Tom W Backpacking Europe 2014

Some say they don't know if they would go well if you have the opportunity and you don't then you have done a disservice to yourself and humanity. Every person who has the opportunity to see this has an obligation to go and talk about it. You can disagree if you want buy if you do I can only assume you have not been. You only know that is the truth if you have been. This happened only 70 years ago and the only prevention we have is educating ourselves about it and discussing it. Books, documentaries and survivor stories are important but I think it is different altogether to stand where it happened and see the well preserved in your face evidence. I had been to Dachau the first Nazi concentration camp and thought that was enough. I was told Krakow was a good place to visit but almost didn't come when I found how hard it was to get here with Poland not participating with my rail pass and not having planned for flights while here. Then I happened to see on the map just outside of the city Auschwitz - Birkenau and knew I had to visit.

The tour of the camps was 8 hours with a 1 hour and 15 minute bus ride there and back. The first pic is of the entrance to the camp and probably the most fucked up signage ever as it means "WORK MAKES (you) FREE". Second picture: location where the "camp orchestra" played to help prisoners keep in step but as our guide told us to also calm people as they came through the gates as many knew what awaited them.

Third picture: double row of electrified barbed wire fencing.

Like most places in europe they had pigeons here which I am not fond of. All the pigeons here are black which I found interesting and had not seen before.Read more