Mistakes in History

           Well, now that I am conscious as opposed to a babbling fool (this is in reference to my Skypeing with Bobby and fellow Muffins last night; I went to bed at 3:40 in the morning, and that's a recent record), I shall type up a blog post! So let me recall Friday! I already mentioned the absolute wonder of baking, yes yes. So for the rest of the day, we stayed at home, and I Skyped with some people, until we had to head on out and meet to go to a restaurant with the Budapest API group! We went to Chłopskie Jadło, which is a traditional Polish food restaurant. The one we were supposed to eat at the first night we were here, actually! So that was interesting. Since it was on API, all of us went all out. I ordered apple pierogi for everyone to try at the table, barszcz z uskami, and a pork with apricot in it, and it was covered with an apricot, plum, and garlic sort of sauce. Yes, it was quite delicious, actually! All of us were absolutely stuffed after that. From there, we headed on home before heading over to Angelika's place.
           Angelika's apartment was wonderful! It is the typical, modern Polish style apartment. So we all hung out in there for the first part of the night with the Budapest kids. We all did typical introductions in a circle, which for me, was super useful. But it was quite enjoyable. Great group of people, actually. Although, gonna straight up say that people need to remember Polish alcohol is far stronger than the alcohol in the States. Oh, of course everyone was drinking! I am proud to say I didn't even have a sip. Hoorah! Although, mostly everyone else had at least 7 shots... ... Needless to say, you can see where the night went. We headed out to a karaoke bar, where some people mixed their beer and vodka. Literally pouring vodka into the beer. Brilliant idea. We didn't stay there too long. Instead, we walked around, trying to find clubs, completely exhausting my legs while trying to herd drunk people who were falling over, literally, making out with each other, and trying to get their coats from coat checks, even though, they had gotten their coats already... Oh, people getting lost, and others abandoning their lost friend. Super responsible. Yes, it was a night of shambles. In retrospect, it was sort of amusing; although, when I got home that night, I was honestly ticked off to a scary level. Oh! While I was waiting for two of the people to retrieve the lost girl, two of our group members were making out, and two guys walked up to me, each holding two cans of open beer, offering them to me. No worries! I said no thank you, firmly, multiple times, and they left, giggling away. I guess it was some bet about "seeing what that serious looking girl would do if offered beers."
           That night left me with a further validation of the fact that most (note: not all) Americans have no clue how to drink. Even if you drink a lot, you can drink responsibly. You can know what to do. Being drunk is partially a matter of "mind over matter," too. So, having a preset mentality of what to do when you are plastered would help. Although, to get plastered in a foreign country, where you speak nothing of that language, is just a terrible idea in the first place.
            But, enough of that! Because the next day was far more meaningful... You see... We went to Auschwitz. Therefore, as a disclaimer, if you are faint of heart, please do not read on until my next bolded statement. I did cry, writing part of this, as... it's absolutely unimaginable how such a horrible event could've happened. And how these sort of things still happen to this day, in all parts of the world.
           As many of you know, throughout my life, I have studied details and stories on the Holocaust. I have always been interested in it as a critical historical moment which must be remembered, so I emphasize the need to learn about it and what people went through. This was my third visit to Auschwitz; my first was in 2005, when I was 13, and my second was last year, actually. You may ask, but why would you go to such a depressing place so many times? Well, to pay respects to the millions lost. To learn new things. To remind myself how fortunate I am in my life. Every single visit I have learned something new. So yes, I plan on returning there again. If I am fortunate enough, perhaps even next summer.
            The unbelievable happened in this tour, though. As soon as our tour guide started speaking, I recognized his voice and his speech pattern. Immediately, I looked at Monika and told her, "I think this is the same tour guide I had last year." His speech pattern and his notations of the events that happened in Auschwitz kept triggering my memory, and so eventually, I went up to him and said, "So, I have a weird question for you: how long have you worked here?"
           "Four years."
           "Oh, ok... Because I think you were my tour guide last year."
           "Oh... Well, that could be possible."
           "Did your grandfather stay in block 18?"
           With a sort of shocked chuckle, he said, "Yeah, yeah that's me." We talked about it, and we came to the conclusion that the chances of that happening is like the lottery. Why? Last year, I visited in a different month, on a different day, during a different time, and he is most certainly not the only English tour guide. Although, I am glad I had him again, because the way he presents everything is very well done.
           We missed some of the parts that I remember going through last year, such as block 18. You see, his great grandfather was placed in block 18 while he stayed in Auschwitz for I believe... 6 months? His great grandfather was a Polish political prisoner. The reason I remembered his grandfather so well, was because last year, when he took us to block 18, he told us how important that one particular building was to us. Now, block 18 is a memorial to the Hungarian Jews that perished in Auschwitz, and inside, you hear a beating heart, and you see pictures of people being herded away from their homes and ghettos, and you see their stories, and it's dark, and you are walking on glass, so you feel like everything around you is fragile. I remember it being put together very excellently, because it moved me to tears.
           As always, we visited the room of hair... ... I hate that room... To me, it is one of the most... heart-wrenching and in-your-face moments of all of Auschwitz. You walk into a room. It is about 30 yards long (perhaps less).  The entire left side is blocked by glass. Behind the glass... you see piles, upon piles... of human. Hair. At the front, it is low, but it raises up in elevation deeper into the case, which is at least 10 feet deep. That room? It contains 2 tons of human hair. Taken from women, children, and men. Mostly ponytails. ... The amount of hair in that room came from about... 50,000 people. They originally found 7 tons of human hair when they found Auschwitz... 2 tons was only a third of the hair that was found. And you must remember. This hair was used. It was made into rugs, textiles for uniforms, and other textiles. It was used, and sold. They made a profit from it. Oh, and Auschwitz was actually under insurance. That land and their factory was under insurance. Therefore, if it was bombed, the Nazis would've received money from it. It was insured by Allianz. The company's still around today...
           Auschwitz was an organized factory for death. The records they had of everyone were precise. They kept numbers for their statistics. Of ya know. Human lives. Being taken. They moved from Auschwitz I, which has been the only part I have visited before, and built Auschwitz II, aka Auschwitz-Birkenau, because their gas chamber and crematoria in one wasn't enough. Auschwitz I was a concentration camp converted from an old Polish military camp. The gas chamber was originally a bomb shelter. In the first gas chamber, they could kill 380 people in one day. When they built the second one, Birkenau... they could kill up to 5000 people. In. One. Day. And. They had to eventually start burning some of the bodies outside of the crematoria, because the crematoriums were not fast enough. They had four of them in Auschwitz II.
            The Nazis built Auschwitz II where six Polish villages used to be. They reused some of the supplies to build the barracks. Which, being wooden, were far worse than in Auschwitz I, and no, the first one's weren't that great of living conditions either. In the winter, it was just as cold in the barracks as it was outside. They would let the dead people stay in the barracks if they died there, so that way, they could have their rations. Some of the best jobs were jobs like being a musician, being a fellow officer, sometimes more brutal than the officers themselves, or cleaning the shit out of the "toilets," which were just holes. In a ditch. Why? Because had better living conditions. Not stuffed into some bunks. You had the chance to live.
            Out of the four crematoriums, three of them were destroyed by the Nazis when they realized that the Red Army was closing in on them; they wanted to destroy the evidence. But what happened to the one that was not destroyed? Well. It had been destroyed. Earlier. The campers had an uprising. Over the course of a year, the women would smuggle explosives from their factories. ... Over a year. They managed to smuggle just enough to destroy one of the crematoriums. Oh yes, they were punished. Hanged, if I remember correctly. And again, if I remember correctly, 400 other people were killed in response to this uprising.
            Through our tour, our guide kept asking us: How long do you think you would last? Of course, in Auschwitz I, everyone had a longer chance. Women, 3-5 months, men, half a year to a year. In Auschwitz two... A month was pretty lucky... a year, rare. Whenever he asked us this, though, I could only think of one photograph. It is one of the doctors standing in front of a line of men. You see a man at the front, white hair, walking cane. You see the doctor pointing his thumb to the right, and you have a confirmation of that by his shadow behind him. This doctor. He would look at the people in front of him, and just... flip his thumb. To the left. Or to the right. Left? Sent off to the camp. Right? ... Sent off to the gas chambers, being promised a shower. So you know. You know by this picture, that that man died. Whenever our guide asked us, how long would you last? I knew. I always thought to myself. I would see his hand point to the right. Who needs a tiny a girl with a limp to work in a camp, right?
           But, that's not the point. For these men, for the doctors who determined who was sent to death. It was a simple movement. A small flick of the hand. The face, the thought of their family. It meant nothing to them. And this wasn't all just Jews. Mostly it was, yes, but there were also the political prisoners, and the homosexuals, and the gypsies, and so many other people. They were all people. Who cares what they are, or how they live their life, or what they believe. They are people. Our Holocaust professor has taught us a saying: They went after the Jews, the Gypsies, the homosexuals, and the bicyclists. Everyone in the class asked: But why the bicyclists? She responded: Exactly.
           It's a shameful thing. We all asked, why the bicyclists, but not about the other three. They're all people, and it shouldn't matter at all, yet it does. That on its own was enough to show just how ingrained these separations are ingrained in our society. It's shameful.
            Our tour guide told us another interesting story. A while back, his coworker had a German tour group. When they stopped in front of the picture with the doctor pointing a man off to his death, one of the members of the tour group pointed out a fellow officer on the picture. He recognized his father. As a Nazi officer. Of course, the picture is black and white, and blurry, so they checked the archives to find that yes, this man's father was a Nazi officer in Auschwitz who was in that picture. This man did not know his father had been at Auschwitz, as an officer. He had no clue. He couldn't ask him about it either, because by then, his father had passed on. This picture was taken on the platform in Auschwitz II, where trains come in and drop off the prisoners before they are given an order.
           We walked on that platform. We went through some of the barracks. We saw the dozens of chimneys remaining from the other barracks, which stretched out for a terrifying distance. We saw the few brick barracks they had built on. We saw the remains of the crematoriums that the Nazis had destroyed, where people were sent to die. In the last two months that Auschwitz ran... it killed 400,000 people. In two months. Over the five years it ran, from 1940 to 1945... the total was nearly 1.5 million people. Yet, nearly a full third of that number comes from the last two months. When they knew that the Soviets were coming. When they wanted to try their hardest to kill off all of the Hungarian Jews that were being imported at that time.
            So that was Auschwitz. And yes, as much as it tore me apart to write all of this, I do plan on returning. Perhaps next summer, on June 14, 1940. That was the first import of prisoners to Auschwitz. 780 Polish political prisoners... Every year, survivors return to Auschwitz on this day to remember... in honor of those lost through this terrible trial of history. I have wanted to meet and talk with a survivor all of my life, and because I know this day would be truly powerful, I want to be there, that day. As far as I know, I may even end up studying the Holocaust for the rest of my life. People need to remember the dangers of ignorance, the dangers of hatred, the dangers of petty names, and the dangers of stereotypes. It's these small things that lead to such grand scale destruction, like Auschwitz. No one deserves to die because of such dehumanization, or worse, to live through them and be scarred for life.
           With my heart pounding, I think it's time to finish talking about Auschwitz. The visit was powerful as ever. We bid our tour guide good bye and left, heading back for Kraków. Back in Kraków, Monika suggested we make fajitas for dinner, and I Skyped with my friend Bryce and then my mom. Although, my Skype session with my mom was cut short when Monika came to my room and said: Fajitas! Yeah, no more was necessary. Although, we had to go pick up our Budapest friend Maya so that she could join in on the scrumptiousness. So Nate and I made extra fajita stuff, and then we had some delicious fajitas when Maya and Monika came back. Afterwards, we headed out to the E. Wedel restaurant. E. Wedel is one of Poland's well-known and wonderful chocolate companies. So this restaurant is dedicated to sweet goods. And oh goodness, that night made up every bit for the previous night. We were all dying of laughter. I could hardly breathe, and my cheeks hurt. I had tears in my eyes. It was wonderfully fun. My lime, raspberry, and strawberry sorbet with fresh strawberries, kiwis, and melon was phenomenal. Oh gosh. How I do adore fruit. I also had a cup of hot chocolate with cinnamon in it. Oh, when I say hot chocolate, I mean, basically, melted chocolate (with some milk, I guess). Although, the chocolate was too bitter in my taste. The cinnamon parts of it made it delicious, though. So yes, that was a phenomenal evening.
            We headed home after that, and that was it for my evening! Except for the fact that I ended up Skyping until 3:40 in the morning. Such a bright idea on my part, eh? (:
           This morning, I slept in as late as I could. Which, unfortunately, my body would not permit to be too late. Even though I had covered the windows. Ah well! I relaxed, Maya came over, and then we went to meet up for the Nowa Huta tour.
            ... Guys. If you are ever in Kraków. Take this "Crazy Guides" tour. They are epic. You see. You get to travel around in old cars. For example, we had two Trabant limousines, one Fiat, and then some epic old Van, which was literally plushed red on the inside. Oh yeah, we found out that Van was a party van... for bachelor parties... And they played the stripper music while we were in it (aka, really up-beat pop music, but still, the stripper CD). Oh yes. The van did have a pole in it. You could smell and see the burning fuel from each car. Oh, old car fun! One of the Trabants was from 1984, and another from 1964. They looked exactly the same minus the paint jobs. No competition meant no need for improvements in those times in Poland, yeah?! :D Although, these cars are still bigger than a Polish Maluch. Our drivers, the tour guides. Oh, were they crazy! They would zoom ahead, and spin the wheel harshly, and drive all crazy. Which is fitting for the name of the tour. And it made sense with the cars. But it must've looked hysterical on the roads, watching these old-ass cars, driving around like lunatics.
            They were fun to listen to and talk with, though! Excellent English, for all of them. But anyways, the point of this tour was Nowa Huta, a city built right outside of Krakow as a gift to Krakow, from Stalin. It was meant to be the PERFECT Communist city, and an example for the world. It's built in a half-circle shape. The distance from homes to work is perfect. It's all cheaply built, meant to last sixty years, because the area went from nothing to a factory, steel-based town in ten years. All of the buildings were originally white, grayed by the smoke columns. All of the apartments and accessories within them were essentially the same. There was absolutely nothing in the shops in the 80s because the economy was shit. Yet you had to wait in ridiculous lines to get up and hear, oh, we have nothing. You might have had the money, but it was essentially useless, as there was nothing to buy. You would have to wait for two or three weeks to buy a laundry machine, and longer for a car, and even with those cars, you'd have to buy two to make one successful working one. Everything was controlled. Your job, your apartments, everything. If one person had a TV, everyone in the block would go there to watch it. People were supposed to be happy as hell workers in Nowa Huta, because who wouldn't want to live in a successful, industrial, Communist city? Yet, they tore down the walking Lenin statue in one of their squares the minute they had the opportunity. Apparently, this statue now wears a cowboy hat and holds a cigar. (Or perhaps that was a joke, but it makes me and many others happy!)
            While Communism did not support or like the idea of religion, they knew that restricting Poland, a 98% Catholic country, essentially, would just bring them unnecessary riots. So eventually, they were permitted to build a church, which is super symbolic. It's roof is shaped like a boat, and it's called the Ark, because it's meant to represent that one day, it will save them all from a flood of Communism. There are seven entries, like the seven something in Catholicism (sorry about my lack of knowledge there), and then the cross. Well, you see, in previous years, the citizens were permitted to put up a wooden cross in town, but three years later, it was torn down by Soviet Militia men. Oh, there were riots. So, what the architect did was make the cross a supporting beam of the church. So it couldn't be torn down without destroying the church! Genius!
            Our tour guides constantly referred to the Communists as Communist bastards. Such as when they were showing us the złoty from that time, the first two were some Communist people, so he was like: "Two Communist bastards, Kościuszko, Kopernikus," and I can't remember the last one. Ah, we all had shots with a chaser of a pickle! Oh, obviously, I didn't join in on the shot, but the pickle was delicious! We started our tour in "Stylowo," translated to Stylish. It's a popular/famous restaurant from Nowa Huta, and that's where he showed us some history via pictures. It was a very interesting part of the tour, because I learned quite a bit. Ah! And it featured one interesting anti-Soviet, propaganda piece. It's a caricature of a Soviet militia man, holding the sickle and hammer behind his back. So you have one picture on the left, of him from the front, and a second of him from the back, where you see the Communist sickle and hammer. On top, it says, "Obywatel wybór," which is essentially, "Citizen choice." Underneath the caricatures, it has written, "Ence-pence, w której ręce?" Essentially, that means, "Pick a hand." So, if you see where that is going, it's a very satirical piece of, "You can pick, but it won't make a difference!"
             So, very interesting and fun tour today! We came back, and Maya, Monika, Nate, and I all headed back to our apartment to pick a place to eat, and then we went to eat at said place called "Wesele." It was... not as reasonably priced as we had thought it would be, to be honest. Our stupid book lied. But ah well! The food ended up being good: I hate chicken stuffed with hazelnuts over a spinach in cream deal, with kluski on the side. So the food was good, our conversation was good, we headed home, played some Yahtzee, and Monika and Nate walked Maya back to the hotel to make sure she could get there so she would get on her train back to Budapest!
             Basically, for the most part, this weekend was wonderful! And tomorrow should be quite enjoyable as well! Though, I really should be working on some school stuff tomorrow, instead of running around and doing a ton of things, then taking my leisure time as relaxation time... Perhaps, I should also insure going to bed at a reasonable time, tonight! Dobra noc, moje kolegów!