Auschwitz and Burkenau

These sites are now museums and located about an hour from Krakow. Auschwitz was a concentration work camp from where the inmates were basically worked ... to death. It's also where the demented, depraved Nazi doctors carried out their appalling medical experiments on Jews and others e.g. to find ways to stop what they considered sub human races from reproducing.

Auschwitz was originally a Polish military camp. Burkenau, which is about 3 kms from Auschwitz, was built in 1942 as a death camp. It's where Jews and others were sent to be killed in the gas chambers, and their bodies disposed of in huge crematoriums.

We joined a group tour, with an excellent guide - two actually - and were given a tour of a range of the barracks at Auschwitz. The barracks were used for different purposes and they mostly contain static displays relating to these. It's heartbreaking to see the thousands of shoes, hairbrushes, combs, suitcases with names on them, and other remnants taken from the prisoners. And thousands of photographs of those who were killed. The Nazis were fanatic record keepers and documented everything they did to the Jews. They destroyed much of this evidence when the tide of the war turned against them but much remained.

I think like most people who visit these sites we wandered around in shocked silence with heavy hearts at the atrocities visited upon the prisoners by the maniacal Nazis. The information conveyed by the guides about what happened here was simply overwhelming... lost for words.

At the end of our tour the guide said something that has stayed with me. It's along the lines of "the mission of all who visit this place is to tell others about what happened here, so that never again should something similar happen". Of course that's wishful thinking because as we know comparable atrocities are happening may be on a lesser scale, as I write e.g. Syria, North Korea, etc.

We returned to Krakow late in the day for a bit more sightseeing and enjoyed a superb meal at yet another great restaurant that night. Off to Warsaw in the morning en route to London late that afternoon.

Wrap up

And so folks that wrapped up our visit to Poland. I have to say Poland proved a real unexpected highlight for us. The country exceeded our expectations on numerous fronts. It's unlikely we will have cause to visit there again but if we ever did we wouldn't complain.

This is the last post on my blog. I started writing it on the flight from Warsaw to London and am finishing it sitting in the bar of a charming old 12th century pub in Lincolnshire where we are staying the night.

We are on holidays for another 12 days and during that time we are visiting England and Scotland where in addition to catching up with family and friends, we will be taking in more of the historic sights including some stately homes that we've wanted to visit.
I will continue to put up occasional posts on Facebook tracking our travels for those who use this.

So that's it everyone. Thank you for reading my blog. I've had some great feedback. It's a lot of work documenting our travels and doing the photos but I enjoy writing and love trying my hand at photography.

Please take care.

Love, Light & Peace

Keri