Adventures in Prague!: Krakow, Poland Part 2

**First half of this post is about the concentration camp: reader discretion is advised [scroll down to dashed line if you don't want to read about it]**

So we woke up kinda early so we could make it on our tour at 9:45. The breakfast wasn't anything special eggs, toast, cereal. I made myself a sandwich to eat for lunch then we head of to the city center where the bus was going to be waiting to take us to Auschwitz. So there were tons of people on the bus it was packed. They put on a video from the perspective of one of the guys that was send to do the video taping of what was really going on. It was about 20 minutes long, and the bus ride to Auschwitz was about an hour. So we finally make it to the concentration camp. It was really cold. There were two groups going on the tour, a Spanish tour group and an English tour group. We got our headsets since the tour guide uses a microphone to give the tour. We were allowed to take photos but I didn't personally take any when I was there there are some I found/borrowed from friends and online. The tour began we passed under the famous gate with the inscription in German "Arbeit Macht Frei" ("work will make you free") the same sign that is to the entrance of the the gestapo prison in Terezín. Also Auschwitz is divided into 3 camps (Auschwitz, Birkenau, and Monowitz). The Nazis completely destroyed Monowitz when they were trying to cover up the evidence of what they had done. Birkenau was pretty much completely destroyed as well. The 3 camps were completely secluded from any other city. The Nazis had claimed the land since there was no surrounding cities, that’s was how the Nazis got away with it got so long. We first headed into a building I don't remember the number. In that building which is now set up as a museum showed the history behind the Holocaust. It showed statistics of the number of people that went to the concentration camp and the number of deaths. There was over a million and a half people send to the concentration camp 1.1 million died of which 90% of them were Jews.Close to a million Jews died in Auschwitz alone. 20,000 Gypies died there as well as other groups (Czechs, Pols, Russians, Gays etc). Höss-Himmler declared that Auschwitz was to be extended and turned into the exemplar camp of the proposed 'Final Solution' (the genocide of the Jews) by Hitler. Höss-Himmler was the guy in charge of determining one's faith. First when you got off the train you were divided into two groups males and women and children. Within 10 seconds he picked if you were to live and work as a prisoner or die on the spot and be sent to gas chambers. The tour also explained the reason why the Jews seemed so willing and how so many of them were unaware. The Jews were being told that they were getting relocated into this housing development and that they were going to be registered there. Also, anyone who questioned what was going on was taken to the side and shot immediately. So the prisoners being transported brought along all of their most valued belongings since they thought they were going to be living there. Once they arrived at Auschwitz, some of them had been traveling for 10 days. The ones that were sent to die were told they were going to take a shower and have health inspections. So they were to go into the building that was nicely disgusted and set up to look like a shower room then gassed to death. People that got chosen to stay and work as prisoners were stripped of all their belongings and shaved. The uniforms they had to wear had triangles sewn on them to identify them as a Jew. Pole, Roma etc. All the belongings were then sorted and shipped back to Germany. Sorting the belongings was one of the best jobs a slave could have since they were able to be indoors and out in the harsh weather conditions. Only those who had jobs in doors were able to survive. In the museum they showed a whole room with shoes that was where I started to get really sad. I was able to physically visualize the number of people and the fact that was only a fraction of the number of people that died there was unreal. There were walls of various other things like glasses and kitchenware walls of them. Then there was a wall of suitcase with names on them. They were told before going into the gas chambers to write their names on the suitcase so they could be identifies later. There was also 7 tons of human hair found and the Nazis were using it to make cloth to make clothing. After we left the buildings with museum and headed to where roll call was taken and the residency was. Roll call was taken twice a day once in the morning before work and once again after work. The Nazis needed everyone to be accounted for. The longest roll call took 19 hours where they had to stand out in the freezing cold and stand. Block 10 was where medical experimenting was conducted. Doctor Clauberg did tests on Jewish women to try to develop an efficient way of mass-sterilizing women. He also did test on children, mostly twins, to increase his knowledge of genetics, and to develop "genetic engineering." He also experimented with skin transplants, and tested the effects of different chemicals on his subjects by rubbing toxic substances into their skin. Then we went to Block 11 which was separated from the rest of the camp. Wooden shutters were put over the windows so no one could see what went on in there .Prisoners were brought before these courts for anything from working too slowly or communicating with the new people arriving. A popular form of punishment was to tie the prisoners' arms behind their backs, and then leave them there hanging. As a result they dislocated and broke their shoulders, And since they were only allowed to stay there as long as they could work they were usually killed shortly after. Also there were dark rooms where they were left in with no light for hours, there were starving rooms were they were left to starve to death. Then there were the lucky ones that were sentenced to be shot. They were taken outside and shot against the 'death wall.' Then we went to the crematorium and gas chamber the only remaining gas chamber. Zyklon B was used to gas the prisoners, the Germans bought 20 tons worth of it it only took 5-7kg worth to kill 1500 people. They poured the Zyklon B pellets into two holes in the roof of the building. The pellets reacted with the heat of the people in the room during into gas. They prisoners would then go and move the dead bodies into the next room where the crematorium room was. There was 3 crematoriums. The originals had been removed and there were replicas where they would be. [See diagram below] It was really intense and emotional being in there. We then went outside where there was a single gallow. That gallow was used to hang Rudolf Höss. His house was located just on the other side of the fence. His wife claimed when on trail that she never knew what was happening but her house was maybe 20 feet away. Then we hoped on the bus and went to Birkenau. Because there were so many people were being sent to the camps that in fall 1941 the Nazis began to built a second camp, 3 km to the west of Auschwitz. Birkenau was 10 times larger than Auschwitz and housed over 100,000 prisoners at one point. We first went to the wash room which consisted of rows and rows of holes used as toilets. They didn't have any pluming or running water set up. The prisoners only got to use the toilets once a day and they all had 5 minutes to do so most were unable to use it and went to the bathroom where ever they could. The lucky person who's job the pooper scooper who got to carry the poop when the holes over flowed was considered one of the best jobs one since they got to work inside all day two the guards wouldn't dare touch them so they were protected. Then we saw where the prisoners where living. The prisoners lived in buildings which had originally been stables for 52 horses, which had then been converted to barracks for 1,000 people. A single oven was built at the end of the barn to provide heat but was rarely if ever used. A typical meal for a prison consisted of "coffee" which was really dirty hot water and for dinner a slice of bread and a bowl of soup which equaled about 1500 calories. A lot of the prisons suffered from diarrhea and ended up s***ing themselves since they were too weak and feeble to move. Then our tour was over and we hoped back on the bus and headed back to the city square.

This is where the SS officer stood protected from the weather while roll call was given

"Dark Room" where some prisoners were left with no light and little air (it's reconstructed so we could see but they climbed in from a hole in the bottom)

Execution Wall

Prisoners were told to sign their suitcases before entering the gas chamber so they could identify everyone bags

Shoes

eye glasses


Gas Chamber: a. store room b. room to store the ashes after cremation c. originally a morgue, later a gas chamber d. furnaces e. chimney f. storage of coke to fuel the furnaces g. office

crematorium

Cans of Zyklon B

electric double sided barbwire fences, some prisioners even threw themselves at it to end the pain and misery

bathroom

living space

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Once we got back to the city square we got in a van and headed to the Wieliczka Salt Mine. The salt mines were actually quite cool and I would highly recommend going if you go to Krakow. First of we had the best tour guide, Sebastien. He use to work work for the salt mine so he had like special VIP privileges like seeing certain rooms that are closed to the public etc ans shared with us :] So we started out on the journey which started with climbing down a million flights of really narrow but big stairs I think there was seriously like 48 flights of stairs or something like that. The salt miners carved sculptures into the salt pillars and there were room after room of sculptures the miners had carved. I think I am just going to post pictures since they can speak for themselves. But the salt mines are about 600 years old. There were so many different chambers and rooms that we were barely able to see more than 1% of it, it's that big. The salt was known as green salt that looks black but is really white because of the light. but if you hold a light up to it is white. Salt use to be one of the most valuable things back in the day, even more valuable than gold, since you needed salt to preserve food. This mine is thought to be the oldest salt mine still in operation. Wieliczka is no longer a commercial mine anymore since the flooding in 1996. This is a great location if you have children since they offer a children's tour where they call to the Salt Gnome that makes all the salt and sculptures. Apparently it is really crowded in the summer like May/June since all the school take the school children on field trips there.But here are some photos. Also we got to take the elevator up so we didn't have to climb the million and one stairs. The elevator could hold 36 people (9 in each section). Nine was very crammed and if you are claustrophobic it would be like your worst experience. It only takes seriously only 30 seconds to get back to the surface it's that fast.

The tour ended and fter a long day of walking around we went back to the hostel it was like 7pm. We had missed dinner there was some rolls left out I ate about 5 of them for dinner. Then I took a shower and went to bed since I was tired and it had been a long day and I had a long day ahead for tomorrow.