Kraków a crown for Poland (see picture gallery)

The Dallas Morning News ^ | Friday, June 16, 2006 | RICK STEVES

[lizol]

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Wawel Royal Castle

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Krakow landscape

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Kazimierz – Krakow’s Jewish quarter

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Krakow by night

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[Lukasz]

So many pictures and no kopiec? :)

[lizol]

Kopiec is under renovation on those pictures, that I have :-)))

[Pyro7480]

Someday, I'll make my way there, to the land of my ancestors.

[franksolich]

Wonderful display of photographs, sir, and I and many others appreciate them.

By the way, is Crakow the former Breslau?

Everybody keeps changing names of cities, and one gets confused.

[wolf78]

By the way, is Crakow the former Breslau?

No, that's Wrocław. As a rule of thumb: Most polish names for formerly German cities resemble the former German, e.g. Goerlitz and Zgorzelec.

Krakow has always been Krakow.

[lizol]

Not always, during WW2 it was the main city of so called General Gouvernment (Polish territories, that had not been incorporated directly to the Reich).

And the official name of Krakow at that time was Krakau.

[franksolich]

Your distinction between "Krakow" and "Krakau" is too fine, sir; a matter of orthography.

It seems to me "Krakow" and "Krakau" would be pronounced the same way, so it's just the spelling that's different.

Or I am wrong?

[GeorgefromGeorgia]

I visited Poland in the Fall of 1989. The commies were still in control, but had lost the Sejm to Solidarity. The smell of change was in the air. Even our tour guide spoke dismissively about the communists. Krakow was the gem of the trip. Warsaw and Gdansk had been largely destroyed during WWII, but Krakow was intact. Great Photos. I love Poland and its people.

[franksolich]

You know, I always wondered about something.

According to history books, the cities of Warsaw, Kiev, and Belgrade were massively destroyed during the second world war (1939-1945), not a stone standing on top of another stone anywhere in these cities.

(Perhaps Minsk, too; I forget.)

So.....I go to Kiev, and Ukrainians show me some of the sights, including the "18th-century" Marinsky Palace.

But there seemed something unreal about the condition of this particular building; it lacked the exquisity, the fine handiwork, usual and customary in 18th century buildings; in fact, when looking very closely, it looked a rather slap-dash socialist job to me.

I suspect a lot of these "historical" buildings were re-created, and not the real thing.

Is there, really, any structure in Warsaw that AUTHENTICALLY dates from before, say, 1946? Or are they all socialist re-creations of buildings that had been utterly destroyed?

[lizol]

Krakow is pronounced like "Krackoov", whereas Krakau, like "Krackou" - the ending like in "ouch!", when you hit your finger :-)

[Uriah_lost]

How different the world might have been if the Knights of Poland had prevailed, as they nearly did, against the Tzar's armies.....
A glorious history, deserving of recognition.

[GeorgefromGeorgia]

I lived in Augsburg, Germany for 4 years, and have a book showing the WWII damage. About 50% of the buildings in Augsburg sustained some damage (an ME-109 plant was near). Many of the older buildings were not damaged (such as its Cathedral). However, the 17th century Town Hall was burned, but its thick walls stood, and it was finished with the same interior as before the war.

Some cities like Berlin, Cologne, Frankfurt and Munich sustained 70-95% damage. When I visited Warsaw, we were told that every building was destroyed or damaged. Imagine having to start over!

[macel]

Kraków is one of the cities that survived the war.

wikipedia:

"Poland was partitioned again in 1939, at the outset of the Second World War, and Nazi German forces entered Kraków in September of that year. It became the capital of the General Government, a colonial authority under the leadership of Hans Frank. The occupation took a heavy toll, particularly on the city's cultural heritage. On one occasion, over 150 professors and other academics of the Jagiellonian University were summoned to a meeting, arrested and dispatched to the concentration camp at Sachsenhausen (see also Sonderaktion Krakau). Many relics and monuments of national culture were destroyed or looted. Major concentration camps near Kraków included Plaszow and Auschwitz, to which many Polish Jews were sent. Specific events surrounding the Jewish ghetto in Kraków and the nearby concentration camps were famously portrayed in the film Schindler's List, itself based on a book by Thomas Keneally entitled Schindler's Ark. Thanks to a manoeuvre by advancing Soviet forces, Kraków escaped complete destruction during the German withdrawal and some historic buildings and works of art were saved."