Well as hot and sunny as yesterday was, that's how cold and rainy today is (just like Rochester -- the weather changes on a dime!). It was kind of a mixed bag in terms of touring. I had scheduled a tour of Kazmierz (the historic Jewish section of Cracow -- historic because virtually no Jews live there anymore -- although I did see a couple of Chabadniks! The Indian couple on our tour wanted to know if they had "moved". No, said our guide, they were exterminated -- her word). Well, Kazmierz is a district outside of downtown Cracow and virtually all tour companies drive you there and THEN you walk around. I managed to find (inadvertently) the only one that thinks that walking the whole way is the way to do it! It is quite a hike-- not made any easier by the fact that I packed my purse (thinking that we would be riding) like an overnight bag (Kindle -- just in case I had to wait somewhere, the instruction book for my new camera, THREE bottles of cold water -- you get the idea!). Well, it didn't take very long before I was dying! Luckily there was this nice Jewish guy, Larry, from NJ who was on the tour (we had chatted for a while before it began) and he offered to carry it for me! So Miss "I can do it myself" said, "Really?!! Thank you SO much!" Thank God for Larry or I would have been finished a lot sooner than I was. As it was I made it all around Kazmierz but when the guide announced that we were going to walk over the bridge to go to the Schindler factory (at least another mile) I knew I was finished.
I was getting a little frustrated with our guide in any case. She knew just enough about Judaism to get herself into trouble! For example: We visited the Temple Synagogue (yup -- that's really its name) and she told us that the Hebrew inscription above the arc (which she correctly referred to as the "aron ha-kodesh") told the date that the synagogue was built and who the founder was. Not so much. I couldn't read all of the Hebrew but the name of God (yud-heh-vav-heh) was prominent (I suppose you could think of God as the "founder" of the synagogue but that is definitely not what she meant!) and the word "tamid" = eternal. I don't know exactly what the whole thing said but it sure wasn't what she said it was!
Actually, it was kind of a mixed blessing, because by "defecting" from the tour, I had time to poke around on my own. I went to the Galicia Museum. This is a really unique place. It houses photographs (with explanatory text) taken in the last few years, but which seek to convey the magnitude of the Holocaust. The photographer (and founder of the museum) went around and photographed dozens and dozens of synagogues and cemeteries -- as well as some makeshift markers to victims of the Shoah -- from towns all over Galicia (southern Poland -- at times it has actually been in Austrian and Hungarian hands -- the borders around here have changed oodles of times). It was just amazing to see that so many of these had survived the war -- although, of course, the people didn't. In the cities it was more common to destroy the synagogues. In these little villages, they "just" took the Jews out to some forest or other and shot them (often all on one day). I will spare you the details of the descriptions of these "aktions" --they are really the stuff of nightmares. Interestingly, there have been markers constructed to memorialize these folks -- many by the local non-Jews. For example, there was one picture of a farm field with a stand of trees, about 3-4 acres big, right in the center. Turns out this had been a Jewish cemetery. All of the gravestones had been broken and carted away, but the locals decided to keep the site "evergreen" to memorialize it. There was also a picture of a list of villages (and the number of Jews in each) that were wiped out in the Shoah. There were literally hundreds of them just in Galicia! You know, six million is a big number -- sometimes too big to really relate to. But when you see a list with town after town (this one with 374 Jews, the next with 163, etc.) which represent communities that have literally been wiped off the face of the earth -- somehow it puts a more "personal" spin on the magnitude of the destruction wrought by the Nazis. I must say I am very sorry that I wasn't more persistent in finding out the name of the village from which my grandmother's family came (it was right near here) because it is actually possible to hire a guide and go visit these places.
I finished up my "tour" of Kazmierz with lunch at "BagelMama"!! You can see that I am not all that "adventurous" with food! Real bagels -- just like at Brueggers. They sell these things they call "bagels" all over on the streets (it's strictly a Cracow thing) but they are really more like giant soft pretzels. Then I grabbed a taxi and headed back to the hotel. I will do some more exploring on Weds.
Tonight I went to "Klezmer House" for dinner and -- you guessed it -- Klezmer music. I remember Rabbi Katz commenting on the fact that the musicians who play Klezmer music here are not even Jewish (really -- there just aren't very many native Jews left in Cracow). These definitely were not (the female singer had a cross around her neck). But they were excellent nonetheless. Her Yiddish sounded like the "real thing" and she did a lightening fast rendition of chirry-bee, chirry-bum that could knock your socks off! She also did -- for all you folk music fans -- "Dona, Dona" -- think Joan Baez. Funny, I knew it in Englsh and some of it in Hebrew but I had never heard it in the "original" -- Yiddish. Again, the food was good. Matzah ball soup -- which tasted a lot like my grandmother's, and this chicken dish that they called "Purim chicken". It was breaded and had walnuts and cinnamon in it and was topped with a cranberry compote. Yummy! I remember my grandfather always teasing my "Galitziana" grandmother for putting sugar in "everything." Well, the "sweet" spices (e.g., cinnamon) are certainly very popular here.
So tomorrow is Auschwitz. Eerily it also happens to be Tisha B'Av. Didn't realize that when I made the plans. The "destruction" theme is kind of prominent, huh? I keep going back and forth on the issue of whether to take pictures there. Somehow it feels a little irreverent and I think that it is something people should see for themselves. But, it is a trip I will probably make only once in my lifetime. Well, if I do decide in the affirmative (and right now I am leaning that way) I will try to figure out how to post some of them. It would probably help if I read that instruction book that I (and Larry!) schlepped around all day today. When I got the camera I asked Marc (who, BTW, has a BS in photojournalism from RIT) to sit down with me and go through its operation. He was willing to do so but said, "If you want my honest opinion, I'd put it on "Auto" and shoot!" So far, as near as I can tell, that was good advice! These cameras are so "smart" these days they just about take the picture for you!!
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