Blogs from Auschwitz, Lesser Poland, Poland, Europe

This morning I was up relatively early, so I wandered around the rest of Old Town before heading back to Auschwitz. I think one of my favourite (if not my favourite) things about Europe, is their Old Towns and the cafes/restaurants with outdoor patios everywhere you go. It's such a perfect way to pass an hour. Or two. Or five. Anyway. I wandered around, took some more photos of the churches and other buildings, the Gate at Florienska and the Barbican. I walked past a statue that had the word Grunewald on it... I couldn't help but think of Grindelwald and Harry Potter. Yes. Nerdom coming through, right there. Ahem. From there I bussed back to Auschwitz to actually see the camp this time. Well worth the trip back. Unlike Birkenau, or Dachau to a lesser ... read more

On a cool grey Polish summer day we went to Auschwitz and nearby Birkenau-Auschwitz ll concentration camps. These are names that for all our lives have been associated with horror and cruelty: humanity’s capability of inhumanity. We went first to Birkenau, where all is left just as it was with very little change, except for some ruined buildings that must have fallen over time. The sheer size of this camp took our breath away. We entered one or two of the accommodation blocks which are open to allow people to see the living conditions of those who suffered here. We walked and we looked, trying to grasp the reality of what we saw. Everywhere in this huge camp there were people also walking and looking, mostly in silence, witnesses to this horror. In the midst of ... read more

After my train trip from Warsaw to Oswiecim, I went and checked into my hotel and put my bags down. Oswiecim is better known by it's German name Auschwitz, The Nazi's largest concentration camp. So I headed out to the camp. After a bit of looking around at the buildings left, I headed off to the Museum to have a look at the exhibition they had on the concentration camp. The museum had pictures of what it would have been like for the Jews when they stayed in the camp. I could only look for about an hour, because it was very sad, and so I then went outside -Sitting in the sunshine but haunted by the souls of the men, woman and children who were killed there.... read more

Days 43 2nd June Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Poland “Nations who forget their own history are sentenced to live it again” Lest we never forget…. Countless words have been written about the Holocaust and many writers have struggled to find adequate words to express their feelings having visited the Polish State Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau. Many of us use the word ‘unbelievable’ but rarely use it in the true sense of the word –beyond belief. Truly I can say that Auschwitz-Birkenau is beyond belief; it IS unbelievable that members of the human race could inflict such atrocities in a calculated, planned, efficient and above all systematic way. It was murder in the first degree. I, like a lot of people of my age, learnt and knew about the Holocaust and concentration camps, not only from history lessons at school ... read more

Today was a day I was both looking forward to and dreading at the same time. I've been studying and teaching about the Shoah (The Holocaust) for over 10 years now. I've been to Israel, been to the International Holocaust Museum at Yad Vashem, heard hundreds of survivor testimonies in person, but this is the epitome of it all. A concentration camp. Not any concentration camp, the biggest and most gruesome: Auschwitz-Birkenau. 1 100 000 thousand people entered the gates that read Arbeit macht frei (work makes free) between 1942 and 1944 and never came back out. Mass murder. Genocide. Extermination. Jews. Gypsies. Homosexuals. The disabled. Asians. Political prisoners. All persecuted seemingly beyond that of human capability... that is what makes this place so profound, that you can walk in and see the horse stables the ... read more

Sunday morning started cloudy and cool with a chance of rain. Our team loaded promptly after a delicious breakfast, and we made our way via bus (plus a luggage trailer) to Oswiecim for our 9 o'clock guided tour of Auschwitz Concentration Camp and Birkenau Death Camp. Our guide, Szymon, a Polish Jew himself, provided us with a passionate historical perspective of what happened in this solemn place. He shared personal family stories about his uncle who was arrested and sent to Auschwitz for smuggling food items to his family and friends. He later was transferred out of Auschwitz to another camp; the rest of the story is unknown. As we walked from building to building, the skies continued to darken and provided emphasis to the horrors related to us within the electrified barbed-wire double fence, especially ... read more