Schindler's Factory

As we prepared to leave Krakow, we found ourselves regretful that we hadn't planned more time in this lovely city.  I've characterized the "look" of the city as "shabby chic".  In the parts of the city we visited, there's still an element of the "olive drab" demeanor I associate with  the Communist era (rightly or wrongly).  Still, there was a definite charm that exuded from the buildings but, more importantly, from the people.  Obviously, I'm generalizing.  We found the people of Prague to be much more taciturn.  It seemed to us that the people of Krakow were more solicitous and pleasant.

The night we returned from Auschwitz, we decided to take a walk around the Old City.  We hadn't really had anything to eat all day, so we went looking for a good restaurant (particularly since our first meal in Krakow was so disappointing).  Cindy had a taste for pierogis, so we looked for a Polish-centric restaurant.  We found a lovely place right on the square of the Old City Center.  Cindy ordered cheese pierogis; I ordered sausage and mushroom.  They were delicious.  We plowed through them in no time whatsoever.  The restaurant itself was charming, so we spent  time looking at their Christmas decorations. 

From dinner, we wandered just a bit further and found a lovely place to have dessert.  It was the kind of place that reminded me of the Konditorei I used to frequent when I lived in Stuttgart.  We each ordered different things.  It was glorious.  Unfortunately, I didn't get good photos of what these beautiful desserts looked like, but you can click on the highlighted word "konditorei" above and see for yourself the kind of thing I'm referencing.  It. Was. Heaven!

We waddled  back to our digs and settled in for the evening. 

Our last day in Krakow was a little stressful.  We decided to check out Schindler's Factory, so we found a tourist office to get directions.  We took a streetcar and got off at an intersection deeper in to the city.  Frankly, we were a bit turned around.  We probably took too long to get there, but we did eventually find our destination.

I think I was expecting a simpler set up that what we found.  The exterior of the factory including photos of Schindler's people. 

 I looked for a photo of someone I remembered from the film, and then I saw this one of Helena Hirsz.

The clerks at the factory were more like the Czechs than the other Poles we met.  We paid for our tickets and then took off, each on our own ways. 

The tour started with a film which included testimony of people who had worked at the factory.  This film was actually quite long, and I didn't feel I could stay for the whole thing.  At this point my inner control freak took over and I reminded Cindy that we couldn't stay all that long. 

The factory was really more about Krakow under the Nazis than it was an homage to Schindler's factory and his mission to save Jews.  This was interesting and well documented. 

My concern with this site was how densely packed it was.  There was so much at every station, it was hard to comprehend its totality.  It wasn't until we reached the end of the tour on the top floor of the factory that we saw references to Krakow's Jews (beyond the film), or for that matter, to Schindler.  Visitors to the factory, walk through a re-creation of ghetto living quarters.  There were plaster statues of people crowded in to those ghetto rooms.  From there, visitors find their way in to Schindler's office.  Across from Schindler's desk is a display of the enamelware crammed into a plexiglass cube. 

I had tried to time  my tour through the factory at what I thought was a fairly quick pace.  I came out on the ground-level, looking for Cindy.  I walked around for a while, and then finally I hear, "Where WERE you?"  Cindy popped out from nowhere.  She indicated she had been waiting for about an hour.  I felt so guilty having prodded her to make quick work of the tour.  It was curious to think that we had to follow essentially the same path, but we never saw each other until that moment.

We made it back to the trolley with much greater ease than we had getting to our initial destination.  We hightailed it to our hotel and then trotted off to the train station.  The clerk told me that my tickets were wrong--they had the incorrect departure time listed.  Fortunately, the correct departure time was later than the stated time. 

Our train to Berlin headed first to Warsaw.  It was nice to leave while it was still light because we could see the countryside.  We shared the compartment with an interesting couple.  The man was from Cyprus, and probably in his mid-40s.  His companion was a young woman (early 20s) from either Russia or the Ukraine.  The man was very solicitous and assisted us on quite a few occasions.  He bought Cindy a coffee, and helped us with our bags.  He was a real mensch. 

We had to leave at the first Warsaw station.  We had a moment of confusion thinking we should stay on the same track, but fortunately there was a Polish man who was also headed to Berlin and realized that we needed to be on the next platform.  We made it with ease, which was a relief. 

Our next travel companion was a pleasant young woman.  She gave us her card and told us some interesting facts about her life and left us well before we made it to the German border.

We decided to have dinner on the train.  We decided to have pierogis again, and we weren't disappointed.  Our train arrived in Berlin before midnight.  We caught a cab without difficulty and headed to our hotel.

It all worked out great.