KRAKOW-AUSCHWITZ. 15th-16th September

Monday and leaving for Krakow. Bought ticket at Hauptbahnhof - 52 euros. Leaving Berlin 7.31am, arriving Krakow 8.07pm. Had booked hostel on internet last Friday, 4-bed dorm first 2 nights, and 5-bed dorm on the third night. Train stopped in Warsaw, which looked fairly unimpressive, and arrived in Krakow without incident. Had downloaded a map on how to get to the hostel, along with my receipt (you have to pay 10% deposit by credit card + if you don't front, they can also deduct the first night's fees from your credit card). I should have been suspicious of the age of the map when I noticed that the name of the main station on it was different from its present day name. The map said get a 4 or a 13 tram and to get off at the third stop, but I could see roughly how to walk it, and was decided on that. Then I found that when I walked up to the road where the trams were supposed to be, that there were no trams, and none of the street names tallied with those on the map.

I decided to ask for directions from a lady who appeared to be out walking her dog. After a few words, I handed her the map, and suddenly the dog, which I hadn't really noticed up till now, but which I soon realised was a bloody great bull mastiff, went for me, leaping onto my stomach and burying it's jaw into my parka. It was really lucky that it didn't go for my throat or my (bare) hands. However, at that stage I was most interested in the directions, and was still conversing with the lady, albeit over a distance of about 5 feet, but she eventually gave up and handed me back the map, with the dog snapping its slobbering jaws inches from my fingers. Two ladies also standing on the street corner had by now flattened themselves against the side of a building, and I went and asked them. They pointed up another street, and I could see a tram going by. I should add that it was pitch dark and raining and cold, and all street signs etc were completely unintelligible, and I soon decided that I would take the tram rather than walk. On the advice of people on the tram I got off at the fourth stop, Batorego, which was the name of the street where the hostel was. And I have to go about 3 or 4 hundred metres up Batorego. It was one of those old-fashioned curving and narrow European streets, with high buildings on each side and plenty of darkened doorways, and my fevered imagination starts to recall every cold-war movie I've ever seen - I was half-expecting Harry Lime to suddenly step out of the shadows. Plus by now my chest and stomach were feeling sore where I'd been savaged by the dog, (but it only lasted about a day, and didn't bruise). Suddenly I come to the 'Jump Inn' Hostel, and find that the door is locked, and the place in darkness. Checking the map, I ring on my mobile to two numbers on it, and I precede the number with the country code, but not preceded by '00' and nothing happens. Then I try it with '00' in front, and it appears to ring, but still no result (never occurred to me to ring without the '00' or the country code). By now a squall is blowing the rain along the street, and I'm stuck up this dark wet alley in the middle of Poland, late in the evening, with nowhere to stay. 'xxxx, xxxx, xxxx - what the xxxx am I going to do?' Suddenly I recall a notice on the door that asks hostel residents to be considerate of other people who live in the building, and I notice several buzzers with names alongside them. At the top is '2a' which is the hostel (2a/6 Batorego), and I press this. Suddenly the security door gives out that rasping answering noise, and never did one sound sweeter.

Eva, the comely and vivacious young blonde who runs the hostel, comes out and leads me to a seat in the office, and soon I am being bombarded with unsolicited information regarding tours and restaurants ('you have to try Polish food' - the description of which starts to make my stomach churn), and much information besides. I mention that I'm thinking of looking at Auschwitz while I'm here, preferably on the morrow. And she's really good, once I explain that I don't want to go on any tour but just look around on my own, and explains what bus to get, and where. It turns out that I have the 4-bed dorm to myself on this first night. In the room is a sign advising that there is a curfew in the hostel from 10pm to 6am, and I wonder to myself how schoolies week would survive in Krakow. It is pretty cold, and I make 2 hot water bottles for bed (500 ml plastic mineral water bottles, filled with 'too hot to touch' water from the tap).

Breakfast next morning is forgettable, slightly stale white cut-bread, with strange tasting jam, and what I thought was corn flakes turned out to be over-sweetened stuff that I can't stomach. The 'Darjeeling' tea was beaut though, and I reflect that I have been spoiled for the past week at the Berlin Youth Hostel, where the very palatable breakfasts easily set you up for a day's sightseeing.

I walk to the underground bus station near the railway, and find the white minibus going to Oswiencin, exactly as explained by Eva. The bus is overcrowded, but I am lucky enough to have a seat for the one and a half hour journey. A lady who had been standing for much of the way
finally sits next to me, and she seemed quite distressed. I think she may have been asthmatic.

Auschwitz didn't affect me the way that Saschenhausen did, although I still couldn't bring myself to take any photos. I guess one reason it didn't affect me overmuch was that virtually everything I saw I had seen already, either in photos or documentary movies. Also, when I arrived there were between 15 and 20 tour buses pulled up outside. When I left about 5 hours later there were still 15 or 20 buses outside, but different ones. So you can imagine the virtual hordes of people wandering about. Nearly everyone there was on a bus tour, or joined a tour when they got there. Only a few mavericks wandered around on their own. At Auschwitz One, about 25 brick barracks, built in 1942, are still in good condition, and each houses an exhibit relating to a particular country (or a group, such as the Roma) that suffered the holocaust. From there, a free shuttle bus takes you about 3 kms to Auschwitz 2 (Birkenau). A few of the wooden barracks have been retained, and still have in them the three-tiered sleeping platforms where hundreds lived in one hut. (Apparently the huts were all built to a specification that was originally for stables for 25 horses). I walked the length of the railway line inside the camp and along 'the ramp', and realised that those pictures that you always see of Birkenau are taken from inside the camp, not on approaching the camp. It's been a few years since I saw the movie 'Shoah', but I think that the scene in it where a railway engine and train takes about 10 minutes to travel the last few hundred yards into the camp would have actually been filmed from INSIDE the camp.