[jim]

Originally Posted by MoMo

Thanks, Jim,

it's good to know that someone is minding the store!

By the way, did you read the post about how cheap those DaGostini 1.72 diecasts are? I could have brought back dozens of them if I hadn't been loaded down with the excellent Polish vodka in all its forms! Unfortunately I forgot about the " No Liquids In Hand luggage" rule, so all the Polish anti-terrorist security boys confiscated the lot! How could I have been so dumb? I always roll bottles in shirts and towels and pack them in my suitcase.

It must have been the pollution from the River Vistula which fried my brain. I hope that all those Polish guys had a good party!

Ah good old rip off Britain. I bet its great to be back. On the bright side at least the Vodka was cheap so the loss wouldn't be too much.

I often wonder what happens to all the stuff they confiscate but then again Nah! I know what they do with it. Same thing they do with lost luggage.

[MoMo]

I often wonder what happens to all the stuff they confiscate but then again Nah! I know what they do with it. Same thing they do with lost luggage.

All lost luggage goes to Luggage Heaven. Does this mean that my vodka will go to Vodka Heaven?

I'm so lucky...there's a club down the road called " Vodka Heaven", so I'm sure to find my vodka there......RIGHT!

[swoop]

MoMo, I often remark how lucky people are in the old country.When it comes to tripping around the continent at those prices, life couldn't possibly better be. I hope, when on vacation later this year, I'll be able to take a side trip to Spain from N.Ireland. Last time I was home, just missed a cheap trip to Turkey. So continue to enjoy, wish I were that close to enjoy all the opportunities at your disposal. CHEERS

[MoMo]

Dear Swoop,

If you are arranging a shedule for your trip, check out the cheap airlines. They post booking arrangements 6 months prior to the take-off date. The very first seats are the cheapest. They don't send you a ticket, just an email confirmation which you have to produce on the day together with your passport.

Remember Guys, these are the cheapest airline tickets in Europe so if you're planning a trip, book early....6 months in advance. Also remember, you have to fly on that particular plane so if you don't use it, you lose it! The tickets are transferrable to another date if you pay a fee, but I think that it's expensive and has to be arranged well in advance.

Check out the web on these deals if you are planning to visit Europe, you'll be surprised at how many places you can visit at a budget price! But also remember that quite often the airports which the Budget airlines use are not the regular airports for the major cities, and that you sometimes have to pay about E 10 for onward travel to your destination by train or bus. Still well worth the hassle of making all the prior arrangements when you consider the ticket prices of the regular airlines!

This is a good way to get around to see Europe, and it's also great fun planning your trip this way.

MoMo

[swoop]

Thanks MOMo, Hope the wee Teddys are your team.

[swoop]

Thanks MOMo for the info, duly noted.

[MoMo]

Dear Swoop,

My father was a life-long Rangers fan. He had a season ticket and went to every home game. My eight uncles from both sides of the family were Rangers fans too.

I was a Third Lanark fan. When they went bust in the early 60s, I could not transfer my support to any other team, so I just decided to support very football team in Scotland. This is a survival technique which has served me well.

MoMo

[MoMo]

Now that I've had a week to reflect on my trip to Crakov, I'd like to make a few observations for those of you who've never been there.

Most of you probably have a black and white mental image of the former Eastern Bloc looking something like this :



But, in fact, it looks more like this :



This is the cathedral in the main square. The late Pope John Paul preached here. He was archbishop of Crakov.

The whole town of Crakov is on the up. Everywhere you look, buildings are being renovated, the pavements are being reset and new shopping malls are adding buildings! The poles have taken to Capitalism like ducks to water.

Everywhere are signs of Western products on hoardings and trams. The West wants to sell and the Poles want to buy.

Wandering around the centre of town is very pleasant. Although the traffic is crazy, it is discouraged in the centre of town, which has a distinct character and dates from the 13 Century. Havel Castle is the seat of Polish Kings when Crakov was the capital. It is a must to visit and I found it to be quite Shakespearean in age and decor. it could well serve as a backdrop to a production of Hamlet. It is packed with additions to the original castle and has a 16th Century appearance. Standing above the town it is bounded on its south side by the River Vistula and by The Kazimir district which will seem familiar to all of you who saw the movie ' Schindler's List '. From the castle you can look over the river towards the area where Oscar Schindler established his metalware factory.

The Kazimir is the centuries old district where King Kasimir established a Jewish town, and where many of the scenes from ' Schindler's List' were filmed. The district is somewhat run down, and is being restored here and there but it is essentially the same as it was in Victorian times and in the 1940s when the Jewish population was rounded up and marched over the Vistula to an industrial district which was transformed into a Ghetto.

The Kasimir seemed haunted to me. It is a very quiet area where the lives of so many people suddenly came to a halt, leaving a vacuum which the new Poland has not caught up with. The ghosts are too strong while the buildings are exactly as they were in 1945 when the war ended. Only the street-level shops have changed allowing some new life to emerge, but the buildings hold their own private resonances.

North of the Kasimir you will find a lively district which contains the University and a huge encompassing park known as the Planty. This park surrounds the main tourist area which is hardly surprising because it is founded on the filled in moat. Here you will find all sorts of cafes and clubs and pubs which cater for all tastes. It is a vibrant area full of good cheer and signalling a new life which has grown since the fall of Communism.

Trams dash madly everywhere, but they now have to compete for road-room with the growing swarms of cars which is why the Crakovians are busy digging up all the intersections to run the trams under the crossroads and divert the cars above the tramlines. I love tramcars ( streetcars to you Americans ). They weave their way down the winding streets of Crakow and seem at home with the cobblestones and buttressed buildings. They are all shapes and colours, and their overhead powerlines remind me of my childhood in Glasgow where the tram was once the queen of the streets.

On the third day of our visit, my wife and I decided that we would take one of the organised trips to Auschwitz Birkenov to bear witness to the scene of the Nazis worst atrocity.

It takes about an hour and 20 minutes to get to Auschwitz by coach. The journey takes you through a countryside which has almost been transformed by new buildings. It seems that just about every Pole has built a new house on the foundations of their old ones, or that they have built a new house beside the abandoned shell of their old houses. The effect of this buiding frenzy is a bewildering array of styles. Some moments you could swear that you were in a Swiss village full of chalets, the next you seem to be in the home counties in England! You often pass sagging wooden log buildings by the road which bear sad witness to the rate of progress which has overwhelmed this country.

Auschwitz. Arriving there you feel that you are in a world within a world. As you pass buildings which were once used to make munitions, but are now abandoned and crumbling, you get the feeling that this area is preserved as it was. You also feel that it will always be this way, imagining the bricks wearing away and the wire rusting and parting from the wartime concrete posts which form one of the iconic, and horrifying, images of this area.

At the gates Maria, our guide, explains that we are entering a national memorial. Her face wears an expression of permanant shock. She is young, but has the demeanour of a fifty year old. As you turn a corner you are greeted by the words which crown the gate : "ARBEIT MACHT FREI" ( Work Brings Freedom ), and you know that you have arrived.

Each building parades its own horror. Maria leaves nothing to you. You are stripped of any delusions. This building is where .... This building is where.... The artefacts and images go on and on. You are shocked; you are numb. A woman weeps and has to leave. A man stares at a glass urn of ashes, riveted to the spot. I turn and see a glass case with a child's broken doll, its head skewed to one side. I gulp and almost lose it. I must stay calm. I must stay the course.

Slowly, shock and sadness turn to anger. I must bear witness.

The rooms filled with suitcases, each bearing a name and address, waiting for the owners who have long departed. The heaps of empty cans of Zxyclon B. The acres of human hair shorn from dehumanised victims before they are gassed. The room full of pots and pans, no longer needed.

This is the building where Doctor Mengele carried out his 'medical' experiments. Hearing it makes it all real. Seeing it makes it tangible.

We reach the last building where the political prisoners and the captured spies and the failed plotters were executed. Memorial candles burn here constantly. Every country in Europe has someone to remember who was executed here.

I look round at the wire and brick death trap and we board the coach for Birkenow.

When we reach the major camp, it is almost dusk. The dull redness of the skies and the endless vista of the enclosed camp induce a feeling of haunting, dream-like stillness. The central tower with its arched railway entrance stands high over the flatness of the camp area. It is a dark sentinel which has become one of the enduring images of this place. Under its arch a million and a half people came and never left.

The straight, shining rail which splits into two spurs runs directly down the centre of the camp, splitting it in two. A concrete apron to the left is where the people from the transports were made to line up so that the selection could be made. Those who were to be worked to death on one side; those who were to die at once on the other.

At the bottom of the camp are the remains of the gas chambers and crematoria. Beyond this is an area which is enclosed for all time. The ashes of a million and a half people are here. No one must enter. No one must disturb the awful silence.

We visit the reconstructed huts. They are facsimilies. The retreating Germans blew up the gas chambers, the crematoria and set alight the prisoners' huts. I can't help thinking that the burned out brick foundations are closer to the truth than any attempt at reconstruction. However, people want to see.

Back to Crakov for a meal then, next day, a last day of sight-seeing and shopping.

Although the facts of the Nazi empire of slavery and death were not widely known as the war was being fought, they have come to be the final justification for prosecuting the conflict. The irony of this goes beyond mere theology and enters the realm of physics.

The next time some revisionist theorist demands to know why a war was fought with such ferocity against the Nazis, let them know of this justification : it put an end to the evil that created this place and scarred the world for all time.





MoMo

[djjeffhall]

Thanks MoMo.

[jim]

1.5 million in just one camp! How. How could humans do this to others. This touchs on another thread about racism. This is where extreme racism leads us. Sadly the human race has learnt nothing from this. just take a look around the world since then, it still goes on. You leave me in sombre mood Mo.