Japan to Eastern Europe Part 15 - Day 13 - Auschwitz and Birkenau

We both had an early start today as you can probably guess - we were both planning on going to Auschwitz today. Also - being our last day in Krakow - we had to pack our bags as well.

Breakfast was another early/Continental affair (which was OK). When we were leaving our bags at reception - the crazy French couple (whom the woman was having "toaster with fork" fun yesterday) - were asking reception to call for a taxi to get to Auschwitz - which might set them back a couple of hundred dollars for a return trip as it is about a 3 hour return trip by car... Those crazy french people.

Instead of a expensive taxi ride - we caught a 7zl bus ride from Krakow station. Instead of the anarchy from yesterday (eg: Easter Monday and no transport to Auschwitz) - there was hardly anyone on our bus.

The scenary to Oswiecim (the town where we were going) was pretty much decidedly bleak - flat and wet - the nazi`s couldn` have picked a more depressing place to stage a genocide...

OK - I`m not going to make any bad dodgy holocaust jokes on this blog - we don`t want a fundamentalist flagging this as inappropriate on blogger or something...

The Auschwitz Museum is basically the old Auschwitz concentration camp turned into a museum/memorial to the goings-on there. Much of it has survived since the war (the Nazis only destroyed bits of it when the war was over - in an attempt to cover up the goings-on there). Probably because the Museum doesn`t want to make money over the death of 1-2 million of people - it was free entry.

We saw a 15 min movie in Engrish (complete with dodgy eastern European Vincent Price-esque voice over) about what happened there - and if the film went for any longer than 15 mins - I probably would have walked out as it was getting pretty sick.

The camp itself (like the landscape) was fairly bleak - there was about 30 or so prison blocks - most of which houses exhibits about the war or the (what Ant called) "the World Expo" of Halocaust exhibits. There were exhibits on life of camp prisioners, forms of punishment and excution the Nazis committed, forms of resistance prisoners used against the Nazis (including getting the word outside of the camp about what was going on) and what the Nazis stole from the Jews to make a profit off their murders (including taking murdered women`s hair and gold teeth - which was distrubing to say the least). All around the museum were pictures of prisoners that the nazis took of the prisioners as they entered the camp. It was very sobering - especially when some people didn`t last a week in the camp. Also distrubing was the number of Jews and others being brought to the camp. As the number was getting too high - the Nazis stopped taking people`s photos. You can also visit places where the nazis executed prisioners (including gallows, shooting areas and the cremotorium (where a counterless number of murdered people`s bodies were cremated).

Bits of the "World Expo" were quite impressive - I liked the Dutch one (which had stories of various Dutch-jewish families and their fates - including Anne Frank) and Ant liked the French one - which was quite dark and moody - but it put a bit of explanation about the French Resistance against the Nazis in France. The Italian one was a bit bizzare (just some art installation which was a bit sucky) - which is a bit strange considering the Italians were with the bad guys in the War. Also strange was the Austrian one - which had a big sign out the front from the current government saying "the current exhibit is too one sided... It potrays Austria being the first "victim" of the nazis and sort of ignores the fact that a lot of Austrian Nationalists played a (bad) part in the halocaust" - so they are planning to tear it down and make a new one. The Polish exhibit felt very old school - if a little bit communistic/propaganda-y - although it looks like they are making attempts at fixing it up a bit. There was even an exhibit on the genocide of Roma people (aka Gypsies) - of scary note was the guestbook where someone had written "there needs to be more people like Hitler today"... mmm..kay????

Walking outside the Roma exhibit - we bumped into those annoying Americans from the Salt Mine bus... I wave them a quick "hi" but Ant runs the hell away from them...

We have lunch at the Museum`s cafateria (after attempting to eat at two nearby pizzerias but being denied because all of their empty tables were reserved). LP describes the cafateria as being "sufficient for a quick lunch" - which isn`t exactly a ringing endorsement of the place is it? I had ordered "Beef Roast with Mashed Potatoes and Salad" (salad being shredded cabbage - yummo) - whereas Ant had ordered the better option of a simple bean soup. It definately felt like "University College" style cafeteria food - to put it politely.

After a late lunch (it was getting on in the day) - we decide to make the trip to Birkenau - another Nazi camp about 3kms away. We miss the 3 o`clock shuttle and decide to walk it instead (as it only involved one left turn a couple of kms away or something). The walk wasn`t too bad and it didn`t really feel like 3kms. We tried to pick up the pace a bit because we had noticed that the Americans from the salt mines had the same idea and were following us. (Run ant run!).

Birkeanau was a lot more shocking than Auschwitz for two reasons - its size (which was mammoth compared to Auschwitz) and because this is the site where the mass exterminations of Jews happened (eg: where the gas chambers are). The layout of Birkeanau is "very German" - ordered and (I hate to say it) "efficient". All of the prison huts are layed out in a symetrical fashion - and all of the Jews here were brought by train (the tracks go right to the centre of the camp) and were then selected for extermination - those that looked capable of any hard labour - where sparred of the gas chambers (but probably died of the conditions and labour anyway)... everyone else was taken to the gas chambers. Everyone was told by the nazis that this is a "shower facility" and were told to strip - they are all led into one of several gas chamber facilities on the site and are executed. Then they were cremated and their remains were thrown into several pits.

This place was extremly depressing and somewhat scary (as you look at old pictures of all of the Jews and you can recognise the location and the buildings in the shots). Not much of the camp has survived since the war - as the nazis tried to destroy the evidence of the gas chambers and their crime. Although they attempted to do this - you can still see the remains of the gas chambers and the muddy pits with 1000s of murdered people`s remains (which was fairly sobering to say the least).

The old showering / bathing facility is still intact - and it housed a museum about how the Jews were showered and dressed into prision uniforms (which like everything here was shocking).

Auschwitz and Birkenau (in particular) are highly recommended. It isn`t exactly feel-good holiday material but it is definately an experience to have. It was sort of amazing (from a tourist perceptive) that Birkenau was almost devoid of tourists - whereas Auschwitz was quite mosh-pitty with tourists in stages. I think that if you go on an organised tour - you might only visit the front gates of Birkenau (as I didn`t see any organised tours walking around the camp). Despite Ant thinking that we would bowl over the two in about 3 and a bit hours (as described to in a organised tour brochure) - we spent all day here.

We missed the free shuttle back to Auschwitz (story of our lives) - so we had to walk back. Luckily there were no Americans - and the rain was beginning to ease up (you couldn`t ask for any more depressing weather than today).

We arrived about 10 or 15 mins early for the 5:05 bus to Krakow and it was a good thing we did. Although the bus going to Oswiecim was empty - this one was completely packed - not only by tourists but by locals as well who were going home to Krakow. There were people standing up the whole way back to Krakow (in true China-train trip to Nanjing style).

On arrival back at Krakow station (ohh how I`m getting sick of this damn station) - the nearby Galleria was open for business... Finally - Poland is beginning to feel like a real country with shops that are actually open! We wander around for a bit - where I give Ant a real big shock by not walking into the H&M there... and we settle on some Italian restaurant in the mall for dinner. Ant orders the free world`s biggest Small size pizza (my gawd that place had big pizzas - I`m surprised that not all Poles are complete blimps considering the food portion sizes) and I had some "Carb-o-rific Pasta Carbonara with added fat"... which was tasty... and hell - we walked about 58kms today - so I deserved it.

Ant buys some Doc Martins (I`m still in shock about this one) from some shop in the mall. If I hadn`t mentioned it before on the blog - we were staying near some Doc Martin shop with a picture of the Pope (dead Jan Pawel - not the current nazi pope) in the front window. There is something that doesn`t mix - the Pope and Doc Martins... I`m sure if they both touched each other - it would bring about the catacylsmic end to the universe or something.

I had bought a couple of cheap top-40 Polish CDs (well Polish versions of current western top 40 cd`s) to waste my zolloti currency (or whatever you call it) - although I`ve still got a bit of a apocalyptic stock-pile of it - so I probably need to change it in Hungry.

We make walking tracks back to the hostel - and my feet are bloody hurting because of all of Ant`s forced nazi marches that we are doing. We grab our bags and catch a 12zl taxi ride to the train station (god I hate this place) and catch the 10:30pm sleeper train to Budapest.

Ant starts to act like a kid in a candy store at this stage - it has been his dream or something to catch a sleeper train in Europe - and what better place to do it than from Krakow to Budapest (complete with two night border crossings!).

We had splurged out and booked a first class sleeper carriage. It was our own compartment with two bunk beds, a fold down sink thingy and a wardrobe thingy. You also get the added bonus of "linen" in a sleeper. There was also some complementary bottles of "gas" water (what is it with Europeans and making all bottled water into the soda water varient??) and a couple of packet crossiants with chocolate.

Ant is creaming his jeans at this stage - but I was feeling tired and decided to try and get some sleep.