First, I woke up at a reasonable time and got ready for the day. My camera case was open and my camera was gone. I went to the front desk and they didn’t have it. So… I assumed it was stolen. I was surprisingly not too upset, travel insurance would cover it, but I was gutted that I couldn’t take any pictures.
Anyway… can’t let that hold up my day. I tagged along with a couple of people from my dorm room as they were heading to Auschwitz (if you don’t know what this is then I don’t know what hole you’ve been living in) as well. Chatted with them on the 2 hour bus ride and then went our separate ways when we got there because I wanted to do a guided tour. Today happened to be the only day with semi-reasonable weather… still cold but at least it wasn’t raining.
Now, this was probably one of the most morbid experiences of my life. The tour started with a 15 minute documentary explaining how Auschwitz was run. It had live footage of when it was liberated by the soviets and other such stuff. After the movie, people were crying walking out.
We started the tour… first we got given these badges and then the tour guide let us through the main gates. It turns out the badges we were given were used to mark the Auschwitz prisoners… and we got lead through the gate like people were back then… it was really strange.
I managed to get some pictures of the complex using my phone camera. Some places I didn’t feel comfortable taking pictures though. Anyway… I’m not going to go into too much detail on this but you can read a lot on Wikipedia and other such stuff on the Holocaust. I am just going to let you know some of the morbid details that really hit home fore me.
1 - 1.5 million people (men, woman and children) were exterminated at Auschwitz during the time it ran from 1939 – 1945, most being Jews. It was the largest Nazi extermination camp. When a train arrived containing a load of passengers, the fittest men were selected to be “slave labour” the rest were sent straight to the gas chambers… about 75% of each trainload was sent there. Most slave labour people lasted less than 3 months due to poor conditions. The burners there could burn up to 2000 corpses in 24 hours… yet some days this wasn’t fast enough and they had to burn piles of bodies. Over all the extermination camps and Ghettos, 6 million out of 11 million European Jews were murdered during the war… and almost 100% of the Polish Jews were exterminated.
I only cried twice during this tour (which surprised me how little). The first was the room showing the medical experiments that were performed on children, seeing their deformed malnutrition bodies was just horrible. Most of them were then executed or tortured to death, then autopsied to see how the experiments affected them. The second was the story about Father Maximilian Kolbe. A prisoner escaped, and as punishment, the SS selected 10 men to die in his place… by starvation. One man that was selected cried because he had a family on the outside. The Monk heard his cries and chose to go in his place. After two weeks in the “starvation chamber” the monk would still not die and had to be executed by the Nazi. The man who’s life he saved survived the war and lived to a good age.
The gas chambers did not affect me as much as I thought they would. They were pretty bad… but still not as bad as I imagined.
The whole experience I could write a LOT about… as it really did affect me. Not a pleasant experience, but I’m glad I did it. With seeing the Nazi museum in Nuremberg and Auschwitz, the events tie together… and it’s still hard to believe such an atrocity happened.
Anyway… got a bit teary even writing the above passage.
I met a couple of people on the tour and started chatting with them afterwards, they were heading back to Krakow by car. I caught a lift with them. It was a Scottish lass (Rachel), an Irish bloke (Richard) and a Polish guy (can’t remember his name).
I ended up going to dinner with them at a random town pizza place that was in the basement of someone’s house! They were really cool and I’m going to try and make it to Glasgow to catch up with them.
I got back to the hostel after dinner etc, and the Poms and Justin were there, along with another Pommy girl (Tori). So, we got some drinks and after a few hit the town. Got home and went to bed eventually.
So a bit of a weird day really… I fully recommend that anyone go to Auschwitz if they get the chance. It’s just so unbelievable you just have to do it!
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