A Polish Adventure // Day Three: Auschwitz

Today was always going to be an interesting day, but one that we had to make whilst we were nearby. Before we decided to make the trip to Auschwitz we knew it was going to be hard and emotional, but we certainly weren't prepared for just how eye-opening of a day it was going to be.

I will just say this now. There will not be much writing in this post as I feel the images really do say enough. Plus, the subject of what actually happened at Auschwitz and Birkenau isn't exactly a pleasant one.

Auschwitz I

The trip was split over 2 separate camps. We started off at Auschwitz I, which was the smaller of the two camps. Don't be disillusioned though, even though it's the smaller camp it certainly wasn't small!

We start off at the easily recognisable entrance gateway into Auschwitz I, and just walking through the gate felt eery when you consider the amount of people who will have walked through those gates not knowing that they wouldn't be walking back out.

The whole camp is filled with these brick buildings which, as you walk around you find out, were all used for many horrible acts. Even just as 'living quarters' the conditions were just cruel.

In one of the blocks, there are room upon room of belongings that were confiscated from the families as they arrived at the camp. The sheer amount of items wasn't actually the most shocking thing about them though. The most shocking thing was that the amount of belongings left was ONLY a small fraction of what wasn't destroyed by the Nazis when they realised the Allied Forces were nearing.

Along the corridors of the blocks, the walls are filled with headshot photos of the people who were brought to Auschwitz. This is such a sad experience as you are looking into the eyes of the people who had their lives taken away from them, people who were told they were coming here for a 'better life' only to have their families taken away and enslaved, or even worse.

We started off this day leaving out hotel at 6am in temperatures of -6°C and the whole day didn't really get much colder. Even though we were both wearing several layers of clothes, jumpers, large warm coats, hats, scarves and gloves we were still cold.

Now, the reason I told you all of that was because there was one thing that dawned on us as we were walking around that suddenly stopped us complaining about how cold WE were. The people who were kept here had only a thin set of striped clothing on and during the winter will have endured the same temperatures as we were. Not only that, but one of the Nazis routines was to do a roll call where everyone had to line up out in the cold. Not only that but they also had to endure having buckets of icy cold water thrown over them.

Suddenly, the cold was no longer something we could complain about.

Auschwitz II - Birkenau

After spending several hours walking around Auschwitz I, we were left feeling sad and emotional thinking about all of those families, parents, children, elderly, so many innocent people who've had their lives stolen from them.

Then when we arrived at Birkenau that emotion turned from sadness to anger. It's not until you get to this second camp that you actually realise the sheer scale that the Nazis committing these atrocities.

In one of the buildings at this camp, there is a large room filled with walls like this one, walls filled with old photos. These were all photos taken from people as they were brought here. It was such an eery thing to look at all of these photos of families who, as I said above, would not leave this hellish place.

As we were walking to towards the end of the tour, we were fortunate enough to see a young deer walking through the camp. It felt like a little ray of hope walking through a place of sadness, after everything we'd learnt about that place it was a moment where we could just enjoy the beauty of this innocent creature.

These wooden huts were home to 400 people at a time. That's right! 400! The living arrangements were 3-tier bunk beds where 15 people would be expected to sleep. That's 5 people per bed, sharing one blanket. These structures were also very poorly insulated, so many froze to death.

In closing

This was such an emotional day, but one that I'm glad we experienced. It's just one of those places that you have to go to and see not only what happened here but the sheer scale of it.

If anyone is planning a trip to Poland it is definitely worth the journey, if only to give you true sense of perspective on life itself.

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