Berlin, Warsaw, and Krakow, part 4 - the Jewish quarter

The Jews had a long history in Krakow. They came in 1380-ish and through the early modern period they had a small area with a synagogue and a wall around it. After a couple of hundred years the wall came down and they were allowed to expand their area. Gradually they acquired more synagogues and more businesses and graveyards.

Then the Nazis... In Krakow the Jews amounted to up to 25% of the citizens! according to the museum in one of the old synagogues. This means that they had deep roots here and considered themselves Polish, and contributed to political and military life. They weren't in danger until the Nazis occupied ... and then the Poles seemed to have been "enforcers" of the Nazi rules... You need to come and see the old pictures and photographs to see how strange it was. It was the same in the Czech Republic. For example, Franz Kafka was a Jew and he lived a very integrated life in Prague, utterly unremarkable. Had he lived any longer, the Nazis would have murdered him and his family nevertheless.

When Spielberg wanted to film the story that became Schindler's List, he came to the original Jewish quarter, which was run down. Well, it isn't now. After the famous film, with its final captions saying that fewer than 400 Jews live in Poland today, Jews came back to Krakow, to start again in the Jewish Quarter. Some came from Israel. Hebrew is spoken here (I heard a waiter). I don't know what the Poles think about the Jews coming back. It is bizarre that this tragic area should be a magnet to tourists. But in the evenings the restaurants put on Klezmer bands,  and the music gives the place atmosphere. They do great trade. Our room is three floors up from a restaurant in this quarter. The tree outside our room is a willow, blowing in the breeze. Cars and mini-buses are parked down there on the cobbles. Tours come to visit the memorial to the Jewish community. Tourists come in little private taxis, like milk floats.

Outside the violinist and a cellist are playing "if I were a rich man". They vary the speed of the verses. I can hear the sound of cutlery on plates. A little tiny bit of applause for the musicians. Earlier they played the theme from "Schindler" and it was beautiful, but got no applause. None for "Air on a G string" either. The musicians have a very large repertoire and are very talented - I hope the restaurant owners pay them well.

One night we heard the theme from Schindler's List 4 times.

Schindler's factory building survives, and is a tourist attraction - a long queue for it. We nearly went  - then decided to go to the art gallery next door, because it is weird to go on holiday and visit a site of mass murder as though it was just another thing. "So! That was Auschwitz? Bad! Let's have lunch!" No. These places need more thought, formal clothing, special trips as pilgrims, more respect.

Synagogue

Jewish quarter, morning, synagogue at the end.

Berlin, Warsaw and Krakow - part 3, Krakow - folk dancing

We felt more at home in Krakow straight away. This is because most of the city stayed intact in the war, and it feels right; it feels like a liveable, cultured, parks-and-libraries kind of environment. For example, all around the old town, the walled city, there is a park. We had a picnic lunch there one day and then stayed for a beer. There are so many people about! Mums' groups with toddlers and pushchairs, old ladies walking and chatting, people reading books and magazines, young people texting away and meeting their friends - it seems to be a happy city. In the park there are statues and flowers and fountains and loads of benches. There is a big display about Pope Francis' visit to Poland.

While we were walking to get to our hotel, we stopped to hear a concert in the park - some sort of competition - and we realised that something Warsaw lacks, in our experience, is music - street music.

We have noticed Poles reading in cafes and pubs. I always notice people reading. It seems to be quite usual to go out and read in public - nobody thinks it is somehow sad - (except A.).

We gate-crashed a folk festival in Krakow - went past a big hall and heard the music, so we went to see what was happening. I took some notes.  - "One act follows another. The current troop is children dressed in shades of beige - girls in dirndl skirts and beige blouses, boys in beige waistcoats and trousers. Lots of twirling and running on the spot. Next lot - girls in red bodices, circlets of flowers and plaits. Pairing off and rushing about in a circle. Clapping in pairs. My ex boyfriend would have called it an "effing FERTILITY rite" in a particularly revolted way. The beige troop is a bit more go-ahead - different music and more original moves. However, it looks a bit bonkers. They are like "little primitives" - imagine the Rite of Spring to bagpipe music.

"Lady in flowered blouse, on stage with a mic, announcing the scores? The next act? lots of applause for the kids and their dancing instructor. A boy on his own! Mad leaping and slapping of legs. Kicking legs up and clapping (men). Looking on (women). Slight twirling of dirndls. Then two young men, leaping and slapping and twisting around like you would NOT BELIEVE. They go past us later, heads dripping with sweat.

"The communists kept all this folk culture alive - made it compulsory, probably, and it is really lovely to see it continue of its own volition. But the audience is not as interested as it might be.

"This must be the way farmers showed they were "fit" for courting purposes. The women have a more passive role in the dances. The female role is - serene. A man would value a correctly twirling, serene woman wearing neat plaits and nicely-made skirts and aprons.

"Flowery lady is making more announcements. We don't know what it's about. It's ten to ten. Is it time to go? No! Here comes a traditional band from another region. Blue and white flag this time. It's Greece! with live music! Accordion and clarinet. Drum. Loads of dancers. Dancers in lines. End dancers twirling hankies. Men wear white trousers with SKIRTS and red cummerbunds - black waistcoats, white shirts, black small hats. Men have some sort of gartered socks. The women wear white petticoats with fancy grey coat dresses. on top. They have gold patterns marking their haunches from behind. They wear white hair-coverings and black hats. They twist gaily and uniformly to and fro. I think this is meant to be a round dance but they have to squash it into a long, thin circle because they are on a long, thin stage. The music is absolutely dreadful. (I have a sound file.) In this dance the man on the end of the line does all the dancing - very complicated steps. Now the girls hold hands in a line and do the same dance - End girls have extra moves - hankie twirling. It reminds me of those flamingos which make lines in which to perform stylised "dances". This group has a few screamy fans.



"Somebody has won a trophy! Much applause. More prizes. More applause! We think EVERYBODY is going to win a prize! The announcer is speaking English - a prize for Estonia! Lithuania has a prize! So has Hungary! All prize winners are now lined up across the stage. Some are in national costume, some are not. It looks like a scene from "Shrek". Or Jack and the Beanstalk. The Greeks are back on stage! The kids are on stage! The Greeks teach everybody their slow "Zorba" dance. Back to the audience. The pace is mounting. boys and girls jostling and not getting the hang of it."

Good fun!

Berlin, Warsaw and Kracow - part 2, Warsaw

 

I think I had trouble coping with Warsaw because we didn't buy tickets for the public transport and we should have done. The distances between the areas you want to see are deceptive and the walking is very uncomfortable. We stayed in a famous Communist-built hotel called the MDM. This is the view from our fifth floor room. Alas, the hotel has swapped its long-standing sign, MDM, for SAMSUNG and stands opposite a building called ZTE.

The hotel inside was modern and very smartly furnished, and the breakfast was wonderful. We could have had breakfast all day. The trouble was that the room was very very hot and I couldn't sleep at all, which made me feel increasingly unhappy. We went to see some old churches in the hotel district, and then we went to see the old town. The Old Town is a marvellous tourist attraction and is only about 20 years old. We were not fooled by the Old Town. It has been built on the footprint of the old town and it may look very similar, the churches and sculptures and quaint old inns are a marvellous piece of work, but we didn't buy it. We didn't visit the castle because it was quaintly new and again, we weren't fooled and felt it was like Epcot, the Disney version of Europe. We went to the new town which was also destroyed in the war and has been recently rebuilt. We enjoyed an ice cream. We were pleased to see where Marie Curie was born, or a reconstruction of the house where she was born.

Churches seem to have survived the war.

This is the square in the new town. Which is quite new.



A square in the "old town" - with carriage ride for the tourists.

As we walked around we did sort-of admire the Soviet style architecture and many sculptures showing the heroic workers.

The People's Palace - town hall with exhibition centre. It
is the most peculiar style.

Soviet -era building alongside modern capitalist buildings in Warsaw. We went to the national museum and admired some art, and found a great place to have coffee - the café even supplied double hammocks for lazing in!  but more popular with the Polish public was the army museum, and the poor Soviet-era Poles had spent a large proportion of their GDP on all this old rubbish.

There were loads of these machines standing around in rows.

The roads were very busy and there seemed to be a lot of work involved in finding underpasses where we could cross. We seemed to walk such a long way. Nothing was as cheap as we had been led to expect. Many Polish people had enough money to splash out in the few interesting venues and there were "butiks" with luxury goods in. I found as we walked around and looked at information boards about the history of Warsaw I just felt incredibly sad. Hitler wanted Poland as Lebensraum for his people. He despised the Poles. He always intended to kill them. After the Warsaw uprising in which only a handful of people, really, rose up against the Germans, Hitler ordered that Warsaw be razed to the ground and that all the people should be killed. The SS were sent in with orders to kill men, women and children. They killed 200,000 and destroyed the whole city. I feel as though no-one has recovered from the shock and the blow, except the very young people who possibly don't know about it or can't relate to it. They are happy dressing up and going out to be seen, and quite right, of course. It's time to get over it. But the current city of Warsaw doesn't work as a city. It hasn't been planned to the right scale. If you look at the top photograph again, and wonder what was that like before WWII, you can see the problem of Warsaw.

But finally, on our last evening in Warsaw, we found one thing that's lovely and has been well-restored. It's a royal park. It was a magical place to spend an evening and we even ate in a café /restaurant there. There were a lot of people there (Poles) enjoying the memorial to Chopin and the lakes and woodland walks.



Memorial to Chopin

 



Evening peace and calm.