Auschwitz and Birkenau

Since we were in the area we figured that we should make a trip to Auschwitz, though its not something you really "want" to do. Given the scale of the atrocities that happened here it felt a bit wrong walking around, but we certainly weren't the only ones (there were thousands and thousands).

Although we were in two minds, at the end of the day I'm glad that we went because the place has been turned into a fitting memorial and is a sombre reminder of what humans are capable of - so I guess in that respect it serves as a warning that something like this could happen again.

We were up at 830am and decided we'd meet up with the irish girls and head out to see Auschwitz. On reccomendations by one of the guys at the hostel we decided to bus it instead of doing one of the tours that was on offer from the city itself.

Caught the 1030 bus through to Oswiecim, a 90min trip from the main bus station in town, met the others there and as the next guided tour wasn't starting until 1pm we decided to hang about outside in the sun..

Auschwitz was really made up of three separate camps close by each other, of these Birkenau is the biggest and where most people met their deaths- it looks as though you would imagine it to,

with rows and rows of barracks and perhaps most scarily the train tracks through the gates that end just before the remains of the collapsed gas chambers (blown up the Nazis in the end).

Auschwitz I (the original camp) doesn't actually look too bad as it was originally used as a military camp, so the buildings actually look deceptively nice. However a quick tour around reinforced the terrible conditions and constant state of fear lived in by those that were imprisoned here.

they have collections of human hair, and shoes that they would remove before sending them to the gas chambers... there were just piles and piles...

it was a very moving day, it's surreal to think that this really didn't happen all that long ago, and the thought that it could easily happen again.

the tour finished around 5pm and we headed back to catch the bus back to krakow.

there was one poor guy who fell asleep on the bus, and when we went around the corner he went toppling out of his seat, ending up lying in the middle of the aisle in an almsot daze!

had dinner at a semi traditional polish restaurant that the others had found the night before and had traditional polish goulash, which was served inside a giant damper like roll, and was absolutely delicious.

headed back to the hostel and ended up being dragged out at 1130pm (they head out late here) went to the music 6 bar, which was incredibly sleazy place to be full of uk men on a stag night, drak our drinks quickly before moving on to the jazz bar across the road, which was a dive, but empty!

sat in the cellar which was kind of cool, the drinks were a bit expensive though so we didn't last there all that long, the poor boys all had to pay to get in...

headed out of there and through the main square and went t try get into a night club, but being a saturday night they were trying to charge and arm and aleg to get in, so we just moved on!

headed back to the hostel instead where we drank the rest of our supplies, and amused ourselves till the early hours