Today we chose to visit the Auschwitz Concentration Camps. And I do mean plural. After a nice continental breakfast at our little Inn, we rode the few kilometers to Auschwitz Berkenau II which was the second Auschwitz built, and it's about 20 times larger than the original Auschwitz. We got there before 9am and before many of the tour buses had arrived. Much of the original camp and particularly the gas chambers were destroyed by the Nazis before the Russians liberated the camp in January, 1945. Several things stood out for me as we walked virtually the entire grounds. First was the sheer scale of this death camp. It's 40 square kilometers or 3 square miles in size and was specifically built to do the dastardly deeds that we performed there. Second, I learned that 75% of the incoming prisoners were immediately gassed: the young, the old, the infirm, the mentally challenged, those with prosthetics. We somberly walked around the camp following the guiding arrows and reading the placards at each appropriate point. In the back of the camp is a memorial to those who died there, and there are tablets written in many languages to commemorate the sad event. We ended up spending over 3 hours walking the grounds and paying our respects.
We had parked in what turned out to be the employee parking lot so we moved the bike to the paid parking lot and thought there was a museum there, but there wasn't. A fellow noticed our license plate and we were able to chat with him and learn where the original Auschwitz was nearby located. So we headed there knowing that we would have to purchase tickets and take a guided English tour. It was about an hour wait and we got the last 2 tickets for an English speaking tour which would start an hour and a half later at 3:30pm. So we ate some lunch in the onsite cafe before heading in for our tour. While waiting there, we met a couple of ladies who were also on the English speaking tour, but they were on the newly created one after our tour became full. The girls are best friends and one lives in Australia and the other is a Pharmacist in Toronto, Canada. Promptly at 3:30pm our guide, Anna, greeted us and we began the tour. I'm not going to describe it out of respect for those who lived and died here and as it is well documented on the internet. Needlesstosay, it was moving and horrifying that man could be so cruel and inhumane to their fellow man. This camp was not destroyed to the extent that Camp II was, but the retreating Nazis did remove and destroy the gas chambers and related items. Two of the crematorium units have been reproduced and it's a gut wrenching sight. The tour actually continued with a trip to Camp II, but since we had already been there, we passed on returning.
So we headed back to our Inn and put the bike away for the night. We also ate a nice dinner, and then decided to walk into the old town of Osweicim and explore it. It ended up being a 2.5 mile walk there and after getting thoroughly drenched in a passing rain shower, it was 2.5 miles back. We had a local tourist map and enjoyed many of the sites including the Castle of the Dukes of Osweicim, the Salesian Mary Help of Christians Church, the town square, Virgin Mary's Assumption Church, the town square with a giant TV screen playing a World Cup Soccer game, Later on when the cloudburst occurred we wondered how wet the few people watching the game got.
Back at the room, we hung up our wet clothes to begin the drying process and got ourselves ready for a night's rest. It would be another big day tomorrow.
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