Auschwitz visit is not for the faint-hearted

Feb 8 2008 By Nicholas Craig

I SEE pickled cucumbers in an altogether new light. I have just returned from a week in and around Krakow, living life as a communist, being driven in a Trabant, visiting Nova Huta and seeing the horrors of Auschwitz, all in the company of a bizarre, larger than life guide intent on revealing the “real” Krakow.

My day in a communist flat included eating as Krakow citizens did in the 1970s – mainly pickled cucumbers, bread and a stodgy porridge mix – and experiencing the cold, unlovely surroundings of a typical day for large families during the 1970s.

We moved on to Nova Huta, an extraordinary district known as the ‘desert of blocks’. It is stultifyingly devoid of character, greenery or hope. The housing estate which appears to double as a fortress was, however, home to deeply religious people who fought for 20 years to win the right to have a church, and who joined forces with Solidarity to rail against communist doctrine. Such passion in the greyest of towns is remarkably uplifting.

Visiting Auschwitz is not for the faint-hearted. It is larger, bleaker and more heart wrenching than I had imagined. The sheer scale of it brings home the ruthlessness of the regime that mechanically killed six million people during the Holocaust, simply for who they were, not for any wrongdoing.

It has been a memorable week. It has given me time and space to reflect on the most brutal aspects of life while staying in a city which exudes old world charisma and the warmest of welcomes.

Tourism is a growing source of revenue and new ambition for Polish entrepreneurs. Given the irrepressible optimism of my idiosyncratic guide I believe it could be a winner.

Nicolas Craig is a partner at Watson Burton.