13th, 20th and 21st Centuries Combined [Ep. 4]

(light music) - All right. Good morning. So it's a Saturday. Looks like a kinda, huh, nice day outside, kind of. There's my bike over there.

I think you can see it over there. So the plan for today, first breakfast here at this wonderful hotel. Then we're going to the Stutthof concentration camp, hopefully. It's a Saturday, so I hope it's open.

Then I have some ideas in Gdansk and then we're going down to, well, down. (roaring engine) All right. That was the hotel over there, Nowa Holandia. It was pretty great. The breakfast was great as well. And now we are off to the concentration camp.

(lively, energetic music) Hey. (lively rhythm music) (rain splattering softly) (birds chirping) So after they were registered here at this camp, the next stage of admitting an inmate was to go through this gate over here, which is called the "Death Gate." You can see it's raining so it's not quite a pleasant experience.

But let's walk through the gate and now we're on the other side. So the first women came to this Stutthof concentration camp in 1940 and this left side was the women's block. And let's go in.

All right. Since it's raining I'm not gonna go inside everywhere, but you're probably wondering what these things in the middle are, here, right? In the middle of the camp. So these actually used to be the workshops. The inmates had to produce the things that they needed and what the camp needed to function themselves. So in the middle there were workshops for electricians, locksmiths, blacksmiths, carpenters, and so on.

All of these, up until the Death Gate were workshops and to make the whole thing even sadder, at the end of the workshops, so if you check there, these were the workshops. And at the end of the workshops was the morgue. If an inmate died, sorry. If an inmate died working, living here, or under whatever circumstances, they would be taken there, to the morgue, at the end of the workshops. So at the end of August 1942, they needed a crematory. So this is it.

And right next to the crematory was the gas house. (footsteps on crunching gravel) Stutthof. Since it's raining, couldn't do much of filming, but I'm going to another concentration camp in around a week or so. So I hope to do some more filming there, but actually it's rather sad view. For myself, and even for the camera I feel. So the camp, of course, had to make money.

So they had gardening. They grew vegetables and fruits that would go to the SS and they grew flowers that would be sold in the nearby city of Gdansk. Let's see the garden. In the beginning they only had orangery, so it was one green house.

And later on, they built three more greenhouses. (roaring engine) All right, so I'm soaking wet and it's still raining. I'm in Gdansk. Completely wet. Raining. So proof of everything I just said. Later, I wanted to go to a ship museum, but that's closed.

So instead, I'll go to some strange architectural thing. But that's gonna be very fast, only a couple of minutes. All right, this is Gdansk.

Or at least the outskirts of Gdansk. And now we're off to see Krzywy Domek, if I remember the title correctly. Normal, inside. Take a look. Let me see if I can get a better view.

(chuckling) (crowd chatting) It's like the building was painted. Anyway, the main street as well, just a little bit of. All right. So, God. It stopped raining.

It rains every day. (laughs) (gentle rhythm music) And we're at the Malbork Castle right now. (gentle, melodic music) (scanner beeping) (laughing) (ladies speaking in foreign language) - So from what I understood, it was completely destroyed in 1945 during the World War II, at least from the pictures outside. I'm not sure, I got to check on that. But now it just looks stunning.

Really, it really does. Take a look. So the palace is massive, this Malbork palace. It's got gardens and halls, and halls and gardens. I've been walking around for 20 minutes and I don't think I've reached the end of the castle. I'm in the garden right now, by the way. So we'll finally enter the castle itself and apparently this was the kitchen.

(gentle rhythm music) So here they're making bread for all the inhabitants of the Malbork Castle to eat. All right, let's go to the second floor now. There's a huge hall here.

(gentle, dramatic music) And it looks like we can go around the center. So let me show you what I can see. So I'm walking around the castle's halls over there. All around. I just found a giant wardrobe. You can probably enter Narnia through that.

All right. Now let's try to climb the tower. I'm not sure if I can do it in the motorcycle gear again. Climbing towers in motorcycle gear. (light, melodic music) All right. I'm here. (light, melodic music) I'm not sure I can go further. The door looks closed.

The staircase to the tower looks absolutely majestic. (gentle, dramatic music) So what you saw before were in the beginning, the swords were something like 13th, 14th century, maybe 15th century, and this is already 18th century and 19th, 18th, 19th century. And of course, they started using gunpowder and guns. All right. So those were the guns. And now we're moving on to the armor.

That's the 16th century over here. 17th century. This one looks completely royal, a legion commander.

Almost they look scary. Some shields. Now, of course, this is a little more modern stuff, guns over there. And we're finishing off on the 18th, 19th century here. Moving to Persian blades. So this is locked stuff. I check it out.

So we're not just moving through centuries, but we're also moving through regions. Here's some armor that you could find in Persia. Of course, that's together with the swords and daggers that you saw already in the previous shots. But I must say this is pretty impressive. It's a huge collection of weapons of that time. Very interesting.

Okay. Let's move forward. So that was the Malbork Castle and I think that's it for today and I'm leaving for the hotel. As I said, I'm going south.

Hopefully it doesn't rain anymore today, like it did earlier. I think I have some GoPro footage with the rain I had to endure on the Polish highway, on a motorcycle. (laughing) By the way, like I told you, the castle got completely destroyed during the Second World War. Here's a picture of how it looked, 1945. And of course, what you saw before is what it looks like right now. (gentle, calming music) So well done, Polish people, with a impressive piece of history.

14th century history, actually. See you later. (gentle, nostalgic music) All right. So I'm at the hotel. I know I said I was soaking wet yesterday, but yesterday I didn't know what soaking wet means.

Well, today I literally squeezed water out of my jacket. Yeah, let me settle in and get some food and I'll see you tomorrow. All right. Today's not the day. Went to the nearby cafe restaurant and they said it was closed and that's pretty normal because it's nine o'clock over here.

As you can see behind me, it's not raining at all, 'cause when I stop riding, it stops raining. I realized I didn't tell you where I am. So I'm around 10 kilometers north of Bydgoszcz, that's where we're going tomorrow. All right. So I'm just back at my hotel.

Pizzeria Parma saved us after this ruthless restaurant hunt here in this town. So I'm gonna eat now, actually, no, I'm gonna start by putting the cover on my motorcycle, getting it ready for the night, and then I'm gonna eat. And now for real, see you tomorrow. (light, suspenseful music)

2021-07-10 00:34

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