Final Day

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On Sunday, we checked out of our hotel and left Wrocław about 8 am. We drove to Auschwitz. On the way, we stopped in Gliwice, where Habitat for Humanity in Poland started. Gliwice is an old city, founded in the 1200s by a Polish duke. The city over the years has been under both Czech and German rule, but has been mostly Polish. The current population is about 200,000. Gliwice is where WWII started. Karolina pointed out the tower that marks the spot where it happened. At that time, the German border was at Gliwice. Hitler looking for excuse to invade Poland; so he created a situation. On Sept1, 1939, some Germans dressed up as Poles, then snuck up and shot the German guards who were guarding a radio station. This gave Hitler the excuse he needed to invade.

We saw the Habitat for Humanity housing community in Gliwice, the first Habitat houses in Poland. They started in 1994, with 4 unit buildings. Each building cost $10,000 USD, but the exchange rate got so bad, and the money wouldn’t go as far, so the buildings had to have more units, going from 6 per building to 11 by the end of the project in 2010. The project was supposed to have 100 units, but ended up with 69.

Our visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau museum was a 3½ hour tour that went through both camps. It was a very somber experience – to see personal items belonging to the prisoners, such as shoes, brushes, suitcases, but even human hair that was taken with the intention of using it to make textiles. We saw where the prisoners were brought on trains, went through the selection process, and sometimes straight into the gas chambers. The barracks housed hundreds of prisoners, those with bunks slept 5 to a bed. Really quite a moving experience to see it.

We spent our final night back in Kraków at Hotel Fortuna. Our team had enjoyed our last meal together, a farewell dinner at a very quaint restaurant in Kraków with some traditional Polish food. A few of us went on a late night tour around Kraków, driving through the former Jewish Ghetto and seeing Oskar Schindler's factory. Our team parted ways, with everyone leaving at various times on Monday morning.

All in all, this was a very good trip, and we were able to help a really amazing family in Poland to make their property a bit more accessible for the kids that they foster.

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