Holocaust Study Visit: Day 4!

Welcome back to my blog covering Bann Maine West's Holocaust Study Visit to Krakow Poland. Kindly funded by Triangle Housing. In today's blog I will be covering our forth day in Poland, were we had an amazing tour of the Jewish Quarter with the same tour guide from Day 1, Joanna!

8.00AM:

It was an 8 start for breakfast again and as always the food was lovely and little did we know we would need every bit of fuel we could get our hands on for what is to come! So at 9.30 sharp we were ready to set off for the Jewish Quarter.

10.00AM:

We started our walking tour in the Jewish Quarter were Joanna showed us some of the oldest synagogues in Krakow and told us story's of how during the Nazi German invasion of Poland many of the synagogues where destroyed or used as stables and warehouses completely disrespecting the sacred buildings. We also got to see many of the filming locations that was used during the making of Schindler's List. As while it is set across the river in the Jewish Ghetto out of respect it was all filmed in the Jewish Quarter. One of the filming locations is Szeroka Street which translates directly to wide street. At the bottom of the street is the oldest Synagogue in Krakow that is now open as a museum we got a photo outside however we didn't go in. Another one of the famous filming locations was an alley where the Nazi Germans threw the people out of there homes. Again it was amazing getting hear how accurate the film is and it was the best way to link our understanding of the locations and how can I forget, we have a link to the film through Liam Nesson! We were all telling Joanna different connections we have to him and she said we would be brilliant on Graham Norton's Big Red Chair!

After touring the Jewish Quarter we walked across the river to what used to be the Jewish Ghetto. At first look you never would of guessed that this was once a place that was linked to the evil acts of the Nazi Germans. The first thing we came to was the Empty Chairs Memorial which is 70 bronze chairs scattered across the square. The chairs represent the absence of the family's that where deported from the Ghetto to the concentration camps during its liquidation in 1943. This area of Krakow is known as the new city as they have spent millions building up the area and is the area where many of the university students come to. However when you stop and look deeper there is so many remnants of what used to be. One of which is the old wall of the Jewish Ghetto. Joanna had asked us what side of the wall we thought we where on the inside or the outside. It actually ended up being a trick question as the answer was both. The exterior wall had been moved multiple times so depending on what time frame depends what's side of the wall you are on. We then finished our walking tour at the Schindler's Factory. As always our tour guide Joanna was amazing and we couldn't of asked for anyone better. Her knowledge on our walking tours and she told us so much it would take me hours to write everything down!

12.00PM:

We then stopped and got our lunch in this very modern and trendy restaurant that was beside Schindliers factory and across from one of the massive University accommodations. The food as always was lovely and we had great chats about everything that we saw and more on how we are linked to Liam Nesson. We then walked back to a tram stop and had a go on one of the trams which was very interesting, we only went one stop and then we got off to go to the Galicia Jewish Museum.

2.15PM:

We arrived at the museum where we attend a workshop called, "Choices Faced, Decisions Made" We where in 3 groups and we where given backstory's for different people involved in Auschwitz. We then had to read their story's and and decided wither they were we had to the put them into different category's like victim, perpetrator, resistor ecetra. My group got the evil doctor of Auschwitz who experimented on the people locked in the camp. We got to read about his childhood and his upbringing like how he had 9 near death experiences and was the favourite of his parents. We came to the conclusion that this is probably what gave me such a God complex allowing him to justify his actions. We then read what happened to him after the war and how it had to run from persecution. The led us to put him into victim category however he clarified that he was a victim of his own actions. This was a very interesting workshop and one that I would highly would recommend to anyone going over as a large group as it really gets you thinking. We then got back into our taxis and headed back to the hotel. For a couple hours rest which was very much needed after a very long and tiring day, as I think the tiredness was starting to catch up with us and the walking was exhausting, good bus exhausting.

8.00PM

On the last night we had our farewell dinner in Wesele Restraunt which faces the main square. It was an absolutely gorgeous building inside it had massive murals on the walls and golden trims. When we went upstairs we where a wee bit in out of our element as their was other groups all in fancy suits and dress and their was just us in our Jeans and Shirts! The food was interesting we had a range of starters with duck lard, beef tartar, and herring, I wasn't to interested in much but I did try the beef tartar and it was interesting to say the least. For main I got the duck and it was amazing! I have never seen a drumstick of duck that had another full portion of meat attached. For dessert we had vanilla cheese cake and it was lovely and I didn't leave much. Next thing we knew we were on our way back to the hotel for our last night in Poland. However while we had nothing planned on the Tuesday we still managed to cram a few things in. For tonight, it was time to hit the hay!

Thank you very much as always for reading my blog, I hope I managed to capture some of the fun and also vital learning from our fourth day in Poland! As always I would like to thank Triangle Housing for the funding, Bann Maine West for facilitating, Prime tours for looking after us and most importantly to the people I got to share this amazing experience with. Thank You.

Lenny.