The next morning we got up early to walk around the city and go to the Jewish Quarter where the ghettos holding the Jews were located during WWII, before the concentration camps in Poland were built. We through the city center where I saw some awesome architecture! There were gargoyles on the building in the center of the square that were really cool! Then we went to a castle built on top of the dragon's cave where the city of Krakow got its origin. The castle looked modern and it was the location of Nazi control when the took over Poland. We toured the dragon's cave and then headed toward the Jewish Quarter and then hurried back to our hostel to catch our bus to Auschwitz.
The drive was an hour and a half long and our driver spoke no English. All he did was tell us the amount we owed and smiled. This is the first time since I've been abroad that I've encountered a language barrier and it was difficult to communicate. We had a private tour with just the nine of us which was nice because we could hear our tour guide well. There were some huge groups and I had no idea how busy it was going to be there. We walked to the entrance to Auschwitz where a sign reads, "Aebrit Macht Frei" which means "work will set you free" the prisoners thought that they might be able to survive but in reality, their chances of coming out alive were very small. It is estimated that about 1 million people were killed concentration camps, most of them at Auschwitz II - Birkenau. We spent three hours at Auschwitz I which has been turned into a museum. Walking through the barracks was surreal, I've learned about the Holocaust my entire life but to be in the place where so many atrocities were committed was a weird feeling. It is one thing so say that one million people were killed but to see all of the shoes of those people was incredibly distrubing. The most difficult place to visit was Block 11 where they held and tortured prisoners. There were slim, tall standing cells where the forced four men to stand in all night and then go to work building the nearby Birkenau concentration camp. There were starvation cells where they kept prisoners that weren't allowed food and dark cells with no windows. I hated the feeling I got in the basement and I immediately wanted to leave. I could barely look into the cells because I was so disgusted with the things the SS men did to the prisoners down there.
Barracks (five women in each bunk)
After this, we went to Birkenau where the mass exterminations took place in gas chambers at the camp. We didn't stay there that long but our tour guide showed us the path the prisoners walked to be sorted into workers or to be sent to the gas chambers. We also saw the place where they stayed and the awful conditions they had to deal with. The gas chambers and crematoriums were blown up by the Nazi to hide evidence of what they did, they also destroyed hundreds of documents showing how many people died and were imprisoned there which is why the number of people who died in the Holocaust is only an estimate.
Overall, I am glad that I toured Auschwitz, it was an opportunity for me to learn and experience the tragedies that occurred there. I can't put into words how the experience made me feel but I believe it is important to be educated about the Holocaust and it is something I will never forget.
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