Auschwitz and Birkenau

After yesterday’s shenanigans this morning was very sombre as we were visiting Auschwitz and Berkinau. The pick up time I was given on booking was 7am, but I had an email last night saying it would be 6:40am!!! It was hard to be ready for that time but it was the best time to go….the roads were empty, we were one of the first groups to go through and it gave us the afternoon to do other things. There were six of us on our mini bus and it took just over an hour to get there.

I don’t think I can put into words the feelings you have as you go round the camp. It makes the hairs on the back of your neck tingle and the haunting photographs of victims are heartbreaking. We all know the conditions were horrific but to see the rooms where hundreds were herded into is awful. We imagine the place in black and white, so to see the grass and trees and to hear the birds….yes, you do hear birds, in a sunshiny colourful day rips at your soul. I could write so much about the ovens, the wall of death where people were shot, the two foot square holes where four people were locked in a standing brick cell before being killed, the room filled with cases, the room filled with shoes or the numbers of people exterminated but it would be too much on here. The one thing that almost made me cry was the room filled with hair. (I can feel myself controlling a sob as I type) There was so much hair, it breaks your heart.

From Auschwitz we went to Birkenau. The iconic shot is of the train tracks that lead to the gates of hell. Our guide told us of the horrors of thousands of people arriving…daily. We saw a photo of Hess with his thumb indicating life or death to people as they spilled from cattle trucks. There were no shower blocks left as the nazis blew them up to try and obliterate their atrocities. The pits where human ashes were dumped have water in them now. There is an urn in Auschwitz that contains some ashes as a memorial. Again, it is impossible to put into words how this place makes you feel, how human beings can do what the nazis did, how it is even possible that there were survivors at all.

It is wrong to say I enjoyed the visit, but it is somewhere I recommend anyone to visit.

On our return to Krakow we saw electric scooters for hire so we loaded the app and went whizzing off. We want to buy one now…well I do!! We needed a drink after all that so we went into the Wodka bar for a tasting board of vodkas. Lots more walking, a couple of beers, back to the Wodka bar and then picked up a pizza before collapsing back at the hotel.