Poland

My week in Poland was intense. As a country, I loved it: the people are welcoming, the Tatra Mountains (near Zakopane) and the countryside are pretty, and the old town centers are as charming as any in Europe (Kraków, Zamość, and Lublin). But Yom Kippur, the most solemn day of the Jewish year, was a good introduction to Kraków. Services were awful and I saw firsthand how the neighborhood that was once the heart of a vibrant Jewish Europe is now lifeless.

Next I visited two concentration camps: Majdanek (near Lublin) was smaller and quieter than Auschwitz (near Kraków) and both were powerful in different ways. The only evidence that Jews ever lived in my grandparents' hometown of Żółkiewka is a small memorial in the park. Nearby the small town of Izbica has an old Jewish cemetery (now there are only fragments of headstones) that was also the site of executions and several mass graves.

Thankfully I had company: my friend Eduardo and I rented a car together for the tour. He and I met in Petra, Jordan a few months ago; now we're in Prague for a few days.