Krakow: Urban Design, Tyrannies and No Joke Elections
Rob Forbes
October 9th, 2024
I ended up in Krakow, Poland quite by chance last October when my train trip to Warsaw from Vienna was aborted at the last minute due to a Covid situation. I had never visited Poland and knew little about Krakow really, nor did any of my friends. But I gleaned online that Krakow was a historic gem of a central European city, similar to Prague in that it had neither been bombed during WWII nor overrun by modern car infrastructure. My two-day blitz visit was particularly intense, provocative, and especially relevant on the eve of our election.
Krakow would have been a more obvious place to visit in the 1500’s when it rivaled other great cities in Europe as a center for arts and science. It is fitting that Copernicus hails from this area. Now it is home to three major universities, including the Jagiellonian that dates back to 1364 and is one of the oldest universities in the world. Pride in education is cultural in Poland. It’s odd that all I recall hearing as a kid about Poles were jokes about them being slow-witted (the Polack locked his keys in the car – it took him three hours to get his family out). Where did that notion come from? And why did I know so little about Poland in general? I questioned my own education as I entered this city.
Walking from the train station, you enter Krakow’s walled perimeter and find yourself on elegant cobblestoned streets with stately neighborhoods, handsome medieval architecture, no exposed telephone or electrical lines, ubiquitous super-cute cafes and bookstores, a minimum of commercial branding and signage, no homeless people hanging out, many public artworks, the gorgeous Vistula river snaking through town, bike lanes, a modern affordable tram to get you anywhere cheaply, and an international youthful vibe. At the heart of the city is a magnificent plaza, the Glowny, among the great spaces of Europe. It defines and gives structure to the city’s urban character and personality with its historic buildings, open air cafes and around–the–clock activity. Krakow seems as idyllic an urban layout as I have ever experienced. It makes our modern car–centric cities devoid of humanistic public spaces seem like a serious cultural mistakes. We may be the slow-witted ones when it comes to city planning.
Tooling around town I came across a hip designer bookstore. I asked the two friendly staff about what must be seen in Krakow on a quick, two-day stay. “The Schindler Museum” they said in unison, so off I went. The public tram took me there for less than a dollar. The Oscar Schindler Enamel Factory museum documents the living situation of the largest Jewish community/ghetto in the world in its day, its beauty and intimacy, and its frightening destruction by the Third Reich in WWII. It was featured in Spielberg’s epic 1993 film Schindler’s List. Jewish history was forefront in my mind as I arrived in Krakow the week that the Hamas invasion of Israel on Oct 7th and the subsequent retaliation dominated the news.
This museum blew my mind as much as any museum I have ever visited – as much as Gehry’s Guggenheim Bilbao which I visited twenty years ago. Both museums connect us to their place powerfully, creatively, and both are stunning monuments of design with awesome visual displays. But this is where the similarities end. The Schindler Museum focuses on History and Terror not on Art. with sobering graphic details and exhibits.
More Jews (3 Million) lived in Poland than any other country in the world prior to the Holocaust. Krakow had been the cultural center with the largest urban population of Jews anywhere in its day (70,000). It may have been the greatest place to be Jewish in the world in the early 20th century, and the worst place for Jews later in 20th century when the Third Reich stormed into Poland in 1939. The speed and shock of the Nazi takeover of Krakow is hard to imagine. We learn that wicked change can occur overnight, not with a whimper but with a bang. The story is told in dramatic, disturbing visual details and words – this published letter being one example:
“Early morning on March 13 the ghetto was suddenly and unexpectedly surrounded by different formations of the SS and the Ukrainian policemen from the Ptaszów camp, known as 'the blacks'. At first none of us knew what was going to happen, it was only after 11 am that we were told that they would be gathering us within the next two hours and that we all had to take whatever we could with us, since the ghetto was to be liquidated and we were to be headed for the camp in Plaszów." — Abraham Mirowski, a doctor, aged 50
As Hitler took total autocratic control of Germany and started leaning East toward Poland, the Jews of Krakow had a choice: leave, or remain and see how bad it gets. The parallels to our situation in the US are blatant. With autocratic rumblings here at home, we can – with our action – avoid that stark choice and prevent the autocrat from seizing control. Or not, in which case we’ll be left with a similar (albeit less dire) dilemma. We do not have the specter of the concentration camps like Auschwitz (unless we count deportation camps for non–white immigrants). But where could we go if our country defaults to tyrranical rule supported by fifty million, mostly armed citizens? In that event, the US could go down as the best place to be an immigrant in the 20th century and the worst place to be an immigrant in the 21st century.
Hitler was intent on making Krakow the capital of the Nazi empire in eastern Europe and renaming the beautiful, historic Glowny “Adolf Hitler Plaza”. He wanted all its history and beauty to be identified with him and his people. The analogies to the right wing movement in the US are blatant here also. Only a failure of imagination could keep us from envisioning Times Square in New York getting a garish, golden rebranding. Is this any more far-fetched than the Insurrection, the repeal of women’s rights, the schemes to prevent legitimate voting?
One way to take action for our election: October 10th Event
I just received this link for an impressive October 10th event sent to me by Dan Nguyen-Tan whose work with the Asian American community is making a big difference in swing states for our election.
“I've been co-leading Asian Americans for Democracy. So far, we've distributed over $800,000 to Asian American-led grassroots groups in seven swing states to reach Asian American voters, especially in languages other than English.”
On October 10th, we're hosting our final online event, moderated by another AA4D co-leader Tamlyn Tomita, with other prominent Asian American creatives like David Henry Hwang, Freida Lee Mock, Jon Jon Briones, AJ Rafael, Amy HIll, Jeff Yang, and others. Please join us.
In our globalized world today mixing it up with Poland, Asia, and the US is fitting… we are all facing similar threats to democracy.