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Published: August 1st 2010
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July 30 - Started an early day today. I spent the morning on the walking tour of the old town and castle. The tour guide was very energetic and very cute. She has a lot of good stories to tell. The tour started at 11am and I had to leave as they got to the castle at 1pm, so that I would have time to get to the bus to Auschwitz at 1:40pm. I grabbed a wrap for lunch and then waited for the bus. It was an hour long ride, and I had to stand for about half of it, since the bus was full. But people were getting off along the way and I got a seat for part of it. My plan was to walk around the concentration camp on my own, rather than with a tour, which is why I arrived at 3pm. Before 3pm, you have to join a tour. Afterwards, you can decide. I got there in time to see the intro movie at 3pm and there was a tour at 3:30pm, so I thought I would have some time to decide. The movie showed some of the liberation of the camp and the people
who survived it. I find it ironic that the Soviets liberated the camps, and then essentially enslaved the nation under communist rule for so long. In the end I decided to join the 3:30pm tour and paid and picked up my headset. I hated the feeling of being in a group of twenty five, but it had its benefits.
The tour leader was quite good, wearing all black with a black umbrella and speaking somberly about what had happened, as she should. The weather was also playing it's part, being cloudy, threatening rain, and a little chilly. She led us around and into several exhibit buildings, giving us time to move through, and talking to us over our headsets as we looked. There was an entire room full of 40,000 pairs of shoes, a huge exhibit of eyeglasses, 2000 pounds of human hair that was to be weaved into uniforms and blankets, etc. I saw some examples of this fabric made of hair, and it looked like regular fabric. The Nazis wasted nothing, so all of this was to be used again. Even gold fillings were taken from teeth to be melted down and reused. It is shocking to
see how many of these things there are. Auschwitz originally started as a place for Polish prisoners, but turned into a large camp for Jews as well.
We were able to see the size of the camp, and then we moved onto Birkenau, also called Auschwitz II. It is three kilometers away and it is much much bigger. This is where most of the killing took place. Many people did not last here longer than three to six months. Some went directly to the gas chambers, and some were put to work until they died or were useless for working. The gas chambers in Birkenau were designed to hold 2000 people at one time. They were built below ground so that other people could not hear their screaming. Many people believed until the very end when they put 2000 people in these rooms that they would live here and work. The crematorium were above ground, and the bodies were burned as soon as they were stripped of hair and fillings, etc. It was a full time job. Typically other prisoners were used to burn the bodies, and they were killed every few months because they knew too much. The
size of Birkenau was just hard to believe. There were about 300 buildings designed to hold about 100,000 people originally, but many of the wooden ones were already removed as they were falling down. Only the chimneys were left. Two chimneys represented one building.
Overall, I found that it was good to visit. I learned a lot and saw a lot, but it was a little disappointing that it is such a popular place to visit. There were so many people there that at times it felt more like Disney. It made it difficult to feel exactly what you should feel in such a place. But it is good that so many people want to visit and learn from what has happened.
I got the bus back to Auschwitz at 6:45pm - last bus - and got a bus back to Krakow at 7pm. I was so happy that I was able to identify the right bus stop coming back into town from the wrong direction, so I was able to get off the bus close to the hostel and not have to walk back for an hour from the main bus station. I had some more instant
noodles for dinner and called it a night.
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