Krakow, Warsaw and Home

It's a balmy fall day, probably the prettiest we've experienced to date, with temps in the mid-60s and perfect weather for a long walk around Warsaw. The capital of Poland is another eastern-European marvel: totally leveled (this time by the Germans during their exit), most of the period buildings have been painstakingly rebuilt using rubble from the originals. Since this includes palaces as well as medieval cathedrals, it's rather impressive.

Monuments and statues abound, particularly for hometown heroes such as Frédéric Chopin and Karol Wojtyła, later known as Pope John Paul II, really a native son of Krakow. In that city, his history and pre-sainthood is a major industry. There's even a life-sized statue (along with many sculptures and chandeliers) created in salt several hundred feet underground at the Wieliczka Salt Mines. The commonly held belief here is that John Paul's ministry, focussing on his travels to bloc countries, was the initial impetus for the downfall of Soviet domination.

But back to Warsaw, or at least en route to same. We made a lengthy stop at a holy Catholic shrine comparable to Lourdes or Fatima: the Black Madonna of the 14th C. Jasna Góra monastery.


The image, painted with tempera on canvas, is so sacred that it is often "dressed" in an ornate covering, with just heads and hands peeking out from the adornments. Thousands of pilgrims, some walking barefoot several days to get to the shrine, converge daily for round-the-clock masses in either Polish or Latin. The faithful believe the portrait has direct palliative properties; a large collection of wooden crutches, discarded over the centuries, is displayed.

Warsaw is a city that deserves at least a week of exploration. There are so many museums and historic landmarks in this crossroads town. Easily the most interesting and moving locale was the 1.4 square mile area of the former Jewish ghetto, where some 100,000 died of starvation and from which 250,000 were deported to the Treblinka extermination camp. It is also the site of the Ghetto Uprising in 1943. The last 50,000 fought to their deaths before the ghetto walls were torn down. This is a monument to that defiance:


The city is completing a modern museum complex detailing the history of the 3,000,000 Jews of Poland prior to the war (about 12,000 now live in the country), which will be opened next year.

So this has been a mixed bag of travel experiences, some dazzling, some disturbing beyond measure. I'm glad I've had the opportunity to visit this part of Europe, within a few hundred miles of the shtetls where both sides of my family created their homes. I don't envy the hard life they endured, but have a better feel for what it meant to be part of the culture and community that was once part of western Russia.

For now, the journal is closed.

Auschwitz

It isn't within the scope of my writing ability to express how I feel following a tour of the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camp sites here in western Poland. I've studied the content of numerous museums around the world dedicated to Holocaust remembrance, but walking the paths of the source of horror and systematic degradation on such a grand scale defies understanding or expression. I've stood in the center of an empty gas chamber whose walls once probably served as the final vision of distant relatives. Nothing more need be written.

Off The Elbe And Across Fresh Borders

Today we're wending our way by coach from Prague, in the Czech Republic, to Krakow, Poland. The remainder of the tour is over new terrain for me, and I'm particularly looking forward to learning about Poland. Some observations, however, from the past few days:

-- The river cruise up the Elbe, which covered about a week, was delightful. Although we would have enjoyed more daylight cruising time, the experience onboard was fun. The countryside varied dramatically, from pastoral grazings to flat farmlands to tall terraced vineyards to urban piers. Through it all, the service was superb, and the cuisine exceptional. It was hard to waddle our way off the ship after one week, but they were insistent that we leave. In the evenings, the crew offered a variety of relaxing entertainment, including the captain taking the stage for a more than passable vocal set. The farewell dinner found all five of our group invited to the Captain's Table, no doubt due to the total number of trips we've all taken with this company. We entered the dining room, in a processional led by the captain, to the applause of the other guests. Embarrassing, but entirely deserving.

-- Dresden became one of my favorite stops on this trip. So much of the architecture represents the highly ornate baroque style. It reminded me of the reconstructed Vienna. But, of course, all of Dresden has been reconstructed to its original form. Every building in the city, from its cathedrals and palaces to the smallest shops, was recreated post-1945 from original plans, as all of Dresden was destroyed in one night of intense firebombing. Our local guide, a childhood survivor of the bombing and years of infrastructure repair, wondered why the British-led air attack against many non-military targets was necessary. Brits would have reminded her of the endless London Blitz and Coventry. How to rationalize any of this?


-- There were many, and I mean many, things to do and see in Dresden, which calls for a more leisurely return visit. The favorite portion of our stay was a tour of the museums dedicated to Saxony royalty, particularly Auguste the Strong, an 18th C. ruler alleged to have fathered some 300 illegitimate offspring. (It's good to be king, although he might have been better-named Auguste the Hard.) His treasury room displayed wealth beyond comprehension, in the form of enormous precious stones, ivory sculptures, jewel-embedded carvings and sculptures. The potentates of that time (or any time, for that matter) amassed fortunes from the toils of their peasant class on a scale that defies contemporary comparison.

-- Bad Schandau is an area in Swiss Saxony (still Germany) not far from the border with the Czech Republic. We stopped in what can only be described as the most typical, picturesque German village: quaint town square with baroque Lutheran church; vendors and small shops offering townspeople their daily supply of breads, produce, meats and cheeses; town hall and its requisite clock tower, containing an inn that offers the local brew; and, a castle perched just above this poster-ready scene, where once a baron ruled, but only a few years ago was the site of mass medical experimentation on 15,000 helpless non-Aryians, during which time the pastoral residents claim they were oblivious. Small multicolored crosses inked into the pavement are stretched in long lines throughout the village to commemorate each of these horrendous deaths.


-- Prague, the scenic capital of the Czech Republic, is worth a lengthy stay. It was fun to revisit the beautiful main square, where its central church, resembling Cinderella's castle in Disneyland, is bathed in pastel lights through the night. Dinner at a small local restaurant was outstanding: glazed duck over red cabbage and potato dumplings. Earlier, I returned to the Jewish sector of the city, site of the former ghetto. Here, only a few thousand of the surviving community remain. Several of the remaining synagogues have been refashioned into memorials. The most memorable is the synagogue whose interior walls have been converted to a registry, listing in precise calligraphy the names of each Jewish man, woman and child of Prague who perished in the Holocaust. These 80,000 names are quietly recited every day.

Next: Krakow and Warsaw.

Gliding Up The Elbe

For the past few days we've slowly made our way up the Elbe on the flat-bottomed M/S River Allegro cruise ship.


There are about 90 passengers, 20+ crew members, and a pace as bucolic as the scenery. This river formed much of the boundary between the divided East and West Germanies, and even after two decades of reunification the western banks are more verdant and abundant (improved ag practices?), although many more sheep graze on the eastern shores. The river is only about 50 yards across in most places, and between its major towns there's not much more than bullrushes and rocky patches, with the occasional hilltop schloss peeking between sycamores groves.

No complaints about the service. As is standard on these cruises, the help is all over you. If we're not on the receiving end of at least four "bon appétit"s at each meal from various waitservice staff, Maître d's and hotel managers, we are strangely disappointed. The cuisine has been excellent, with creative, varied and abundant international fare. All my entres and desserts are specially prepared, resulting in one happy, if rotund, camper. It's challenging to allow a large salad to suffice for lunch when an intriguing menu is offered in followup. Oh, well.

Three stops along the way presented interesting historical insights worth reporting. The town of Wittenberg is immortalized for its most famous resident: Martin Luther (the King is silent). Here is where Catholic religion as the world knew it did an about-face, resulting in multiple Protestant national varieties and the birth of 500 years of Reformation. This the church door on which Luther posted those 95 theses in 1517:


Everywhere you turn there is something commemorating Luther. There's a Luther tree, a Luther house, a Luther street. Even the town was renamed Lutherstadt Wittenberg. It's lucky his last name wasn't Lipshitz.

It's hard to be unimpressed by the impact of this one professor and theologian, although his rabid treatises later in life supporting antisemitism were as influential to German national philosophy as they were deplorable.

Yesterday, we docked at the city of Torgau. Here is where, in 1945, the advancing American troops from the west linked at the Elbe with the surging Russian troops from the east, and the war with Germany ended. We visited sites where the action occured, and met two local witnesses, one of whom had been a 14-year-old defender of the town as a member of the Hitler Youth. He poignantly recounted the last moments of the war, when he and the other remaining city defenders, all children, were told to put their rifles down and return home to their mothers. This is the memorial the Soviets built to mark their part in the victory:


Today, it was on to Meissen, known for its famous white gold: porcelain. We spent a bit of time at the Meissen factory, where we watched artisans create lovely, if rather costly, tchotchkes. This is the only trip I can remember where the tour guide recommended that we all visit the gift shop and NOT purchase something, as many individual items for sale had price tags many times the value of this trip. I never saw so many overfed people try to navigate an emporium with such care. You break it, you own it. The town itself is charming, with traditional winding cobblestone streets, delicious local brotwurst and a towering castle complex overlooking the river.

Tomorrow, further upstream to Dresden.

A Moment In Berlin

Low waters on the Elbe forced a one-day rearrangement to our itinerary, resulting in an earlier visit to Berlin than planned. We arrived late Saturday afternoon, did a quick unpack, had another scrumptious dinner (breaded pork loins, kraut, boiled potatoes, veggies and incredible black bread), and headed out into the brisk night.

Of my many favorite cities, Berlin ranks near the top. The three years I lived in West Berlin while in the Air Force were among the most fulfilling, despite enduring the paradox of helping to sustain personal freedoms within a walled city. This is my second return to Berlin since the unbelievable turn of events in 1989 that brought down the Wall. Here's "Our Hero" by a slab of that former structure.


The contrast between a lively, vital West Berlin and the drab, unreconstructed East Berlin, to which I had unlimited access, was once incontrovertible. This current united city possesses the aura of Paris, with much of the former Eastern sector now converted to modern, stunning architecture. Energy is palpable, and no longer restricted by barbed wire and concrete.

Our hotel, a new high-rise building in bustling Potsdamer Platz, is a short walk along cobblestone markers denoting the former path of the Wall, directly to the Brandenburg Gate. How well I remember this unapproachable stretch of "No Man's Land" when I lived here. Now, access is open, and once again we can stroll through the bright Gate topped by its Quadriga chariot, and down the wide Unter den Linden boulevard, past new embassies and plush hotels.

The evening, and for that matter this visit, was too short. But the following day found us touring a small segment of the City's highlights, including Checkpoint Charlie, which saw a lot of my traffic over the years. Gone are the security mazes, but still present is the eerie reminiscence of having to traverse from one unfettered existence into the strained, uneasy atmosphere of totalitarianism, then back again.

We spent a few hours at the wonderful Pergamon Museum, with its full-scale Greek altar, Roman market wall and Babylonian processional way and Ishtar Gate. Then it was goodbye again to Berlin, and a motor trip to the town of Lutherstadt Wittenberg, better known as Martin Lutherland. Here is where we met our ship, the River Allegro, for the beginning of our Elbe experience.

Tomorrow we visit the church where Luther posted his "95 Theses," and find out what the Reformation was all about.

Back To Hamburg

We completed our last day in Schleswig with a lengthy tour of the former duchy's castle, which doubles as a fine arts and interior design museum, equipped with a private stepped garden over many acres. My favorite portion of the castle included displays of lacquered, intricately carved dark wooden furniture of Baroque design. Dinner was at a tiny upscale restaurant in our small hotel, both enterprises run by a very well-organized, vocally efficient German married couple. Happily, the Frau was a gourmet cook, as this was a memorable meal, including the tastiest wiener schnitzel in memory.

A speedy train ride south returned us to the country's second largest city, Hamburg, a reunion with two additional former travel buddies, Karen and Mike Ruff, and the commencement of the formal portion of our commercial tour and river cruise. We've done a lot of sightseeing, by coach and boat, in this large harbor city. It was fun to get up close to container ships while on the water and observe the highly-mechanized transfer of large cargo. Another highlight was an afternoon spent at the Ballinstadt Emigration Museum, the reverse of Ellis Island. It was to this embarkation point in Hamburg (and a sister site in Bremerhaven) where most emigrants from across Europe traveled by foot to begin the sea journey to America. If you have an ancestor who was part of the wave of late 19th Century U.S. immigration, this is probably the soil they trod. 

For those wondering if any photos in this blog will actually include me, here's a glimpse of my adorable face in the rear-view mirror while driving our Mini Coop in Schleswig-Holstein.

Odds and Ends:

-- I'm convinced that Germany is a country without a Surgeon-General, or at least a viable anti-smoking lobby. Apparently everyone smokes, obnoxiously and voraciously, regardless of age, gender or ethnicity. It doesn't seem to provide its citizens an added air of sophistication, as exhibited in France; in fact some seem downright angry at having to participate in the activity. And the presence of a low cloud of smoke in even the finer restaurants is often harder to take than the omnipresence of beloved leashed pets underfoot. But it's just part of the charm. 

-- Air France came through with an apology for missing my special meal, along with a bonus of 9,500 Delta Skymiles. Who says bureaucracy isn't attentive?

-- For a reason we can't fathom, food on display, either unprepared or cooked, looks and tastes more luscious in this country. Even hard boiled eggs contain a richer-colored yolk. Are the feed and agricultural products more natural? Why question?

-- Back in Lübeck, one of the first towns visited, we noticed several irregularities in the arrangement of paving stones in front of certain homes and private stores. Closer inspection revealed a phenomenon on display in cities throughout Germany known as "Golden Cobblestones." Sponsored by Jewish families throughout the country, these brass markers identify the precise locations where Jews were abducted and transported to concentration camps. Each plaque cites the individual's name, birthdate, suspected date of death and internment camp.


It's sobering to stop in front of a residence or business and imagine the personal dramas that took place here. Now that we know what the plaques represent, we seek them out and find these markers on sidewalks in every city we visit. 

Low water levels on the Elbe have altered our itinerary, allowing one additional day in Berlin (no complaints from this former resident), to which we are now motoring with our tour group. Then on to Wittenberg, and the cruise.

Farther North And Back In History

Following a sumptuous hot breakfast (these folks know how to eat), we headed back to the main train station in Lübeck for a short trip north to our next destination: Schleswig. First stop was Kiel, and after a brief transfer we were gliding through the lush terrain of northern Germany. These are the lowlands leading to Denmark, where blue and grey lakes intersperse with wild varieties of greens and yellows as we sped past thatch-roofed houses, sycamore groves and expansive farmland.

Schleswig, a Viking site, lies on an inlet to the Baltic Sea. Not too many Vikings in view, but the area evokes its once-powerful sea trade. Now, small double-hulled pleasure boats dot the many docks. Danish, rather than English, is the second language. We arrived midday, and after a light seaside lunch of fish and chips, we explored the historic area of the main church in sunny, 70 degree weather. This Lutheran cathedral is another towering Romanesque/Gothic structure, originally dating to the early 12th Century. On display, a passion for interior and exterior detail.


Yesterday was spent in an adventure of genealogical discovery. Since a branch of my friends Ken and Kay's family tree is rooted here, we rented a Mini-Coop convertible and wended our way through rural landscapes and Ken's history to the town of Böklund. There, Ken connected first with a delightful functionary at the local church of his great grandfather, where I tried to serve as a fractured interpreter, then to the nearby cemetery administrator, who miraculously recognized the family name and led us directly to a manicured gravesite. After a fashion, it was determined that a distant cousin still resided in the village. Later that day, we were able to track down this charming octogenarian and her husband, and spent an hour at their home piecing together missing data, swapping photos and often understanding each other. By dinner time additional family, one of whom was conversant in a common language, had been reached and more blanks filled-in. An unusually productive experience!

Today we plan to fill the day exploring the town of Schleswig. Then back to Hamburg to join other friends and begin a river cruise down the Elbe.

Getting There In A Big Way

Few people relish the long plane trip these days. And so, as I embarked on my latest across-the-pond excursion, I arrived at Dulles International Airport with a bit of trepidation, but great anticipation. It's been too long since I've spent extended time in Germany. And this was to be my first experience on the Airbus A-380, the world's largest passenger airliner. For this trip, a mere 550 were to be aboard (when reconfigured all-economy, the plane accommodates 850). And I was flying Air France "Premier" class. Oh boy.

All in all, hardly a disappointment. (Although, once again, no feedbag: they forgot to load my lactose-free meal. Effusive, if unsatisfactory, apologies in French followed.) I still don't see how this double-decker behemoth gets off the ground, but it does. A video camera mounted in the tail section allows the heavenly view of a takeoff and landing like no other. And the cabins are designed to experience remarkably low engine noise, so it's more like an extended library visit than a long plane ride. Even turbulence is bizarre: at appropriate times the plane rattled side to side rather than up-and-down, causing liquids in glasses to swirl much like water in a flushed toilet. Bon appétit!

As we took off three hours late from Washington, DC (Air France still hasn't figured out how to check-in 550 people at one time), I missed my connecting flight in Paris. But the airline had back up arrangements already prepared, so I and my friends Kay and Ken Drews were soon on our way to Hamburg, Germany and arrived there in the mid-afternoon.

After a short subway trip from the airport, we were at the bustling main train station in Hamburg and on our way to our first destination: Lübeck, in northern Germany. I enjoy traveling by rail, and this was only the first of many planned for this trip. It was great to see the German countryside again. Climate change hasn't seemed to hit this part of Europe; everything remains lush and verdant.

The rest of the day was spent on a quick walking tour of Lübeck, then a light bite. After tasty knockwurst for lunch, dinner was wiener schnitzel with capers and anchovies, served at a typical German restaurant. How I've missed this great local bill of fare! Then it was time to crash, and allow for time change adjustments. I'm not quite there yet; it's a nine hour swing from Pacific time.



Today was spent enjoying the most unusual town. Although totally leveled by the end of World War II, this Hanseatic League medieval jewel has been completely restored, with many Lutheran churches sporting enormously tall spires in Gothic array. The entire pedestrian-friendly city center of Lübeck resides on an island, guarded by a double-towered gate. Three universities influence the area, so a youthful intensity permeates.

Tomorrow, it's farther into Schleswig-Holstein to explore more of extreme northern Germany.