Today we were visiting the Auschwitz camp, but before we got there we had to run to our train that we would be on for 2 hours! When we got there we roamed around the entry before having our tour for over three hours. It was depressing learning and looking at all of the facts and history behind it. There was one section where there was a wall filled with hair. They shaved the prisoners heads and had 7 tons of hair! It was sad looking at all of the pictures of the dead, and the torture chambers. :( We also walked inside a gas chamber where the Nazis would gas 75% of the people who had literally just arrived at the camp. The Auschwitz camp killed 1,000,000 Jews in just one camp! The landscape around the camp was very pretty besides all of the history behind it. The Nazis at the end of WWII tried destroying the gas chambers, cremation furnace rooms, and barracks so they wouldn't get in as much trouble. Each barrack slept 700 people which was a very small place for that many people. It was very sad learning about the history of these people. Hopefully we will never come across WWIII.
We had to take a long train back to Krakow like the morning train. When we were at the train station we walked back to our hotel and later ate dinner. We ate dinner at a restaurant named Marmolada. It was a Polish restaurant that didn't look too big from the outside but from the inside it was much larger than expected. We ate dinner than walked back to the hotel. Krakow was very pretty especially the square and at night the square is lit up and there are restaurants all around.
That night we did some of our blog and just before we fell off into a slumber Kendall arrived at our hotel room after being alone in Lodz.
The entry into the first camp Auschwitz 1. The arch says something like work with make you free, which wasn't true here. The only freedom was death.
Barracks in Auschwitz I.
An account of all those that were imprisoned and lives lost at Auschwitz - 1,000,000 Jews
Memorial containing ashes that were found at the crematorium in Auschwitz
Eyeglasses from those who were killed at Auschwitz
Prosthetic limbs and handicap devices taken from prisoners. Those that had any handicaps were sent right to the gas chambers
Enamel and porcelain pots and pans and bowls of Jews and others that were brought to Auschwitz. All these items were taken from prisoners. They were originally brought because they thought they were being relocated to start "better lives". These items were kept in "Canada" - the store house and used by Germans.
Prisoners until around 1943 were photographed as they came into camp. Originally women didn't have to have their heads shaved and then later they all had their heads shaved. They stopped taking photos since they didn't have time for it and it because useless since they looked nothing like their photos after a few months, due to starvation and being worked to death
We toured the barracks which housed hundreds of prisoners. Originally they were military barracks for the Poles who the Germans took over and made into their Concentration Camp
The wall outside the German "court" where mostly Poles were brought and after a 1 minute court most were deemed guilty of whatever crime and then sent to the courtyard to be shot.
Security fence between barracks at Auschwitz I camp
Inside the first gas chamber, the hole above is where the gas would be dropped into the chamber
The crematorium in the first gas chamber at Auschwitz I
The tracks that came right into Auschwitz Concentration/Extermination Camp
Cars that prisoners and specifically this one was filled with Jews from Hungary who were brought to Auschwitz
Memorial for those that died at Auschwitz
Steps going to changing rooms before prisoners went into the "showers" which was a huge gas chamber
Stones in remembrance of those that were killed in the gas chambers, which were destroyed by the Germans at the end of the war
Pit where ashes were put after they came from the crematorium at Auschwitz
Concentration Camp Barracks, each held around 700 prisoners
Bathrooms for hundreds at Auschwitz
Looking over Auschwitz II
Cool mural of a peacock we saw on a building while on the train to Krakow
St Mary's Basilica in the Main Square, Krakow
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