Tuesday 30th August 2005         AUSCHWITZ

Awoke early to the eerie sounds of slow moving freight trains....in Auschwitz that brought to mind only one thing.

Had a reasonable breakfast in the Stalinist-Soviet Hotel Olympijski, packed up for the day ahead. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful morning, what a difference to the spooky darkness of the night before.

Drove towards the 'death camp' but saw an open air market and stopped to have a look around. Local farmers bringing their goods to small markets like this is so typical of the agrarian nature of rural Poland. Old women with headscarfes pulling cows along country lanes and groups of them pulling potatoes out of the ground. This was the image I had of Poland before visiting and I wasn't dissapointed.

The market was full of good, fresh produce and at ridiculously low prices, other stalls had bits of junk and bootleg stuff.

(Nina and local produce)

From the market place it was only a few minutes drive to the camp. Already it was busy and the car park had number plates from many countries. It was strange entering...seen it so many times on TV and read books about the place and now here we were at the 'gates of hell on earth'.

Walked through the main entrance and straight on to the gate with the cynical inscription, ..'Arbeit Macht Frei'.....'Work sets you free'...

Auschwitz Camp 1 was originally a Polish Army barracks but was overtaken by the Germans after the invasion in 1939. It was here that the first political prisoners were taken, but by 1941 it was clear that a much larger camp was needed for the tens of thousands of Jews cleared out of the ghettos in the Baltics and Soviet Russia.

So Auschwitz - Birkenau or Auschwitz 2 was built just a couple of minutes from the original site. It was at Birkenau that the mass industrialised killing took place.

After we had been around and seen all the exhibits in camp 1 we drove the few minutes over to Birkenau....the silence was deafening, standing in the middle of Birkenau, looking up along the railway track towards the 'tower of death'. This is the image that is so often seen...it was eerie.

Although surrounded by trees and beautiful countryside there was not a single bird in sight or to be heard..!!!!

It was well worth the effort to see Auschwitz and hopefully the kids learnt from it too....by now it was well into the afternoon and we had spent about 3 hours in both camps, it was time to move on.

We wanted to get to the city of Krakow before it was too late in the day.

View from inside the tower, Birkenau                         

Halt.... 

Berlin to Auschwitz.....the road to hell !     View along the track to the 'tower of death'...        The selection process. A newly arrived train being sorted.  To the right - you live (a bit longer), to the left - you die !  You can see the tower of death on the left. Between 70-75% of each new transport were sent immediately to their death in the gas chambers.      Photo above taken after the Soviet 'liberation' in January 1945. Bleak!  The 'liberation'was of course nothing of the sort, it was just one tyranny replacing another. The imposition of Soviet bolshevism on Europe!  Look at the map on the right for orientation. Auschwitz is between Katowice and Krakow Arbeit Macht Frei'....work sets you free. !...yeah..right....  Electric fences.         From the watchtower at the 'gate of death', some of the huts remain.... Block 11...'Death Block'.  In the courtyard between blocks 10 and 11 is the infamous 'Wall of Death'. At this very wall thousands upon thousands were shot, most of them Poles.  Grim.