A Sense of Place

 

So there I am swimming under a starless sky with the lights of Kraków silhouetted against the dusky evening blue sky. The pool is on the top floor of the hotel. Below me weaves the darker Vistula River lit up by floating river boats restaurants that are moored against the northern bank.

Then a real treat, for me, a Jacuzzi!

So I sit experimenting with the buttons that control the pummelling warm bubbles.

Then, oh my goodness, a sauna!

I try it out but don’t stay in too long; the smell of hot pine is delicious.

I’m not used to such luxury.

But now I am utterly ashamed of this indulgence. Yesterday I realised just where my hotel was situated.

I had walked from the hotel into Kraków thinking that the Jewish section of the city had been the part that had been walled up and had formed the ghetto. I had two guide books and had even visited Schindler’s Factory and I had still left Poland with this misconception.

Yesterday I realised that the Jewish Ghetto had been created south of the river close to Schindler’s factory and that the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp had been situated south of the ghetto.

To my horror and dismay I then realised that the hotel where I had been staying, and had spent a few minutes enjoying the luxury of the pool, Jacuzzi and sauna, had been built right on the northern edge of the Jewish ghetto.

I now feel utterly sickened to discover that I had been luxuriating in a place where others had once suffered appallingly.

No wonder I had the place all to myself!