Auschwitz

So Auschwitz right. Not one of the most beautiful sights to see in Poland but an absolute must see. I'm not much of a history boffin and hardly listened to World War history in my lessons at school but I was shellshocked at this... On my backpacking trip to Europe in June of this year we decided to start in Krakow. To be fair when I thought of Poland, naive I know, the last thing I thought of was interesting however the day we had in Auschwitz and Birkenau changed my opinion dramatically. We stayed in Krakow in an amazing hostel called 'Hostel Yellow' (which I can't find on dooyoo to review) they arranged daily excursions to Auschwitz for less than ...  Read the complete review

This place is simply breathtaking in terms of the sadness, the loss and the everlasting Message of "We Will Not Forget". I went on an Organised Tour from Krakow. It took about an hour and a half to get to Auschwitz where we could get out and stretch for a few minutes before beginning the Tour itself. To set the scene, I had always been fascinated by 2nd World War History and in particular the Holocaust. I went there in February 2007, so it was cold. Seeing the sign when you first walked in made me take a deep breath and prepare myself for what was to come and what I would see and feel. There are other reviews that ...  Read the complete review

Firstly before you read this this is to be a visitors / travel review rather than a historical essay just to set my stall out. Oswiecim is a mid sized town around 50 kilometres to the West of Krakow, which was my base for my trip. I got the first train out of Krakow at 6.20 in the morning armed with a bottle of water and a slab of black bread for breakfast. The train ticket cost 11zl (zloty) and the hour or so of the trip took me away from the tourist city of Krakow and gave me a glimpse of rural South Poland. The railway station in Oswiecim is around 2 kilometres from the camps and about 1 kilometre from the centre of town. Again for me I ...  Read the complete review

The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum is a grim destination and afterwards you will want some time to contemplate what you have seen. The exhibits are designed to provoke a strong emotional response to one of the blackest crimes in European history. In my opinion the museum is not appropriate for children under the age of fourteen. Auschwitz has become a symbol of the Holocaust and Nazi war crimes as a whole. Contrary to popular opinion, it was not the deadliest of the Nazi death camps. Its fame is in part due to the inmates, including writers like Tadeuz Borowski (1922 - 51) and Elie Weisel (b. 1928), who survived to tell their grisly tale. However, Auschwitz ...  Read the complete review

The numbers don't tell the story. You are given numbers all the time, but they soon cease to convey, let alone illuminate, the reality. So many people disgorged daily from the cattle trucks. So many herded straight to the gas chambers. So many crammed into the bare barracks of the camp to be worked until they dropped. So many tens of thousands of gold teeth prised from the jaws of victims, to be melted down for the coffers of the Reich. So many tons of human hair shaved from their heads, to be woven into blankets for the soldiers on the Russian front. A million dead in this one camp alone; at least. Most estimates put the number nearer a million ...  Read the complete review