Diary Travelogues | Eastern Europe | 1994 | September 25 to 27 | Part 9 – Poland

Hi Friends,

This is the ninth and final (phew 😰) part of my 1994 travels through Eastern Europe: Poland - Belarus - Russia - Estonia - Latvia - Lithuania - Poland. The planning and creation process has been a journey in itself. I'm becoming more efficient at managing a project like this and the time just vanishes - poooof! There's no notion of work, it's a pleasure and I just follow my own schedule and inclinations.

If you are just coming on board, here are links to earlier parts in this series on Eastern Europe 1994:
Part 1: Poland | Part 2: Poland | Part 3: Poland | Part 4: Belarus | Part 5: Russia | Part 6: Russia | Part 7: Estonia | Part 8: Latvia & Lithuania

If you'd like to switch to a different series of travel writings:
The Levant | 1996 | Egypt, Jordan & Lebanon

If you have been following along from the beginning, welcome back! I have really enjoyed immersing myself in these past experiences of Mr. Barge 🌝 and I hope that a sense of this comes across to you, the reader. Many thanks for your attention and for reading along 🔆 🔆 🔆

🚣

^{An overview of my travels between 28 August - 27 September, 1994. The red line is my route.}

Sunday, 25 September 1994 | 06.15 | Train Warsaw – Kraków (Poland)

It's all coming to an end now and I can see Western Europe looming. I've decided to give myself one final treat – treat? Kraków and Auschwitz! The train from Suwałki got me in to Warsaw at 5.07am and I slept a little on the way. The train to Kraków - which is about the same distance from Warsaw as Suwałki, takes just 2 and a half hours and costs 185,000 złoty. It is the fast train to Bucharest.

...later | 12.00 | Kraków (Poland)

It was the fast train indeed, and didn't stop even once, averaging over 100 km per hour. I'm in a pizzeria, tired but clean. The 'Hotel Studenski' is relatively expensive. I'll spend today in Kraków and go to Auschwitz tomorrow.

I'm going to try and sleep in a park for an hour or so as it's sunny, otherwise I might find myself grumpy again. I had wanted to talk about my inner, arrogant attitude towards other backpackers, but I'm too weary. Almost finished Crime & Punishment!

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Monday, 26 September 1994 | 09.25 | Train Kraków - Auschwitz (Poland)

See, I just can't stay in one place very long! I'm beginning to get pissed off yet again with the way in which people think they have a licence to rip you off. At least fucking own up when you are caught and drop it! That's probably why Kraków, although a nice enough town, isn't one I found nearly as pleasant as those in the Baltics. Tourists absolutely everywhere, come to see the concentration camp and because it's a nice, pretty town and not too far from home!

Yesterday I just wandered around and slept in a park for 2 hours. It's so sunny compared to Lenningrad, and still late Summer, early Autumn. It's all anti-climatic now, the places, my emotions. Why see cities at all, I ask myself? Some are pretty, but so many are alike in their 'prettiness'. I know I wanted to travel East to get away as far as possible – obviously didn't get far enough. Now having returned from the East, I'm finding Poland to be too much in step with what I wanted to get away from in the first place. And I've no hash either!

Had a few beers last night and listened to street musicians, one melancholic trumpeter in particular. Slept by 10pm and had a troubled sleep. My limbs were aching, and in my dreams I was caught up with some far-right group that had triumphed in the civil war. I was somehow close to the leader but I hated it and was vehemently opposed on the inside. There was a girl involved too, a bit like 1984¹. I awoke before its conclusion in a troubled state of mind.

...later | 13.00 | Auschwitz (Poland)

The atmosphere is powerful. I try as much as possible to be alone. Very glad I came today and not yesterday (Sunday). The groups and couples just keep coming! How can you visit a place such as this and feel anything unless you are quite quite alone? Do you have to exclaim to someone “how horrible?”

^{images: source 1 source 2}

I wonder how genuine my own feelings are. On the way here I leaned out of the window and tried to picture in my mind the Jews on the trains as they arrived, their last few sights of freedom. It really is moving, much more so than Dachau². I'm glad there is no obvious attempt to evoke emotion through superfluous words and labels. It speaks for itself – the rooms full of old boots, cases, artificial limbs, utensils, clothes, even hair; the orders from various SS factions, the death of hope!

I was looking at a wall of photographs of exterminated prisoners (mostly Jewish) and wondering if these photos had been taken after capture. I noticed one who was born on 11.11.11, the day of WWI armistice. Ironic! Murdered on 12.12.41.

So many people just walking through. It's true what Gabriel³ said, people need to be shown and have it spelt out (me too!). But who learns? It's ok to condemn it all now that we live in a 'free society', but would people oppose similar oppression if it came under another name? They'd be too scared! Scared for their own lives and security. As Dostoevsky said: the greatest criminals are those to whom everything is permissible!

Looking at some of the tourists taking photographs of themselves with the wall of executed prisoners in the background - some even making small jokes, I wonder if they actually realise what they are seeing. Of course I can't realise it either, in that it can only ever be abstract reality to me, but I can try and feel and that means not being flippant - for that is what their behaviour amounts to. Elderly German tourists as well? Fucking hell!
<sub>1. 1984; the distopic novel by George Orwell
2. Dachau, another concentration camp near Munich, Germany which I had visited in 1991, when I was living in Bavaria
3. The 'knowledgable' Argentinian I met in St. Petersburg and who was on the same train to Tallinn.</sub>

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Tuesday, 27 September 1994 | 00.00 | on Train, Wrocław - Zgorzelec (Poland)

We leave in 12 minutes and I'm quite pissed off with all this blatant fucking ripping-off! It came to a head earlier this evening in Kraków when I ordered a plate of french-fries and a coffee. The man took his time over it, which I was prepared to accept. He then wanted 40,000 złoty when the menu said it would cost 24,000. He wasn't aggressive or anything when I said 'no way', and he tried to tell me that prices had gone up just that morning. Even on the train from Kraków the fellow tried charging me an extra 5000 złoty for the beer by swapping price-tags. When in Warsaw, the girl wanted a good 60,000 extra and pretended she had made a mistake when I objected. This is what Capitalism is all about – a licence to rip rip rip people off – the oafs in Western Europe even accept it with smiles and consider it 'improper' to object! Anyway, I couldn't even explain to the guy in the cafe. He took the fries back and I paid 15,000 złoty for the coffee (less the milk), which was priced at 12,000! Of course it's understandable, but fucking hell at least own up! I could have killed! He deliberately took his time about it and almost certainly thought that I was German.

I met a bearded Pole who spoke only Polish, so I had to try and make sense of what he was saying. Interesting fellow - into nature, hang gliding and climbing. Had a drink with him.

Anyway, we're off, getting to the border for 2.45am. Don't know how I'll kill the time thereafter! Feels as if I'm becoming decidely offensive, even a bit aggressive!

...later | 03.30 | Zgorzelec (Poland)

I'm in the waiting-room, a rather dreary (but clean) place filled on one side with a large family of Romanians or former-Yugoslavians, who are obviously trying to get into Germany. There are lots of kids. On the other side is a group of drunks, who also look Romanian. One of them is snoring in a most horrible manner that is preventing me from sleeping, and in a way that let's you know how many cigs he has smoked and how blocked his nose is. I can hear the snot roll up and down his nostrils, it is so loud! There are a few others as well, who don't seem disturbed by it and are asleep. I couldn't possibly sleep with that racket and shall probably take myself off. Can't stand it!

...later | 05.30 | still at the Polish – German border

I didn't sleep after all. The family – actually two families, were Romanian. I got talking to the two mothers, both Gypsy women. One was fat and had a harsh voice and the other was slimmer, a mystic! They started off by asking for some food – I gave them my Fanta. Then the mystic asked me for 2 DM¹ and I gave her my change (9 DM). Of course I was then obliged to give the other woman a 10 DM note – they are destitute!

As I thought, they are trying to get into Germany and have been waiting for three days, repeatedly refused entry. They had lived a while in Germany and spoke broken German. The mystic, Maria, did something with thread and it took me a few minutes to comprehend what was happening. She said it would remove all my troubles, bring me luck and wife and what have you. Then, in order to exorcise me from the evil spirit of any illness I might have, she folded 2 x 10 DM notes and 2 x $1 USD notes (mine) into 4 sheets of paper making me repeat “Krankheit weg, Geld weg”² and indeed, the money had vanished from inside the paper! I protested and walked off feeling offended and cheated. They came after me and said 'Spirituose' only needed to borrow the money, which had miraculously reappeared inside the folded sheets. I was obviously sceptical. She got the $2 off me as well!

Thing is, after that we got talking and I grew to really like them and sympathise - life must be really hard for them! Maria has 7 kids and Margareta (fatty) has 4. Around 5am I got them coffees and some buns, and 2 packs of fags. Not a big deal for me, I mean of course I can afford it. They were grateful even though they seemed to accept it as a matter of course, and I was glad of that attitude. If I were a 100% genuine person (ie according to principles of sharing with those who have less), I would have given them more. I have 350 DM in traveller's cheques and 20 DM in cash. I like them and their easy-going straightforward, matter-of-fact attitude.

I'm going to head for the border post which is 1km away and see if I can start hitching. Wonder if they'll search me? Who gives a fuck, it'll kill time and the sky is only just brightening.

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...later | 14.00 | 75 km North of Frankfurt (Germany)

Well I'm back in Germany at an Autobahn Raststätte ³, having made excellent time. Over 450km in 6 hours! The first lift was to near Dresden with a friendly young Turkish-German. I then got a 400km life with 3 very friendly Poles who taught me Polish swear words and cracked up when I repeated them.

They have just dropped me off and what I feared upon contact with Western Europe and its narrow-mindedness and rigidity, has happened! It's an enormous Raststätte and I went to the kiosk and asked for a coffee and 4 slices of bread (I have cheese with me). They had a loaf of sliced bread lying there, opened! The woman said dass darf ich nicht, tut mir Leid ⁴. I went to the restaurant, where people were eating rolls of bread at the tables and asked at the counter if I could buy a couple. “Just rolls on their own?”. When I replied “Yes”, she said dass darf ich nicht, tut mir Leid. As I was walking away, I overheard a senior waiter person ask the woman what I had wanted. This just demonstrated their collective inability to perform an act of unsanctioned initiative which was not within their experience, and which would help someone out. I can't understand it, and had feared something of the sort!

I'll phone and see if anyone is around in Heidelberg, otherwise I might spend a day in Holland, have a smoke and then get the ferry to UK tomorrow night. Imagine how unreasonable the whole bread episode appears to me after the randomness of the East!
<sub>1. Deutsch Mark: currency of Germany before adoption of the Euro.
2. German for 'Illness disappear, Money disappear'.
3. Motorway service-station.
4. “I'm not allowed to do that, sorry!”</sub>