Back to Vienna after 10 days in Eastern Europe

I returned yesterday to Vienna after 10 days on the road in Eastern Europe, going to Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. I visited friends in Budapest for a couple of days, and then took an overnight train to Krakow, Poland, where I spent a night in that wonderful old city.

Night-time train station scene in Bratislava, Slovakia. I stopped here around midnight on my way from Budapest to Krakow.


The next day I did a roundtrip by bus to Auschwitz, which is about 50 miles from Krakow, and it was a sobering experience to visit the former concentration and extermination camps (Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau) which are near the Polish town named Oswiecim. Though I had seen films and photos of Auschwitz, I wasn't prepared for the huge scale of the Birkenau extermination camp, a veritible death factory on a mass scale. Though the barracks and crematoria were destroyed by the Nazis prior to their abandonment of the camp as the Russians approached in January 1945, several of the barracks have been recreated, and the railroad siding where the box cars of people were unloaded is still there, along with the miles of barbed-wire fence and watchtowers. We also went into the barracks and the one remaining gas chamber at the Auschwitz - I concentration camp, which was used for part of the set in the movie "Schindler's List." How human beings could be so cruel to one another is hard to imagine, but to see the evidence of the genocide that happened there is something I never will forget.

Entrance gateway to Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the extermination camp where 1.1 million Jews, Gypsies, Poles, political prisoners and other "social deviates" were mass murdered by the Nazis from 1942-1945. It was a haunting place to see.


Krakow is a beautiful and well-preserved old city. If you ever want to experience what "old world" Europe looked like, I would highly recommend going there. It has a huge main square, with quite a few of the medieval-era buildings still there, some dating from the 1400's. I found the Polish people I interacted with to be uniformly friendly and hospitable, in contrast to the somewhat more sophisticated, urbane, and (yes, let's say it) "snotty" Viennese people I've been around for the past two months. It's the contrast between Western Europe, so advanced and developed, and Eastern Europe, trying so hard to catch up, but still with a long way to go, but not as jaded and privileged as their Western neighbors.

One of the old Jewish synagogues on a foggy morning in Krakow


Two older ladies on the main square of Krakow, Poland

I then returned to Hungary, and traveled from Budapest with a friend who is a Hungarian Reformed Church pastor to Romania, where she is working on her doctorate degree at the Reformed Theological College in the Transylvanian city of Cluj, also known as Kolozsvar in Hungarian. Transylvania has changed hands many times throughout its history between Hungary and Romania. It is currently part of Romania, but has a significant Hungarian ethnic minority living there still. The land has been degraded by decades of Communist mismanagement and repression, and even now, 20 years after the end of Communism in Romania and most of Eastern Europe, the signs of economic mismanagement and environmental degradation are very apparent. The people are working hard to catch up to the West, but they still have a long way to go. Frankly, after 3 days in Romania I was never so glad to leave a place as when we crossed the border back into Hungary. I have a lot of sympathy and respoect for the good Hungarian Reformed church people I met in Transylvania who are trying to do a lot with very few resources. I'm just glad I don't have to live there with them!

The gray, pre-fab apartment buildings from the Communist era are typical of Romania and the many towns we passed through in the Transylvania region.


Here you see the see the contrast of generations in Transylvania. The younger woman was part of a Sunday afternoon wedding party in Cluj. The older woman is probably her grandma, and most likely lives in a village outside of Cluj. The generations of Romanians seems light years apart!



This is a Roma (Gypsy) man and boy who came up to our car and tried to sell us onions along the side of the road where we stopped in central Transylvania near their village.



Sigisoara, Romania, also known as Segesvar in Hungarian and Schässburg in German. This town and others like it were inhabited for centuries by German immigrants to Transylvania, who brought their Saxon German architecture to the part of Transylvania known as "Siebenburgen." They mostly all emmigrated to Germany after the war, but the traces of their history are everywhere to be seen in Transylvania. Sigisoara is one of the most picturesque towns in the region.


Finally on my way back to Vienna on Oct. 28 I stopped off for part of the afternoon in Bratislava, Slovakia, where I was hosted by last year's Havel Symposium speakers, Martin and Zora Butora. Many of you may remember the Butoras, who asked to be remembered to the House of Hope congregation. They were very hospitable to me on what was a busy day of meetings and receptions for them. Bratislava has a charming old town section of the city, which we toured on foot, and then we ended up in a cafe. The town seems more economically developed than many of the other Eastern European cities I had seen this last week.

Zora and Martin Butora in Bratislava, Slovakia, on Oct. 28

So now my time in Vienna is almost over, and I'm heading on Saturday to Dubrovnik, Croatia for a week. Lucy will meet me there, which I'm definitely looking forward to. Then on to South Africa, and the dedication of the church in Malungeni on Sunday, Nov. 15. And finally, back to St. Paul on Nov. 18. Do you think I may be ready to get home and stay put for a while? We'll have to see!