360 Degrees Longitude (13 page)

The day after we went to Jordan's go-kart track, the Auschwitz tour company we'd arranged for came to pick us up at our hostel. It was a hot August morning. When the van arrived we stuffed Katrina's wheelchair, which we had rented from a hospital, into the back and settled in for the ninety-minute drive.

“Auschwitz” is the German pronunciation of the Polish town of Oświęcim, about 40 miles west of Krakow. The extermination camp was established by the Nazis in 1940 in what was then Nazi-occupied Poland. The exact number of people murdered there, mostly Jews, is not known, but most experts agree the number is between 1.1 and 1.5 million people.

Arriving at the site of the former camp, our van maneuvered into the parking lot. We set Katrina in her wheelchair and made our way through the infamous gates that read ARBEIT MACHT FREI which translates to “Work makes one free.” The morning sun was scorching and we waited for our tour to begin along with the other tourists.

Our group of fifty was eventually led through the camp by a guide. We scurried from display to display. As there was no handicapped access and plenty of stairs, we eventually abandoned Katrina's wheelchair, but even with me carrying her it was difficult for us to keep up with our group. The rooms throughout Auschwitz were so crowded there was little chance to see the displays or to hear what was being said, even though our tour guide did her best to accommodate the large crowd.

Much of the extermination camp of Auschwitz is still intact, from the gas chambers used for the mass murders to the ovens used to cremate the remains. Some of the most grisly reminders of what occurred at Auschwitz are the things the Nazis kept in storage and historians preserved. As all entered the gas chambers shaven, the resulting hair was baled and over two tons of it is prominently on display in sacks that are splayed open. Room after room of personal effects are also displayed. There is the shoe room and the handbag room and the eyeglasses room. These items were taken from the prisoners after their arrival. Decades later they are on display behind glass, an echoing reminder that their owners never saw them again.

After visiting the various rooms of personal effects we walked across the compound to the ovens that were used for cremation. “I want to sit in my wheelchair in the shade,” Katrina said. Similarly, Jordan had grown weary of being herded along and was on the verge of a meltdown—and not from the heat.

“I'm sorry, guys,” I said. “This is a tremendously important part of history. Think of the millions who died here, what it was like for them to be herded through like cattle to slaughter. Remember, we will go home; we have a safe place to sleep tonight.”

Nearby two teenage girls were in total hysterics, sobbing uncontrollably as they imagined the horrors of the site. As for us, I wanted
my
kids to be horrified, but the heat and the crowds dampened that effect. Our emotional meltdown was to come six months later at the Killing Fields near Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Later that evening, in the comfort of our hostel, we talked to the kids about our experience at Auschwitz.

“I can't believe the people that did all those horrible things are the same ones that we see around town,” Katrina said. “Everyone in Poland has been so nice.”

We explained that the Germans occupied Poland at the time, and most people in the area probably had no idea what was happening at the camp, and most Germans probably didn't know, either.

“How can that be?” Katrina asked.

“There was a big war on,” September replied. “It was a scary time. I think most people didn't want to know. But, remember, many people were heroes, like in the book you're reading.” As part of her reading curriculum, Katrina was in the middle of
The Diary of Anne Frank
.

There is much more to Krakow than go-karts and Auschwitz. We visited the local salt mine and learned how it thrust Krakow into power in medieval times. In the historic Jewish Ghetto is Oskar Schindler's factory where visitors can learn his story that inspired the book and movie that bears his name. More important, we were reminded that there were good people in the midst of the ugliness of the Nazi era.

• • •

“Before we move on tomorrow,” September said one afternoon, “we really need to do something about our panniers.”

“Yup. We should probably hit a mall and see if we can find a luggage cart.” Our eight panniers had metal hooks on the back for attaching to the tandems. The hooks had a nasty way of catching on things you didn't want them to, say, like flesh. Transferring them and a daughter on crutches from platform 1 to platform 9 during a three-minute dash was more than we'd bargained for.

The mall in Krakow was my first visit to such a place in roughly a decade, my shopping habits being nominal at best. The whole establishment seemed like it would blend in nicely in any suburb in the United States, right down to the cineplex playing the latest Hollywood blockbuster. We shopped valiantly, carrying a pencil and notepad wherever we went, but clerks laughed at our artwork. “Luggage cart” just didn't translate, no matter how hard we tried.

“Maybe they don't make luggage carts anymore,” I suggested to September at a Samsonite luggage retailer, “since essentially all luggage these days comes pre-equipped with wheels.”

“Then we need to improvise,” September said. “I saw a sporting goods store. We could buy some rollerblades and strap them on.”

“I think a skateboard is more like it.”

Before we could execute on the skateboard idea, September took a 90-degree turn as she passed the hardware store at the mall. She emerged ten minutes later, with a full-fledged moving dolly. Now we could strap our panniers to the dolly and off we could go. And if we decided to move a refrigerator along the way, we could do that, too.

August 2–August 19
Poland/Sweden

D
ad. How does it feel to be half of 90?” Katrina asked, as we clambered onto the train. “I think I see a new gray hair.”

“It is only because of you, dear.”

My birthday meant an extra helping of good-natured grief from my family. September was next. “I ordered a cheeseburger, no mayo,” she quipped.

“Oh yeah, thanks for sewing on my button.” My “Bill's Burger Barn” shirt had already lost more than one button. “You must love me.”

“I do. I'll love you more if you let me burn that shirt.”

When we found our compartment someone was already in it. We made our presence known by bursting in and shattering the solitude. Jordan spread out paper and pencils for his newfound love—making his own comic books. Katrina propped her cast up on the bench across from her and started reading. It's remarkable how much noise two kids can generate when pursuing “quiet” activities.

Five people in a compartment meant for four was a tight squeeze. Our neighbor sat quietly for a while, but I soon noticed him sniffing the air and looking puzzled, and then he got up and left. I didn't feel too bad. We had the compartment reserved, but for all I knew, so did he.

“Katrina, you really should put a sock on that foot,” September said. “You know why that person just left, don't you?”

Wounded, Katrina replied, “Well, I can't actually wash under my cast, can I?”

“No, you can't,” I said, “but you can save the rest of us a lot of grief if you would just seal up the offending fume factory by putting a sock on it.”

After three months on the road, we thought we were a well traveled, “been there and done that” family, but nothing could prepare us for the Hostel Baltic Ocean in the Polish port city of Gdansk.

After we clambered off the train we phoned every single hostel in our guidebook and many, many more, only to find that every bed was taken. The whole of Europe, which had more or less been following us around since we'd arrived in Paris, was in Gdansk for a festival. The
Hostel Baltyk
, as it is formally known, was not listed in our guidebook, but when we found that it had four beds available we made reservations, sight unseen.

We had pushed the budget travel envelope a little too far.

Hostels can come in a wide variety of flavors. Of course, a hostel is not a hotel, where you obtain a room in exchange for cash. At a hostel, you get a bed in a room and a bathroom down the hall. A good hostel will also have cooking facilities, and a great hostel will have a coin-operated laundry.

Most
hostels are well aware that people do not really like to share a room with others they do not know. Gone are the days when a hostel was two large dorm-style rooms—one for the men and one for the women. Hostels nowadays are a collection of smaller rooms where families or friends traveling together can all have a room to themselves. We never had to share our room.

That is, until we stayed at the Hostel Baltic Ocean. My first impression of the hostel was that the insides hadn't seen a broom since the Russians liberated Gdansk from the fleeing Nazis. My second impression was of the
Blues Brothers
scene were Elwood brings Jake home to his apartment above the train station, and Jake asks “How often does the train go by?” to which Elwood answers, “So often, you don't even notice.”

As the staff was showing us our room, I noted seven beds. The woman helping us must have read my mind. “You probably will not have to share your room.” The word “probably” rattled around in my head as I trundled off to the shower.

“I have a surprise for you,” September said when I returned 20 minutes later. “What Ms. Hostel-Person failed to mention when she showed us our room was what was behind Door Numbers One and Two.” September pointed to two innocent-looking doors in our room. I was drying myself off just as she was ready divulge her secret, when in bounced a sweet young thing through Door Number One. “Surprise!” September said, “behind these doors are more rooms. And the only path to those rooms is through
our
room.”

I smiled thoughtfully at the young lady as she sped through our room, diverting her eyes and trying not to giggle.

The following night we were able to upgrade so we were no longer in the corridor room; we were in the room behind Door Number One.

Our old room—the corridor room—was now inhabited by seven very large and very hairy Polish men with booming laughs, affectionately known to us as the Bathroom Joke Septuplet. Not that we could tell what jokes they were really telling, but the hand gestures for bathroom jokes appear universal.

We now had the pleasure of bursting in on the Bathroom Joke Septuplet every time we left or returned to our room. These were clearly fun-loving guys who were very friendly, totally unrefined, and all the happier for it. They did not seem to be fazed in the least by the fact that the rest of the guests used their room as a hallway. Every time we passed through they were all sprawled across their beds in various stages of undress and joke-telling. During every transition through the room we would be reminded of just how hairy and large they were. And that they wore blue boxer shorts. With red stripes. Not all of them, of course. Others preferred polka dots.

Quietly opening the door to the corridor room the following morning, I found the Bathroom Joke Septuplet had completely vanished! Not a single trace of them was left, save for a single pair of blue-and-white polka-dotted briefs on the floor, and the blue striped boxer shorts hanging from the curtains. Gratefully, there are some questions in life we will never know the answers to.

We made up a song to commemorate our encounter, to the tune of “Hotel California”:

We're living it up at the Hostel Baltic Ocean

What a big disgrace

Such a scary face …