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| Krakow and
Auschwitz |
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Pros: Auschwitz-a must see place,Krakow-a
beautiful city
Cons:
none
Krakow, Poland
Wednesday, Aug 03, 2005 02:06
And now it was time to travel to a place synomonous with death and
persecution. A place that the world knows the name of and wishes
it didn't - Auschwitz. The concentration camps are about a 2 hour
drive from the beautiful city of Krakow. When our train arrived
in Krakow from Warsaw we found a very pretty historical city with
a huge castle and spent the day wandering around taking it all in.
Then next day it was off to Auschwitz. You won't find this on a
Polish map but rather Oswiecim which is the town name. Auschwitz
is the German name for the actual camps. We did a guided tour of
both Auschwitz 1 and Auschwitz 2 which is also called Birkenau and
covers 175 hectares making it by far the biggest camp. Birkenau
was developed specifically into the largest centre for systematically
murdering European Jews. It is overwhelming and just so moving to
visit the buildings, gas chambers and crematoriums. While most of
Auschwitz 1 is how it was at the time, Birkenau was mostly destroyed
as the fleeing Nazis tried to blow up and burn the evidence as they
retreated. Towards the end of the war the crematoriums could not
keep up with the burning of bodies and there are places in the nearby
woods where huge bonfires of human corpses were burnt. Around your
feet on the ground you can see bone fragments in the soil. In Birkenau
alone around 2 millions people of 27 nationalities were murdered.
So sad it is to see the accommodation huts with 3 tiered bunks in
which 12 people would sleep in each tier. Hundreds of people in
a space of a small Australian house and an open latrine running
down the centre. It was a miracle any people survived. It was a
very sobering experience not to be missd. |
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