No, We Have NOT Fallen off the End of the Earth!

Sooo...if anyone out there is following this sojourn..we have not fallen off the flat end in Europe. We have been hindered and kindered and travel kerfuffled by internet difficulties. So..HELLO out there. Strangely intriguing is that internet access as well as news from home and surrounds is easier in far flung countries than in Europe.

Ok. Prague. Wow (again). There cannot be a more picturesque city with more Baroque architecture than is possible to see in the short timespan we had there. I fell in love again with the world in Prague but in the oldest sense possible, that of awe and wonder. It's the oldest city in Europe and the history we experienced was amazing which is more than I can say for the weather. Rain, cold, rain, cold, and ..ya, rain. As for food, well, we had the best hamburger we had for ages in a little rock n' roll bar there. I know, how gauche, but you have to realize that we have been eating ethnic food for a good long time now. I will not go on and on about Europe as I have about other countries as everything here is so church, church, city square, civilized. It's not the same as exploring the netherworld. As much as I love this civilizedness, I miss the grimy, unexpected at every turn, incredible journey, so far.

Dresden was a couple more days of bad weather but again, an amazing place. Our hostel was very funky and the old town was a wonderland of history. . the best part of it though was sitting down to huge hot sausages with mustard and bread and beer. Yes, I know, I am talking about food a lot but why not, for food here is almost everything....well, ok, everything if you must know.

To Poland..this is the hard part to put into words. We took a train out of Dresden to the border where we have to catch another train to Wroclaw (pronouced Vratswavf which is only the beginning of trying to communicate here)! Anyways, we jump on early in the morning so no food. The trains in Germany are efficient, comfortable and have nice food options on them but it all changes in no time as we board an old Polish train. No food, not modern, and all of a sudden (within 15 minutes of departing) we stop, and as time goes on we realize that we are not going anywhere for a good, long while. The nice young woman in the compartment next to us explains that she is embarassed of her country, Poland, but that this happens a lot. Apparently they are fixing the tracks. This is not all bad as it gives us an hour in which we jog into the little town, change money, buy kielbasa( there is no getting away from it here), cheese, crackers and chocolate and jog back to the train in plenty of time.

I don't know what to expect when we get to Wroclaw, all I know is that for all of the time I have been on this earth and spent time with my Polish grandmother, I have heard stories of life in Poland. I am an orphan (though late in life), and have no brothers nor sisters. I have relatives on my father's side but on my mother's side in Canada, they are very few and far between. So this meeting is auspicious.

We are 1.5 hours late into the station and I feel awful because I know my cousin is coming to get me. When we get off the train...there is Jadwiga and Maria, my mother's cousins come to meet me. Wow. And then Ivan says to me "look Shel, there's your family coming", I look around and see a man and a boy and think they are for me but further up the track I see 6 others coming down the platform with big smiles on their faces and determined love in their eyes. I smile and hold on to people I don't know as the knot in my throat nearly chokes me. I am home. I am loved. I am special. I am loved by people I know only by my heritage and the good and kind and loving thoughts my grandmother has imparted to me. It's almost too much but it's a good too much. Jadwiga, mom's cousin, and her family (2 big strapping guys, Rafal and Pchamak) live in another village and as we head along the road home we are gabbling away at eachother, them in Polish, me in English and it's difficult but ok. Rafal speaks very good english so he has been doing a lot of translating - poor guy, it's a never ending job. Maria's family lives in another town; she has 3 boys and one girl, Tomak, Bartek, Machek and Basia - who by the way is stunningly beautiful and wonderfully lovely.

The next day we head to the house that Rafal has been building for the past 4 years on the land where his grandfather's house was (his grandpa was my grandma's brother). We spend 3 days there with Jadwiga literally cooking from the minute she gets up till her head hits the pillow. I have never seen so much food in my life! We like to joke that we are being force-fed here and know what it must feel like to be a hog readied for slaughter. Polish have an expression that "The guest is like God", and we are treated so wonderfully here, I have never had such hospitality. Wladislav is Jadwiga's husband and he is genial and kind and constantly pouring someone a drink. Ivan and I took many walks through the village and marvelled at the old country way of life here, as though time stood still. This village and the others where the family live was occupied by the Germans in the war and the war still features prominently in all of their lives.

I have learned a lot about what happened to my extended family through this period and it's very tragic. Jadwiga's father was forced by the Germans to work in a German munitions plant through the war as slave labour. My grandmother always wondered what happened to her parents as she never knew. The family did not want to tell her as it would cause too much pain but they told me that her parents starved to death when the Germans drove everyone from the village as they were too old to walk and her brother was killed by the Ukrainians. So many stories here, only one of millions. I am overwhelmed by this and other things I find out. For instance, I have a distant cousin here who is a Polish movie star and a not so distant cousin who is a world champion skeet shooter. Another day a lady rides her bicycle into the yard and I look into the eyes of my mother! Francesca is another 2nd cousin, my mom passed in '98 and it's very disarming this meeting. She squeezes me as if I were going to lift off if she didn't hold me down. We then visit her mother, the 94 year old sister of my grandfather, who is the only one left. I am shocked and amazed when I sit next to her and gaze into the same face and eyes as my grandpa, the tears come falling and I am again on some strange journey. More people come, more cousins and husbands and brothers of cousins and on it goes. Holy Lord, but I do have a family!

Rafal takes us to Auschwitz- Birkenau one day and there are no words for this. You can feel the sorrow in this place. It's still raw. 1.5 million jews met their death in this hell. In the barracks is a room that runs the length and there are tons and tons of hair which the Germans would cut and sell for cloth making - cloth that would be made into German uniforms! Another room holds 86,000 pairs of shoes taken from the victims. Another room holds thousands of pairs of baby and children's shoes only. Your throat constricts and it's so big that you can't even cry. The living conditions in this camp were so grim that many did not even make it to a death sentence for they perished from starvation, overwork, disease, heatstroke, hypothermia and on and on... Trains arrived day and night from all points in Europe. Jews were shipped from Italy, Greece, France, even as far away as Norway for extermination. The Final Solution.

There were so many people killed here that they had a system whereby they would gas approx. 1,500 people at a time, a platform would then raise the bodies to the ovens and the bodies would be disposed of by cremation. There were also burning sites on the grounds as the ovens could not hold all the bodies. In the last 2 months that the camp was operating, 200, 000 jews were killed. Unbelievable. It is draining and leaves you reeling as you walk out the gates and back to a free Poland. How they have suffered.

We visit the town where John Paul II, the last pope was born and it's like visiting a movie star town. His picture is plastered everywhere and the house where he was born has a line up around the block. Only in Poland eh? From there we visit a mountain town called Zakopane, it's like going to Banff! I am so amazed by the diversity, the beauty, the spirit of the people here. I think Poland is my biggest surprise on this trip. I am impressed, and moreso because it's the land of my ancestors.

We are in Krakow now and have been for the past 4 days on our own. What a magnificent place. Krakow was not destroyed in the war as the Germans were in residence here and the Russians came to liberate before the Germans had a chance to destroy it, which was not the case in Warsaw, where nearly everything was bombed to hell. We love this city. I will write a whole blog on it later but for now we must get ready to head back to the village tomorrow, spend some time with the family again (oh no, more food)!!!! and then we are off to London, the last leg of our trip before we head home.