I took the train from Krakow to Oswiecim Friday to make what felt like a mandatory visit to Auschwitz.
Since I’m only in Poland for what amounts to a little more than two full days, I thought about skipping Auschwitz given the time it takes to get over there and back. But a few people told me in advance of this trip that I’d regret not going if I took a pass.
Busloads of visitors – many leaving in organized groups from Krakow – stream into the Auschwitz parking lot to enter at prescribed times. Tour guides lead them in and there are admission and transportation fees attached to that approach. I didn’t want any part of a tour group. The Auschwitz museum/memorial overseers recently created an opportunity for individuals to enter unaccompanied for free during non-prime time hours. Given the heavy-duty, mind-blowing nature of what transpired on the Auschwitz property, I personally couldn’t stand to be clustered with a tour group.
Informational signs tastefully positioned throughout the former prison/death/torture camp quenched my thirst for explanations of what I was looking at. Written in Polish, English and Hebrew, the signs also at times urged visitors to refrain from pictures and/or conversation in places of especially intense horror.
The train ride from Krakow to Oswiecim takes about two hours and costs 9.5 Zloty one-way (about $2.55). The train creeps along at average speeds of about 25 MPH. Many of the scenes between Krakow and Oswiecim remind me of the train ride between Cleveland, Ohio’s airport and that city’s downtown. Shells of former industrial endeavors are rotting and abandoned. The train stations along the way are neglected badly with knee-high weeds sprouting from cracked-up platforms.
Oswiecim’s station is big – and was perhaps grand at one time – but it has a depressed look and feel right now. When I arrived at Oswiecim, I wandered down a stairwell looking for the bathroom. An old lady followed me, turned on the lights, pointed me towards the men’s room and asked for 3 Zloty. When I came out, I thanked her. That’s one phrase I know, although I’ve altered the pronunciation based on how I’ve heard others say it – rather than how the vocab sheet tells me.
“Gzee koo-wah,” I said. She smiled and took a big puff from a ciggie as she sat in a small attendant’s room positioned at the entry to the toaletas.
The housing in the immediate vicinity of Oswiecim station is run down. Some of it is abandoned. I walked from the train station to Auschwitz. It took about 25 minutes.
A large field just outside the Auschwitz museum/memorial entrance is not well cared for. Perhaps this is to mirror how it’s always been. A few people who appeared as if they may be without shelter had set up to rest in the field. Large housing complexes are within a half-mile of the site. It’s hard to imagine living so close to ground that saw such atrocities and now gets swarmed by tourists. Life goes on in Oswiecim I guess.
As I waited to enter, one lady just off a tour bus snapped selfies from multiple angles.
The images I won’t forget are the framed mug shots of victims, most of Polish descent. Positioned inside the barracks – or jail-like structures – the pictures on the walls brought me intense closeness to the dastardly evil that played out there.
Also chilling to consider is the amount of time the prisoners spent outside to freeze. With full access to places where witnesses say day-long imposed exposure to frigid weather was a routine tactic of the SS, you can’t help but shudder at the madness on top of madness times infinite.
On the train ride back to Krakow, it was pitch black outside for the final 45 minutes or so of the ride.
By the time I finally got back to my lodging spot’s neighborhood, I didn’t have much energy for exploring the nightlife. I had a shot of Krupnik and a pint of Tyskie at Singer Bar and called it a night.
