Last Day in Poland | Auschwitz & a Summary
When Ryder was in his public school 6th grade history class, he was the only one to ever have heard about the Holocaust. And I've heard a number of people say that they have friends who don't know what the Holocaust or Auschwitz is. Today, we had the opportunity to step on the Auschwitz soil and walk through some of the buildings, where the horrors took place. I'm not sure I will ever be able to really process the experience of seeing Auschwitz. The evil and horror is just too much and as we walked around and you think it cannot get worse, you learn of another unthinkable horror.
The buildings are referred to as "blocks". In one block, there were over 400 women and children, who were all "liquidated" (a term that I can barely type but was used often in the writings). The wooden (stable) buildings were originally designed in Germany to hold 52 horses, but in Auschwitz these same buildings held over 700 men (three to one blanket). Approximately 5,000 people were murdered during any 24-hour period. Lethal injections were give intraCARDIAC, while the person sat in a chair (mostly children, Jewish pregnant women and the sick). Newborn babies were usually immediately put to death, along with their mothers. The children that were chosen to be kept alive endured brutal and painful medical experimentation by "Dr Death".
Absolutely horrific and beyond evil. How could this even happen? How was Hitler SO crazy? How could his military commandants follow through with his orders? And why didn't the Allied troops help (I did read that they were at least somewhat aware of what was happening and the US bombed a chemical plant or something like that about 10 KM away? I know there is plenty that I still don't know but it's all so unfathomable.
I WILL NEVER FORGET! I hope that my children will never forget. We had so many discussions along the way, as we walked through both concentration camps.
POLAND SUMMARY
airbnb apartments: $461
Food, transportation & four museums: $675
Total for eight days in Poland: $1136
Days 1-4 | Gdansk
Walked around Old Town
European Solidarity Center
Amber Museum
Museum of the Second World War
Days 5-8 | Krakow
Walked to the Market Square
Schindler's Factory Museum
Auschwitz