A 3 day trip to Gdansk

Gdansk is a city of 800,000 people and is a city that basically has three cities all jammed together. This would be Sopot, Gdynia, and Gdansk. By far, the most beautiful spot we visited was Sopot because it shared the Baltic Sea with Finland. If only there was more moeny and time, maybe we could have went there. Oh well, our trip was long enough. Let’s begin.

Let’s start first at Tuesday:

6/03: Day before we left for our 3 day tour. went on a tour of many, many different catholic churchs around Krakow. We hadn’t seen enough of Krakow yet! Although it really didn’t grip my interest, mainly because we’ve already seen like 20-30 synagogues and churches, there was some beautiful artwork to be seen. This also included stopping outside of a closed protestant church. One of the reasons was to show that there was actually some other people besides Catholic here. If you’ve ever been here, it’s dominantly Catholic. Considering that during the Holocaust, the Jews were all but completely exterminated from Poland, it only lead to a further dominating majority of Roman Catholics. We’re talking about 97% Catholic according to one statistic. One of the issues that has coincided with the rise of nationalism in Poland and a dominating ethnicity of mid to upper 90% being Poles. It’s one of the most homogeneous countries ethnically and religiously that I’ve seen. This is why nationalism is an important topic here. To cut this shorter, we got some food ready for the trip tomorrow and went to bed early after I watched an episode of Arrested Development on a friend’s LCD portable. We had to get up be ready at 5:00AM.

6/04: Woke up, was a pretty brutal wake up because I’m not feeling the best. This is most attributed to my nose always being constantly draining. There has definently been some problems with a cold or alergies here for me. However, do not fear, it’s nothing I cannot handle. Most of the trip I spent listening to my music, stopping for the bathroom, and breaks for the driver. Here in Europe, you cannot drive, commercially, for like 3 hours or so without taking a break. If you do, you can be fined about $5,000 dollars or 10k Zlotys. So, they highly encourage breaks, unlike the American run and gun ways. For our defense, we cannot afford to have as many stops as they have due to our spread out nature geographically which may also have the impact on our laws. On our way to Gdansk, we stopped in Malbork to see an ancient Teutonic castle.

Malbork’s castle was huge, and it was actually used during WWII by the Germans. During this time, the Germans were sieged by the Soviets during the end of the war and about 50% of the castle was destroyed from artillery fire. Renovations and reconstruction took place to help restore this artitectural beauty. It was probably one of my most favorite sites because it was literally history upon history. After this castle was captured, almost 500 germans were executed following the capture of it by Soviet troops. It gave me a flavor for how much of total war this war was. It wasn’t just about an execution of a set of people. It stretched beyond that to a question of humanity. Here’s a picture of the bullet holes:

[This was in a part that used to be a mout (sp?) during the medieval times, but turned into an air prison.]

Once we arrived, we headed down to the main square and Chris, Bree, Jenn, Abby, me, and Konrad (my professor) all went out to a restaurant and had a most enjoyable meal next to the river that runs through Gdansk. It was a late dinner, but I enjoyed the best beef stroganof I’ve ever had. This was a great night.

6/05: Wake up! Time to go on another tour! We started off our tour visiting a church in Gdansk. It contained a wonderful musical concert that had about 4 songs and had a Bach song included. It was an interesting event that was definently worth the time. The church was pretty amazing too. After this we were able to get lunch, and head to Sopot.

Sopot was a beautiful costal town to the Baltic Sea, we spent a brief tour here at the dock’s that bordered this sea and also were the seas across from Finland. I was able to get some gifts here for some lucky family members! Not to mention, I was able to dip my feet into the Sand. Here’s a picture of me:

The solidarity movement took place in the 1980s in Gdansk shipping yard. Gdansk is really known for their involvement in shipping and creation of boats, a spot in which Communists wanted after WWII. Laborers protested working conditions, and were secretly assinated following their opposition. It was symbolic in the eventual decline of the USSR, Communism, and a regime that was out of touch with what it was supposed to support: labor. Obviously, it had failed, and John Paul II commemorated this site. I will probably talk about this important part when I get back in more depth. However, it was a time I was proud to be an American to stand up to a regime that went against my founding principles as an American and humanity.

Later on we went to see St. Mary’s, after a tour of the town, a wonderful church that was the most beautiful church I’ve seen yet in Poland. I can’t even put it into words. It contained a memorial for a bishop who stood up to a Nazi and was killed. There was a shrine for him in the church. A picture was actually taken while the event was happening, and it still burns into my head even now. Along with this was an astrological clock, and other many important spots that I can only start to list. After this tour we were able to go to the dock’s for a pirate ship tour.

During this tour, our guide was able to tell us about WWII and show us exactly where it broke out. To my suprise, we had a vistor who sang us many songs and we joined in the chorus. This was a wonderful, relaxing experience for a busy day.

Following the return to our motel, we were able to stage a cook out. This was an incredibly good time joining in both colleges, Konrad, and Katya (our tour guide, not the one from earlier, eventhough she went along). During this time, somehow after the polish sausages, food, and drinks we all broke out into USA songs. It was a wondeful time of nationalism sticking its head out. I couldn’t believe how many songs we knew and could recall from memory. We all had a good time, and left once a person finally complained about 2 and half hours later. It felt good to have something American to cling onto for once in a long time. I went to bed shortly after.

6/06: headed out for another LONG trip on the bus. It was about 12 hours and got a ton of reading done. I actually read about 80 pages in my book, and it was great to accomplish so much on a boring trip. I was forced to eat mcdonalds during the trip, but atleast there were salads. I guess it’s American… I’m not sure though… Anywho, we got in late at night (around 12:15AM) and I went to sleep shortly after.

Today! Today we had a long lecture and almost missed lunch. I’m ready for the football (soccer) match tomorrow! Go Polska! I got a scarf and a shirt, plus a flag from Gdansk. I heard the possibility of face paint tossed around as well. Tomorrow is going to be a thrilling experience. I was going to get a Polish haircut with Chris but the place we wanted wasn’t open. Monday is the plan for this course of action. Well, going to supper soon. I’ll talk to everyone later. It was a great 3 day tour to Gdansk.

Only about a week and a half left. =(

(Me, Katya, and Chris on the docks of Sopot at the Baltic Sea)

Leaving For Prague Tomorrow

Today was a day in which the sun FINALLY decided to peek its head out from the clouds. After a ton of rain and dreary days, it was refreshing to see the radiance all around the town. We started the day like a normal day here in Poland:

1) woke up

2) got ready

3) ate a little breakfast at the cafeteria (this day in my room because I slept in)

4) had class for about 2 hours

5) ate lunch in the cafeteria

However, we were going to see the sites of: the Krakow ghetto, Schindler’s Factory, and Plaszow. 2 of the 3 happened. Unfortunately, Schindler’s factory was closed and so that was off limits. It was under some kind of construction, and so watching the movie not too long ago didn’t really redeem the fact we were unable to see it with our own eyes. While we were traveling, we got to see sites of the ghetto that was constructed during the occupation of Poland because some of the wall was still intact. However, we were later able to see the house in which Amon Göth used to run Plaszow. This could be seen in Schindler’s list with him being the primary dealer later in the movie Schindler works with to bribe for workers. He also used this house in the movie to shoot off innocent jewish people who slaved away if they weren’t working hard enough. He was a sick and twisted individual, who I will discuss later, who enjoyed killing Jews as a morning routine.

It was interesting to see how Poland has engulfed all the ghetto and used parts of it like barbed wire and walls to connect in between buildings. No one really pays much attention to these physical characteristics, but it is obvious that they exist within their own society as much as remnants may exist within our own like abandoned internment camps we had used to house many Japanese-Americans. It was all viewed on our way to Plaszow. Firstly, we had to stop at a site in which depicted the Krakow ghetto.

This site was one in which there was numerous chairs laid out to commemorate the victimization of people who lived in the Krakow ghetto. It was made to represent the relocation process of many jews while they had no choice but to move. During this move, people had to use a bridge called on Starowislna St. Depicted below is a picture of the many chairs in this commemorating spot:

It didn’t come as obvious to me, until later, that some people here have engulfed the event and swallowed it whole. They appear to be digesting the history without tasting it first. A much Maybe it’s because most people here probably haven’t even been to as many sites as myself, but I can’t help but see some forms of ignorance take place. Especially when we traveled to places like Plaszow. 2 kids were in the burial grounds where many massacred from the SS men had taken place. In this place who had as many as 150,000 people in it during the period of Poland occupation in late ‘39-January ‘45. The Soviets were responsible for the liberation of these camps. However, only 20,000 were typically seen there at one time. This hilly countryside spot was responsible for forced labor, and served as a transit camp to other concentration camps like Auschwitz. In fact, the road in which we walked upon to get there was mostly made from grave tombstones which were all uprooted from the nearby grave sight to construct it.

(uprooted grace from which the tombstone was used to build the road)

During March 13, 1943 a man named Amon Göth was responsible for overseeing the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto and into Plaszow. However, those like the sick, disabled, mentally incapable, etc. were shot and killed instead of being used for labor. Therefore, this site houses specific sites that were used primarily for genocide. As I saw in one spot on top of the hill near a forested area, there was no doubt in my mind that genocide had hollowed the ground. For the first time, I could see the people all around, I could hear them. I felt the forsaken nature of all those killed so many years ago. A site so still, so remote, you could hear their voices all around you. All of them crying for the mercy of their own religious masters, and with sudden blows of a pistol, all silenced at once.

The holocaust remains a bottom-less pit into which sorrow, pity, grief has no ending. The more you learn, the more repulsed you become towards the event. However, it is essential that this learning take place to prevent further discourse in the future.

In other news, I will be heading to Praugue tomorrow at 10:30 here which is 3:30for all my midwestern friends back in the states. I hope to have a wonderful time living it up there. I’m still undecided if I will attend Terezenstadt or not there. Something I could probably go either way on right now.

Here comes my first Eurail experience!