Something to Declare

Post No. 5. Kraków and Auschwitz

May 10, 2023

This morning saw us on a tour of Wawel Hill and the Royal Cathedral.

This was the place where Polish kings were crowned and buried. Can’t remember how many impressive crypts we saw, including those of Wladislaw Jagiełło and his first wife, Jadwiga (who was originally named “King” of Poland by the Polish nobility, not “Queen”).

This was before she was married off to Wladislaw (a man who was about 30 years her senior, and who was then the ruler of Lithuania). After marrying Wladislaw, she was demoted to Queen, and died in childbirth. As you may recall, Wladislaw Jagiełło was the hero of the Battle of Grunwald, where he defeated the German Teutonic Knights, which led to Poland being a real big-league power in the 15th and 16th centuries. That didn’t last long.

Then to St. Mary’s Basilica, not exactly understated:

We had lunch al fresco, more pierogi, and a panino z wędzonym lososiem (with smoked salmon and mozzarella), washed down with a half-liter of Żwiec (excellent local beer) in the Market Square

before boarding the bus for Auschwitz.

To say that Auschwitz was sobering would be an understatement. Incongruous that these barrack-like buildings, which formerly housed the Nazi death machine, are now on plots with fragrant blooming lilac bushes.

Photos showed the deportation and arrival at Auschwitz of 1.1 million victims, how the Germans made a quick determination of who looked sufficiently fit enough to be worked to death. With all the rest sent immediately to gas chambers (see photo of used Zyklon B gas cannisters).

Rooms full of the victims’ shoes (including lots of kids’ shoes), their eyeglasses, their clothing, their confiscated cookware, tons of their shorn hair. We were shown the actual gas chambers and crematoria, rooms used for torture.

I found myself assessing my emotional state throughout the tour. Wondered whether I should (should?) be experiencing……what? Intense grief? Rage? I think I was channeling Hannah Arendt, who got it just right in The Banality of Evil: I was feeling mostly numb. But also worrying that this was not a good thing. Numbness might lead to complacency. And we don’t want to be complacent, not these days. Actually, not ever.