Today was our tour to the Auschwitz and Birchaneau  concentration and death camps. It was a pretty surreal experience. I have been to the Holocaust Museum in DC several times and each time I was there it always hit me a little bit differently. However, today was different. To be on the exact spot where so many innocent people were treated so horrendously and then forced to die such horrible deaths was really something. It just still blows my mind how 1.1 to 1.5 million people died either from disease, starvation, or the death chambers and yet no one knew anything or did anything about it.

 

There are no words to describe my feelings when being told how these innocent people were deceived into arriving at these camps. Most times having absolutely no idea the horror and pain that would be ahead of them. I think one of the saddest parts is that except for the small few who died right before liberation, there are no graves and no bodies for the families to visit or pay respects to like we often do at grave sites.

The SS agents were so into hiding all evidence before the liberation that the burned down or blew up the death chambers and many of the buildings that held the personal belongings of the people who had been at the camps.

I agree with the survivors that I just hope that people can learn from this place of sorrow and destruction so that we do not let this piece of history repeat itself.

When we returned to Krakow we visited the Old Town Square and did a little shopping at the Cloth Hall which is the local market place.

We will soon be headed to the train station for a new adventure....a night train from Krakow to Budapest. Stay tuned for what I am sure will be an interesting story.