They rang someone at Zakopane, I don't know if it was the police or the railway, probably the police as telephone numbers are very hard to come by in Eastern Europe. We wanted to go there in a police car to get our stuff and possibly the crooks but they laughed at this idea. They assured us that our stuff would still be on the train in Zakopane. We were let through the next lot of doors, given a bottle of flat orangeade each and told that at 8 o'clock (3-4 hrs later) a translator would arrive. John went to sleep on the floor. I dozed but was worried about my glasses. The case was still on the train. Just after 6 there was a phone call from Zakopane saying that our stuff had dis- appeared.
Incidentally, John read in The Times the following Thursday that a general strike was threatened and workers were asking double the average national wage, &Lsterling.250 per month. I.e. the older workers were earning &Lsterling.31.25 per week. Presumably the young- sters we saw would earn less, definitely not enough to afford the stuff we saw them wearing and carrying.
We also later saw the film - 'Lena and her 100 children' which was about people taking exactly this route in the war to escape Poland. Most people would think it was all in the past but it's still happening. The film glossed over the acquisition of passports just saying that they bought them on the black market but not saying how they got onto the black market.
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In the morning we spoke to the vice commissioner, he didn't speak English and wasn't very helpful. He gave us a written statement of what had happened and the Krakow police station address.
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We weren't happy about doing this but we tried to get a train. There weren't any for hours. With help from a woman selling papers and a nice bloke who walked us all the way there we got to the bus stop and got tickets. Again with numerous help we got trams and ended up at Krakow central police station, having had a beer to help John face the day.
We went to see Tomasz, the Komenda Wojewddzka. Tomasz was very open and friendly, and spoke relatively good English. He was dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and chino type trousers. Aged about 35. He explained that he is in charge of combating organised crime in the city. He said that Krakow is not as bad as Warsaw. That when the Russians pulled out of Poland there was no-one left who was organised enough to run the country except for the organised crime groups. He said there were three major ones. The biggest one came from Gdansk and is far too big to try to say how many people are involved in it. He said it contains many VIPs. People in the mob take up governmental positions for 6 months get paid enough to retire on and leave. In this conversation, like all the others, we lied about the number of people after us; toning it down to make sure that they believed us. Tomasz said that we needn't be frightened of violence. Train people just steal things. However if we wanted to have fun with girls (prostitutes) in Krakow we should expect knives and guns to become involved. He said the laws in Poland were not very good. That although drug dealing is illegal possession is not. That if he found someone with a truck load of heroin there'd be nothing he could do. He is worried that within a year the organised crime syndicates of the world will be holding there con- ventions in Krakow. We told him we thought that judging by the passports, luggage, everyone knowing each other, and the train being off route that these people were leaving the country. I asked if they'd escaped but he misunderstood saying they'd escaped with our luggage. In the light of day John had decided he wanted to carry on with the holiday and go to Istanbul. He would certainly prefer to carry on to Bucharest than go back on the Warsaw train. These appeared to be our only choices. Given that we were told that Krakow wasn't as bad as Warsaw I agreed to delay my wish (to either go home or the South of France) by going to Auchwitz, as we were virtually there anyway. We were going to go there today, and sort ourselves out the following day. As it turned out it was more logical to do it the other way around. We needed a hotel, toothbrush, money etc. Tomasz gave us a list of 6 hotels. He said don't go to three of them, the biggest ones as they're run by the mob. Go to Hotel Pollera, or Cracovia hotel (the best).
After another beer, losing the hotel list, getting it out of the rubbish, and a tram drive and a lot of walking we found that the most convenient hotel for the station was Hotel Pollera, UL. SZPITALNA 30, Krakow Poland 79870. The room between us cost 330000 zl.
We went to a bit of grass by the station. I went to sleep. We had to move on. I'm not sure if someone told us to or if John wanted to as people were circulating around us. We went to a station, the wrong one. John got hold of a map and had a long chat with an old Polish guy. I fell asleep again. We went to the station where there were loads of people of the type we were now familiar with; people with rucksacks, looking through timetables. We saw that the train we wanted needed a reservation, but we didn't have much money, and weren't quite sure what we were doing. We sussed out the station. Walking the route that we would have to do at 02:30 to get the train. It was a long, badly lit series of subways and wooden corridors, extremely dangerous. We worked out how to approach it from the other side. There were taxis there and I vaguely remembered signs of a police station around. We went out, got some soap, toothbrushes etc and a piece of bread to share. We tried to buy a glasses case but couldn't afford it. No-one would take our travellers cheques or credit card. There were lots of Bureau de Changes around but they all wanted hard currency. At each one we attracted followers. I heard some English speaking people in one that doubled as a travel place. I spoke to a girl explaining what had happened to us and that we were scared and wanted to team up with other Westerners for safety. She wasn't inter- ested. She was American. She said the chains (organised crime groups) are really bad but that they (a group of about 5) had been in Poland for a month and could cope thank-you. They were going to Auchwitz the following day. There was a trip going but they'd prefer to make their own way. We went to the hotel and slept from 16:00 till 20:00.
At 20:00 we tried to get some money at the hotel, the guy told us the only place was one of the ones we'd been warned against, miles away. He showed us on the map and we set off. It was dark, a long way, down some very dodgy streets, across the river. Considering we hadn't really eaten in 30 hours it was a very hard journey. When we got there we changed some money and went into the restau- rant. We had a drink at the bar. We were parched and I couldn't really manage food. I drank 3 bottles of coke straight down. John did similarly with beer. We asked for some chips with hot stuff on but they turned out to be crisps. We watched the proceedings. There were about 4 people working together in the foyer, plus a few prostitutes. They dressed in Hawaiian type shirts and chino type trousers. They were slightly dark skinned but not very. They appeared to be separate. They took the places in turns. One would pretend to be waiting for someone in the foyer. After a while he'd go over and use the phone, another would take his place, they'd chat now and again. One would go out and talk to taxi drivers, one would come in and sit on the corner of the bar. He'd buy a drink and chat to a mate. The bar staff and chef acted strangely towards him. Serving him seemed to be quite a palarva with three or four people separately involved only briefly talking to him, but they obviously knew him. He hardly drank his drink he just watched people at the bar and restaurant. John wound him up by staring at him. He'd wander back and forth between the foyer and the bar. We went to the reception and asked how to get safely back to our hotel (we looked like dirt by the way). She told us which bus to get and gave us bus tickets out of her bag for nothing (another invest- ment, we thought, like the sandwich on the train). We walked quickly out of a different door, swerving, changing direction, passed taxi drivers, across the bridge to the bus stop. There were two people hanging out, surveying the scene on the bridge. They never both- ered us but when everyone had caught their buses and our bus had gone straight past we were a bit worried. Simi- larly when everyone had got off the bus and we didn't know where we were going. Anyway we got to the railway station to reserve our tickets to Bucharest. As usual the ticket saleswoman didn't speak any English and as usual there was a helpful person there who spoke perfect English. Three very dark skinned men wandered around while we bought them, all carrying walking sticks, but not knowing how to use them for walking. A woman tried to offer us accommodation and we quickly went back to the hotel, commenting that the station was actually quite well lit and not a bit like the place the train had stopped the previous night. I had a bath. The first of the holiday although I had had a shower in Oslo.
Got up at 07:00. Put on our only clothes which we'd washed with soap the previous night and hung out to dry. We ate breakfast which was OK. No-one there had smiled. John went out to buy shaving stuff. I stayed behind guarding the passports. He said he was followed all over. He'd checked out the station. He'd walked unnec- essarily around in a square, without cutting the obvious diagonal and someone had followed him. We had a shave and stole a small hand towel each. We wrapped them around our waists, down our shorts. We checked out of the hotel.
We had about 10 minutes to run about 4 miles across town to get the tour bus that we'd seen advertised for Auschwitz. The advert said English language tour only 9.5 USD. Still needing food and sleep this run was very difficult. The bag containing toothbrushes, razors, foam, soap and toothpaste broke over the street. At the place where the bus was supposed to leave there were a few people about. We saw two girls who looked Western and asked them if they were waiting. Despite turning out to be in exactly the right place they said in American accents that they were waiting but they didn't know if it was the right place. They looked very nice, tied back long blonde hair, jeans, trainers, carrying an empty plastic canvas bag, and wearing a Budapest 7th youth something teeshirt each. They didn't smile at all and went back to talking to each other in Polish. The bus arrived and we all got on. I made a bag out of my tee- shirt and put the stuff in it. The man came around col- lecting the money. He said 'where are you from?' to some people as he sold the tickets. John replied 'Siarad Cymraeg?' (which means 'Do you speak Welsh?') and stuck two fingers up indicating that he wanted two tickets. We set off. On the back row were three girls who I presumed were Scandinavian because although physically they were the same as the Polish they had expensive haircuts. They were quite tall. Behind me were two people I can't remember, I don't think they were around much. Across the aisle from them were some Americans. Thirtysomething yr old couple. An Irish thirtysomething chatting to an American woman. In front of them next to us was a girl who at first glance appeared to be Western. She was about 23. She had a bad haircut. Waved but falling. She had knee length jeans that didn't fit. |
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