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Poland has never been on the top Europeran vacation list with Italy, Greece or France, but this once poor Communist-block country is rich in its unique periods of architecture, patriotic culture and its people's unquenchable spirit.
Despite a long history of little freedom and independence from Russia, Germany and other countries, Poles have always been bold and proud of their challanged heritage and are a people determined to overcome; most are Roman Catholic and very spiritual.
I got to experience this wonderous land in a summer student exchange program from the University of Connecticut. For six weeks about ten of us lived and studied in its romantic college town , Krakow (Cracow)- a medieval city born in the eleventh-century. Jagiellonian University was founded in 1364 and is the second oldest in Europe. It is probably most famous for scientist Nicholaus Copernicus, who concluded that the sun is the center of the solar system.
U-conn has organized these trips for years, which have no age limit and don't require its participants to be enrolled there or any college. Many of the students and non-students, from different states, had relatives in Poland. Some knew good or little Polish but is was not required. I had just graduated from college, and my father was born and grew up in Warsaw, so I knew the language fairly well.
Although we traveled quite extensively, we spent most of our time in Krakow, where the majestic centuries-old architecture suffered little damage from WW II Nazi raids. Local castles, museums, entertainment and historic sites are abundant, and the town has the same feel as Paris or Vienna, just on a smaller scale.
Because few commercial airlines (such as LOTT) fly directly to Poland, our group met at New York's JFK Airport and flew to Frankfurt, from where we took a smaller plane to Warsaw. There we met our group leader, a graduate student at the Jagiellonian University. We traveled by bus to Krakow, in the south of Poland. Here we paired off as roommates at one of the school's dormitories, known as the Piast. We would spend our last week sightseeing the nation's capitol.
For five weeks, along with various day trips, we took different Polish classes, as well as study the land's history, culture and economic state. Many came for college credit; others, as I, simply for the joy of traveling, exploring our family heritage and visiting relatives we've never met.
Krakow, once the capitol itself over hundreds of years ago, is charming and relatively small. It is centered by a town square with open markets, restaurants, ice cream stands and discos. One of the most famous sites is the massive St. Mary's Cathedral, which looks over one corner of the square - known as the Rynek Glowny. The inside was used in a scene from the film "Schindler's List". Every hour a small statue atop the cathedral plays an unfinished trumpet call from a centuries-old invasion, when a real trumpeter on that spot was cut down by an enemy speer.
Perhaps the greatest town landmark is Wawel Castle on the Vistula River, where Kings once ruled when Krakow was Poland's royal capitol. It is open for tourists.
We visited the little beautiful village town of Zakopane, nestled in the high Tatre Mountains near the Slavak Republic border. Here skiing is popular, and visitors bargain for local authentic canes, swords and sweaters. Pope John Paul II skiid here in his youth.
Another day trip was to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the sobering and horid Nazi concentration camp, today also open for tourists; 1. million mostly Jews were killed here, and a German factory ID. had saved my father’s life in Warsaw from meeting his fate here during the war. After passionately and patriotically fighting the Germans and Russians in the short-lived 1944 Warsaw Uprising, the Nazis took him as a P.O.W. to Germany. There he met my mom near the end of the war.
Warsaw has since been somewhat of a miracle city. Much of the old city, demolished by the 1939 Blitzkrieg, was rebuilt to its original style from saved blueprints. It also has a central town square called the Stare Miasto (old town). As in Krakow and other cities, street trams are Warsaw’s major means of transportation and are red and white – the colors of the Polish flag.
For almost fifty years was a poor Communist ruled country, where the Zloty was considered soft currency against the strong American dollar, saving for special meats or a TV was often a long struggle, and the black market was a lure for both locals and tourists. Before western products were more available, various PEWIX shops offered bargains on American and German goods for the highly valued dollar, and the secret trade for more Zloty went further than the official rate at the bank. Today the average exchange rate is four zloty to every dollar.
We didn’t make it to the Baltic shipyard city of Gdansk – home of Solidarity and its leader Lech Wallessa, who went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize and become president. Today, thanks in part to him, and the fall of the Soviet empire, Poland is a republic and part of western Europe, as its people have always wanted to be. Poland’s economy is strong and competitive, and this country is now a member of NATO. Poland will always be a soul stirring land.
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