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Today we were picked up from our lovely little pension in the middle of nowhere (Teplice) and driven off in private mini vans towards Krakow, which would be our new home for the night. The vans were driven by two lovely guys, and our driver was just hilarious. He had a real sense of humour on him. Most of the day was spent driving from the Czech Republic into Poland (although we did cross the border only 1 hour after we left Teplice). However we had a pretty major stop to make on the way. Auschwitz.
Now I had been really looking forward to going to Auschwitz and I had a pretty clear image in my mind of what the camp would look like. For some reason I was picturing a dark and gloomy castle, perched on the top of a hill somewhere, with storm clouds and lightening all around it. So it was a bit of a surprise to discover that there was a town (Oswiecim) all the way around it and that it was acutally on a lovely meadow and had some beautiful scenery around and even in the camp. We had a guide who took us around
the camp and showed us many many aspects of what life in the camps would have been like.
I do have to say however that it wasn't the most pleasant place to visit. And not because of the history of the camp, but instead because there are just so many tourists there. It really spoils the atmosphere quite a bit and makes it hard to visualise what life must have been like there. Auschwitz is actually split into a few different camps that were in different locations.
The first camp, Auschwitz was initially established in a disused polish army barracks in 1940 and was initially designed to hold Polish prisoners. However it was later expanded into the largest centre for the extermination of European Jews. Two more camps were subsequently established (Birkenau and Monowitz). Apparently in the course of there operation somewhere between 1 and 1.5 million people were killed here.
Auschwitz was only partially destroyed by the fleeing Nazis so a lot of buildings remain and in these buildings there is now a museum. Most of the buildings are still in the same state as they were when the camp was in use. However a number
of the other buildings have been adapted to incorporate museum exhibits. The two most chilling or interesting for me were the whole wall of artificial limbs that were taken from prisoners. Many of these limbs came from old German WWI war heros, who had fought valiantly for the germans, been decorated with medals and then now because they were jews, were taken to the camps and exterminated. The other fascinating display was the wall of hair. After the people had been gassed apparently the Nazis used to take everything of value off the bodies, including items such as gold fillings, and all the hair off their heads. This hair was then used to make wigs, blankets etc.
After we had completed our tour of Auschwitz we were driven over to Birkenau, which is where the actual gassing of the people occured. This camp was purpose built and had more than 300 prison barracks and 4 huge gas chambers. However the retreating Nazis demolished these gas chambers. They didn't however destroy the one at Auschwitz and we were able to walk through that.
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