We were among the lucky ones to witness this revelry upon joining the Journeys of Faith pilgrimage tour this year.
Poland is the largest country in the Eastern European block of the European Union, which it joined in 2004. With a land area at 312 sq km (comparable to Italy at 301 sq km and Germany at 367 sq km), it has a relatively small population of 38 million.
Although Warsaw is its capital, the best entry point for visitors would be Krakow with its proximity to diverse tourist destinations: The largest salt mine in Poland, Auschwitz of the Nazi concentration camps, Czestochowa with the miraculous Black Madonna, the Divine Mercy church of Saint Faustina, the birthplace of Pope John Paul II in Wadowice, and Kalwaria.
Underground city
At the Wieliczka Salt Mines 13 km from Krakow and 327 meters below ground level, we visited the oldest of salt mines in the whole of Poland, a Unesco World Heritage site. It has more than 200 km of winding tunnels and corridors, extant even after 900 years of salt extraction.
We found chapels with salt sculptures and bas-reliefs, mining tools used, salt lakes, chambers with stalagmites, and the famous Chapel of St. Kinga 101 meters underground.
One takes an elevator down to explore what is called an underground city. Farther down at 125 meters is a mini-tourist haven of chambers housing a restaurant, post office, souvenir shops, and mobile/Internet access. It is amazing, to say the least, with the combination of salt and water found to be a healing climate for many.
However, those who suffer from vertigo might not enjoy the drop to the underground, which could trigger dizziness.
Another Unesco Heritage site can be found in Kalwaria, dubbed the Polish Jerusalem, near Wadowice, known to be Pope John Paul’s favorite place of meditation. An open space has Mannerist chapels on the Passion of Christ with landscapes resembling the site of Christ’s crucifixion.
Auschwitz
From history to natural environmental wonders and churches galore, there is simply no lack of places to visit in Poland, but each to his own preference. Auschwitz, site of a former Nazi concentration camp, provoked horror from many in our party, who would rather skip it. We wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
Our father died in the Death March, never to be found. His story couldn’t have been much different from those in Auschwitz who failed to return.
But nothing could possibly top the experience of visiting Auschwitz.
Isolated from the outside by barbed wire fencing, the former camp has become a symbol of terror, genocide and the Holocaust worldwide. As we walked through 28 buildings in the largest of German death camps beginning 1942, we looked at large photographs on the walls of thousands of prisoners being herded in. A sketch shows an expanse of prisoners from Oslo in Norway to Athens in Greece until 1945.
We got glimpses of barracks, mostly for Jews, men separated from women and children. We were told by our guide that those weak and useless were shot to death during 1940-41.
When gas technology produced by pellets exposed to air became available, prisoners were made to endure a slow and painful 20-minute death. What was worse, Jews were used to exterminate other Jews in exchange for freedom or money, which likely never came.
Camp operations
While in the company of a certain Captain Wirth, Kurt reported, “A train arrived with 45 cars and 6,000 people. Jews driven out with leather whips were marched to the death chambers. An SS man explained to men, women, children and cripples they stripped naked that they had to enter to be disinfected, after which men would build houses and streets, and the women do housework. But the majority knew everything; the smell betrayed it! When the gas chambers were opened, the victims were still standing, like columns of stones, with no room to fall or to lean on. Workers opened mouths with iron hooks, knocking out gold teeth with hammers; checked anus and genitals for money, diamonds and gold. Captain Wirth was in his element, showing me a big gem box saying, ‘See the weight of the gold? You can’t imagine what we find here daily. Dollars, diamonds, gold!’”
We remembered these revelations as we were brought to more sensitive chambers where taking of photos was strictly forbidden. We were shown mountains of hair collected from women shaved bald then killed, clothes and belongings, children’s toys, maletas with names clearly written by people who thought they would get them back. We knew very well that the guides had been trained to make this visit a simple reportage of events. This was, after all, part of a tourist destination. But we knew the truth was more inhuman and blood-curdling.
Later, in search of stories on the Internet from more survivors, our fears were confirmed by even worse revelations. Gruesome reports from private diaries such as Lucie Adelsberger’s described how the notorious Josef Mengele, who specialized in twins, killed two Gypsy children and sewed them together to create Siamese twins. “Worse, Mengele conducted experimental surgeries without anesthesia, transfusions of blood from one twin to another, isolation endurance, injection with lethal germs, sex-change operations, removal of organs and limbs, incestuous impregnations…”
How could any of these be true? Our thoughts wonder to our desaparecidos, those kidnapped to disappear forever. How much is really known? Were people worse under conditions of war, or much worse now under spurious peaceful governments?
Pope’s hometown
We needed a break from all these and found it in Krakow where the former prelate is called “Blessed Pope John Paul the Great.” This is where the Pope went for college and started his episcopal ministry.
The John Paul II Centre is being constructed beside the Sanctuary of Divine Mercy, where Saint Faustina died while serving as a nun, where she saw and spoke to the Lord, was beatified in 1993 and canonized in 2000.
Wadowice, the birthplace of Karol Józef Wojtyla or Pope John Paul 11, 50 km from Krakow, is a center of activity this year with practically every building displaying His likeness in huge tarpaulins.
Born May 18, 1920, JP2 was the youngest of three children. His mother died when he was nine; his father supported his studies. Today, every edifice or place John Paul had touched has become a revered tourist attraction.
John Paul’s family lived in a two-room rented house with a kitchen on the first floor (7 Kos’cielna Street), now under renovation to be opened in 1212.
In his personal diaries, the prelate had written, “My thoughts and my heart bring me back not only to my home where I was born, next to the church, but also to the Primary school, and Marcin Wadowita Junior High school, which I attended (16 Mickiewicza Street).”
The Pope also noted as a favorite hang-out Karol Hagenhuber’s cake shop (15 John Paul II Square). It was there where the junior high students held contests on eating the greatest number of cream-cakes. Today, these cream-cakes, actually kremowka or cream puffs, are sold in every cake shop in town.
Great actor in the making
Nicknamed Lolek by schoolmates, John Paul was an athlete, actor, playwright and linguist of more than 12 languages. Most of his acquaintances expected him to become an actor.
Reverend Malinski of Krakow, who met him in 1940, said, “None of us suspected that he might go on to become a priest. He wanted to be an actor.”
Halina Królikiewicz-Kwiatkowska, a theater partner from Wadowice, wrote in her memoirs, “Nearly all main roles went to Lolek Wojtyla, the most talented of school actors. He was well built, handsome and had a beautiful voice.”
Having watched Lolek perform, Juliusz Osterwa, who ran a school theater, in Krakow predicted, “A great actor is in the making.”
It is said that when he was hit by a truck in 1944 and spent weeks in the hospital recuperating, he had a chance to contemplate his future and decided to become a priest. In all his 27 years of religious service, part of Pope John Paul’s magnetism was from “the stage training he had when he was younger, his great sense of timing,” stated Bishop Raymond Boland of Kansas City-St. Joseph in an interview.
It was during his acting stint that Lolek got involved in the Jewish underground movement, which gave him extensive contacts with the Jewish community in his youth after the war. There was an instance when he helped a 14-year-old Jewish escapee from a Nazi camp get home to safety, accompanying her all the way. She could hardly have known he would be Pope, much less a saint someday.
Underground theater
It was also during this period that Lolek got deeply involved in underground theater. After moving to Krakow, he joined Tadeusz Kudlinski’s Studio 38 experimental theater, and a year later his underground Rhapsody Theater. In Halina’s diaries, she wrote, “In November 1941, we began rehearsals at the Rhapsody Theater.”
Apparently, it didn’t cross their minds that performances were taking place during the most dangerous years of frequent deportations to concentration camps, when lists of Poles to be executed were posted on store windows.
“In a very special way, these were wonderful times for us. We felt we were on a grand mission.”
Undoubtedly, it is this combination of religiosity and a horrendous past that has contributed to Poland’s current reputation as one of the most interesting travel destinations in Eastern Europe.
A word of caution: Being a relatively new member of the European Union, Poland has yet to adjust completely to its system. Its unit of monetary exchange is still the zloty, and often we found that even those who accept euros in purchases would insist on giving the change in zloty. But there are enough tourist information centers everywhere with multi-lingual staff.
Book a packaged tour of Poland through Journeys of Faith—mobile: 09175616440, phone: 9290144, e-mail: ilovejourneys@gmail.com, website: www.journeys.com.ph. Or you may book your own flights through cheapticket.com for flights from Manila-Singapore-Frankfurt-Krakow-Manila for minimum of $1,537 round trip. Hotel options are Hotel Pod Wawelem in Krakow—rezerwacja@hotelpodwawelem.pl, or check website www.hotelpodwawelem.pl; Ascot Hotel—www.hotelascot.pl, or rezerwacja@hotelascot.pl. A Wadowice and Auschwitz tour can be booked through various travel agencies in the area. One is through Marcin Zak—e-mail: info@auschwitztour.pl; mobile: 502403418 which includes a tour of the Pope’s house, a taste of those famous cakes at Hagenhuer’s Cake Shop, a visit to a park, and the walk through Auschwitz. For salt mine info—e-mail biuro.promocji@kopalnia.pl; Wadowice John Paul museum info—www.muzeum.wadowice.ph; Black Madonna info—www.jasnagora.com; Krakow Tours—www.cracowtours.pl; get useful info from Cracow-life.com.
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