The man with the machine gun took my vodka. The Krakow airport is so small i could have thrown the bottle and hit the plane. Maybe that was his concern. The United States sets the rules on air travel worldwide, and the liquid law has to be the most ridiculous. After changing planes, you go through even tougher security to board the international flight back to the US. Here they won't let you even buy water after you go through security. You know. Water. As in, necessary for life. Instead I have to beg a flight attendant for hydration in 3 oz servings like a prisoner. The beer, however, is free. Figure that one out.

Cebit was stellar. I did 30 interviews and will have all kinds of stuff coming up on the Technofile. Laptops with 2 screens, ringtones for your car, LCDs for your pool - there was a ton to see. After CeBit we went by rail to East Berlin, where i was promptly solicited by a prostitute. Good to know i've still got what it takes to be noticed by women. The next day we went on a train that looked like it had served the Soviets in the 1960s. This thing was OLD. You could hang your head out of the car and get it knocked off. What a rush.

Everything in Poland looks like the Soviets left 2 years ago and everyone started to remodel. The entire place is under construction, depressing and gray. Once we arrived in Krakow i knew this was now my favorite eastern European city. It's a great vibe.

An hour and a half from Krakow is Auschwitz.
I have never been in a place that felt so deeply evil in my life. Well, maybe Branson Missouri. The preservation of Auschwitz is stunning, and you can walk for ages across prison camps that stretch for a mile, even stroll into abandoned bunk houses that look like they were vacated yesterday. It's truly eerie. To make things really vomit inducing, they left the piles of human hair for you to see, literally rooms of the stuff shaved from the heads of people before they were gassed.

The train tracks lead right through the front doors of the place and head to the back where the gas chambers and ovens were.
Most interesting was the museum that showed the propaganda used to win the minds of people. There seemed to be an interesting method.
1. Convince the populace they are threatened by an outside force.
2. Denounce any media that criticises politicians as unpatriotic, liberal and a danger to the country.
3. Announce that certain laws and freedoms are being suspended indefinitely for the safety of the nation.

The parallels were astonishing. Too often people make comparisons to Hitler or Nazis. It's been said an online political discussion almost always results in someone calling someone else a Nazi. However, visiting Auschwitz was a bleak reminder of how politicians can whip a populace into a frenzy through fear and patriotism to terrifying results. I highly recommend a visit.

posted by lazlow at 9:04 AM  on Thursday, March 29, 2007