The Long Walk

I went on a walk yesterday, which turned out to be a long walk, which, though completely beside the point, is the title of a Stephen King book (which he wrote under a pseudonym) in which people compete for a prize by walking as long as possible, non-stop. If your pace sinks under x number of miles per hour, you are warned twice, then shot. And toward the end of my long walk yesterday, I was wishing someone would shoot me.

I began by walking to John's house. (On the way to John's house I saw the most fabulous VW - but anyway.) John is in this course with Cynthia, and is from Southern Arkansas. Cynthia had told me there was a fellow from AR in her course, and the instant I laid eyes on him I knew he was the Arkansan. He is painfully sincere, and a bit serious, and all in all a wonderful person. The night before we had watched a movie together with 4 other people, and John alone voted to watch "Hotel Rwanda," while everyone else opted for the "Tenacious D" movie. I think he was a little disappointed that we would choose to fill our minds with fluff and nonsense instead of watching a modern-day genocide, but frankly, I don't need a reminder to remain aware that humanity is still just as shitty as it has always been. That, and I had already seen it. Anyhoo, after the movie John asked if anyone would be interested in going to see where the Jewish ghetto of Krakow had been. I had just been reading about it earlier in the day, and so I jumped at the chance. So at 8:00 I set out from Cynthia's apartment and walked the half-hour to John's apartment.

From there we walked toward the town square, and I took pictures along the way of all the architectural oddities I saw as I went. Although it was warming up, it was still just a hair chilly, so I was glad I had brought my jacket. Past the main square we finally found a bakery that was open, and bought a couple of donuts. About 30 minutes later we had crossed the Vistula river, and made our way into the neighborhood where the ghetto used to be. We were talking rapidly, continuously about this and that, and so after about 10 minutes walking in one direction, we would note that we had somehow walked past where we wanted to be, and yet hadn't seen anything. This only happened about 3 or 4 times before we started to pay more attention.

We were looking for the remnants of the wall that the Nazis had erected around the ghetto. I had read somewhere that the wall was built in the form of Jewish gravestones. I found this fantastic on one hand (I mean, why bother?) and thoroughly believable on the other, (there are numerous instances that illustrate how the Nazis really went out of their way to lend a personalised touch to the suffering they dispensed; so if true, it would really be just one more example of their great attention to detail which probably assures they will be the interior decorators of Hell.) John, on the other hand, had heard that it was built FROM Jewish gravestones, which seemed similarly fantastic, with a nice touch of profaning-the-sacred / macabre. I couldn't wait to find out.

We were taking our fifth pass through the area when John finally noted the map said the wall was located "behind the school." Oh. No wonder we didn't see it. Sure enough, there was a school, and after some discussion of how we were going to get over the fence, we noticed the gate was left open, so we went through.

Behind the school was the children's playground, hedged in by a cliff-face on one end, into which ran a large grey wall, in the shape of headstones. Sho-nuff. That was it. Visually unimpressive on its own, it was nevertheless a daunting sight when you stop to consider it was erected in order to contain people who, like cattle, would later be led to slaughter. The old man's-inhumanity-to-man bit is certainly getting old, and should by now be considered just one more of the characteristic oddities inherent to the human species. But all that aside, it was interesting to ponder.

Especially given the juxtaposition with the children's playground, I couldn't help but try and imagine what different view on history they would have, growing up playing quite literally in the shadow of the holocaust. Would this make history more real, more alive, more a part of your reality, or less, and somehow diminished by its day-to-day hum-drum presence in your life? Someone once spoke of the banality of evil, and I can think of no greater example - an erection of clay, stone, mortar, designed to facilitate the murder of thousands, which now stands innocently sheltering children in the playground, with no real mark left by its former use.

From there we walked to the factory rented and run by Oskar Schindler, of Schindler's list fame. The sign still hangs over the gate, and for a small price you can go inside. John wasn't interested, as he wanted to get on to doing other things, but once again it was interesting to see a spot in history which had now become a spot in film history as well. Incidentally, though the movie seems to portray Schindler as becoming less of a womaniser, and growing a conscience, to the point of practically becoming a full on bhodisatva by the end of the movie, he seems to have kept his flaws intact to the end. A bit of reading reveals that despite having no money, he continued to spend profligately, living off donations from the Jews he had saved, staying in nice hotels, gambling and maintaining expensive girlfriends, frequently running out of money before asking those he saved for some more. But that said, the fact remains that he spent all he made during the war on saving people's lives, in the face of great personal danger, and as such deserves to be remembered as righteous.

After this we went to a coffee shop that John had heard of, which supposedly roasted and ground their own coffee. I suppose this makes them the equivalent of a micro-brewery, but with coffee instead of beer. I had a cappuccino and John had something called "spinach cake" which turned out to be a lovely, flaky, spinach-containing pastry, which they had liberally doused in ketchup. John was duly horrified, having never seen imagined such barbarism could exist. I had to laugh, as I had seen this sort of tragedy occur with pizza, but hadn't imagined the practice could also be applied to pastries.

Following our coffee, we went in search of the mound under which the original "King Krak" was buried - for whom Krakow is named. After some walking in a generally upwards direction, we saw an old brick fortification, and an old, tiny chapel. John wandered off to try and locate this mound, while I wandered off to see the tiny chapel. It was locked, but after wandering behind the chapel, it appeared that there was a way through the fence around the old fortification. So in I went.

It turned out that I was not inside the fence now, but rather running between two fences, and shuffling along a path that was overhung by trees, overgrown with weeds, and over-littered with bottles. Walking further along I came to a large hole in the fence, which led into some brambles and trees next to the fortification.

I called John on his mobile phone, and it turned out he was right behind me. He didn't want to go in, so I went in alone. I little ways in I started hearing voices, and it turned out there were three people in there, doing some sort of caretaking, which today consisted of using a small hatchet to chop down a tree growing too close to the fortifications. I worked my way back out to John, and we wandered around the edge of the fence, and at a certain point were able to clearly see what they were doing inside, and laughed that they had nothing more than a hatchet to attack this tree with.

After much ducking and shuffling we emerged on the top of a huge cliff, and looked down to see a children's playground. The whole scene looked vaguely familiar, and we suddenly realised that we were now on top of the cliff which had the fragment of the ghetto wall at the bottom. Without realising it, we had made a full circle, and come back to where we started, albeit 30 metres higher.

After a bit more bush-whacking, (we ran through some stinging nettles) we saw the mound off in the distance. It was difficult to see how to get their via the roads, as there was a large, fenced highway between us and it, but a path through the trees and nettles and underbrush led off in that direction, so we took it.

Within about 5 minutes the path dropped us down in front of a bridge which led over the highway, and toward the mound. After a bit more hiking up a large hill, we finally came to the base of the mound, and went up, up, up the steep side. The view from the top was amazing, as I had never realised that Krakow had so many outlying areas. We were, by all rights, on the outside of Krakow proper, but the suburbs and high-rise communist blocks of flats continued for a long ways further out. We could see the church in the main square, where we had started out, and the distance between various famous buildings.


Then we headed back. It was a long walk back, and once we got back to the main square, it was 1:30, and after watching a break-dancing exhibition, John went home to begin his coursework for tomorrow. I stayed, and meandered in and out of shops, perusing guidebooks of Krakow, and noting the angle from which they photographed various landmarks, making mental notes to try the same myself. Cynthia called and asked me to find a cassette tape for her - I had not bought a cassette tape in the last 15 years, I think, so it was a novel experience. Then I went back into the main square, and tried again to capture what has always eluded me - the beauty of the cathedral in the main square.

The two towers of the cathedral are of differing heights, but that is not exceptional in Poland. I have never seen it anywhere else, but here there are plenty of churches whose two front towers are different heights, and done in differing styles. But the one in Krakow has a story behind it. The two towers were built by two brothers, both architects. The younger wanted to go faster, and further, and so outstripped his brother, but due to lack of planning, had to build narrower and narrower as the height increased. At some point the towers became a towering point of contention between the two (sorry, couldn't resist,) and one brother stabbed the other one to death. Oddly enough, though, no one agrees on which brother killed which. Some say the brother who built the taller tower killed the other to keep him from surpassing his. Others say the brother who built the shorter tower killed the other out of jealousy. Some stories report the murdering brother then comitted suicide, while others report he was executed. Either way, they have a knife hanging on the wall in the cloth hall, which is undoubtedly the very implement used by whichever brother for whatever reason before ending up however he did.

The cloth hall itself is a beautiful covered passageway, with shops down each side, and with a line of back-to-back stalls down part of the middle. In here they sell wood carvings, chess sets, amber jewelery, beads, toys, reproduction swords, polish-folk dresses, and any object that can be inscribed with the Polish flag. All along the upper portion of the curved walls run windows that let in daylight, and between them are painted the coats of arms of various cities. In two side-by-side rows down the center run hanging lights. The overall effect is quite pleasing, and makes a tired tourist stop and think - "Now this is exactly the kind of place that would be the perfect to get my wallet stolen in."

They say upstairs is a great gallery, but it has been closed for renovation for the past year, so maybe someday I will get to see it. In the meantime, I content myself with trying to take photos of it that are of guidebook quality, and enjoy the jostling and bumping and waiting for someone to pick my pocket.