More of Krakow

The first full day in Krakow, we visited some of the main historical attractions: the main square, some of the larger churches, and Wawel Castle, which sits on a small hill overlooking the old center of the town. One of my concerns before arriving was that it might be challenging to find places everyday to say Mass, since I didn't bring my own "kit." However, after the first attempt at it, I had no more worries. I walked into the sacristy, asked the nun "in charge" if it might be possible to say Mass in that church (St. Mary's), and she replied, "Of course!  ...Now?" It seems like everywhere we went, the people were warm and welcoming.

This is Wawel Cathedral, which is part of Wawel Castle. It serves, more or less, as a museum, but it definitely still looks like a church. St. Stanislaus (whose feast day is today, incidentally) is buried in the center of the church, and Polish kings and other royalty/nobility are buried in tombs all over the main floor of the cathedral, as well as in the crypt. Fr. Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II), after his priestly ordination, celebrated his first Mass in the crypt chapel of St. Leonard. I had the privilege of celebrating the Mass in that same chapel. Later, Fr. Wojtyla was ordained a bishop in this same cathedral.

In the Dominican church, just down the street, I found one of the most fantastic confessionals I had ever seen! Actually, there were several of these, lining the walls of the church. Let's just say, I couldn't even fit the whole thing in one photo! This was a really beautiful church - very Gothic, which is one of my favorite architectural styles.
The second day (Wednesday) had a decidedly different tone. We took a trip on the train to the town of Oswiecim, which in German was rendered Auschwitz. Of course, it is the site of three concentration camps that were used during World War II for the extermination of prisoners, chiefly Polish Jews. The first camp was set up so visitors could walk through almost every one of its 30 or so buildings. The first building was full of documentation: newspaper clippings, photos, posters, etc., telling the story of the war and what happened at this camp.

In other buildings, rooms were set up as they were during the war: straw mats on the floors, huge bathrooms with 10 toilets and no privacy, "standing cells" where there was not even enough space for the prisoner to sit down, etc. The basement of one building had several individual cells for prisoners, including the one in which St. Maximilian Kolbe starved to death, giving his life to save that of another man who was the father of a family. At this first camp, there was also a crematorium, where the bodies of the dead were unceremoniously heaped and incinerated.

It was a very sobering experience to walk across those grounds and through the buildings. The wet snow falling chilled us to the bone, but not so much as the sights we saw within those walls. There were huge - enormous - piles of shoes, eyeglasses, brushes and combs, suitcases, pots and pans, and all kinds of things that were confiscated from the prisoners. As we walked through the buildings, often along the same route that the prisoners would have walked, the sheer evil of the place was almost tangible.

As if the first camp weren't bad enough, the second camp, built shortly after the first, was several times larger. This is where the majority of the prisoners died. It is the one with the famous "gate of death," through which the train would arrive, full of prisoners. Most of the buildings at this site were burned down toward the end of the war (in an effort to remove the evidence of the atrocities that happened there), but there are still many standing. When you walk through the "barracks," it feels as if they were evacuated only yesterday.

These rooms are dark and dank, cold and bare. On each of the bunks you see above, five or six people would have slept, or tried to sleep. There was a stove at each end of the building (and of the buildings that were burned down, the chimneys are all that remain standing), which doubtless provided little warmth in the harsh winters.

The gas chambers at this second camp are in ruins. They haven't been cleaned up; they stand as they probably did just at the end of the war, when they were mostly destroyed. You can see a kind of floor plan (outlined by the foundations that remain) and imagine the people herded together and told to go in for their "shower."

It was an awful and haunting experience to visit these places, but I am glad we did. Even though my eyes were seeing all these things, I couldn't get over a certain sense of disbelief. One thing that surprised me very much was that people still live in the town of Auschwitz, with these concentration camps in their back yards. I imagine that daily life in a place like that has a much different feel than in most of the other towns of the world.

Next time, the Krakow story continues, and on not so heavy a note.