I wanted to hit up some places in Eastern Europe while I was on exchange and I had heard really good things about Krakow (over Warsaw, anyway). For the most part, the city was great. The hostel we stayed at—aptly named “Goodbye Lenin!”—was nice and the staff was friendly. The first night there, my friend and I met the owner of our hostel and one of his friends who took us out to a bar and club frequented by locals. It was awesome to get the “in” in the city. We got drinks, met some new people, and danced the night away.

However, the next day, as we strolled through the Jewish market, we heard some guys in a car call out to us. “Hey!” the driver said as he stuck his head out of the window, “Ching chang chong!” His buddies in the other seats were laughing like this was the cleverest joke they’d ever heard. Having experienced this in the past (what Asian hasn’t?), I waved them away and kept walking. Two seconds later, after we turned the corner, the car was back with the driver still chanting, “Ching chang chong!” My blood boiling, I gave them the finger and yelled, “FUCK YOU!” very clearly. They laughed, but finally drove off.

Our second encounter with ignorant Eastern Europeans was leaving Auschwitz—a Nazi death camp, of all places. As we walked out of the camp, a few guys in a car exiting the parking lot stuck their heads out of their windows and said, “Ni hao!” while laughing. Coming out a death camp where racism at its extreme resulted in the death of millions of people, these guys are pulling out the racist Asian comments. Fuck, people will forever be stupid.

Although over an hour outside of Krakow, Auschwitz was definitely something I had to see. Often, when I hear about the Holocaust and the atrocities that occurred at the Nazi camps, I see it as a movie, a sad drama where there are the classic villains and the classic victims. I think that when you only learn about events through books and movies, that’s how they will feel to you sometimes. Being at Auschwitz made the Holocaust more upsetting to me, more infuriating, but more real.