This also coincides with the first time I met Dorota’s family. Being the newest edition to the family and being a foreigner almost the entire family wanted to have a toast with me, and in stereotypical Polish tradition with a large shot glass of vodka. Now perhaps, that, I could may have survived. But as already explained by Dorota in her post about the Polish wedding, several songs play where you have to down vodka to the music.

So after each 20 minutes dancing interval, there is a song “A teraz idzieny na jednego” (translation: time to drink vodka), and you have another 20 minutes (or more) drinking (and eating) interval. There are also other songs (yes, there is a lot of singing) which everyone is singing together, followed by a shot of vodka. You will sing “Sto lat”, wishing them to live for long, followed by a shot of vodka, and “Gorzko”, which means bitter, so they have to kiss each other to make their life sweeter, obviously followed by a shot of vodka.

Anyway I actually really don’t like dancing, especially in public in front of your girlfriends family you’ve met for the first time at their cousins’ wedding. However after several dozen shots of vodka nothing would stop me from dancing, in fact I was so good, I won the night’s dancing competition, whilst wearing a pinny and impersonating a lady.

I’m so not looking forward to the next Polish wedding in 2011.

Then we were taken to Birkenau by bus, a place where everyone was “delivered”, selected (so strong people had to work), as you can see in The Schindler’s List, where they lived… and were killed. They worked in factories and plants in the Upper Silesia industrial region and other nearby areas that were important to maintaining the German war potential located nearby. If the transport (of prisoners) was delivered to the overcrowded camp, there was no selection, everyone was sent “to have a shower”. They lived in wooden stable-type barracks, built originally for 52 horses, and had a total capacity of more than 400 prisoners per barracks. In reality there were about 7 people sharing a bed, not enough toilets and no heating. The barracks were frequently damp, and lice and rats were an enormous problem for the prisoners.

As previously mentioned, we went there during winter time, had hats, gloves, warm jackets and boots. We were freezing. Very often they didn’t have any shoes and only very thin, destroyed clothes…

The last place you are taken to, which is on the other side of Birkenau, a place for extermination, it was partly destroyed by the Nazis escaping in late 1944, and trying to destroy any evidence of the genocide.

Brief history
All over the world Auschwitz has become a symbol of terror, genocide, and the Holocaust. It was established by Germans in 1940, in the suburbs of Oswiecim, a Polish city that was annexed to the Third Reich by the Nazis. Its name was changed to Auschwitz, which also became the name of Konzentrationslager Auschwitz (concentration camp).
The direct reason for the establishment of the camp was the fact that mass arrests of Poles were increasing beyond the capacity of existing “local” prisons. Initially, Auschwitz was to be one more concentration camp of the type that the Nazis had been setting up since the early 1930s. It functioned in this role throughout its existence, even when, beginning in 1942, it also became the largest of the death camps.

The first and oldest was the so-called “main camp,” later also known as “Auschwitz 1″ (the number of prisoners fluctuated around 15,000, sometimes rising above 20,000), which was established on the grounds and in the buildings of pre-war Polish barracks.
The second part was the Birkenau camp (which held over 90,000 prisoners in 1944), also known as “Auschwitz 2″ This was the largest part of the Auschwitz complex. The Nazis began building it in 1941 on the site of the village of Brzezinka, three kilometres from Oswiecim. The Polish civilian population was evicted and their houses confiscated and demolished. The greater part of the apparatus of mass extermination was built in Birkenau and the majority of the victims were murdered here.

The Germans isolated all the camps and sub-camps from the outside world and surrounded them with barbed wire fencing. All contact with the outside world was forbidden. However, the area administered by the commandant and patrolled by the SS camp garrison went beyond the grounds enclosed by barbed wire. It included an additional area of approximately 40 square kilometres (the so-called “Interessengebiet” – the interest zone), which lay around the Auschwitz 1 and Auschwitz 2-Birkenau camps.

The local population, the Poles and Jews living near the newly-founded camp, were evicted in 1940-1941. Approximately one thousand of their homes were demolished. Other buildings were assigned to officers and non-commissioned officers from the camp SS garrison, who sometimes came here with their whole families. The pre-war industrial facilities in the zone, taken over by Germans, were expanded in some cases and, in others, demolished to make way for new plants associated with the military requirements of the Third Reich. The camp administration used the zone around the camp for auxiliary camp technical support, workshops, storage, offices, and barracks for the SS.

Typical Polish weddings start on a Saturday and take 2 days! In a few words, it’s all about tradition, church, drinking, eating, dancing, drinking, singing, drinking etc. I’m familiar with all of that (maybe with some exceptions), but for Alex it was all new. And for both of us it was a truly unique experience. Also as it was my closest cousin’s wedding, Alex had a chance to meet my whole family for the first time. It took place in Kolo (pronounced kowo), a small town in central Poland, where I was born.

Before any church ceremony, or any party takes place, the spiritual part comes: parents give the bride and groom blessing and they all go to the church. Traditionally a Polish wedding takes place in the church where the bride belongs. Bear in mind Poland is a catholic country, the ceremony will most likely be hold in a catholic church with a long Mass, followed by throwing rice or coins on the bride and groom once they are leaving church (I guess that’s not really Polish). They have to collect all the coins, and here are two ways of explaining this: the person who collects the most coins will rule the family OR they have to collect everything, as it gives them luck… Anyway, after that there is the part with all the presents and congratulations…
Now everyone should go to the party? Not so quickly…

Friends, neighbours, anyone can build a “gate”, which could be on the new married couple’s way from home, from church to the car, to the party, anywhere. To cross such gate they have to pay, most often using a bottle of vodka as currency (or sweets for kids). Once they get free, they are leading the way to the party, and all the cars following them continuously beep their horns!
Here the party comes. Guests have to be there before the new married couple. When they finally come they are welcomed by the parents with bread and salt. Everyone gets a glass of champagne to drink; the bride with the groom breaks their glasses. Then the groom is carrying her on his arms (if he is able to) to the party room, where they will open the first dance (how stressful: 60-250 people are watching them!).

The party (1st day) usually continues until early morning (you can leave earlier, if you can’t stay so long ). There is lots of food, and actually you are expected to eat all the time. There is various food, including intestines (at least on this wedding). There is even more to drink and the main choice is between vodka and… vodka! There are breaks between eating (and drinking) and you are expected to go to another room, a dancing one and dance! There is waiting for you a great local band singing “Ken Lee” or any other English hits without actually using English words. The good thing is, they have great hits for grandmas, kids and others, but believe me, the more vodka you have, the more you love it.

So after each 20 minutes dancing interval, there is a song “A teraz idzieny na jednego” (translation: time to drink vodka), and you have another 20 minutes (or more) drinking (and eating) interval. There are also other songs (yes, there is a lot of singing) which everyone is singing together, followed by a shot of vodka. You will sing “Sto lat”, wishing them to live for long, followed by a shot of vodka, and “Gorzko”, which means bitter, so they have to kiss each other to make their life sweeter, obviously followed by a shot of vodka.

I completely forgot how to drink vodka at weddings… You basically should cheat! You are only drinking half shots or pretending you are drinking one. Because I didn’t share that golden rule with Alex… you can imagine we didn’t stay sober for long.

But we still enjoyed “ocepiny” which took place at midnight, which is one of the oldest and the most important of Polish wedding customs. In old days, it was so significant that only after ocepiny, and not the church ceremony, was the bride considered to be a married woman. Before ocepiny, the bride socializes and dances with her unmarried female friends. After ocepiny, she belongs to the married women’s circle. The bride and so groom are placed on the dance floor, facing the guests. The band (or in some uncontrolled cases a family member) is singing all the funny/dirty songs about losing freedom and virginity, losing children by their parents, etc. All of the unmarried girls stand behind the bride. Next, bridesmaid removes the bride’s veil. Finally, the bride casts the veil behind her, and the girl who catches the veil is the next to marry. Similar thing happens to the groom’s tie, which one of unmarried guys has to catch. Then the new pair has to dance together or do something else together.

Also, still as a part of “ocepiny” there are loads of games and dancing. The price for a winner of each competition is a bottle of vodka. So there is “clothes exchange”, some chair dancing, some more jumping and crazy stuff. One of the competitions was dancing and Alex, as a special guest (almost nobody was able to have a conversation with him, before drinking) was asked to join them. That was a dancing competition for couples, where only guys were dancing… Alex was a woman. Imagine a traditional Polish family, where everyone is serious and polite. And now imagine Alex (not really sober), going slowly and politely at the beginning, the same as the rest, and then going wilder and wilder!! Alex and his partner looking like a dirty couple on that dance floor!! I have never ever seen my family happy like that, laughing like crazy, everyone was crying! They obviously deserved those bottles of vodka more than anyone else. And yes, my family absolutely loved Alex from that moment on!

After that there was again lots of dancing, singing, eating and drinking, too much for some of us! The day ended about 5am, for some of us earlier

So you’re waking up on Sunday morning, feeling great or very opposite, and have a few hours to get ready (sometimes to squeeze church in there as well).

And here “poprawiny” (continuation) comes and there is another party! In old days, the wedding ceremonies continued for around seven days. Unfortunately now we have only one or two! People dance again, drink again, eat again. But I guess if you had enough the day before, you are only watching and smiling

My visit in Warsaw was quite short as I spent most of my time in Kolo (pronounced “Kowo”), as you can see my Polish lessons are paying off Due to missing my flight I actually spent around 3 days in Warsaw, which turned out to an expensive accident as it was actually three flights which were affected. Luckily we got free accomodation at a friends so we were only set back around £250 for re-arranging the three EasyJet flights.

Warsaw has two historic districts the original Old Town (Stare Miasto) and the New Town (Nowe Miasto). Nowe Miasto is as you would expect for a modern city, but Stare Miasto is really really nice. In fact it is quite similar to Prague and it’s market square. The architecture is truely magnificant set on cobbled streets.

The new town, Nowe Miasto, is home to the Joseph Stalin Palace of Culture and Science (Palac Kultury i Nauki imienia Jozefa Stalina) which began construction in 1952 and was completed in 1955. The skyscaper was a gift from the Soviet Union, the amusing thing to me was that Poland was offered either a museum or underground train system. They choose the musuem, I bet they are now all wishing they voted the other way Nearby there is an incredible looking glass dome roofed shopping centre. I’m not often one to appreciate a shopping centre but the design was amazing.