Day 8 - Auschwitz-Birkenau

This is the menu cover for the Hungarian restaurant we went to
Crepes...yum!
This is Hungarian goulash (which has mushrooms, chicken, and a lot of paprika) on potato pancakes. It was SOOOOOOO good!
The remains of gas chamber number 2...the Nazis tried to blow it up to hide any evidence of the atrocities at Birkenau.
Women's centers in Birkenau
Eerie, isn't it? These are the train tracks that brought thousands of prisoners to Birkenau.
The gas chamber and crematorium at Auschwitz
This is building number 10 where medical experiments were conducted on women
The sign found at the entrance to the concentration camp, Auschwitz

Where do I begin?

I didn't end up crying at Auschwitz the way I expected to...however, seeing the mountain of hair, shoes, and other Jewish belongings was eerie. Before I go into more detail, I'll go over our trip to the concentration camp and my experiences there.

We ended up leaving for the camp at 8 AM by bus (which, by the way, had absolutely NO leg room!) and it took us between 1-2 hours to get there. When we arrived, there were different groups of tourists and quite a few Hasidic Jews. Our tour guide was good (Alicia, I believe her name was) and she took us through different parts of the camp. The sign Arbeit Macht Frei was chilling and cruel all at the same time. Work makes you free...if only the Jews and other prisoners knew what awaited them!

We had the chance to walk around and see the different buildings (many of which were originally barracks for Polish soldiers), but I was unable to take pictures of the interior. However, some of the contents were horrifying: crowded rooms, standing cells, gas chambers, beams to hang the prisoners, and unGodly sanitary issues were only a few of the things I saw. The crematorium was by far the most creepy. The holes in the ceiling were used to drop Cyklon B into the chamber and next to the main room was where the dead bodies were burned. Around 1000 people could be gassed at a single moment. Absolutely terrible...

Afterward, us and the tour guide took the shuttle to Birkenau and it was more desolate and miserable than Auschwitz. The marshy territory is rampant with malaria in the summer months and intensive freezing in the wintertime. The women's areas were constructed from brick, but the men had to suffer in wooden barracks. We could see the remnants of some of the buildings from the chimneys left behind. The Nazis tried to dismantle the camp as much as they could following the war...but were unable to hide the atrocities. Another aspect to Birkenau is the railroad. It's so creepy...an original cart that contained some 100 Jews at one time was still located on the rail. We also saw the remnants of gas chamber number 2 and a memorial dedicated to the victims of the camp.

Imagine, around 90,000 people were located in Birkenau alone...

Victims of Auschwitz that we currently know about are only the ones registered in the camp. This does not include those who were killed immediately upon their arrival.

Following the visit I had some time to rest and then we went out to eat at a Hungarian restaurant named Balaton. The goulash and potato pancakes were delicious! After a walk throughout the city I'm now sitting in my room and missing you guys. I send you all my love.