Finding out about the war

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Main thing for me when thinking about Poland is the events of the World War and trying to find out what happened here and get the local point of view who are still very keen to tell there stories passed down from Parents, Grandparents or there own tales. I got some very got insight with what happened there whilst staying with some very nice people in Warsaw and Krakow.

First I was in Warsaw where the whole city was completly destroyed 85% but they have managed to rebuild the old town to exactly the way it was before the war started. You will always hear about the Warsaw Uprising that happed here. The human sacrifices just during the Uprising in Warsaw for 63 days, 15,200 insurgents killed and missing, 5,000 wounded, 15,000 sent to POW camps. Among civilians 200,000 were dead, and approximately 700,000 expelled from the city. Approximately 55,000 civilians were sent to concentration camps, including 13,000 to Auschwitz. Berling's Polish Army losses were 5,660 killed, missing or wounded. And remember the ones sent to concentration camps had very little chance of surviving.
The Uprising museum in Warsaw has great info about what happened there and when walking in you go past a huge wall and where ever you are you can hear the heart beat that it is putting out, it is really fraky in that place!
So the Old City is looking like it has over the past several hundred years now but the rest of the city isnice at all, big grey building all ove the place, exactly what I had been told about Warsaw, but the Old Town is still very nice to wander through for some hours.
Just walking around Warsaw where the War started was a strange feeling since I have ben to the D Day beaches, Berlinn and many other places learning about what happened but in Warsaw where it all kicked off and walking down the road where Hitller done his victory parade (he wa supposed to be killed during but it backfired) is a strange feeling after hearing about it, watching it on tv from Aus and now seeing it you can out it into prospctive a little more.

Something else that I am sure everyone has heard of is of course Auswich where the largest killing of people had happened ever.. Between 1 and 1 1/2 million people were killed here, no one knows the exact number of people since the people were not recorded when they were trying to completly elimate Jews from Europe, 90% Jewish the rest POW's. Now this place is really haunting walking though and seeing the picturse, reading stories but what really hits you is when you walk into a room and in there it has the personal belongings the of the people that arrived, all sortedlike piles of shoes (two rows 20m long, 2m high), suitcases, toothbrushes etc The worst thing for me was seeing how many wooden legs there were there, now not many people have a missing leg and back then people may not have been able to afford one and then seeing hundreds of them stacked up gives you some idea of how many people were killed here or died from either the cold, starvation, diease or the work they had to do. Just sooo bad going there and finding out for myself what happened in the place that u are standing in. There are many many more stories but cant keep rambling on... Also I didn't realise that there are two Auswich camps the other one is 3 K away and twice as large as the main one where all the tourists head to, where most of the killings went on and the other on the Germans tried to destroy it when the Allies were approaching to cover up what was going on there.

So anyway to get to Auswich you need to go to Krakow first and this city was lucky enough to miss damage from the 2nd World War and really is the nicest city in Poland, well I have only beento two but thats what the locals say. The Medieval Old Town Square is the largest in Europe and the arctiture of the buildings are great. I didn't really have to much time to walk around around though cause the first day I was there I was hungover as in the morning and afternoon spent in Auswich and the next morning once again crook but had the afternoon checking the place out. Krakow is a major tourist city and I could only hear english when walking around the city so the night life is going to be a little crazy of course.. And also I am sure everyone has heard of the Polish drinking lots of vodka, well yes it is true I can asure you from staying with my hosts and seeing how they get through it!

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Photos

Auswich Concentration Camp
The gates into camp 'Arbeit macht frei' (Work brings freedom)

Krakow
My hosts had this fella as a pet..

Warsaw
The mermaid guarding the city, sister is in Copenhagen

Warsaw
Unknown soldier

Warsaw
Uprising museum

Warsaw
Uprising museum

Warsaw
Old Town

Warsaw
Old Town

Warsaw
Old town

Warsaw
Old town

Warsaw
Uprising memorial

Warsaw
This is a tribute to the children of the war

Comments

[darnise thomas]

so sad that hate destroyed, whole city, towns, generations..to be so barbaric in modern times is unbelieveable...