“Parking $10,” said another.
My dad turned the car around. Five children banged on the glass wailing and begging. My mom hummed “9 to 5” as we drove away forever.
Jason downshifts the rental car. I remember that ten zloty is less than four dollars and let it go.
A checkpoint has three guards smoking cigarettes. They don’t have any official badge or uniform, unless well-defined muscles count as a uniform.
The biggest one comes over to our car.
Jason hesitates before he rolls down the window.
Forty zloty later, we are past the razor wire fence.
I am relieved to find three giant tour buses in the parking lot, signaling we are not the only humans here.
Here is the eastern edge of Poland, at what remains of Hitler’s headquarters called Wolf’s Lair.
Surrounded by swamps, lakes, and woods, the location was picked for its remoteness but also for its proximity to the Soviet Union, which Hitler wanted to invade.
Our reasons for visiting Wolf’s Lair are less clear.
Last night I said to Jason: “There is an old Nazi bunker three hours away. I’m creeped out by it, but do you want to go see it?”
“Definitely,” he replied.
Wood-and-concrete bunkers were built. Wolf’s Lair became a small city with two air strips, a casino, its own power generator, a railway station, and a cinema.
This info is learned from a guide I downloaded to my phone. Keeping in the spirit of a Nazi bunker more than a historic site, Wolf’s Lair doesn’t provide much information or guidance. Except a big wooden map similar to the kind that ski resorts have. Rather than K2 trails and bunny slopes, it marks the bunkers of Hitler and G?ring.
Past the ski map are a hotel and a café housed in an original bunker that wasn’t destroyed.
Bare bones and army green, the sparseness of the café looks almost hip. The coffee is not bad.
A sign that resembles a beat-up dog tag reads “Souvenirs.” The small kiosk sells snacks and World War II novelties. I buy a history map pamphlet with set in Jackboot Grotesk. Jason buys some crackers.
Hitler spent over eight hundred days at Wolf’s Lair. In the early mornings he would receive frontline reports, from nine to ten he would take his dog for a walk, and at night he would drift off serenaded by the ribbit, ribbit of frogs.
The lair had a mosquito problem due to all the nearby swamps. It wasn’t just a problem, it was a plague. Some of the guards wore beekeeper hats to protect themselves.
To fix the plague the soldiers poured oil in all the swamps. This killed off the mosquitoes, but it also killed all the frogs.
Hitler was pissed.
A batch of frogs had to be imported ASAP.
We follow a German tour group into the woods. Their guide speaks into a portable PA that he carries like a purse. Jason and I don’t understand German, so it sounds like another tacky decorating decision the lair made.
The mosquitoes are gigantic. I slather bug spray on Jason and myself.
Wolf’s Lair was protected on the ground by land mines and barbed wire fences; it was hidden by air through camouflage nets and strategic overgrowth.
Witnessing the strength of the Soviets, Hitler didn’t think the lair was safe enough. Bunkers were reenforced. More land mines were added.
In November 1944, things started to go downhill, and Hitler ordered the destruction of Wolf’s Lair. Eighteen thousand pounds of dynamite was no match for the lair. Most of the buildings were damaged, but not many destroyed. The soldiers gave up, and the ruins of Wolf’s Lair still stand today.
They are remarkably intact. Each bunker is numbered, and you can enter. There are bits of rebar and chunks of concrete sprinkled throughout. The forest is overgrown, and the path is more of a hiking trail.
Yellow signs, spray-painted on rubble and rocks, warn that the bunkers are old and liable to fall, you shouldn’t stray from the trail, as there might still be undiscovered land mines, and under no circumstance should you climb the bunkers.
Everyone is climbing the bunkers, especially a group of Polish teenagers and Jason.
Claus von Stauffenberg tried to assassinate Hitler at Wolf’s Lair. Von Stauffenberg came very close to success. So close there was a Tom Cruise movie made about the attempt.
The bunker where the attempt took place has a monument to von Stauffenberg, and the longest blurb in my walking tour guide.
Moss-covered traces of the war are at every turn. It is not just moving, but haunting. Jason and I both imagine hearing gunfire.
Wolf’s Lair is off. I am surprised that it has not been boycotted. It seems only a matter of time before an angry mob will demand the lair cease operating a military-themed hotel and canteen. It will be deemed poor taste and a celebration of a monster. This faction will also demand the guards of Wolf’s Lair not be so threatening and not quite so ripped. Crushing cans with your shoulder blades will not be part of the employment test. Guards won’t be allowed or encouraged to wear black army boots. And they will be called guides, not guards.
But right now, amid the tactlessness, insensitivity, and genuine confusion of how to present such a place, Wolf’s Lair spurs more thoughts and emotions than a respectful plaque with fact-checked details could.
It wasn’t our imagination.
Inside bunker number seventeen we find a guy in camo pants, renting replica World War II rifles for a few zloty.
It is a shooting range. The targets are glass bottles hung on strings.
Two women wearing matching visors poke their heads in, make grossed-out faces, and hightail it to the next bunker. Camo pants seems used to this.
A SEVEN-DAY PILLBOX
Before he dropped out of college my dad did a report on The Catcher in the Rye. He focused on the part of the plot where Holden keeps wondering where the ducks go when the pond freezes. Holden wonders, does a guy come in a truck and take them or do they just fly away? My dad went to Central Park and asked.
The ducks just stay there and take care of themselves.
What I took from this story was not so much the ducks being able to take care of themselves but my dad asking for help from Central Park.
When I was in college, Willy was seventy-something with a cane.
He still came to The Store every day. My dad screwed a huge silver handle next to the door so Willy could manage the stoop himself.
Willy would sit in his favorite booth, and I would bring him a sweet potato and a birch beer. Often I would help him home because he lived on the second floor.
One day he came in and told my dad he was going to Germany for a singing gig.
The next day he came in and said he had a great time and now had a show in Paris.
Then Willoughby didn’t come in.
We had keys to his place. I went and all his stuff was there, but I didn’t see Willy.