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Published: October 7th 2009
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Today, Rasta and I woke up around nine, ate breakfast, and took a tram to the bus station. We were a little early for the bus to Auschwitz, so we walked around the mall for a while and got some coffee. I ordered in Polish 😊 Tomek and Magda met us there and we went to buy our bus tickets.. The bus ride from Krakow to Auschwitz was about an hour and forty minutes. Entrance to the concentration camp was free. You could pay for a tour guide, but I just bought a brochure that had a map and explained each building. I have to say that I was not prepared emotionally for what I was about to see. Magda's cousin warned me and asked me if I was really ready to see Auschwitz and Rasta did the same. But part of my family background is Jewish, so I wanted to see it. Also, throughout high school and College, I've heard about the notorious death camp and to actually see it, I felt would draw a clearer image of the holocaust.
So, we entered the camp, and before I went through the gates, I took two pictures, and that was
it because for some reason, I felt guilty taking pictures at the grave of millions of people, a place where so many suffered. Over one million people died here. But what many don't know is that Auschwitz was actually originally intended for the Polish people, a place for Nazi Germany to wipe out the Polish nation. So this place meant even more to my Polish friends.
We spent almost four hours at the camp because each barrack had its own museum inside it. At liberation, there were a lot of possessions of the prisoners still in storage.. It was eye opening to see the 20 yard long glass cases full of shoes, glasses, childrens' belongings, and worse. The prisoners were told that they were moving to a new city to live and work, so they brought all their favorite things- sentimentals and valuables. But when they got off the trains, their suitcases were torn from them. Most of the people who arrived at this camp were killed right away when they reached the "showers" only to be gassed.
On a lighter note, after we got back from Auschwitz, we met Rasta's friend at a pizza place. It was
a cool restaurant. We sat in couches around a low table. While we were waiting for our pizza, we played scrabble! Of course we played English scrabble.. but the letter values were different because for example, they use Z like crazy in Polish (so it was only 1 point), they were missing X all together, and there were some added letters which looked like C's and S's, so we just said they were those letters. It was a lot of fun and whenever I made a word they didn't know they were like "how do we know youre not just making these words up??"
And the Pizza was good. Ok, so brace yourself... In poland, they put KETCHUP on their pizza.. Not instead of pizza sauce but the server give you ketchup to spread. I tried it, but was not a huge fan.. Im sure if I liked ketchup it might be alright, but I'm just not a huge fan of it. Also.. it is common to put CORN on your pizza.. oh and PICKLES. And pizza is much cheaper.. It was about 25USD for 3 ginormous (yeah mom, i know that's not a real word) pizzas with a
ton of toppings. After, we went to a pub for our last night in Krakow. We talked for a while and had a beer, but we were all verryy tired, so we went back to our flats after an hour. Again, I fell asleep right away at it was only 1030pm!
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Mom
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"Ginormous" isn't a word? -smile- Powerful blog entry on Auschwitz. Unimagineable that some still deny this ever happened Love, Mom