Auschwitz

Arno: So we started our drive towards Auschwitz concentration camp. We had booked tickets online two days earlier for a tour without a guide since the only tours available were either in Polish or Italian. You also have no choice since you HAVE to book it ahead if you want to visit the museum. Luckily the tour without a guide was for free. The one hour drive took us almost two hours due to the horrible traffic in Krakow and we were scared we wouldn't make it on time. With just five minutes to spare we made it there (I guess it would have been okay to be late) and went to the grounds of Auschwitz I, the original concentration camp.

You really don't know what to think and how to feel when you walk around and see all the buildings and barbed wire fences you recognize from pictures and movies and start to think about all the cruelty that has happened here not so long ago. It is hard to really understand it and especially the scale of all the actions. We felt some sort of discomfort walking around and seeing all the buildings where people slept, ate, tried to live a life as normal as possible and probably afterwards were sent to their deaths. After walking around for about an hour and touring the different exhibitions which gave an in-depth view into the happenings and lives of the people who had to live there, we stumbled into this concrete one-story colorless building. Apparently it was one of the places in which the SS murdered a lot of people and burned their corpses. It was sad and made me discussed looking at the ovens in which thousands of people turned into ash like they've never existed. For absolutely no real reason.

We didn't realize the museum closes so early so we were scared to not have enough time to see Birkenau, the actual extermination camp where most of the inhabitants were killed eventually. We left the Auschwitz camp and waited for the bus to take us to the other one since it is located about 3 km further down the road. 

Linnea: Arriving to Birkenau was a shock for me.. I mean the part we had just seen was full of these sad stories, horrible pictures and everything, but when the gates to Birkenau opened to us the whole killing part of the camp just hit my face like a huge wave. Walking in by the massive train tacks that had carried in train loads of people. People who got killed there. In the gas cambers we walked through. Burned in those ovens we passed by. Starving in those barn kind of buildings. Freezing outside if there was no room to sleep inside. Being hit, kicked or shot. On a doctor table for illegal human tests. Innocent people. Men, women, children, babies. 

There were a lot of rouses everywhere. Left on the bunks or train tracks. For the people who suffered.

Walking through this huge camp area I could picture the people. I could hear them screaming as they were slowly gassed until they couldn't breath. I could feel the cold on my back as I read the carving on the walls. I felt the pain the parents must have felt as their children were taken from them. I was scared for them. I felt horrible. Squeezing Arno's hand I made it through, from one dark building to another. It was quiet and creepy. And I was so happy not to experience all of it alone. I leaned to my boyfriend who comforted me every now and then. 

It totally was a terrible place with such a horrible history. I mean there are just no words for it. I felt so bad for a few days after that. But I am so happy we went. Auschwitz is a place I think everyone should visit once. But I would recommend everyone to have some company, someone to talk about it and share. It really is a place where a lot of cruelty has been done. Important part of the history that should stay in the history. No one deserves to live in that kind of place or be treated as the people on concentration camps. Tho the sad fact is that those kind of camps still exist. That kind of killing is still everyday in some countries.

We left Auschwitz quietly after few hours of walking and headed back to the car. I was tired, had a headache and felt just so sorry and so down for everything we had just seen. We were driving slowly through the mountains towards Slovakia. In the middle of the night. Some tiny roads. We talked and later on we even laughed. We bought some bad tasting chocolate from a gas station and finally made it to our hotel in the middle of the night. There I crawled in bed, next to my sweetheart. I told him for the millionth time that I felt so bad, so bad. And he stroked my hair until I fell asleep.

Later on I have seen nightmares about a concentration camp.. Didn't really sleep that night. But we both still agree that it was such an important piece of history to experience. 

Greetings,
Arno and Linnea