We have finally ventured out into doing a little tourism. Saturday found us trudging down to the Tram Station at 8:15 in order to catch the 8:35 tram into the city center. We met up with our guide at 0900 and several of our friends for a little Polish immersion and cultural tour. It was a bright clear day, and my camera was set improperly, so please forgive the poor quality of the photos. Yes, Megan was very patient during the tour, which ended up lasting about 3 hours and covering most of old Kazimierz.
The city, which was founded by...you guessed it...a king named Kazimierz, was initially a town independent of Krakow, and was mostly an entirely Jewish quarter for centuries until the Second World War, when it fell victim to the Nazis. In the tour we visit the old synagogues, public places and generally enjoyed a relatively quiet (for Kazimierz) Shabbat. Some of the old culture is retained and one can still get a kosher meal in the square outside of the old synagogue.
Of course, the oddity of touring the Jewish quarter on one of the most holy of Catholic days in Poland (the Assumption of the Virgin Mary) was not lost on me. Seeing as how I had to get in a suit and down to one of the gems of Krakow's many cathedrals in order to observe mass (at the invitation of his emminence, father Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz, the former assistant of Pope John Paul II) at 6:30, I was accutely aware of how the two cultures must have rubbed together even as late as the 1930s. I would go from a solemn quarter of low-slung buildings (the synagogues are humble affairs with secular dimensions) to the majestic gothic cathedral of the former capital of a commonwealth which, at one time, stretched from the Baltic to the Black Sea.
Arriving at St. Mary's Basilica I had no time to be in awe of this tremendous brick gothic cathedral. I spotted Cardinal Dziwisz's car directly in front of mine, and we pulled up on the square behind him. My driver, Ryszard, introduced me to him, a kindly man of about 70 years. He greeted me warmly and led me into the cathedral, greeting well wishers on the way in. Linking up with Anne Barneby (my predecessor's wife who remains in Krakow while he is in Iraq) I took a place in the choir stalls while the Cardinal and his bishops and priests prepared in the sacristy for the mass. Only then did I have time for reflection. Moving from a state of mind I entered walking through the Jewish Quarter on Shabbat to sitting in a 14th century cathedral of riches and splendor highlighted the different ways the two religions worship and relate to God. A profound experience made more distinct by a moving ceremony and the congregation's veneration.
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