Going to Auschwitz and its sister camp, Auschwitz-Bikenau is a extremely painful experience. The first time I went was in 1998 and returned again in 2007.
To get to camps, you must go by way of Krakow and take a train to Oswiecim (ohshe-venshum). From there you can take local buses or pay a few zloty (zwoty) to go to the camps by taxi. Note that there are 2 separate camps, Auschwitz and Auschwitz-Birkenau and are about 1.5 km from each other, so you can walk(don’t recommend) or take a taxi between the 2 sites.
**My 1st time at the camps, we caught a cab with the driver who had driven most of the cast of Schindler’s List. A picture of him with Steven Spielberg and Liam Nielson was proudly displayed in his cab.
Auschwitz is more preserved than Birkenau, with the buildings still intact and used to house more museum-like displays like the piles of shoes taken from the Jews, a room showing their suitcases, their hair, their glasses, and other horrific artifacts. One building was especially sobering was a long hallway showing early photos of prisoners (1941-1942) to the camp and had a time stamp of their first day and then the day they were executed. Especially hard to see that some of the women and men were in the camps less than 3 days before they were exterminated.
I have many more photos that I will upload in the weeks to come.
- Auschwitz Camp-originally the women’s camp
- Entrance to the original Auschwitz Camp
- Auschwitz Camp-main drag between buildings
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[...] miraculously saved from destruction by the Nazi’s in WWII. Worth a couple days of exploring. Auschwitz camps are an hour away for a sobering piece of [...]