Dreams and nightmares

KRAKOW: In one of Poland’s oldest cities, the scars of recent history are still in evidence, but Jill Turton finds that’s part of its fascination.
KrakowKrakow
Krakow

There’s quite a boom in city breaks to eastern Europe: Tallinn, Riga Prague, Warsaw and they’re not just the destinations for the hard drinking stag-do crowd, but affordable weekends in less familiar capitals.

Krakow has its fair share of castles and culture, surprisingly good food and atmospheric old bars, but the city has a whole other dimension: its agonising place in the history of the Second World War. The Krakow ghetto, the elimination of over 200,000 Jews, the uplifting story of Oskar Schindler and, above all, 45 miles from Krakow, a destination that needs no elaboration: Auschwitz-Birkenau. They are all here, all disturbing, but essential.

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The pleasures of Krakow need to be shared with the pain of its past. At 4 Lipowa Street is the Oskar Schindler Factory Museum, a world-class attraction that tells the harrowing story of Krakow under Nazi occupation. Opened in 2010, it houses not the factory where Schindler produced his enamel pots and pans for the Wehrmacht, but his administrative headquarters and one of the locations for the Spielberg film Schindler’s List. You can see his office, his desk, his telephone and tellingly a photograph of the man surrounded by his workers.

Schindler’s Ark, the book, and Schindler’s List, the film, introduced millions to the extraordinary story of the German businessman who slowly became aware of the terrible brutality of the Nazi regime and went on to save the lives of some 700 Jews by employing and sheltering them in his factory.

The museum is a journey through time, beginning in 1939 with the last joyful summer before the war, Cracovians happily swimming in the open-air pool and then the gradual descent into the horror for both Polish and Jewish inhabitants under German occupation.

One of many haunting exhibits is a photograph of Professor Tadeusz Lehr-Splawinski splendidly dressed in a cape of ermine and his chain of office as Rector of Jagiellonian University. On the wall opposite is a photograph of him after incarceration in Sachsenhausen – a shabby, dejected figure in a crumpled raincoat and battered hat, a proud man diminished. He was part of Hitler’s programme of “cultural genocide” in which schools, universities, museums and libraries were all closed, books destroyed and 184 academics arrested and imprisoned with the eventual aim of denying young Poles an education. Besides Schindler, the other must-see areas of Krakow are Kazimierz, the old Jewish Quarter; Rynek Glowny, the huge market square in the Old Town and between the two, Wawel Castle and cathedral.

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As well as state rooms, treasury, armoury and an Oriental collection, the Wawel currently houses Leonardo da Vinci’s Lady with the Ermine, here while the Czartoryski Museum is closed for restoration. The castle was the home of Polish kings for 500 years, most of them buried in Wawel Cathedral. Don’t even think of trying to get to grips with St Queen Jadwiga, King Zigmund or the diminutive and delightfully named Wladyslaw the Elbow-High, instead drink in the Cathedral’s glorious starlit ceiling and its black and gold gothic excess.

Horses and gleaming white carriages line the Old Market Square of the Old Town touting for the tourist zloty. At the centre of the square is the 700-year-old Cloth Hall housing an arcade of craft and souvenir stalls selling amber jewellery, carved wooden ornaments, sheepskins and varying degrees of tourist tat.

At the north west corner of the square is St Mary’s Basilica with its striking altarpiece and tower where every hour, on the hour, from the highest window, a live bugler plays an unfinished melody in memory of the 13th-century watchman who tried to warn the city of the approach of the Tartar army and was struck mid-note, by an arrow to his throat.

After a fill of history and culture, the Old Town is a great place to sample the best of Polish cuisine. Wierzynek is the oldest and smartest restaurant in Krakow – the place where presidents and prime ministers are dined. Wesele and its sister restaurant Kogel Mogel are less pricey and delightful with beautiful painted interiors and a menu of Polish classics like grilled Oscypeck, a smoked sheep’s milk cheese from the Tatra mountains; “soured” soup of fermented rye, sausage and quail’s egg served in a hollowed out bread bun; pierogi – featherlight dumplings filled with meat – and the famous bigos – hunters’ stew made with sauerkraut mushrooms and Polish sausage and to drink it’s invariably vodka – the clear, fiery stuff, or gentler ones flavoured with quince, cherry or my new favourite bison grass.

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From the Old Town it’s a brisk 15 minute walk or cheap taxi ride to Kazimierz, the old Jewish Quarter. At its height, the area was home to some 64,000 Jews with a rich cultural and religious life. It was destroyed first by the Nazi regime and later by the communists. Today there are no more than 100 Jews living in Krakow but, having been derelict for years, Kazimierz is reinventing itself as the Bohemian quarter and a popular Festival of Jewish Culture each spring.

Night time is when the bars come alive. Dark, candlelit and artistically shabby, take your pick from the original tattered old Singer, whose tables come complete with Singer sewing machines, the moody, candlelit Alchemia or the solidly bohemian Les Coleurs.

If you have more than a weekend then take a day out to visit the UNESCO World Heritage Wieliczka Salt Mine or the ski resort of Zacopane in the Tatra mountains with its wonderful collection of wooden houses and churches or book a night or two in the charming Polish manor house 15 miles south of Krakow Dwor Sierakow (www.dworsierakow.pl). Go to Poland. For a country so often invaded and occupied, it’s good to savour its blossoming.

Getting there

Jill Turton flew courtesy of Wizzair from Robin Hood Airport in Doncaster to Katowice as a guest of Polish National Tourist Office.

For a full list of accommodation, events and other useful information go to www.poland.travel.

Ryanair also flies direct to Krakow from Leeds Bradford International Airport.

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