Day 8: Krakow, Auschwitz, and Birkenau

Our first full day in Poland was packed. It started with a three hour tour of Krakow. The first stop in Krakow is a monument to the Jewish people who were killed here in World War II.

Each chair facing toward the train station ( the chairs pictured ) represents 1000 Jews sent to a concentration camp. Chairs facing toward Schindler’s factory represent 1000 Jews saved by Schindler.

After seeing the monument, we proceeded to the old Jewish ghetto.

The entrance to a synagogue. Women enter through one door, men through another. They have services separately.

Just a restaurant in the ghetto, but shows very distinctly that it is a Jewish area.

After the Jewish ghetto, we went and saw Krakow castle.

On the grass in front of the castle, you can see the ruins of two medieval churches that were torn down to allow soldiers training grounds in the square.

While hiking up to the castle, a procession of Fiat’s passed us by, one of them even painted like the General Lee from Dukes of Hazard.

There were probably 20 Fiat’s all in a line together.

After the castle at Krakow and a great lunch with a caprese salad followed by potato pancakes with meat sauce, it was time to go to Auschwitz.

Playing Gin with my mother on the bus while traveling to Auschwitz. She currently owes me 33 Hrivna ( Ukrainian dollars )

Auschwitz is, of course, a very sobering experience. I was a little disappointed at hour touristy it is with souvenier shops and restaurants immediately out front, but I guess that is bound to happen with any historic landmark, even one responsible for the deaths of over 1,100,000 people.

The famous “Arbeit Macht Frei” ( Work makes you free ) gate. It’s a bad picture, but you can imagine that everyone wants to take a picture of this gate.

The people who were first sent to Auschwitz were Polish political prisoners. Two years later, the Jews also started being sent here. The workers at Auschwitz labored to create Birkenau, which was designed to hold up to 100,000 prisoners at one time ( though it peaked out at 90,000 before the camps were abandoned while the Russian military pressed against the Nazi lines and the Nazi’s retreated back to Germany ).

The poison used to kill Jews in the showers was Cyclone B. It is the rock-like stuff at the bottom of this picture and worked by causing people to suffocate.

Shoes of adults who died at Auschwitz. There are 40,000 pairs here. There is another area filled with children’s shoes.

PIctures of Polish political prisoners at Auschwitz. The 2 dates at the bottom of each picture show the date of arrival at the camp and the date of their death. Most prisoners did not live even a full year.

Prisoners who tried to escape or otherwise behaved badly would sometimes be hanged here where everyone would see them. The dining hall is the building behind the posts.

The crematorium, where bodies would be burned after people were killed.

For as bad as Auschwitz was, Birkenau — the camp that the prisoners of Auschwitz were forced to build — was bigger and worse with lesser living conditions and four gas chambers and crematoriums.

The tracks that would bring prisoners in to Birkenau. Brick barracks are in the background. There are also wood barracks behind where the picture was taken.

Many of the wood barracks have not survived over time, but their chimneys still stand.

Auschwitz and Birkenau remind us that humans are capable of horrific acts when given too much power and control. Visiting the camps is a sobering experience, but it’s important to see the physical evidence of such horrific acts when some people are trying to say it all never happened.

Tomorrow we are headed to Wroclaw, which is supposed to be a beautiful Polish town built on the banks and 12 islands of a river.