the victims that much more real.

The guide showed us a room inside one of the barracks which contained rope and sheets made with human hair, mostly from women. I saw a hill of human hair, a disgusting reminder of what happened here. I did not need to snap a picture to remember that image.

I felt another episode of emotion. I noticed myself looking away from the large collection of hair because I felt I was staring at something I shouldn't have. I was uncomfortable. I saw other people standing where they could look inside the exhibit, but I had no more desire to lay eyes on that atrocity so I hastily exited. I didn't look back.

She showed us the one surviving gas chamber between Auschwitz and Birkenau and instructed us to not take pictures. The dull, gray, featureless, rectangular room, in which 800 people were crammed, seemed colder than outside. Sound reverberated easily, such as from our footsteps; it was like walking inside a cave. We could see the squares in the ceiling where cyanide and Zyklon B were dropped into the chamber by the SS guards. I imagined the terror in that room during the victims' final 15 minutes of life.

I had to leave the chamber . I saw people taking pictures even though being instructed not to. I felt a stab of annoyance.

We stepped into the Death Block, building No. 11. I saw tiny rooms in which 15 people were stuffed with little fresh air as punishment. I saw individual cells where prisoners were forced into for days on end, but the cells are so tiny that a person would be unable to sit. I saw how dark, bleak and cold the basement of the Death Block was. I will never be able to imagine being forced to stand for days on limited rations of bread. It is torture. I'd be waiting impatiently for death.

Upon exit of Auschwitz, I felt yet another rush of emotion. My eyes burned. But we still had to visit Birkenau.

Birkenau was never finished because the most prisoners it kept at one time was about 95,000. It was supposed to house 125,000. Most of the 300 brick buildings are nothing more than foundations now because the Nazis began covering their tracks once they realized the war was coming to an end. They burned and destroyed the evidence. But, I walked the same distance from the arrival platform, where there was an example of a cattle car in which approximately 80 people were transported to the concentration and death camps, to the two remains of gas chambers as so many unsuspecting others did during WWII. They are crumbling rubble now.

I saw the building where female prisoners scheduled to be gassed were kept until there was room in the chambers, and upon entry I noticed a musty smell for the first time all day. Though the guide told me afterwards it was the chemical used to preserve the boards that made up the bunks, it still made my short time inside vivid and abhorrent.

This shack had a rocky dirt floor and three-tiered bunks made of plain wooden boards, under a non-insulated wooden roof. It was dark, with the only light filtering in through the grimy windows. It was bitterly cold. The bottom bunk was the most dangerous because rats would bite and scratch the women nearest to the floor. There weren't enough blankets. Prisoners huddled among themselves for warmth in these bunks, usually between five to seven people. It was housing for dirty beasts, not humans. I imagined the feeling of terror for those waiting to be gassed to death. I had to exit.

But between the gas chambers is a memorial to those murdered during this time. The same message was repeated in at least 15 languages that were used by victims of the camp. I shed a tear after an attack of hot, intense grief. I recognized the messages written in English and French. On most of the languages, people had deposited a rose to symbolize remembrance. Each one said the same thing:

Forever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity, where the Nazis murdered about one and a half million men, women and children, mainly Jews from various countries of Europe. Auschwitz-Birkenau 1940-45. 

We can still walk among the same facilities that murdered more than one million people, hear stories of unimaginable horror, see where the atrocities took place with our own eyes. What we will never able to experience from that time are the feelings of terror, hopelessness, fatigue, starvation, frost-bitten feet, oncoming death. We can only imagine the odors of gunpowder, of blood, of death, of the stink of piss and shit, of rooms crowded with emaciated, beaten and broken people.

I've written before about intensity, about living an intense life. The visit to Auschwitz was an intense emotional experience, one I will never forget. I have to fight back welling tears while writing this. The visit had a similar effect on me to when I went to Normandy American Cemetery in 2010, but on a larger scale. It was disturbing.

I do not have a desire to visit Auschwitz again. Once is plenty. But, I'm grateful to have had the chance to see it because it's an important part of European history. It shouldn't be forgotten.

18/1 - I feel better since the visit to Auschwitz. It helped to write as soon as possible on the ride back to Krakow. It also helped to get a tour of the nearby Jewish Quarter from Thomas and have a couple of beers at two local pubs. He showed me places where locals go to get cheap food, including a sausage stand on the street near where he and Kristina live.

The vendor pulls up every night at 8 p.m. in an old, but reliable, blue van and anchors a tarp to the van which provides cover for his barbecue and the serving table. He roasts maybe eight sausages at one time over a flame which burns from a specific kind of wood. All of the sausages are pierced onto one long roasting fork, and he methodically flips the fork over in order to give both sides of the meat equal time on the fire.

When the man is roasting, no one is served. The line of people (which is always long) is forced to watch the dancing flames lick the sausages and see the fat bubbling up and dripping down into the burning wood. It's a bit hypnotic, I must say, because people need something to focus on other than below-freezing temperatures. No one speaks.

But when these fat sausages are ready, the man hands them off to his partner who handles cash and places each sausage on a plate with mustard and a large roll of bread. Each costs 8 Polish Zlotys, which amounts to about $2 USD. It's a filling meal, and one that will last throughout the night.

Today is my final full day in Poland. Tomorrow I'll take the train for more than six hours into the great city of Prague in the Czech Republic, the 20th country I will have visited.