In Cracow- relevant today
In Cracow, Poland, you can find the burial places of the medieval kings of Poland- dating from the 14th century until the end of the monarchy over two hundred years ago.
You can also find what was formerly one of the most important Jewish centres in what was one of the most popular nations for the diaspora at the beginning of the 20th century- Kazimierz.
All of this is just 70 km from Auschwitz-Birkenau, known in Polish as Oswiecim, where around a million European Jews died, as well as about 5oo ooo others, many of those Poles (many of whom died in the first years of WW2). I undertook a journey there on a sunny Sunday, and it was a very physical and - (can I coin a word from factual and practical?) - 'factical' experience. I went without food and water from ten in the morning until five in the afternoon (the train journey out, and the tour, were actually physically discomforting as a result, but I didn't feel much like consuming anything despite that), and this enhanced the physical reality of seeing with one's own eyes the puff-light piles of hair, the twisted heaps of shoes, the piles of distressed spectacle frames etc. It seemed to me, reflecting on it, that when doubting the sincerity of feelings about the Holocaust then to method act a small fragment of hardship was a good way to enter fractionally into some of the terrors that the place contained.
But, forget the Nazis if you can for a moment- the Communists contributed substantially to a massive collapse in the numbers of 3 million Polish Jews, mainly through persecution leading to emigration, to the point where today estimates of their numbers are, at the more optimistic end, around the several dozens of thousands mark (counting the very many people who are unwilling to allow their Jewish identity to be known.)
So how many did I see in Cracow, in the winding streets of Kazimierz, in amongst the showers and warm sunshine? Probably very few if any, considering that the pre-war population estimated at 60,000 has been considerably more than decimated. Maybe the man in the Noah's Ark bookshop on Miodowa street wasn't even Jewish, though, er, he looked it. According to what seems the reliable source linked above, the known Jewish population may currently stand at around the 150 mark. Yes, that's One-Five-Oh.
Yet Cracow is not an unhappy place. One reason is that the Poles generally were not responsible for the massacre of their valuable-in-every-sense Jewish population, and actually most of Cracow's jews did not got to Oswiecim but to Belzec near the Ukraine. Even the period of communism seems, on casual examination at any rate, difficult to categorise as having had a Polish nationalist movement of real potency, though it sanctioned anti-semitism at times (not that the two are synonymous, but nationalism under communism is an equation difficult to compute without anti-semitism, at least in Europe). One support for that assertion would be the large number of Jews who took a part in at least the early decades of the communist regime- until 1968 when things changed a lot for them- seen as liberating them from the old world view which had culminated in the Shoah.
In Kazimierz you can find the best restaurants in Cracow, as well as some very lively looking clubs. In many areas well kept, it's also, perhaps understandably, home to some stylish dereliction- but the Jewishness is alive somehow in this vibrant cultural life. From synagogue(s) to ritual bathhouse, even to the well-kept graveyards, there seem to be no empty touristic shells, whatever use is made of them. There are many signs in Hebrew- and local Polish students of Jewish Studies at Jugiellonian University have courses to help them with the difficult Hebrew language. There's also one of the few authentic (ie. featuring real live Jews!) European festivals of Jewish culture, held biennially in Kazimierz.
The Jewish area is found on the Southern side of the city (a city of around 700,000 people- map), just outside the extensive old town. Most of the old town (excepting at least the part adjacent to the Jewish area) is surrounded by a 'moat' of greenery and footpaths. It's not a place to walk, but to stroll lazily there gives one a perfect introduction to the style and scale of it. Any time one cares it's easy to dive into the network of streets comprising many ancient but well-kept buildings. A foray into them confirms the sense that often they go back several centuries at least- Cracow was saved for our modern taste for tourism, from our modern taste for destruction, by the Swedish empire's decision to relocate the capital closer to home, in Warsaw, in 1609. Today there's a plethora of cafes- both cheap internet and ordinary ones- and boutiques in these streets.
One also can't forget the main Town Square, which I saw under a variety of conditions but which seemed truly magical at dusk when the smoke from some fast food stalls was drifting around in the moist-still air beneath a rain-filled sky. The medieval quality then was stunning, something I haven't felt elsewhere in central Europe- rivalled in my experience only by the much less grand but nonetheless delightful sensations of York in the UK.
Still, having said all that, Poland's lack of Jews today seems crushing in the light of its rich history of association with the Jewish nation, and Cracow, though perhaps aided by the film Schindler's List which popularised one of its interesting old boys, is only an obscure current in the tide of history as it relates to the future of the Jews. This overall tide still doesn't seem to be washing away the cruel high tidewater mark of European oppression and malevolence towards the Jews with something far more tolerant and respectful, but instead allowing that high-tide mark to become, largely through ignorance and indifference, all Islamo-scummy. I would say Cracow is clearly an exception to that rule, though a faint one- a fact which allows its beauty to be enjoyed without guilt that we are walking over the bones of victims to do so.
(main source- apart from internet- 'Poland and the Jews' by Stanislaw Krajewski, Austeria 2005.)
You can also find what was formerly one of the most important Jewish centres in what was one of the most popular nations for the diaspora at the beginning of the 20th century- Kazimierz.
All of this is just 70 km from Auschwitz-Birkenau, known in Polish as Oswiecim, where around a million European Jews died, as well as about 5oo ooo others, many of those Poles (many of whom died in the first years of WW2). I undertook a journey there on a sunny Sunday, and it was a very physical and - (can I coin a word from factual and practical?) - 'factical' experience. I went without food and water from ten in the morning until five in the afternoon (the train journey out, and the tour, were actually physically discomforting as a result, but I didn't feel much like consuming anything despite that), and this enhanced the physical reality of seeing with one's own eyes the puff-light piles of hair, the twisted heaps of shoes, the piles of distressed spectacle frames etc. It seemed to me, reflecting on it, that when doubting the sincerity of feelings about the Holocaust then to method act a small fragment of hardship was a good way to enter fractionally into some of the terrors that the place contained.
But, forget the Nazis if you can for a moment- the Communists contributed substantially to a massive collapse in the numbers of 3 million Polish Jews, mainly through persecution leading to emigration, to the point where today estimates of their numbers are, at the more optimistic end, around the several dozens of thousands mark (counting the very many people who are unwilling to allow their Jewish identity to be known.)
So how many did I see in Cracow, in the winding streets of Kazimierz, in amongst the showers and warm sunshine? Probably very few if any, considering that the pre-war population estimated at 60,000 has been considerably more than decimated. Maybe the man in the Noah's Ark bookshop on Miodowa street wasn't even Jewish, though, er, he looked it. According to what seems the reliable source linked above, the known Jewish population may currently stand at around the 150 mark. Yes, that's One-Five-Oh.
Yet Cracow is not an unhappy place. One reason is that the Poles generally were not responsible for the massacre of their valuable-in-every-sense Jewish population, and actually most of Cracow's jews did not got to Oswiecim but to Belzec near the Ukraine. Even the period of communism seems, on casual examination at any rate, difficult to categorise as having had a Polish nationalist movement of real potency, though it sanctioned anti-semitism at times (not that the two are synonymous, but nationalism under communism is an equation difficult to compute without anti-semitism, at least in Europe). One support for that assertion would be the large number of Jews who took a part in at least the early decades of the communist regime- until 1968 when things changed a lot for them- seen as liberating them from the old world view which had culminated in the Shoah.
In Kazimierz you can find the best restaurants in Cracow, as well as some very lively looking clubs. In many areas well kept, it's also, perhaps understandably, home to some stylish dereliction- but the Jewishness is alive somehow in this vibrant cultural life. From synagogue(s) to ritual bathhouse, even to the well-kept graveyards, there seem to be no empty touristic shells, whatever use is made of them. There are many signs in Hebrew- and local Polish students of Jewish Studies at Jugiellonian University have courses to help them with the difficult Hebrew language. There's also one of the few authentic (ie. featuring real live Jews!) European festivals of Jewish culture, held biennially in Kazimierz.
The Jewish area is found on the Southern side of the city (a city of around 700,000 people- map), just outside the extensive old town. Most of the old town (excepting at least the part adjacent to the Jewish area) is surrounded by a 'moat' of greenery and footpaths. It's not a place to walk, but to stroll lazily there gives one a perfect introduction to the style and scale of it. Any time one cares it's easy to dive into the network of streets comprising many ancient but well-kept buildings. A foray into them confirms the sense that often they go back several centuries at least- Cracow was saved for our modern taste for tourism, from our modern taste for destruction, by the Swedish empire's decision to relocate the capital closer to home, in Warsaw, in 1609. Today there's a plethora of cafes- both cheap internet and ordinary ones- and boutiques in these streets.
One also can't forget the main Town Square, which I saw under a variety of conditions but which seemed truly magical at dusk when the smoke from some fast food stalls was drifting around in the moist-still air beneath a rain-filled sky. The medieval quality then was stunning, something I haven't felt elsewhere in central Europe- rivalled in my experience only by the much less grand but nonetheless delightful sensations of York in the UK.
Still, having said all that, Poland's lack of Jews today seems crushing in the light of its rich history of association with the Jewish nation, and Cracow, though perhaps aided by the film Schindler's List which popularised one of its interesting old boys, is only an obscure current in the tide of history as it relates to the future of the Jews. This overall tide still doesn't seem to be washing away the cruel high tidewater mark of European oppression and malevolence towards the Jews with something far more tolerant and respectful, but instead allowing that high-tide mark to become, largely through ignorance and indifference, all Islamo-scummy. I would say Cracow is clearly an exception to that rule, though a faint one- a fact which allows its beauty to be enjoyed without guilt that we are walking over the bones of victims to do so.
(main source- apart from internet- 'Poland and the Jews' by Stanislaw Krajewski, Austeria 2005.)
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