APRIL 20, 2022 – After my dispiriting day at Auschwitz, I needed to repair to the mountains for some rigorous hiking. I retraced my steps to Krakow, then headed due south 100 km by train and bus to Zakopane. I’d heard and read much about the place, a resort town at the base of the High Tatras exactly opposite from where I’d hiked a couple of months before in Czechoslovakia. I arrived in Zakopane late in the day and searched for the volunteer bureau I’d heard about that matched visitors (mostly Polish university students) with local residents. An arts festival was in high gear, and the local hostel and hotels were full.
Communications weren’t the best between the bureau and residents seeking to rent out a room, and after registering at the bureau, you were given several names and addresses to try. A while later I encountered a young woman—a university student from Krakow—who wasn’t having much luck with the system. In a letter home I described her as “Justyna, a charming woman my age who was studying in Krakow. I met her in Zakopane where she couldn’t find lodging. I helped her out, guiding her to several places till she found a vacancy. Justyna spoke perfect British English but her main language was music. Her family knew [world famous violinist,] Yehudi Menuhin quite well and for three months back in 1979, Justyna herself had lived with Yehudi’s late sister.”
It was well past 9:00 p.m. by the time I found accommodations for myself—at the home of the local prosecutor, of all people. His English was good, and despite the late hour, he and his wife were eager to talk—and I was just as eager to listen. In the letter home, I wrote, “When I asked about Solidarity, he replied, ‘Solidarity—good. We have much more freedom now because of Solidarity.’” I added, “Note too that this prosecutor hated Russians, as well!”
On the following day, despite fog and mist, I put politics and political observations aside and hiked over the mountain tops. I’d been told that in his earlier days, Pope John Paul II, the “Polish Pope,” had been an avid skier and hiker and had spent much time in those same mountains. I reveled in the scenery rendered enticingly dynamic and mysterious by the elements.
By day’s end I’d worked up a sizable appetite—having forgotten all about the food shortages ravaging the country. After a brief stop at the art festival grounds, where evocative artwork mixed with provocative political banners, I returned to the apartment where I’d rented a room. The prosecutor’s wife served up delicious bread and barszcz (Polish borscht), and around their table my hosts and I visited late into the night.
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© 2022 by Eric Nilsson
