Auschwitz and Birkenau at the week end.

[Lazurus]

Spent an enjoyable weekend in Krakow visiting the Christmas markets and sampling the local dumplings and Vodka. Sunday was a day trip to the death camps, a truly sombre experience but one I would recommend to all to put on their bucket list.
Whilst i have seen the images and films based on the camps nothing prepares you for the sight in broad daylight, and in freezing temperatures to bring home the reality of what happened there so many years ago. To walk through the gas chambers and along the infamous railway line that leads to the selection area, treading the steps of the millions that perished - mind blown!

[Stubby]

1 minute ago, Lazurus said:

Spent an enjoyable weekend in Krakow visiting the Christmas markets and sampling the local dumplings and Vodka. Sunday was a day trip to the death camps, a truly sombre experience but one I would recommend to all to put on their bucket list.
Whilst i have seen the images and films based on the camps nothing prepares you for the sight in broad daylight, and in freezing temperatures to bring home the reality of what happened there so many years ago. To walk through the gas chambers and along the infamous railway line that leads to the selection area, treading the steps of the millions that perished - mind blown!

My daughter recently visited on a school trip .  As you say , thought provoking in the least .

[David Cropper]

The first time my wife and I went to Oradour sur Glane near Limoges, its a famous site of an SS tank battalion massacre,  there was a photographic exhibition of the camps. I managed 5 minutes and had to leave, too harrowing. My wife had visited Belsen twice when she lived in Germany and took holidaying relatives with her, not my thing I'm afraid. 

If any of you get to the Limoges area I urge you to pay a visit to Oradour sur Glane. Look it up on Google. Eye opener to say the least.

[oldwoodcutter]

I’ll never forget a one time work colleague , for reasons best known to himself, took his new mrs on honeymoon driving around Poland.
When I knew him he wasn’t much of a conversationalist except if he got the chance would talk non stop about extermination camps.
Needless to say once he got her over there he insisted on visiting as many of the sites as possible .
Naturally the marriage lasted until about the time she got out of his car back in Blighty, God knows what he was thinking about, but he sort of disappeared after that and we never saw him again.

[Silverhooker]

Took the kids this summer, Auschwitz is truly the worst place in the world till the tour goes to Birkenau. Industrial murder on an unimaginable scale. Standing on the judenramp, where the people were sorted into groups before going to the gas chamber is the most awful place on earth.
We were all totally exhausted after the trip and all went to bed that night early, glad I went, everyone should, you’ll never take anything for granted after seeing this.

[se7enthdevil]

watch a recorded episode about a survivor of a camp i'd never heard about "Natzweiler".

 

it was endured by 52,000+ and there is the oldest known survivor throughout the episod recalling the time there. 

 

well worth a watch.

[PeteB]

I went the other year, on a cold a grey day. Horrifying to think that there are people who deny the Holocaust happened! Just seeing where the end game happened was numbing.

 

Krakow was good, stayed in the old square, spent a while just drinking and taking it all in.

[Silverhooker]

Yeah we went out drinking in the Jewish quarter each night it was very bohemian and cheap as chips !!

[Timbermcpherson]

One of my great uncles died at Auschwitz

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He got drunk and fell out of his tower

 

 

 

 

 

[Bolt]

I have always intended on visiting a commonwealth war cemetery one day, never got around to it yet, although I often take in a detour to the war graves when working adjacent to tiny village churchyards.  It is disturbing how many tiny, tiny communities lost so many of their young during the madness of the last century.

 

I am not really sure how I feel about a visit to a deathcamp.  Experiencing those places is probably something everyone should do, but I am not sure I would be comfortable going as a ‘tourist’.

 

I did visit a forum once, and there was this attempt at comedy that suffered a long and painful death.