kraków to meißen.

We were a tiny bit sad to leave Poland, because well, Poland was a big surprise. It almost immediately became my third favorite European country that I don't live in. You can't really tell from this day of photos, but Wroclaw was kind of wonderfully shabbily beautiful and Krakow was surprisingly grand and everywhere just reeked of history and atmosphere.

The people were without exception sweet and quiet. There was music everywhere. And Poles seem to put a little bit of extra effort into atmosphere and gezelligheid, more so than maybe anywhere I've ever been. Sure there are shitty soulless bars and cafes and snackbars, but it was very easy to find a place that was dark and candlelit and crammed with the furniture and belongings of millions of dead people. That's a horrible joke but A) I'm apparently half Polish and 2) it's true.

Above: the breakfast room of the Klezmer Hois. Below: trying to find kielbasa to take home, because somehow I managed not to fucking have one while I was there. Below that: gas station sandwich calling out to my apparently blood-genetics based Polish love of pickles and eggs. Below that, boomkanker, or as most people refer to it, mistletoe. It was everywhere along the Polish highways and its presence engendered a week-long discussion of the history, science and myth around this mysterious parasite. I guess we had a lot of long drives. Below that, the only bad meal we had in Poland, a case of the #1 TripAdvisor restaurant in town feeling like a depressingly inauthentic experience. There were real Polish people there, construction workers and what not, but 75% of the diners at my table didn't eat even half their food, some much less. The whole place just felt kind of off, and it was an unfortunate end to a few days of unexpectedly good eating.

Below that, the next logical step after our continuing to watch the temperature drop in five-degree increments from 55F to 35F as we headed west across Poland. Below that, arrival in Meißen.

krakow day 2.

Behold, our walk from the Klezmer Hois (our hotel) in the historic Jewish district of Kazimierz to the old center of Krakow. My lunch target was full Chinese tourists and seemed a bit ongezellig, so we moped around for a little bit and ended up at the other place I recognized from my research, Szara.

Which seemed like, oh shit, we walked into the most expensive restaurant on a touristy square in a touristy city, it's very empty in here, fuuuuuck. But the atmosphere was totally nice, and the food was truly excellent, Nelzer had a perfect asparagus and enoki risotto, and my "Polish-style steak tartare" was full of top-notch components. And the whole thing was a totally reasonable €60, one course of really professional cooking for four people, plus one wine and three coffees.

The evening's meal went unphotographed due to phone death, a place called Qrudo that was kind of sadly soulless inside and featured live music of the "acoustic jazz-pop with female vocals" type, so not really a score in that regard. But the wine was good, the pierogi were maybe the best of the trip, and Aaltje ordered a really really delicious creme brulee with rosemary, Angostura bitters and a teeny-tiny pitcher of Jagermeister to pour over top. Then we returned to the Klezmer Hois, where there were constantly string players warming up, tuning, learning songs...I'm glad we didn't sit down to watch the music, but the place was just full of it and that seemed an appropriate atmosphere for old Jewish Krakow.

kraków night 1.

oświęcim.

I kind of expected simple outrage and/or shock and/or disgust and/or horror, or a simple combination of similar things. Maybe it had something to do with 2016's politics and the current dismal state of human discourse and global empathy, but I didn't feel any of those things very purely. Maybe a little horror and disgust. If there was anything shocking it was probably the sheer scope of the terrible, alien machinery at Birkenau and the overall lack of humanity that the place radiated. You could hardly believe modern humans not only came up with but actually realized it and continued to participate in and manage it every day....and yet it was as simple and familiar as an industrial slaughterhouse, its goals were so horribly simple and transparent, magnified to an abominable degree.

I guess the other primary feeling was realness. It wasn't a concept anymore about which you could say "I can't even imagine it," because, well, you kind of could. I don't mean the part where you cram 700 people into a building that would more comfortably hold 40 or 50...although I guess if you've been to an exceptionally crowded rock show or in the Jordaan on Queen's/King's Day the you have an idea of what that kind of human density feels like...I mean, you know...minus the starvation, sheer terror and imminent death.

I guess I mean a primary feeling of realness like real things you could see with your eyes: there were trees there, the buildings were brick and metal, there was mud. There was grass, lots of very green grass, but I later heard that this wouldn't have been there back in the day because the prisoners kept eating it.

I tried to take pictures that would remind me of the surreal normalness of it all. Like, below: this was just a nicely designed light fixture. Below that, the three windows at ground level in that yard are the windows through which some lucky prisoners would experience the outside world for a few days until they were killed. Below that, one of the very very few smiling photos of the doomed. Below that, a cliche photo of the grass that would've been eaten plus the omnipresent barbed wire. Below that, Block 10, where they sterilized female patients, or at least experimented with things they were pretty sure would sterilize female patients though it often just killed them instead. Below that, a real pile of human hair waiting to be made into thread and/or industrial felt. Below that, Block 11, the last interior of a house prisoners would see after being tortured in the basement there and before being taken out into the courtyard and shot. Below that, the little gallows where camp commander Rudolf Höss was eventually hung. Below that, a guard outpost at Birkenau. Below that, the unloading ramp/selection platform. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Anyway. You can't even feel like "Oh, unenlightened humans of the past" about it; just trying to research some details about everything I saw mostly turned up discussion boards full of Holocaust deniers, about which I can only think what it shame it is that the universe won't inhumanely pound them and their loved ones into the same useless dust as the subjects of their retarded, shameful faux-skepticism any sooner than it definitely will eventually.