Well here is Pt2 of Poland. It feels like it happened so long ago now... Perhaps because it was ha!
This trip was one that we were super keen to do but it came with this weird dichotomy of feelings. We were not excited persae, rather it felt necessary as it is such a huge part of our history and has shaped the world we live in so significantly.
Auschwitz/Birkenau was one of the largest Nazi concentration camps during WWII. From early 1942 until late 1944, trains transported 1.3 million people to the camp's gas chambers from all over Nazi-occupied Europe, 90% of them being Jews. Being in a place where 1.3 million people were killed, either through the gas chambers or from starvation, was extremely hard to comprehend. The stories and the facts are so horrific that it feels like a myth or fiction. It was hard to have any emotions at all, rather a feeling of numbness consumes you. The only way to describe what it was like walking around the camp is it was like walking through a movie set. A very real one.
There is not a whole lot more to say about this without getting too deep and giving you a massive history lesson, so for this one, we will let the photos do the talking.
Please note that some of the images may be disturbing or confronting.
The next post will be a lot more light-hearted... We promise!
Above: The entrance to Auschwitz reading "Arbeit Macht Frel" meaning "Work sets you free"
Above: A scale model showing the gas chambers and how perfectly ordered it was by the Nazis.
Above: One of the crematoriums
Below: Birkenau
Above: one of the carriages that would cart people from all over Nazi Europe to the concentration camps.
<3 I visited a much smaller concentration camp in Germany. You're absolutely right, it is so hard to explain the feeling. I couldn't bring myself to go near the gas chambers. My heart felt so heavy.
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