Poland trip, second post

 

This is the second of three posts about our trip to Poland. 

May 26:

Up early and on the bus to go to the shrine of Our Lady of Częstochowa. The icon here is painted on wood, and then the figures are then “dressed” in jewels, gold, and fine fabrics. 

The story is that St Luke, who wrote the gospel, painted it on a table used by the Holy Family. Subsequent research dates it to a few hundred years later. There are at least two stories of attacks on the icon, the most dramatic of which the two slashes on the cheek: in the 1430’s the Hussites tried to destroy the icon. One swordsman struck the icon twice; before he could strike the third time, he himself was struck dead, as by divine intervention.

Whether you believe it or not, clearly many people have, and there is clearly something going on here that I am not tuned in on. The chapel of the icon is packed with medallions, medals, silver plates with images of people, crutches, metal arms and legs, crutches, and whatever else, from people who apparently were aided by prayer to or through the icon. People were praying devoutly, and, being the season it is, there were first-communion recipients in the usual white,, with their families looking on. While we tourists shuffled through with various levels of embarrassment and cluelessness, the faithful were connecting with something here. I’m not at all a believer anymore, but it reminded me of my experience at the giant redwoods last year: there’s something here that, as I said, I’m not tuned into… but that doesn’t mean nobody is.

From there, we went to Krakow. As I write this, we’ve been in Krakow for about 24 hours, and it is simply the most beautiful city. We got a tour from a local of the Vavel Hill, the many churches, the history, and the effects of both the Nazi’s and communism.

In the evening, we took a walking tour of the Jewish quarter and the Krakow ghetto, with many references to the Schindler’s List movie. Unfortunately, rain kept us from completing the tour, but it was arresting.

May 27th:

Today, up early to go to the salt mine at Wieliczka. Salt has been mined here for centuries, due to the lack of ocean front in Poland; at one time, the salt mine counted for up to a third of the Polish monarch’s considerable fortune. We saw how the mine worked… but, especially in the last century, miners have created sculptures of the salt, and cut out special rooms, including chapels, a “cathedral”, and meeting rooms and a restaurant. The salt mine was among the first UNESCO world-heritage sites.

Later, back to Krakow to walk around and gawk. We caught the heynał at noon at the Maryacki Basilica (a trumpet call played on the hour; legend is to remember the intrepid trumpeter who climbed the tower and played the brief melody to the four cardinal directions to warn of some attack or other, until an arrow to the throat interrupted the melody). Then a leisurely lunch, and then to the historic clock at the Jagellonian University, to see the parade of clockwork mechanical canons, intellectuals, military figures, and royalty who come out several times a day, as the clock strikes certain hours. Then some shopping, and a visit to an E. Wedel chocolatier… and then back to the hotel for a nap. Which is what I intend to do now.

May 28th:

We were up early, and took a final walk around Krakow. TEW says you can’t do Krakow appropriately in fewer than five days (she may have decided by now that it’s up to seven), and this visit has apparently been a note-taking exercise for a longer city visit she intends for the future. 

Then onto the bus for a visit to Zakopane in the Tatra mountains. TEW tells me that there is a mystique to the highland dwellers in Poland, for which she wasn’t able to find an adequate comparison. Still, Zakopane is a tourist destination, and the center of the city has an active open market and many shops of various types; I was able to finish some of my Christmas shopping here (and to replace an umbrella that broke in the Krakow ghetto). And despite the presence of a E Wedel in town, we did NOT stop in, suggesting that even TEW has her limit for chocolate, a condition I would not have otherwise believed.

The Tatra mountains are not high in comparison to mountains elsewhere, but here in late May, the highest peaks are snow-covered, and the mountains make their own weather. In response to the mountains, the locals have developed a unique style of architecture, with high, sharply-pitched roofs, and unpainted wooden outer walls. This was baffling to me; the softwood of which these outer walls are made should rot and fall to pieces in ten to fifteen years. Our local guide tells us that the locals scrub the walls, once a year, with soap and water, and some of these buildings have stood for a century and a half, with only this treatment. The pictures show a famous local chapel and some other buildings. TEW was also taken with the cemetery, where one can only get buried if one is sufficiently noteworthy, either as a mountaineer or a Polish citizen; the criteria reminded me of Père LaChaise in Paris.

In the evening, we stopped at a local restaurant for an authentic local meal, accompanied by a trio playing Tatra music on two violins and what appears to be a three-stringed cello. Some of the music was fast and complicated, like Irish or Cajun tunes; other pieces reminded me of music of the late medieval period or early Renaissance, or what Händel might have written, were he writing music of shepherds or other rustics.

And to bed. Early start tomorrow; on our way to Auschwitz.

May 29, 2025:

Auschwitz. I took no pictures here. The pictures in this post, and the blog generally, are thing I find beautiful, interesting, funny. Auschwitz is horrifying. Auschwitz, and the surrounding camps (because there was a whole system of camps associated with Auschwitz), are what happens when people in power, and the mass that follows them, see some other group, not as people, but as a problem to be dealt with. Like the Chinese and the Uighurs. Perhaps like the US and the Latin-American immigrants.

We were lucky to have a long bus ride to Wroclaw after the tour here. I could come to some kind of peace, however uncomfortable, with what I’d seen and heard in the morning.

We got to Wrocław (say “Vrotswav”) late in the afternoon, and did a brief visit around some of the islands (Wrocław is on the Oder River, and the several islands in the river at the city have been connected by bridges for cars or pedestrians). We saw some of the Renaissance and later buildings, and a courtyard where had been hung neon signs that were one of the few colorful legacies of the Communist era.

I’ve had a thought about Poland. Poland was a force for almost a thousand years, but beginning at the end of the eighteenth century, it disappeared, having been divided between Prussia, Russia, and Austria. Reconstructed after the first world war, Poland was divided between Germany and Russia during the second world war. Nonetheless, it is full of beauty and culture, of much of which I (for one) was unaware. History, of course, is written by the winners, and in recent centuries, Poland has not been a winner. But that doesn’t mean that there is nothing here, or that the spirit of these people should be lightly discarded. I think that is true for other cultures that have not been dominant, as well. Just because they have not been dominant, doesn’t mean they are to be washed away.