Poland - Auschwitz Concentration Camp and Krakow

After our awesome day in Prague, we headed back to our hostel to shower and catch the night train to Krakow, Poland.  This was our first experience with a night train and unfortunately it wasn't our last.  If you're a light sleeper like me, a night train is NOT for you! We weren't able to get beds on the train so we were in a 2nd class seated compartment that had seats assigned for 8 people (in 1st class, these compartments only have 6 seats...talk about getting cozy with your neighbour in 2nd class). Thankfully though, we only had 4 others join us.  These 4 others were all relatively tall guys with long legs from Paris who enjoyed looking at Playboy magazines throughout the night and enjoyed drinking and talking at all hours.  When they were ready to have a quick snooze, one guy left the compartment to sleep on the floor out front and the other guy slept on the floor in the compartment, so basically our feet were playing footsies with his feet throughout the night. In hindsight, I wish I had taken a photo, but in the moment all I wanted to do was close my eyes and have them stay shut.

After a long sleepless night on the train, we arrived in Krakow at about 7am.  We first had to find a bank to withdraw Polish Zlotychs, find the luggage storage at the train station and book our train or bus tickets to Auschwitz.  As it was 7am, no currency exchange places were open so we found a bank machine.  After we had some money in our pockets, we dropped off our luggage and bought train tickets for the 8:35am train that stops 2km away from Auschwitz.

We walked up to the train platform to await our train and as a train pulled up at 8:32am, we boarded it thinking the train would be on the platform for a few minutes and then take off at 8:35am.  I asked the train whistler blower (not sure what his title is, but he gets out on the platform and blows the whistle to say everyone has boarded the train and it's ok to depart) whether the train went to Auschwitz as the signs above displayed nothing.  He waved us on board and we hopped on.  As soon as we were on at 8:33am, the train departed and we looked at each other with facial expressions that read, "Oh crap!".  The train left 2 minutes early and in Europe, trains are relatively puntual. They might leave late, but never early.  We instantly realized we were on the wrong train! 

It took about 3-4 minutes to get to the next stop and we ran off the train, ran down the stairs and ran up the other flight of stairs to change platforms to go back to the main station.  We could hear a train pull up and we booted our butts to get on the train. After a quick glance at our watch, we knew we wouldn't make the 8:35am train. When we got back to the main station, we inquired when the next train would be and whether our train tickets would still be valid.  The next train was at 10:40am and no, our tickets were no longer valid.  Oh man!  We then decided our next best option would be to take the bus. 

We walked to the bus station and thankfully a bus was leaving at 9am.  We purchased our tickets from the driver and 1.5 hours later we were at the gates of Auschwitz.

Auschwitz Concentration Camp was an incredible experience.  I don't really know how to describe it.  I had been to Dachau Concentration Camp in Germany in 2000 and that was also an incredible experience, but Auschwitz was larger in scale and had some displays that were gut wrenching.  You felt sick to your stomach as the display brought to reality the severity and the scale of what happened some 60 years ago.

Our tour of Auschwitz started off with a short film and then we met with our tour guide.  We each wore a headset and our guide spoke ever so softly into her microphone and the sound was transmitted into our head phones.  I really don't know how to describe the day at Auschwitz. I felt so many different emotions and had so many thoughts that it's hard to describe coherently.  Instead, I'll just write down a few notes of what stands out about Auschwitz for me.

We toured both the original Auschwitz and Auschwitz II Birkenau camp. The latter was built after Auschwitz as Auschwitz quickly became too small. The sheer size of Auschwitz II Birkenau was enormous.  There were railway tracks that were built specifically to enter the camp so that those who came off the trains wouldn't see anything else but the camp itself.  The people who came into the camp were directed in one of 3 ways - two of them led directly to extermination and the other led to survival as they were deemed fit to work.  Also, some of those (mainly children) who were not sent directly to extermination were used as guinea pigs for medical experiements. I am not going to even go into detail about the type of medical experiments they were conducting.  Awful!

Entrance to Auschwitz

Actual gas canisters used for the gas chambers

The following photos show real items collected from those men, women and children who came to the concentration camp.

Various prosthesis

Suitcases

Shoes - there were rooms of women's shoes and children's shoes

Toothbrushes

These photos only show a close up on the items. The photo below shows how big the displays actually were. 

This was as much of the hallway I could get into my camera lens...but the hallway was longer. This room showcased women's shoes. Imagine giant hall ways with displays filled with personal items, suitcases, children's clothing, women's shoes, children's shoes, etc.  There was also a  room filled with hair.  Men, women and children all had their head shaved at the camp and I cannot even begin to describe the vast quantity of hair. It just made your heart feel instantly heavy and made your stomach want to pump back everything you ate for breakfast.  Sad....very sad. (Note: We were not permitted to take photos of the room with the hair).



This is where people were executed.

Crematorium

Toilets

Bunk beds in the barracks

Railway track built solely to enter the camp

The barracks

Memorial plaque in English.  There were plaques in about 20+ languages.

These are just some of the photos I took at Auschwitz and Auschwitz II Birkenau camps. I tried to pick ones that would emphasize the scale of the maddness that happened just a few decades ago. 

Krakow

On a lighter note, we visited Krakow in the evening.  We didn't get back into Krakow until about 5pm so our time was limited.  We ended up just walking to the main square and checking out the near vicinity.  Here are some photos from beautiful Krakow:

Street entertainment! I wonder how he's doing that?

Town Square

Well, that was our extremely busy and exhausting day in Poland. We left Poland close to 10pm and boarded our 2nd night train in a row en route to Vienna, Austria.