Poland

Wroclaw (pronounced Vrats-Woff)

Getting to our hostel was interesting. Only a few people could speak broken English so thank goodness Kara wrote down bus numbers and whatnot. We were going through some pretty questionable neighborhoods and I was super nervous. Once we got to our hostel we were relieved. It was right next to a Christmas Market! We had read online that we were gonna miss it by a few days so we were super excited to see it right next to where we were staying. The hostel was the cheapest we've stayed at so far (only about 10euros a night) and I'd say the nicest. We had a 10 bed mixed dorm with just means 8 other people were in there besides us and it was men and women. We went out to the Christmas market after we settled in and on a search for Polish food..in the 20 or so degree weather. We found a stand selling kielbasa, sauerkraut, and bread and we got some. My goodness was it delicious! My mouth still waters thinking about how yummy it was.



The next day we slept in which was nice. We also woke up to SNOW on the ground! I was so excited. We didn't really do much except for walk around our surrounding area. We didn't want to venture too far because of the fact that we don't speak Polish and next to no one speaks English. We heard about this really good, cheap restaurant that sells Polish food so we found our way there. I got polish dumplings with meat and sauerkraut, or as we know them- perogies. This topped our meal the night before. It was heavenly. For the rest of the day we walked around the Market Square, ducking into stores when we felt like we were starting to get frostbite. We went back to our hostel early because we knew how long the next day was going to be. We stopped at the stand from the night before and got a bread bowl filled with deliciousness- maybe just stewed sauerkraut and kielbasa? Not exactly sure but it was tasty.



Sunday we went on our tour to Auschwitz-Birkenau. This was why we wanted to go to Poland. It was a few hour drive away from where we were staying and it the scenery was so pretty. A lot of farmland, a lot of snow, and a lot of Polish deer. You hear about the holocaust, learn about it all through school, and read books about it. Being there was something totally different. Driving down the street to the Birkenau concentration camp I first saw that barbed wire fencing I've seen in books or on TV so many times. After parking, standing there looking at the entrance was surreal. It is the saddest feeling place I have ever been to. Not even sure how to describe it. We walked in and our tour guide took us to the bunk houses. They were originally stables meant for 52 horses, and the Nazi's housed about 400 people there. Walking through it and seeing the beds that were purposely slanted so more people could fit in them because they were rolled onto each other, or the few toilets with no privacy whatsoever for hundreds if not thousands of people was unbelievable. It is so hard to try to imagine what it was like. Impossible to imagine. We then walked back to see the crematoriums. There were pictures of the lines that the SS officers made for women and children, and then men, and who would be sent to their deaths. Standing there in the exact spot, or walking down the exact road of where these people were just decades ago was a unique feeling. Surreal, sad, unbelievable, terrible, I honestly can't describe most of my feeling of that day. We got to the first crematorium and it was in shambles. They destroyed it with good reason. There was a headstone to the side that was for all the people who died here. Their ashes were used as fertilizer so essentially we were standing in a mass grave. We then walked around the rest of the grounds and saw other crematoriums. There are so many pictures on the grounds of what happened that I've never seen before. One that will stick out in my mind was a little girl with her mom and probably brother standing in the cluster of trees I was looking at. The caption explained that this is where people were told to wait when the crematoriums were filled. That adorable little girl and her family were probably murdered within an hour of that picture being taken. I won't ever get her out of my mind. We walked through the rest of the camp and witnessed more of the horrors that went on there. It is absolutely unbelievable.

After Birkenau, we went to Auschwitz which is a museum now. One of my favorite books is Night by Elie Wiesel. If you haven't read it, you should. There is a scene in the book where he is forced to walk from Auschwitz to Birkenau barefoot, and people are dropping like flies becaue of the condition of their health. I went down that road he describes in the book. It is very long, and I had 2 layers of socks in my ugg boots, 3 layers of pants on, 3 layers of long sleeves and a jacket, a scarf, and a hat and I was freezing cold. He walked that road barefoot with close to nothing on. That scene always stuck in my head, but now I have a completely different understanding of it. The museum was interesting. The entrance says "Arbeit Mach Frei" or Work Brings Freedom. What an interesting phrase for what that place was. Each block was it's own museum for something different. There were rooms filled with shoes, luggage, pottery, children toys, eye glasses, prosthetic limbs, and other various belongings. They were told they were going to a new place so many brought all their prized posessions. There were pictures that filled hallways of prisoners showing when they arrived and when they were murdered. There was a death wall where people were told to stand against it and shot, or different torture methods were used there. There was a punishment room which was about the size of a small closet with a very tiny door at the bottom- they put 4 or so people in there at a time and most ended up suffocating. Many didn't even last a month. Womens hair was shaved off and sold, any gold teeth that they had were taken. I really did not realize the extent of the horror that these people endured. Obviously I knew it was a terrible place, but seeing it with my own eyes put a different perspective on it.

I am so glad we went there. To see something like that, and see what mankind is capable of is humbling. I don't really even think that is the right word for it. It gives you a different understanding of the world I guess. For anyone who wants to see the pictures I took here is the link. http://picasaweb.google.com/116166525438118288268/AuschwitzBirkenau?authkey=Gv1sRgCI3ryfiQuP3uIA&feat=directlink

I have to go study for finals but will update about my trip to berlin soon :)