Back in the UK!

We have touched down, and though it took a while to sort ourselves out at Gatwick, we are on the road back.

ETA Oakham 1830 hours

Snowing in Krakow

It is snowing in Krakow... time to be going home!

A Bohemian night out in Krakow

We ended our last full day of the trip with a Bohemian evening at a restaurant just off the main square in the city centre. The evening brought us a welcome lightening of tone after everything we had seen and heard that day, and everyone was soon in high spirits, as each course was interspersed with music and dance from a local group of artistes. They picked out some talent from our group (the most handsome and beautiful) to join them in some of their dances.

Delicious food and lively entertainment made it a perfect night out and spirits were high as we walked through the square once again to appreciate the beautiful surroundings and stopped for one more photograph. Then it was out to the tram line for our last journey on Krakow's excellent tram system back to the hotel for our last night...and packing for tomorrow's flight!

A tour of Schindler's Factory

We returned to Krakow for a guided tour round the Oskar Schindler Factory Museum. The Museum gives a fascinated explanation of Krakow from the outbreak of the war through to 1945, the treatment of its people and especially the 25% who were Jewish. Its use of visual material and artefacts is very full and excellently done. Our guide was a little difficult to follow as the spaces were cramped, and we found some of her speech hard to hear.

The Schindler material is a significant but in fact small part of what is shown. The use of German orders and the tableaux of home and work scenes brought home very powerfully the impact of war-time occupation, and the narrow border between life and death.

Auschwitz

This morning we were shown around the two largest camps in the Auschwitz complex: Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II – Birkenau. For more words you must ask one of the group, as this page cannot effectively summarise all that we saw and heard.

You can see photos here.

Bowling in Krakow

In the evening we went out again on the tram; this time it was fifteen stops to Krakow Plaza, a big entertainment centre where we enjoyed an hour and a half's bowling. Good fun for all, but the champion bowlers who wanted to explain lower scores complained of a slope that prevented them from achieving their usual quota of strikes.

Witnessing Nazi persecution

After lunch in the city centre, we walked to the Galicya Jewish Museum in the old Jewish quarter of Kazimierz. We were shown round in two groups by two enthusiastic student fellows of the Institute. The permanent exhibition 'Rediscovering Traces of Memory' is based on the photographic collection of Chris Schwarz, a British photographer who made it his mission to photograph and collect photographs of the people and places of the Jewish community in the region, as in so many places the communities have disappeared. Seeing the photographs of men and women enjoying life and then the few traces in stones and inscriptions of destroyed communities was tremendously effective and moving.

The highlight of our visit was our two-hour session with Mr Rezolowski. He was sixteen when he was captured for his part in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 and sent to Mauthausen Concentration Camp. With the aid of an interpreter he spoke to us of his experiences in the camp and its terrible regime. He then answered frankly all our questions about his experience and the effect it had on him. As a living tale of the survival of human spirit through appalling times his testimony held us gripped and left us with a profound emotional impact that we will not forget.