Auschwitz

My first priority in coming to Krakow is to visit Auschwitz.  I know that doesn't sound appetizing but I want to understand more of what happened and see with my own eyes, the places where the Jews, plus others deemed undesirable by the Nazis, suffered their endings.  We should never run from the past, no matter how unpleasant or evil it was.  This is how we learn and make the future better.  Incidentally, I also visited Cambodia's Killing Fields several years ago.

My Airbnb host in Krakow booked the Auschwitz tour for me for 155 PLN, roughly around US$40.  It started at about 9 am, took about 1 1/2 hours to get there and we got back around 4 pm.  Auschwitz actually consists of Auschwitz I, the main and original concentration camp, and Birkenau, which some also called Auschwitz II, and Auschwitz III in Monowitz.  We spent the first part of the tour at Auschwitz I, and the second part in Birkenau, about 30 minutes drive from Auschwitz I.

There were many tourists at Auschwitz, including many young Israelis.  Our tour company had arrangements with a licensed guide.  He took us to selected parts of the camp and expanded on what is explained in each exhibit.  It was very tough to see some of the exhibits and try to visualize what happened.  In one building, there were pictures of the prisoners and that made it more personal.

No words can describe what happened in Auschwitz in World War II.  The Germans built it initially to hold Polish political prisoners.  But then it became a place for exterminating those that the Germans deemed undesirables:  Jews, Poles, Gypsies, Russian prisoners of war, Jehovah Witnesses, homosexuals, etc.  When Auschwitz was not big enough, they built an extermination camp nearby in Birkenau.  All in all, the Germans killed about 1.1 million prisoners, 90% of them Jews.  There were 7,000 Nazis who worked at the camp and after the war; only 1,000 of them were persecuted.  The rest of them vanished and were not found.

Shoes belonging to prisoners

Pictures of prisoners

Wall where prisoners were executed

Buildings housing the prisoners with double electric fence

Type of freight cars used to bring in prisoners from all around Europe.  Many of them suffocated

The Germans destroyed the camp as they were retreating

Railroad tracks in Birkenau leading straight to the gas chambers

Some Grim Numbers

Doctore in the middle decides who lives and who dies by pointing his thumb

Washroom 

Bodies pushed in there to be cremated

Pond where the Nazis dump the ashes

Latrine in Birkenau