Advertisement
Auschwitz
"Work Will Set You Free"We start off this next entry with our journey from Berlin to Krakow, Poland. This was going to be our first night train, but first, I'd like to explain something to you...
As you all know, Sarah and I bought EuRail passes for our trip which covers most, but not all, of our choice countries. Poland is not one of these countries, so, we had to buy tickets for the Polish part of our journey. As well, for night trains you must make reservations and pay a little extra for either a couchette, sleeper, or a chair. For financial reasons, Sarah suggested we choose the chairs. She would like to mention that on the train from Amsterdam to Berlin, the chairs were very comfortable, and quite easy to sleep in. Boy, were we surprised at the difference in trains...
Eastern European trains are not quite as modern nor as comfortable as Western European trains. That night, we got all of maybe one hour of very restless sleep. The temperature ranged from incredibly cold to extremely hot, and we were never quite sure what was making the changes.
When we finally arrived in Krakow, we were both very tired
and couldn't wait to find our hostel for a nap. The Krakow train station proved to be extremely confusing, and not quite so user-friendly as that of Amsterdam and Berlin. While trying to find the exit to reach our tram to take us to our hostel, we managed to walk into a massively confusing mall. There we were, backpacks and daypacks in hand, exhausted, confused as hell, and standing in a mall while trying to find our tram stop. We were clearly in the wrong place, so we headed back to find the nearest tourist information kiosk.
We eventually found the exit, found our tram and made our way to our hostel. When we arrived, we were quite surprised at the room we had booked. Eastern Europe is quite inexpensive compared to Western Europe, so we decided to book ourselves a private double room, rather than staying in a dorm. We had no idea our room would turn out to be a mini-suite. It even had its own kitchen and TV! We didn't watch any TV, obviously, but from what we did see, we found quite hilarious. Polish TV was simply American soap-operas dubbed over in Polish, however, one
Beside "Death Block"
Where many thousands were tourtured and killed man does all of the voices, including the womens'.
That day, we decided to familiarize ourself with Krakow. We went for a walk, and found the main public square where Krakovian (we're not quite sure if that's a word) life begins and ends. This is where everyone meets for a drink, dinner, theater, shopping, or just to hang out and do some people-watching. We were both very impressed by how lively it was no matter what day nor time it was. Later on, we ended the day with two scoops of the most amazing gelato we've ever had.
The following morning, we woke up early to catch the bus to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. For those of you that don't know exactly what this was, it was the largest Nazi concentration camp during WWII. Over 1.5 million people were killed here, mostly by gas chambers. We were both unsure about how we were going to handle what we were about to see, because we had no clue what to expect.
When the Soviets liberated the camp, it was decided that rather than destroying all of the evidence, it would be more beneficial to preserve the site as a
museum and show the world what atrocities had been committed here.
The first sight as you walk into the Auschwitz death camp is the infamous "Arbeit Macht Frei", which in english means "work will set you free". We're sure most of you have seen this image at some point, whether on a movie, photograph, or documentary. It was quite an overwhelming feeling knowing that you were walking into this place as a tourist, when only recently millions of people walked through these same gates, but never made it out.
As you walk under the sign and look on either side of you, there were two rows of electric fences, topped with barbedwire to prevent anyone from escaping.
Many of the living blocks had been turned into small museums, each describing different aspects of life and death in a concentration camp, and displaying evidence. The walls of the hallways were lined with the head-shots of a fraction of the people who died there. Each one having the date they were checked into Auschwitz, and the day they died. Most were killed within two months. For both Sarah and I, the hardest part was seeing the pictures of the
Birkenau
Where prisoners walked to their death after ariving young children and the sheer terror in their eyes.
The blocks contained such horrific things as rooms filled with shoes, suitcases, glasses, artificial limbs, pots & pans, hair brushes, toothbrushes, and most shockingly, 4 tonnes of human hair. We can't even begin to describe how this made us feel, seeing the chopped off braided-hair of children. In the following room, it described how the Nazis used the hair to make their own uniforms.
Just before reaching the "death block", we saw an area where hundreds of thousands of people were shot standing in front of this specific wall. The wall was specially made by the Nazis in order to prevent ricocheting bullets. Beside the wall were two wooden posts used to hang victims by their hands, which were tied behind their backs. The windows from the surrounding living blocks were boarded up so that none of the other prisoners could watch the executions.
The next building we walked into was fittingly called the "death block." We were able to walk around the basement to witness where people were sentenced to die in the most inhumane ways, such as starvation, suffocation, or exhaustion. One of the rooms, called
Birkenau
Sleeping Blocks the standing room, was around 2ft wide by 3ft long. This was where the Nazis forced several people inside, making it absolutely impossible to move, or even sit down. This was where they had to "sleep" all night, then go out to do back-breaking labour during the day. Many people collapsed and died as a result of this torture.
The last building in Auschwitz I was the gas chamber and crematorium. We actually stood on the same spot where hundreds of thousands of people had been gassed, and thrown into the furnaces. This proved to be a very moving part of the trip, as we could almost feel the presence of the people who had gone through these unfathomable crimes.
Birkenau, which was created to be a more effective and efficient death-camp, was a twenty minute walk from Auschwitz. As we neared the camp, the sheer size of Birkenau was the intial shock. We walked along the railroad tracks leading into the camp through the main gate. These were the same tracks the Nazis used to bring prisoners into the camp, which lead to the dividing platform. Here is where each person was briefly "inspected" by a doctor
then told to either go to the left or the right. Those sent to the left immediately went to work, while those sent to the right were, unknowingly, walking their last steps to the gas chamber. Most of those sent to the gas chambers were women, mentally and physically challenged, elderly, or children.
The living blocks on both sides seemed to go on forever, which were nothing more than 3-tiered wooden bunks, with a very small stove for heating purposes, and a long concrete bench with holes for toilets. We couldn't believe the living conditions these people had to go through, especially when the weather would have been blistering cold in the winter. There was only one row of living blocks still standing and open for tourist purposes. Behind the one row were at least fifty to sixty more blocks that had been destroyed by the Nazis, with only the chimneys still standing.
After viewing the living quarters, we followed the railway tracks through the camp to the remains of the gas chambers and crematoriums. In WWII, as the Soviets grew closer to reaching Auschwitz-Birkenau, the Nazis tried to destroy all evidence of what had happened. Therefore, there
Wieliczka Salt Mine
Huge cathedral inside carved from salt were no gas chambers or crematoriums still standing. Through the ruins, we could still make out a fairly clear image of what used to exist here not too long ago.
This where we ended our trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau. It proved to be a long, exhausting, and emotional day. We were not trying to make this blog a history lesson for you, but we felt obligated to paint a clear picture of what we saw and experienced on this horrific site.
On a lighter note, the next day we plunged deep into the historic salt-mine of Poland. This salt-mine is well-known for its famous sculptures, and incredibly detailed cathedral, all hand-carved by salt-miners. The sculptures, for the most part, were quite interesting but nothing jaw-dropping. The cathedral, on the other hand, absolutely blew our minds. It's a large cathedral, still being used for mass every Sunday. On the walls are immaculate carvings of different biblical scenes and names. The most impressive was the Last Supper and the chandeliers.
Other than Auschwitz-Birkenau and the Salt-Mine, we spent most of our time people-watching in an outdoor terrace drinking a Polish beer, and eating perogies. Each day ended with two scoops
The Last Supper
Carved out of salt of gelato from the same stand as the night before.
On our final day in Krakow, we had decided we would simply take it easy and enjoy the sun. We were going to be catching the night train to Budapest in the evening, and would spend the day roaming the market square, eating more perogies, drinking beer, and doing some more people-watching. (It's a tough life, we know, but someone's got to do it.)
While enjoying the sun, we decided we would take the time to do some much-needed writing in our journals. It had been a long time since we had actually taken the time to do this. I checked my watch to see the date, and that's when I realized we had made a terrible mistake... as it turns out, there are only thirty days in April, not thirty-one.
We had booked our hostel in Budapest for the nights of May 1st, 2nd and 3rd. We were planning on taking the night train from Krakow to Budapest on April "31st". It was 2:30PM, May 1st, and we were supposed to be checking into our hostel at around this time. We quickly ran to the nearest
internet cafe to email the hostel about our embarassing mistake.
That night, we took a train to Budapest hoping that that hotel wouldn't charge us for an extra night...
We had originally planned on doing both Krakow and Budapest in one blog. However, due to this excess length, we have decided do Budapest in a separate entry, which we hope to post a few hours after this one. Thank you again for reading!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.076s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 13; qc: 27; dbt: 0.0307s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Ashley
non-member comment
Hey! sounds like quite the adventure, i couldn't imagine the sense of presence hanging around those camps.... thats intense! i Heart perogies! but you already know that right Sarah!? lol! Perogies Mozza Sticks and Cheese cake.... yumm even more tasty after strip arobics.lol love you!