Lets get depressed
Its kind of weird asking people if Aushwitz was good, its like well yeah its worth going to but good? How can a death camp be good, and so why do we all go out there for a day trip? Surely we want to have fun on our travels rather than depress ourselves….this is kind of what I was thinking as I sat on a bus out to the largest concentration camp which is in Poland just outside of Krakow. It was my last day in Krakow and kind had been putting it off as didnt seem like a very fun sort of thing to be doing but here I was underneath the infamous gates “Work will set you free”.
I had meet up with a couple of the guys Id meet in Budapest so luckily wasnt out there on my own, despite all the warnings I somehow got tricked into doing a tour which rushed through the camp and didn’t really leave much time to think about what had actually happened there. Basically there are 2 camps, Aushwitz 1 and Aushwitz-Berkenau, the 2nd being much bigger but mostly destroyed by the Nazis trying to cover up the evidence…”No these are gas chambers theyre…showers….and of course we didnt put 400 people in these horse stabels designed for 50 horses….” I guess the mass graves kind of gave it away though. The never ending rows of chimneys give you an idea of the scale of stuff. Aushwitz 1 is mostly intact and you can walk right through the gas chambers and past where they would cremate all the bodies. The buildings had lots of displays in them which was quite interesting and also a bit scary like the whole room full of hair thet was shaved off the prisoners and massive piles of shoes, suitcases and other things confiscated. All the barbed wire is still up and even part of the wall where they would shot people in front of, made of special stuff to absorb the sound. Its all very freaky and at berkinea theres still the train track going right into the camp and you stand in the exact spot where they would select those to work and those to go off to ‘have a shower’, and at that spot theres a picture taken of this all happening and you can see the railway tracks and the buildins…all a bit weird.
So great way to make yourself feel bad but still think it was good to go check it out. The whole area seems to still be feeling the affects of the war and theres lots of monuments etc dedicated to those who died.
Other than that krakow in Poland was all fun! Arrived at 5.45am go totally lost in a park trying to find the hostel..again in the dark not so safe! But eventually found it and meet 2 guys from the last hostel plus a whole lot of other cool people. The hostel was in a great location, right on the main square so after a bit of food I forced myself to stay awke and checked out the town. Krakow is really cool, something like 6oo bars all built in basements all over the city and a beautiful and very big main square. Theres also a big castle on a hill so I had a bit of a walk around there and through the underground caves that were secrete passages. And theres a bit statue of a dragon that breathes real fire!
Ended up drinking a bit of polish vodka before going to a few funky bars in the evening but not to much of a late night as a few of us were going to visit the salt mines the next day.
So will continue Krakow a bit later as need to get off the internet now. Am in Amsterdam though at the moment and leaving for India on saturday! really excited about that! Unfortunatly have gotten sick again!! could be going out every night and catching too many overnight trains…hopefully Ill be better for India! and lots of photos will be coming by the weekend when ive got time to sit down and sort them all out.
Tags: Poland
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