Kraków is a hidden gem. It is a beautiful, charming, old-fashioned city that has a striking similarity to Prague. In addition to its magnificent baroque architecture, Kraków intoxicates one with its romance. It has an endless array of city performers and countless street vendors and eateries. The historic hilltop where the Wawel Castle sits was splendid. It featured the castle, the Wawel Cathedral (Poland’s nation church), a lush courtyard, and several museums.

Before sightseeing the city, we explored the Wieliczka Salt Mine, a vast, thousand-foot-deep mine with nine levels and over 100 miles of tunnels. After our three-hour tour of the mine, our docent informed us we had surveyed only 1% of the total mine. The mine’s massive underground church, carved in the early 20^th century, was quite neat. Interestingly, the church is still used for Mass today.

Located in Old Town, the Main Market Square is easily one of Europe’s most vibrant public spaces. As I traipsed around the square, I felt as though I was living in the Old World. A bonus: Poland is one of Europe’s least expensive countries, and thus an indulgence in a pivo is obligatory. The square is quite grand but also retains a folksy intimacy.

St. Mary’s Church (pictured below) was one the many highlights of our visit. According to the Pew Research Center, approximately 92 percent of Polish citizens are Catholic. This makes them the most religious country in Europe. While today Poland’s people are overwhelmingly Catholic, this was not always the case. In fact, before World War Two a quarter of Krakow’s population was Jewish.

We ended our visit to Kraków at Oskar Schindler’s enamel factory. The factory offered us a time travel through the city’s history. Oskar Schindler was a German industrialist and former member of the Nazi Party who saved the lives of over a thousand Polish Jews by employing them at his factory.

I found myself particularly moved at Schindler’s Factory. Perhaps because one of the classes I am a student in is largely focused on the Holocaust. In addition to this class, I am also reading Man’s Search For Meaning, by Viktor Frankl, an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist as well as a Holocaust survivor. Our visit felt as if it was the culmination of my somewhat suppressed frustrations and profound sadness.

There was a quote from Frankl’s book that haunted me as I walked through the factory: “I shall never forget how I was roused one night by the groans of a fellow prisoner, who threw himself about in his sleep, obviously having a horrible nightmare. Since I had always been especially sorry for people who suffered from fearful dreams or deliria, I wanted to wake the poor man. Suddenly I drew back the hand which was ready to shake him, frightened at the thing I was about to do. At that moment I became intensely conscious of the fact that no dream, no matter how horrible, could be as bad as the reality of the camp which surrounded us, and to which I was about to recall him.”

Our guide explained to us that Mr. Schindler was a womanizer and, from an early age, quickly inhabited a world of sin. These imperfections and flaws, while certainly not laudable, humanized the man. If he was able to save a thousand souls and see the immense darkness of Nazism, then so might we. Darkness overwhelms this world but so too does light. I find a deep comfort in knowing the latter will ultimately prevail.