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Birkenau Concentration Camp |
While I was in New Zealand Mum said I must read this book called 'Life in a Jar' about a Polish woman who smuggled Jewish children out of the ghettos and saved their lives. So while lounging by the pool in Thailand, I downloaded it and read it in a matter of days.
Back in London, I told Rich about the book and what an amazing, remarkable woman she was. We watched the movie of her life together and as it was a cold, miserable Sunday afternoon.. we then watched Schindlers List as I couldnt believe Rich hadnt seen it!
After the marathon of war movie watching, we discussed how we'd like to go and visit a concentration camp one day. Now that I was expecting, travelling in the future would be a lot more difficult so I suggested we do it now!
So 2 months later (we had to wait for Poland to warm up as I wasnt about to go and be a tourist at 0 degrees!) and we were in Krakow, the city closest to Aushwitz, the biggest concentration camp in Europe.
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One of the carriages the prisoners arrived on |
We arrived at about midnight and lucky that I was super organised and printed off a map to our hotel as there was nothing open at the airport. We found the bus and attempted to buy a ticket with the bus drivers assistance but the ticket machine wouldnt accept our big notes. Cigarette hanging out of his mouth, the driver attempted to give us instructions by speaking in Polish and holding up his hands and pointing to fingers...which we think meant that we had 5mins before the bus was leaving and the next bus was in an hour... So a small group of us ran into the airport hurriedly searching for somewhere to get change for our big notes. But there was nothing open so I had the great idea of getting the smallest note possible from the cash machine. So with our 20 zloty note in hand we ran back to the bus, relieved to see he hadnt left yet and bought our tickets from the machine outside.

Then to our amusement (with a bit of frustration mixed in) we watched as a group of tourists got on, held out their big notes to the driver and he just motioned them into the bus without payment, obviously wanting to get on his way and not go through the rigmarole of what he went through with us!
It was 40mins or so into the city then it was either a taxi or a 20min walk to the hotel. We decided to walk, the guy on the bus reckoned it would be easy enough to find..but we ended up having to ask for directions about 4 times and it took probably 30mins but it was a pleasant enough night and we travelled lightly. It's always amusing getting longwinded directions from people in another language...Though it was obvious we didnt speak Polish one lady gave us an elaborate polish explanation which probably would translate to 'go straight ahead for maybe 5 mins then when you get to the end of road you'll see a church, turn left but not sharp left, the other left, then take your third right and keep walking...' Funnily enough we managed to follow these directions to half way to the hotel..mostly by the hand gestures.
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The row of 'toilets' |
As we stood on a corner looking up at the street names and studying our map, some friendly locals out on the town walked us to our hotel. Turned out one of them had lived in Barcelona and loved it. Richard asked where and she said 'oh we were squatting in the city'. Well - squatters or not - they were still very friendly!
It was about 2am by the time we got to the hotel and though the city awaited us for exploring the next day; I wasnt compromising on my sleep! So it was a relief to find that this was one of the quietest hotels I'd stayed in and breakfast was served until 11am!
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The famous entrance to Aushwitz: 'Work Will Set You Free' |
I wasnt expecting much for breakfast but it was fairly decent, though at 10.30am they were low on pancakes. I got the last one but it was kind of weird; rolled up with a cream cheese type filling oozing with oil when you bit into it. As for most continental breakfasts; there was cheese, meats, salads and bread rolls on offer so in preparation I made myself a roll for lunch - who knows what would be on offer at a concentration camp! Richard opted not to make the roll then at 2pm looked at me in envy as I ate mine until I took pity on him and gave him a giant man sized bite :-)
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Aushwitz |
The bus to Aushwitz left from Krakow main bus station. We had the choice of taking the tram there or walking for 20-25mins. Rich decided we should walk and see some of the city. It was a fairly warm day, contrary to the weather forecast so I was roasting in my duck down coat. We stopped to buy some snacks for the journey and though I assumed Rich knew where we were and had the map figured out, he stopped and asked someone for directions so I guess he didnt! Our success rate of finding people who spoke english was probably 40%, but we learnt to ask the young people to improve success. We ended up having to ask about 6 or 7 people how to find the bus station - despite having a map! So we'd been walking for about 45mins by the time we found it and I was tired already!

We bought our tickets and waited by the platform. As the time got closer a pretty large group began to gather and form somewhat of a queue. Rich got in there amongst it and secured us a place at the front. The driver turned up and the crowds started to push towards the door but luckily it was ticket holders first so we got on at the beginning. Though there were no seats left, they kept piling on until it was packed like the tube and to make matters worse, the driver picked up more people at another stop! This time they had to stand right by the driver and in the stairs to the bus so that every time the driver stopped to let people off, people had to get off the bus to let them pass, then get back on again. There was a guy in a suit with really bad BO standing right by us, which made for somewhat of a long journey. It took 1.5hrs to get there and we got to see some countryside; which was quite pretty and looked somewhat similar to the Czeck republic, but perhaps not as nice.

We paid for the English speaking tour which left in 15 mins and started with watching a short film about what they found when they liberated the camp. As expected, it was quite harrowing - showing a little girl who was made to stand bare foot in the snow for an entire day and had frostbite up both legs and men who sterilisation experiments were done on.

I sat on a step and got my camera ready and heard a woman announce 'English speaking tour this way'. I couldnt see her but followed after the voice and we all crammed onto a bus to Birkenau, a camp 5 mins drive away. There was a bit of disorganisation as 3 or 4 tour groups all got off and were told to wait. Richard went off to take photos and I mingled around until a voice said 'English speaking tour this way'. I wasnt sure if were following the right lady as I didnt see her the first time but we all had black stickers on and I did speak English so surely that was it? I called Rich over who had wandered off to take masterpieces with his phone.

The guide was a short eastern european woman wearing bright lipstick and dark sunglasses. She didnt once crack a smile and 10 seconds into her speal I could already see she was crap! She spoke quietly and from a perfectly memorised speech with as much expression as if she were reading a recipe. Her thick accent was difficult to understand and from the back of the group I yelled out 'can you speak up please'. She paused for a second, obviously annoyed by my interruption, then continued with the speech about 1 decibal louder.
Richard groaned 'why did you follow this woman, she's crap! I think we're meant to be with the other group! I don't know - I protested! I didnt see the first woman, she said 'english speaking tour so I followed her!

Birkenau was massive - way bigger than either of us expected. It was like it's own town really and the columns of cabins with maybe 10 barracks per row, were separated by electric fences. We saw the cattle train carts the people came in on- sometimes 1000's of kms with no food or water or even air circulation. They had to punch holes in the carts just to breath. The journey alone killed off a few people.
Then men were split from women and with a single glance, a Dr would judge whether they were fit for work or if it was off to the gas chamber.
There were areas for the jews, gypsies, men, women and those awaiting inspection. There was also a propaganda camp which they kept in much better condition should the Red Cross or anyone else want to come and visit. After a few years, nobody came so the 'lucky' prisoners of this camp were killed.

In the right hand fields there were the skeletons of building foundations, only the brick chimney stack remained after the Germans burnt them down to destroy evidence at liberation. But some had been reconstructed with original wood. And those not made of wood also remained. The barracks were meant to be horse stables and still had the rings inside designed to tie the horses to. There were no proper floors, it was just mud, there were huge gaps between the roof and the walls. And though there were furnaces in each one, they werent supplied any fuel for heating. Winter would have been unbearably cold, with no insulating fat to keep warm and only a thin blanket, and summer would have been stiflingly hot. They were massively overcrowded, and they were only allowed to go to the 'toilet' twice a day. So there was no choice but to go right there in your barracks. And I imagine that given that they were being feed food filled with wood shavings, diahorreah would've been common. It would have been hell on earth and I can only imagine the emotional, mental and physical strength required to endure such an ordeal. I dont think I would have lasted a week, nor would I have wanted to.
It was sad to hear the German doctor who experimented on the twin children...He escaped to South America so was never bought to justice then died of a stroke as he was swimming in this pool some years later. Well he will get his justice in hell.

About half way through the tour, another english speaking guide came into the same barrack. She was young, full of expression and you could understand her! We decided to sneakily swap groups. She showed us the toilets - a barrack just like the others but with rows of holes in seats - no partitions or anything. There were no flushes and apparently it was the best job on site to be able to shovel out the crap and take it outside. Ewwwwww! But you can understand why; the guards never came in, you could talk to the other crap shovellers, and you were inside so warm(ish) and dry.
We stayed with our new tour guide for maybe 30mins then we all got back on the bus to Aushwitz. We tried to follow the guide but the group seemed to disband...Confused, we asked a member of the group 'ahhh where's the tour guide gone?' Then he confirmed Richard's fear, but something that hadn't actually crossed my mind - they did Aushwitz first, so this was the end of the tour for them! Well - what to do now! Aushwitz was now closed unless you were with a tour group and we had left ours. Despondent, we queued for the bus home, which was busy and chaotic as people with no tickets

were getting on ahead of people with tickets...There was pretty much no chance of us getting on that and there was no way I was standing all that way.. .Plus it had taken us 2 hours to get here, did we really want to come back tomorrow? We hung around outside the exit and after a few mins, some tourists left so we snuck in the exit gate. Of course the security guard saw us so we explained we had lost our group and he suggested we look in cabin 5 but didnt really know where they were. We spent a good 30-40mins looking around for them - Aushwitz is also pretty big but not as big at Birkenau. Richard was happy enough snapping away with his phone but I was intent on finding the group so I could learn about the camp. There were information posters so we could have picked up some info from reading those..We found them eventually and the guide did not look impressed 'I didnt see you in the foyer, why not? she said tersely. Everyone now had headphones so they could hear what she/or the recorded message was saying..but we didnt get any. I tried to hear her, but couldnt and besides the tour only lasted about 10mins after we found them! So basically I felt like I learnt fat nothing about Aushwitz and was really gutted.
But at least we saw the famous quote above the walkway to the cabins 'Work will set you free' and got to see the conditions here. It was a bit more real and personable as there were photos of the prisoners who were murdered. The conditions were a lot better than Birkenau, though the cabins werent as crowded and there were thin matresses on the beds, treatment was equally as brutal and they still died in huge numbers.
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Some of the Prisoners at Aushwitz |
We did read some of the signs which had saddening stories; if a prisoner escaped - his family was taken into Aushwitz until the prisoner gave himself up. And we saw the furnaces and gas chambers; not that I believe the consipracy theorists, but they have a piont. The furnaces are really small and would only fit 2 people in at a time, it seems a little strange that such small furnaces were built for mass exorcism.
As the park was closed, the crowds had thinned so we had no problem getting a seat on the bus back to Krakow. We went to use the free wifi in the mall to pick an authentic restaurant for dinner and the free wifi happened to lead us to an ice cream palour where we indulged in the triple scoop waffle cone special topped with whipped cream and chocolate sauce (all for under 2 pound!!). We found a highly rated non touristy restaurant nearby and went for dinner. They had a pianist and accordion playing live so that added to the atmosphere to make a lovely evening.
The tram closest to the hotel wasnt running at this hour and it sounded a bit confusing going back by public transport - so a taxi it was. Though it was a fairly long and tiring day, Rich insisted that we go out and sample the night life. I obviously wasnt so enthusiastic about this idea so he said he was happy to go out alone....Again I wasnt happy with that either but in the end it didnt matter as he fell asleep anyway.
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Traditional Polish Restaurant for Dinner |
I had pretty much planned this whole trip, flights, hotel, transport etc so I delegated a task to Richard; find out how to get to the salt mines. At breakfast I asked him how his task was going and he replied good, I'm just going to ask at reception. But that drew a blank face by the guy who said 'I'm not sure, I think you have to go by train'. But then a lady behind us in the queue said 'oh no, there is a bus that goes direct there, it's very close by. Just go round the corner and turn rights, its the number 207.
But do you think we could find this bus stop? Not a chance...we asked one guy and he was like oh no, you have to take the tram to the end of the line and then there is a bus from there... So we started following his directions when on the way Rich decided to ask someone else and they pointed us in the opposite direction. Back and forward we went, asking probably 4 people who all gave slightly different options. It was laughable....I think after an hour or so we were back to the main square of the city where I spotted a tourist office for help.
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Best Ice Cream ever! |
It was probably a good thing we made it back to the centre though as it was a lovely day and the main square was full of market stalls and colourful buildings. We took our time wandering around and taking photos.
After buying our food for the day, we found the bus stop just as the bus was pulling up. Perfect. The salt mines were in a small town (Wieliczka) probably 30mins from the city. They are a UNISCO world heritage site and were being raved about on TripAdvisor. We signed up for the English tour and sat outside in the sun for an hour or so until the tour... I have to say- the tour was pretty expensive, especially considering how cheap everything else is in Poland - and you even had to pay extra for a camera permit to take photos down there. But I suppose that's tourism.
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Inside the Salt Mines |
The tour began with 378 steps down into the shafts- which was quite dizzing! It took ages and you could hear murmuring amongst the group wondering when we would ever get to the bottom. Commercial mining stopped in 1997 and the place must be massive; we walked for almost 3 hours in these mines and only saw 2% of the tunnels and areas.
The tour was interesting and you got to see all the man made devices they fashioned for hauling the big rocks around and how they used horses. It was difficult to get a horse down a mine, so once it was down there, it stayed down there. It certainly looked a hard life for a miner, especially if it was your job to go up to top of the caves with a long lit stick to burn off any small gas pockets that had formed. Fine if the gas pocket was small- but bad news if it was big!
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Cathedral Made Entirely of Salt |
The highlight was the cathedral- built entirely of salt, from the walls to the floor, the statues and even the chandeliers. Quite amazing when it was done by miners, not artists. Miners were quite religous (probably because their jobs were so dangerous so they prayed every morning!) so the mines consisted of 3 chapels as well as the cathedral. The different grades of salt gave the place its varied look; with iron ore for the floor and pure like glass for the chandeliers.
Thoug the tour was interesting, it was tiring and after a while you kind of though, yup I've seen enough mine shafts now! The lifts up were a joke- they only held about 9 people at a time so it took forever for us all to get out of there. It was good to see light again and sit down on the bus for the ride back to town.
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Salt Chandelier |
Our flight didnt leave till the evening so we figured we had plenty of time and thought about going to another Polish restaurant for dinner. We couldnt resist another trip to the ice cream palour and then went to get a timetable for the airport train. Looking at the timetable we realised we didnt have enough time for a restaurant dinner so thought we'd better go back to the hotel to get our backs then come back into the mall for a quick bite. When at the hotel Richard thought he'd double check the timetable with the receptionist as the train we intended to take had a little footnote by it but we weren't sure what it meant. Oh that train only goes 1 week of the year in June, she said. What??! Looking at our options- we had 20mins to catch the next train as the one after wasnt for over an hour and we would miss our flight. So we ordered a taxi, sat outside nervously waiting for it and watched the clock on the taxi dashboard tick by as we got increasingly anxious. It was a mad dash through the mall, down the stairs and onto the train platform where we made it by 5 mins!! 5 mins? Hey- that's enough time to quickly go and get some food. So Richard sprinted off to the closest bakery and got us some pizza bread while I sat inside the train praying that in Poland, trains didnt leave early. Luckily they didnt.
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Mine Shaft inside the Salt Mines |
It was a good thing he got the bread as there wasnt much in the airport and apart from a decent breakfast we had only snacked all day. The stress of the day wasnt over though. For whatever reason, there was a HUGE queue to get on the Terravision bus back to London and people were spewing that despite having prepaid tickets, they weren't given any more priority to board the bus than those who had just turned up and bought a ticket then. We didnt get to the back of the queue but instead stood just behind the roped off area waiting (for about 45mins) as one of the ticket guys told us to but we got some slack for 'queue jumping' once the bus did arrive! It was a miracle we got on this bus and I'm so glad we did otherwise it would have been another 45min wait till the next one. Back in Victoria it was another 20min wait for the night bus then 45mins on the bus so we collapsed into bed at around 3am! I'm so glad I had the forethought to book half a days leave the next day.
All the walking and standing around had turned my feet into big giant swollen marshmellows which took days to go down! But I'm still glad we got to do our last city trip - at least for a while. Concentration camp - done. That's another thing ticked off the bucket list!