Warsaw

Day 32. 2nd Nov 2009
Location: Warsaw
Status: Cold but cool
Author: Simon

My goodness. It's chilly.
To think a mere 17 days ago we were drenched in beatuliful sunbeams,
sucking in the vitim D and showing off our tans. Now it's cold.

Yesterday we made our way from krakow to Warsaw and it was in krakow I
learnt about windchill. Sure knew that in winter when the wind blow it
is cold. I experienced this when on childhood walks, normally boxing
day, that seamed to involve a beach. Who ever thought that setting
foot on a English beach at any time other than the two week summer was
a good idea is beyond me. Well no it's not really beyond me, it was my
mother who must have thought this. Anyway, I knew wind could be cold.

But Poland in November. It's a whole other thing.
Krakow was beautiful, wonderful arcitechture, massive medieval castle
and churches. Tree lined paths winding their way through parks. Clear
blue sky, sun shining, leaves all autumnal. Almost like krakow was the
city with roads pathed with gold as the leaves fell to form and
uncollected goldern blanket. (perfect for running through and kicking,
which we did of course)

Out of the wind it was almost warm.
In the wind the Goldern city changed to a land that summer forgot,
maybe an enternal winter like narnia.
So out came the thermals and the MA fleases.

I pride myself on being at the cutting edge of fashion. Almost a trend
setter. If I was on radio one I would be 'timmy trendy' maybe with my
own daytime TV show about how to keep 'on trend'
Keeping top of my fashion game is a lot harder in this dam icey wind
when carring such a limited wardrobe.
I gave a lot of thought to what clothes I would take away. I wanted to
ensure maxium flexablity within my clothes. Allowing me to mix and
match outfits.

Step one was to pick a small amount of clothes, 3 pairs of trousers, 4
t shirts, 2 fleases, set of thermals.

Step two is to ensure Colour Blindness. This allowed me to match any
two garments with no knowlage or concern if they work as a fashion
combo.
Step 3, this is only relevant to wind chill. Wear eveything at once.
Then it must go together.
Today I purchased a pair of thermal trousers, a Warsaw must have, to
compliment my fleese.

But let's be greatful we had our training in cold, damp, grey london.
We are currently sharing a room with two people from the Asia area,
not that I am jumping to conculsions, but they must really be
struggling with the temperature. I make this assumption because of
their sleeping attire, not that I look, which is basically tacksuits.

Now we are currently in a £7 per night six person dorm rooms which
are, as there are 6 people, rather snug and cosy and I do not require
much in the way of PJs. So if they require full sleeping suites they
must find the icey winds crippling.

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Poland

Loction. Hostel in st pertersburg
Author. Davina
Status. It's snowing outside
Lesson.

We arrived in st Petersburg yesterday from Warsaw. We ended up flying
because we couldn't quite justify spending 28 hours sitting up right
in a train versus a 2 hour flight for £30 more.

So I am writing about Poland in the attempt not to get too far behind.

We stared in krakow. The orignal reason we came here was to visit
auschwitz. We had heard krakow was a lovely city but that was all we
really knew.

Our first night was with mark and after spending a great time together
in Prague we were a lot more subdued in krakow after auschwitz. After
a sad farewell we looked to see what krakow would offer.

First thing we did was a walking tour. It was classed as an off the
beaten track tour. It was good but too long. I was very foot sore by
the end. But we did get to see the jewish ghetto and oscar Schindlers
factory.

The next day we went to the salt mines. Back in the day salt was the
prime way of preserving food so not only was it important it was also
worth a lot of money. Soldiers were paid with salt. So when this mine
was founded it was a massive asset to the people of krakow.

It was mined for around 600 yrs so you can imaging how extensive the
mines were. As it was the basic home for 1000s of people the miners
started carving sculptures out the the salt. Statues to churches the a
12cm deep 3d carving of da vinci's last supper. We went down to about
135m by stairs and the rode the miners elevator back up.

We even met a very interesting 70 year old dubliner who is writing a
text book on how to use economic factors to predict the future. He is
not confident that lessons will be learned and things will get better.

We decided that we were interested enough to go on another tour and
started to get really interested in krakow. Unfortunately it was time
to leave and we were left feeling that we could have seen more.
Although our second guide thought we were mad to Warsaw. He said it
was ugly. Very much a sence of sibling rivilry there.

We got to warsaw and caught the bus to our hostel. Which was pretty
friendly.

We have either been very lucky, no matter where you go you will meet
friendly people.

It was here that we separated. Si got in touch with the opera house
and went to visit them. I went to the national museum.

Had a bad direction day that day and took me ages to find and when i
got there I couldn't work out were it started stated at the end. Much
to the irritaion of all museum staff. But as my polish is non existent
and their English just as bad I just dredded going into each room and
getting that dirty look.

But I found it fasinating. I did not realise that there were 2
uprisings in Warsaw. The Jewish one and then the Warsaw one. It put in
perspective 12% of the city was destroyed during the invasion. By the
end 85% was gone.

The Warsaw uprising was so well organised that they had everything in
place before they started with comand posts and first aid stations.

They manages for over a month and even had the scouts delivering post
behind the lines. Unfortunately it failed, helped along by the Russian
army who sat on the other side of the river watching and waiting for
the Nazis to finish off the population.

When they surrender the Nazis deported the entire population to
concentration camps and set about destroying the city building by
building.

It is amazing to see how they have painstakingly rebuilt the old town
to it's former glory after being left with ruble.

That night we went to the opera. I have only ever been to the opera
twice. Both times with Simon, both time in a forgein country and both
times it was the Magic Flute.

The difference this time was that it was aimed at children. The format
was set so it was narrated as well as sung and there was some jokes
and audience singalong. Was very cool to hear the audience get very
excited even though I couldn't understand either the French or the
Italian.

Next day we went to what was left of the ghetto. Was really close to
the centre of town and all that was left was one street and a bit of
the wall. And they had a line following where the wall was.

We also had DVD watching time which was really needed.

Next day we went to Russia.

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Auschwitz

Author: Simon

A visit to Auschwitz could be nothing but shocking.
Simply it's the grave of over a million people.
But as I expected to be horrified and upset before I got there it
allowed me to focus on others thoughts and feelings.
I set my own expectations of the horror meaning I could take it in my
stride.
We had visited a concentration camp before on our first visit to
Prague two years ago and although a much smaller scale it still
contained similar horror.

The 'concentration' camp of auschwitz is made up of over 40 camps of
varying sizes, the three well known and biggest were Auschwitz I,
Auschwitz birkenau and Auschwitz III.
Auschwitz I was an old polish military barracks that the Nazis
converted and expanded into a prison. At first only for political
prisoners, something like 10,000 lived in cramped brick buildings. It
also housed all the administration buildings.

It was here in a bomb shelter the nazis first used gas on a large
scale killing 300 people at one time.

I was struck by two things.

First was the camps location. I was expecting it to be in the middle
of no where, I was even a little confused as to why we could get
public transport there. But it was in the middle of a residentiall
area. This makes sense of course because Auschwitz is the German
translation for the name of the polish village, Oswiecim, where the
orginal polish barracks was located.

The second thing was the proximity to the camp of rudolf hoess's
house. He was the commandant, manager, of the camp and he lived with
his wife and 5 children right next door, within meters of where people
were being killed.
I remember noticing this when we visited the camp just outside of
Prague. The manager of this camp lived with his children just the
other side of the wall to the camp, also next to the place where they
executed prisoners. What made this stand out was the swimming pool he
had the prisons dig for his children. 14 Jews died digging this pool.

Auschwitz one has been restored and many of the barracks converted
into exhibitions. There is no need for me to go into detail about what
is displayed.

Auschwitz birkenau has been left as it was. And it's a different beast
altogether.
Unlike the first camp which had been a converted military base. This
camp was purpose built to quickly and efficently murder thousands of
people.
There was only one small adminastration buiding, no need for more. One
gate through which the trains came in. One platform where the
transportations of people were sorted into fit to work or not. One
path to 4 gaschambers and crematorium where 20,000 a day could be
murdered and burnt. 80% of the people that arrived there would not
live untill the next day. The rest, 100,000, were put to work in
conditions I am unable to imagine.
The sheds where they slept were wooden, pre-fab animal barns. They
were wood because it was quicker and cheaper than brick. They were put
up so quickly they still had the rings to tie horses to on the walls.

Visiting these places, as well as the other museums of communist
occupation that we have seen in a number of counties, has shown me
what we as humans are capable of.

What makes this worse is it was not one crazy person or even a group
of soldiers getting trigger happy and following an order. Hitler was
not 100% to blame. There must have been thousands of SS officers and
admin staff, policemen, factory managers, the two companies that
supplied the gas crystal, even train drivers of the transportations
that had an idea what was going on and either believed it was the
correct thing to do or were too scared to act against the machine that
was the Nazis.

Throughout all the stories of horror there often came stories of
bravery where one person would either give or risk his/her life for
others some times for just one other person.

Lest we forget.

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Auschwitz

Author : davina
Status : foot sore... Bloody new shoes
Location: train going to Warsaw

A little family history first.

My brothers and I where all given piano lesson when we were small. My
brothers both got the same teacher while I only had her for a short
tome as unfortunately she passed away. Her name was Mrs Claire (Clara)
Martos.

What makes Mrs Martos special, apart from being able to put up with
the young Tredgets and actually teach them something was the fact she
had a pretty amazing life. One that I would never swap with her for
anything.

You see Mrs Martos, apart from being a gifted musician was a Hungarian
Jew. Not necessarily important apart from the fact she lived in
Hungary when World War 2 broke out.

This women was a survivor of auschwitz. Not only that but she came
through the Hungarian uprising 20 or so years later. We are talking
firing squads, torture beatings starvation and she survived that to
teach a 6 year old me the piano.

Mrs Martos is a legend in my family as anyone who has met a survivor
can understand. They take on this quite dignity. They instantly become
someone you respect and am in awe of. When I met a survivor who came
to our school you just can't help looking at them in amazement. This
little old person has more fight determination and bravery then I
could ever hope for.

So having this background and being a history teacher, I was
determined to go to auschwitz.

The trip there was rainy and cold. The red brown and yellow leaves
were falling beautifully to the ground. It was chilly and grey. Not a
nice place for anyone to be outside. Especially not with out proper
clothes and shoes. The worst part was it was only October. No where
near the minus 20 it can get if it was a few months later.

Auschwitz 1 was an awful place. There were rooms with chambers piled
high with suitcases, toothbrushs, plates, glasses, shoes and human
hair. 8 tones of human hair which hadn't been sent to Germany yet to
make uniforms. Imagine how many tones had been sent.

There was a wall where naked prisoners were forced to stand facing it,
while someone held them there. Soon someone else walked up behind them
and shot them in the back of the head.

There are flowers and candles everywhere. On pictures of long dead
prisoners, (the only reason we have these photos is because someone
hide the negatives inside a heater) on the ground where the gallows
stood and next to this wall.

There are no flowers and no candles at the glows where they hung the
commandant of auschwitz. Here he died 2 years after the war, next to
the small gas chamber which wasn't big enough as it only killed 300
each time and in sight of his house. Where his wife and children used
to live and play.

This was auschwitz 1. The camp which was ok. The houses were made of
brick so even though they had no fuel to put into the heaters there
was still some heat retention.

Mrs martos was not taken hear.

We then left for auschwitz - birkenau which is a few kilometers down
the road. Cold grey rainy and mud all around.

There are only a few photos of what happened when Jews arrived here
and even they were a surprise. The Nazis knew they were doing
something wrong and hid what they were doing. Why else destroy the
evidence?

But the photos we do have are of a transport of Hungarian jews. You
can see the trains. You can see them being separated, men from women,
and you can see the Nazi doctor point to the right telling an old man
with a cane he was to join the line of children, women, the sick and
the elderly who are to go to the showers.

Now we can see the railway tracks, the platform and the place where
selection happened.

Mrs Martos would have stood here. She could be in that photograph.
She would have had to stand infront of the doctor. She would have been
sent to the left. Did she know this was a good thing? What family was
with her that day? When was the last time she caught a glimps of them?
When did she find out that they weren't going to the showers?

So many unanswered questions and questions I can't believe I am asking
with the expectation of getting an answer. These shouldn't be
questions you should ask anyone because they should not have happened.
The very idea should not be there.

I have walked in the foot steps of a lady who had everything taken
away from her and yet she survived. I then walked in the footsteps of
those who did not even spend one night in auschwitz.

I saw the ruines of a place where someone thought it was ok to open a
hatch and throw poison into a room with over a thousand people inside.
And then walk away.

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Prague

Day 27
Location: Prague
Status: home sick.

Author. Simon

An easy 7 hour day train whisks us into Prague with no problems or
dramas. 7 hours of iPods, squeesy cheese and cupa-soups.

Prague was always a mile stone in my mind. Arriving here means we have
completed the first leg of our trip, through the warmer countries.
This is our second visit here, the first 2 years ago almost to the
day. That time we were not on the same budget, limo from the airport,
hotel room over 100sq meters with two balconies. Our accomadation this
time around has no balconies as it is in a cellar and we are sharing a
room with a man that insists on wearing very colourful but tight pants.

One of our friends, Caz, parents moved out here a couple of years ago
and runs an English pub called the Royal Oak, check it on facebook.
Here we were blessed with tastes of home and uneccessary but
greatfully received kindness.
While here it was my grandparents ruby wedding aniversary and to
celebrate all my family got together for a party. I am one of a few
that have not made it and to miss it makes me very sad.
So being with Caz and her mum, Gill, was perfect timing.
We spent a few evenings in the pub and even lost at the quiz, had
large English breakfast, tea and cake and shopping trips. It was nice
to just hangout for a while.

Mark also flew over, very last minute, to join us. Great to have him
around. We drank and laughed liked we did back in wandle. It was also
intresting sightseeing with him as he noticed different things and had
a diffent point of view. I wish he could have stayed with us longer.
One evening we went with Caz and mark for a traditional Czech meal.
Bottle of nice and cheap wine.
Mixed starters, kind of tapas style, lots of little bits of meat and
cheese. This was almost enough. And then the main course. I had a form
of mixed grill comprising of: Pork chop, chicken Breast stuffed with
sausage, salami and duck! Of course with cabbage.
Davina orderd pork knuckle not really knowing what it would be. Out
came this massive breadboard with a frame on top holding, well, a pork
knuckle.
We left full and satisfide for only £12 each. Back to the bar.
The bar was for mainly expats and the locals had their own tankards. I
wanted one.
While siteseeing me and mark kept looking for metal tankards ideally
with a lid, all we could find were ceramic ones. Just not good enough.
Just down from the bar was a junk shop that had eveything and here
mark found a tankard and so I did not feel left out Gill loaned me one
of Cazs dads. See picture.

20 years ago the Czech republic gained their indepence. This Is
celebrated with a national holiday. And the marching of polarbears in
the main square. Ok, I am not sure of the relivence of the polarbears.
But it was a funny site. See pictures of the lounging and of
polartransport

Prague for us signified the moment we decided Europe would get cold.
It is here we swap swimsuits for thermals. Sunscreen for snowboots.
Caz very kindly brought over a pack of extra clothes and my boots as
well as our canadian visas which did not come through before we left.
We also shopped for a coat and boots for Davina. All this extra stuff
means repacking. I bin my jeans, a pair for short and a tshirt to make
room.

It was here I had a wonderful moment. Looking at the map knowing we
had to enter russia on the 5th or 6th of November but no plan on how
to get there. We could go where ever we wanted and how ever we wanted.
I loved this feeling.

First though to krakow, with Marky!
We book the night train, the last 3 person cabin. It's all very
exciting. We have done night trains before but this time we had a fun
cabin with lots of things to play with. It was fun to travel this way
with mark, if it was not for him I think we would have gone 3rd class
in coachett and hoped for the best.

Prague was great.
Thank you mark for coming over.
Thank you Caz for fun and smuggerling
Thank you Gill for eveything, English breakfast, English bread, beer
in my own tankard and for single portions of butter.

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Hungary. Finally

Author: d
Status: trying to catch up
Where: very cold krakow

Am a little behind in the blogging thing so apologies for that. Time
has gone so quickly I cant believe we are getting ready to leave for
Warsaw and I haven't even talked about Hungary And Prague let along
warsaw. So this will either be very long or way too short.

Hungary was a beautiful city so different to Romania which is strange.
It was the different mentality that really shone out.

Upon leaving romania we not only left our baggage (some kind people
ran after us) but we got on the wrong train. We were help and all
worked out in the end but we met a romanian who was living in canada.
He needed to return to help his parents and he was annoyed that he
actually had to come to romania to fill in The forms. While in other
counties and email would have done. He sad that Romania was stuck in
the past. They had to do it this way because that is how it has always
been done. No mater that an easier way was readily available. He also
said that it was the romanians who put a cross through the number 7
when writing it because the 7th commandment says though shalt not
steal. And to Romanians this is impossible.

Enter Hungary and we are in this hostel which is like someones house.
There were a few people staying. 2 Australians 3 kiwis with new tatoos
and and a German called felix. We all got on well which made the
hostel, small and and possibly bed bug ridden though it was really
good on our eyes.

Budapest was lovely we did a walking tour runs by students who only
work for tips you pay what you feel and that gave us the insite to
Hungarian mentality. While she freely admitted that over the last
century things have gone wrong for hungary they were all optimistic
that having joined the EU things wod be better this century. A real
difference in thought.

We then spent a few days looking around and loving the scenery. We did
a hungarian bath. No where near as good as the Turkish one. We had no
idea where we were supposed to go. We had no towels. It was a rabbit
warren and no one spoke enough English to explain it. We ate lunch on
the presidents front lawn. And saw more rocks in the museum. It was
really great.

We got back to the hostel on the second last day and planned our last
day. When I was small I knew a lady who was an Hungarian Jew who not
only survived auschwitz but also the Hungarian uprising and I wanted
to see the Jewish museum while Simon wanted to see parliament so we
agreed to go our separate ways.

Then we found out it was a public holiday but we maybe lucky and it
will be open. So we left in the morning separately and the street
were empty... Except for the 1000 or so fully armoured police. This
was interesting. As I walked to the museum there were people putting
up a stage and some others with flags, and a lot police who could win
a robocop lookalike competion.

My museum was closed so managed to sneak onto someones wireless
emailed Si that I was having a tea and decided to go to the house of
terror afterwards.

10mins later Si walks in with the same problem. So off to the house of
terror in hope.

The house of terror is the former building belonging to the secret
police who had a lot of control during the communist era. When I was
in Russia I had my passport details taken down by the police because I
was to close to the building belonging to the secret police. But they
more objected to us taking photos.

In Hungary, despite it being placed incorrectly on the map, is easy to
find as it is surrounded by photos, candels and flowers. Each one the
photo of a victim of the people who ran his awful place. They have
turned it into a museum and as the national holiday was to commemorate
the fall of communism entrance was free.

The first thing you see is the massive tank infront of a wall of over
1000 people who where innocent victims. Simon has already posted that
picture. The museum first talks about the Nazi occupation but quickly
deals with life under so soviet rule. It is all very interesting
untill you get to the basement.

There is the wall of the victimisers. People who tortured, spyied and
generally used their power to repress the hungarian people. It was
like a wall of shame.

Next was the Hungarian uprising which was brave and horrific but it
led you to the cells.

In each cell there were pictures of the people who were once held
there. The was a toture room with a drain under the chair. There were
cells which were the worst. One cell was pitch black and 3 foot high.
Another was designed to be ankle deep in water. And one was about 50
cm square so all you could do is stand. One was padded and one pitch
black. All these designed to torture and break.

It was a great museum though awful at the same time.

The the next day we went to parliament but got there too late and the
tour was full. So we pottered until it was time to leave for Prague.

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