Krakow, Poland

Living in Germany and traveling as much as we do, we must always take advantage of the most important long weekends on the American calendar... Memorial Day and Labor Day! 

We haven't done much traveling in the last few years on Labor Day so we definitely had to rectify that this year.

This weekend, it was Krakow, Poland!

On the way there, we passed some pretty decent looking thunderstorms (for Europe, anyway.)

When we got there, we ran down to the store to grab some breakfast foods, snacks and drinks for the apartment as we always do when we arrive in a new city.  I found these Hashtagos.  Because... Hashtagos.

Hey look what I found!  Lawrenceburg, Indiana in the house!  Hello, cousins!

After our little shopping spree, it was already time for dinner.  We stopped at Oberza Sasiadow for a VERY tasty dinner!

We've taught them so well.  (No, no, no... it's just fruit juice!)

After dinner "cocktails and mocktails."

I don't know why we took 5,000 photos of this dinner, but it was a really awesome meal!

In the morning, we made a big breakfast before heading out to take the Free Walking Tour Krakow (this one was called City Walks.)  Time for some toast, yogurt and of course, Miami Cynamonki cereal.

I'm always the navigator because I have the best sense of direction.  Todd is rolling his eyes right now.

Manhole covers of Krakow.  Not as pretty as some, but Wawel Castle is featured on them.

Krakow used to be the capital of Poland from 1038 until 1596.  It was moved to Warsaw that year after a trifecta of events led to the cities demise.  First, their ruler, Sigismund II died without an heir.  Then they were invaded by the Swedes.  Lastly, the bubonic plague swept in and killed 20,000 of its residents.

If you go to Krakow, you must visit the bustling Rynek Główny, or the main square in the heart of Stare Miasto (the Old Town.)  Here you can see the Cloth Hall, which is filled with shops.

One of the most visited sights in the main square is St. Mary's Basilica. This Gothic church was finished in 1347.

We did the City Walks Krakow with our excellent guide Makszym (or Maks) but he never posted our awesome group photo onto their website!

We began our tour in the main square and Maks told us all about St. Mary's Basilica, and how there is a trumpeter that comes out of the left bell tower at the top of every hour.  Maks explained to us how two brothers were hired to build the towers in the late 1200s.  The younger brother eventually realized that his older brother had built HIS tower much bigger, so he killed his brother in a jealous rage. 

The younger brother then felt so sad about what he had done that he killed himself with the same knife he used to kill his brother as he fell from his own, short tower.  The knife now allegedly hangs across the main square in the archway of the Cloth Market.  In truth, the knife was probably placed there by officials reminding people that thieves were punished by cutting off their ear with a knife.

Mascarons top the Cloth Hall, which was originally built in 1257.  The current building was built in the mid 16th century by the Italian Giovanni Maria Padovano in typical Italian Renaissance fashion, and was restored in the 1870s by Prylinski who once again gave it the original Gothic flair.

Oh this was definitely my favorite building in all of Krakow!  This is the Juliusz Słowacki Theatre, which of course, has a story.  It was built in 1891-1893 where the old Holy Ghost church and monastery once stood.  Of course, everyone went crazy over this.  It was modeled after the Paris Opera (and looks very much like it on the inside, aside from that atrocious Chagall ceiling of course!)

Eventually people got over it, and it's now one of the most beautiful buildings in Krakow, inside and out.

Outside architecture of the Juliusz Słowacki Theatre - I feel like some of these creatures were real and were about to jump down on me!



St. Florian's gate stands along the city fortifications that were built originally in the mid 1200s to protect the city from the Mongols/Tatars.  It helped to withstand attacks from the Ottoman's as well, but when Krakow became a part of the Austro Hungarian Empire, many of them were taken down.  By the grace of one man, Professor Feliks Radwański, the Florian gate (and the attached walls) were saved from destruction when he convinced the Austrians that not ONLY was the wall important for blocking north winds from entering the city (and thereby getting everyone sick), but also those same north winds would lift the skirts of women in the city!  Well, no one wanted THAT!  Thus the walls were saved!

This poor child totally has my legs.  And we both stand the same way. I always joke that God put my legs on backwards - my left is where the right should be, and my right where the left should be.

The Krakow Barbican is surprisingly still standing after having been built in 1498. There's only two others like it that are still standing in Europe. 

We continued the tour by walking back through St. Florian's Gate and back down Floriańska and toward the Main Square.

The first record of Krakow was in 965, although there's evidence that people had been there since the Stone Age.

One of the coolest things about Krakow is the legend of the trumpeter.  A guy with a trumpet comes out every hour and plays a song out each of the four directional windows (N, E, W, S) which originally faced the four gates of the city before three of them were destroyed.  The trumpeter begins the song (known as the hejnal) and then ends it before finishing.  Legend says that during the Mongol invasion, a trumpeter played this song to alert the guards at the four gates to close the gates.  As he was playing, he was shot in the throat with an arrow. Interestingly, the trumpeters are members of the fire brigade (the church tower also serves as a fire lookout tower.)  In the above picture you can barely make out his golden trumpet out of the window.  If the trumpeter waves at you, you must wave back!  

Little boy looked cute in the Main Square of Krakow.   You know how much he was loving all of those pigeons!

Oh that's more like it!!!!

We passed through the busy Cloth Hall on our way to the other side of the Main Square. Some call this Europe's oldest shopping mall!  (Superlative, check!)

The north side of the Main Square is equally as lovely.  SO many pigeons though!

The Town Hall Tower in Krakow is no longer the site of the actual town hall.  It is all that remains, however, of the town hall that was demolished in 1820.

Eros Bendato, or "Eros Bound" sits next to the Town Hall Tower in the Rynek Główny (the Main Square.)  Most people just call it "The Head."  The Head was completed by Polish artist Igor Mitoraj in the early 2000s.  If you're ever visiting St. Louis, there is another one of these in the City Garden.  His works often featured fragments of heads or bodies.

Loving me some of that roof architecture.  The blue one looks Dutch though.

Our next stop was Jagiellonian University, which was founded in 1364 and is the 18th oldest university in the world.  It's the oldest university in Poland and the second oldest in central Europe (second to Charles University in Prague.)

We took a quick break here where some people got coffee or a snack.  My little cutie waited in the shade beneath the dragon's head.  This section that surrounds the courtyard was a bunch of Gothic homes that were assembled together in the 18th century.  Sadly, during World War II, many of the professors, strictly because they were smart and Polish were deported to concentration camps.

The university was smart and used the city's symbol (the dragon) to dress up the water spouts that collect water from the roof.

After our break, we walked through a delightfully covered hallway and out to another courtyard.

A sundial sits outside in this separate courtyard, perhaps a monument to one of Jagiellonian University's most famous alum... Nicolaus Copernicus, who first believed that the sun was the center of the universe rather than the Earth.  (Of course, our sun is only at the center of our solar system!) 

Another stop on our tour was to the Church of St. Francis of Assisi in Krakow.  Karol Wojtyła, also known as Pope John Paul II was born only about 50 kilometers from Krakow and even went to Jagiellonian University here in Krakow. He was, in fact, enrolled as WWII broke out.  He was forced to quit school and take odd jobs to avoid deportation.  He eventually became the first non Italian Pope since the 1520s and was the second longest serving Pope in history to this point. 

Pope John Paul II became a priest in November of 1946, after a harrowing war experience, which included saving several Jews from a near certain death. He eventually became the youngest bishop in Poland at age 38, and at 58 was the second youngest Pope in history (only second to Pope Pius IX who was 54 when he was elected Pope in 1846.)

I think I should have started a blog about "summer flower boxes of Europe."

You can take horse and carriage rides that start in the main square and trot you around the city.  Of course, there's no riding on the free walking tour of Krakow!

Some believe that St. Peter and St. Paul Church was the first baroque building in Poland. It was built in the early 1600s and was actually an Orthodox church until 1842 when it became a Catholic church.

The last stop on our tour was the mighty Wawel Castle. 

The castle is built on a hill called Wawel Hill and it was the home of Polish kings for hundreds of years.  The castle was vacated by the kings in the early 1600s and the structure fell into disrepair.

Todd thought it was funny that he found our name misspelled in the wall of donors who helped rebuild the castle after centuries of neglect.

Wawel Cathedral sits at the heart of Wawel Castle and is over 900 years old.

Pope John Paul II gave his first mass as a priest right here at Wawel Cathedral.

Above the entrance to Wawel Cathedral are the alleged bones of the famous Smok Wawelski, or the Wawel Dragon. This dragon lived under the castle in a cave (which still exists) and would terrorize the town (apparently they had to feed it a fresh maiden from time to time to keep it at bay.)  Finally a young cobbler's apprentice, eager to win the king's daughter's heart, fed the dragon a lamb stuffed with sulphur.  The dragon got very thirsty and he drank so much water from the Vistula River that he exploded!

The inner courtyard dates back to the 16th century, modeled in the Italian Renaissance fashion.

Look!  Another dragon water spout!  I'm sensing a theme here.

The architecture and frescos in the inner courtyard are really pretty and you definitely see the Italian side of it!

The gardens around the castle are really pretty, too.

Eeek, there was also pretty flower boxes and ivy!

The last stop on our tour of Krakow was overlooking the Vistula River down at the exit of the "cave" that the Wawel Dragon supposedly lived in. People can visit but the entrance is up on the top (where we are standing) and you have to pay to go in there (it's not much.)  Behind the trees in the upper left is a statue of a dragon that really breathes fire! (More on that in a bit...)

The views of the Vistula River from up on the castle walls are really pretty.

You can climb the The Sandomierska Tower for just a few Zloty and get really nice views of the river.  This tower was built in the late 1400s (obviously rebuilt with the brick) and was used as a firing tower and/or a prison for nobility.

We finished up the tour and went to a great little restaurant for some Polish food and some beverages at Gospoda Koko.  YUM!

This is a very European thing to do.  Steal an American copyright and drop a curse word in it.

After lunch, we walked around across town to find the Paczki shop!  Oh my word. Of all of the things on my scratch off food map, this has been BY FAR my favorite!

We went to Planty Park to nibble on our treasures.  The Paczki is like a Bavarian cream donut and it's divine.

Everytime I see flowers (this time as we were walking to the Museum of Illusions), I take pictures just so that in the dead of winter I can look at pictures and feel happy.

You know we love the Museum of Illusions... even if we've already been to another one just like it.  Because we're just goofy like that.

Did any of you ever live in the DC area in the 2000s?  There was a weekend night show on DC101 called Flounder's Mashups.  He took songs and mixed them together to produce a new song and it was really brilliant, especially for that time.  This is the human version of that.

I know what's going on in this box, but it's super funny just to see Grant standing there with his head in a box.

When you put your head in the box, there are a billion mirrors making an infinite number of you.

Giant Grant towers over his mom and sister.  He wishes!  Actually... this will be a reality sooner rather than later.

Sometimes I have to put Todd in his place!

My little actress is about to get drenched!

After a fun hour or so in the Museum of Illusions, we headed back to the main square to check out the inside of St. Mary's Basilica.  On the way, we passed this old tyme tram car!

We grabbed a few souvenirs on the way inside of the Cloth Hall!

The main square of Krakow in the evening with long shadows.

Whoa.  St. Mary's Basilica on the inside is stunning!  And of course, it's under construction.

Look at that ceiling!

Man.  I really can't get over this!  Look at these walls!  It's like the ceiling bled down to the floor.

Sorry.  Photo overload.  Throw in some beautiful stained glass and I'm in sensory overload.

OK, just one more of the beautiful, colorfall walls of St. Mary's Basilica.

Next, we were off to our favorite past time... happy hour!  But first, another pretty manhole cover of Krakow.

I like that the only person in this photo NOT doing the usual "put a glass in front of your neighbors face" is the one who is the usual culprit, Todd!  And Grant just put his own drink in front of his own face!



We went back out into the square at dusk for some really beautiful views of the Rynek Główny.

We grabbed some dinner at Pod Słońcem and Todd had a really good sour rye soup with sausage, bacon and egg in a bread bowl!

My kids always get a big laugh when restaurant wait staff bring them coloring pages and crayons, especially the 12-year-old.  But Todd loves Spiderman, so he wanted to join in on the fun.

This restaurant is really pretty inside with funky lights and a devastatingly handsome guy at the other end.

And then... the Rynek Główny in the late evening!

Last but not least, one more close up of the horses and carriage with the Cloth Hall behind it.  A very pretty end to a fun day in Krakow!



Much of the next day was spent at Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, but we got back to the city in the mid afternoon, so we were able to spend more time hanging out in Krakow!  We went back to the Rynek Główny for a little happy hour.



As we sat there, our friendly trumpet player once again played his tune on the top of the hour.

On the way back to the apartment, we passed this place, which I thought at first was a vintage store.  But nope.  It sells actual film.  The kids were like, "What is that?"



Just down the street from our apartment was this place.  Huh?  Grab yourself a beer or coffee while you get that laundry done!

We had to go back to the apartment because we needed to watch the Auburn game.  Plus we needed refreshments! It was the season opener vs. Oregon, which we WON!

Attached to out apartment (across a courtyard) was an Indian food restaurant.  We never eat at Indian food places because Grant is allergic to peanuts and we'd just rather not chance it.  But every time we walked out of the apartment and through the courtyard to the front door of the building, we could smell it.  And it smelled SO GOOD.  So since we had a long evening, we decided to go downstairs for a date night dinner!  Thankfully there was also a pizza place on the block, so we were able to grab a pizza for the kids to eat in the apartment before we went to destroy this meal!



After our fun evening of Auburn football and Indian food, we had the entire morning to roam around (before the rain set in.)  So we walked back to the Wawel Castle, but this time, on the lower end so that we could check out our friendly Wawel Dragon!  He was built in 1969 and through a natural gas line, he actually breathes fire every few minutes.  I even just learned that he does this when someone sends a text message to a phone number linked to the dragon!

The statue stands about 20 feet high.



 Shhhh!  Don't tell the dragon I'm about to slay it!

After we checked out the famous fire breathing dragon of Krakow, we strolled along the Vistula River and saw their version of the Walk of Fame.  Kind of random!

Natalie: "Mommy, who is Josh Hartnett?"  Me:  "Oh he's an actor... he played in the movie Pearl Harbor."  Natalie: "He has small hands!"

Krakow, you might want to rethink this one....

Wawel Castle, from down by the river.

We decided to walk all the way back to the apartment along the Vistula River, instead of cutting through town.  We came across a swan on the way!

There are only a few bridges that connect one side of Krakow with the other side across the Vistula.  One this particular bridge, they were doing some work and the kids thought it was crazy that there were sparks falling down into the river.  ("That seems safe!")



I don't even know what is going on here.  But it seems appropriate.

I'm so glad we took this walk, because otherwise, I wouldn't have seen this super cool bridge!

The Bernatek Bridge (a footbridge) was opened in 2010 and it features 9 acrobat statues performing Cirque du Soleil type of moves.

People were kind of grumpy when it first opened because it was so costly, but people have warmed up and really like the pedestrian only bridge that now connects two bar and restaurant areas - one on each side of the river.



I don't speak Polish. I don't know what is going on here and I'm very bothered by that.

I feel like walking along the river put my mind in a very weird place.  What is going on here?  Did we just decide to slap a weird modern building on top of this old, small building?  (This is the Centre for Documentation of the Art of Tadeusz Kantor, for the record... he was a 20th century theater artist.)

Also on the river?  This.  Someone is prepared to light this big guy on fire and have themselves a fine meal.  Apparently, it symbolizes purification. I dunno anything about that, but it's certainly the strangest thing I've seen in a while, and that's saying something!

We finally got to Starowislna Street (the steps back up to the city above the river) and decided to go grab some lunch before we went back to get the bags and head to the airport. Grant (aka: Pug Life) stopped in front of the Old Synagogue, which dates back to the 1400s.  It's now a museum.  Speaking of the Jews, the one place we didn't have time to get to was the Oskar Schindler enamel factory.  I guess that just means we need to come back to Krakow one day!



We hit up Corner Burger for some burgers before we headed out to the airport.  Their onion rings were insanely good!

Unfortunately, our time in Krakow was too short.  Since we flew RyanAir and I always carry my "Mom Bag," I buy priority seating and get to get on the airplane first.  (This allows me to wipe down the seat for Grant, who has a peanut allergy.)  Here comes my family though, right behind me!

Until next time, Krakow!

Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camps, Poland

I don't think I can do this post justice, but I'm going to try my best.

I've known since before we moved here that I wanted to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau.  But when we first moved here, the kids were entirely to young to understand the gravity of what happened here.  They have visited Dachau and Flossenberg, but neither of those were death camps.  Yes, people died there, but they were both work camps.  (Not that death is better in that situation.)  But people weren't put in gas chambers by the hundreds and murdered within minutes.  That's what happened at Auschwitz.

Auschwitz-Birkenau is a series of three camps about an hour west of Krakow.  Most people simply know it as Auschwitz, but the real atrocities happened at the Birkenau camp.  We started the day pretty early with a van picking us up at 7 am at our apartment.  We picked a few more people up and continued on to Auschwitz-Birkenau.  

The camps are located in the city of Oświęcim, Poland.  As we entered the first camp, Auschwitz I, you see this.  Everyone knows this famous sign, "Arbeit Macht Frei" or "Work will set you free."  But everyone also knows that was a lie.  

People say it's best to enter Auschwitz with a guide, and you'll find almost everyone there was with one.  You first visit Auschwitz I, which consisted of 22 buildings built before the war. It was originally designed to be a quarantine camp, which never actually happened.  Instead, it became a death camp, where initially most people died from starvation and sickness. The extermination of mostly Jews - along with Poles, Gypsies and the LGBTQ community began in early 1942, although most of that did not happen here at Auschwitz I.  Auschwitz I was mainly used as a labor camp - but they did have one gas chamber here, and I'll talk more about that below.

Halt!  Stop! Trying to escape will get you killed.  Staying here might, also.

Today, Auschwitz I serves as a history museum to the entire Auschwitz Birkenau camp. Block 4 is now a museum to the extermination of the residents of this camp. This was originally housing for male prisoners, but in March 1942, it became one of the many housing blocks for women. Between March and August of 1942, several thousand women were either sent to the gas chamber or they died of unsanitary conditions or slave labor. If you survived until August 1942, you were sent over to Birkenau.

Our guide gave us a great overview of the atrocities that happened at Auschwitz.  Here, she tells us about the arrival of the Jews from Hungary.  Upon arrival, the men were separated from the women and children.  The women and children were immediately sent to the gas chambers (particularly at Birkenau).  The men were then subdivided between those who could work and those who could not.  Those who could work, lived (for now.)  Those who could not were sent to the gas chambers.

The mementos that were saved are an incredible reminder of what happened here.  This is a pile of glasses, of which the owners were sent to the gas chambers. Some of them were reused or recycled.

As I mentioned, if you could not perform manual labor, you were immediately sent to the gas chambers.  Those with physical disabilities were among those who did not get a chance to live.

When those who were taken to Auschwitz were captured by the SS and put on the slow trains to Poland, they had been told that they were going to a wonderful camp where they would stay with their families.  They were told to bring their valuables.  They were told to bring the comforts of home. They were told to do all of this so that they didn't fear what was coming to them. "Oh it will all be fine.  You will be with your family.  Bring your things.  Bring your kitchen supplies."  Of course, all of their pots and pans were taken from them upon their arrival with the promise that they would be returned.  And then they never were returned.

"How will I know which bag is mine after I come out of the showers?"  "Just put your name on it and some identifying marker, like your birthday or where you are from."

This woman was born on Todd's birthday in 1918.

43,000 pair of shoes were found at Auschwitz at its liberation by the Soviets in January 1945.  The shoes are not in the best condition and appear to be disintegrating.  

Most people who first arrived at Auschwitz did not get to sleep on beds.  They slept on crowded hay.

On the walls of the washrooms, some of the inmates painted pictures on the wall.  Just a small thing to look at to bring up the morale.

We learned a bit about the Capo's when we were in Flossenburg, but they had them at Auschwitz, too.  They slept in much better and much more private conditions.  They were all German criminal prisoners, and they received this role because it wasn't an easy one to do.  I spoke to  our guide (and the guy who walked around with us to answer any questions) and they said you only got that role if you were a tough guy without a soul (basically.) People would try to convince the SS that they were tough enough to be a Capo but in reality, very few were able to do this job.  You had to be pretty ruthless to do it.

Eventually, triple stacked bunk beds were introduced to Auschwitz I.  But they were incredibly crowded and often held way more than the three prisoners they were originally designed to sleep on each level.

Inmates could only go to the bathroom twice a day - once in the morning and once in the evening and they only had a VERY short amount of time to go.  And you couldn't just pop a squat somewhere on the grounds and go - if you were caught doing this, you were punished.  Toilets and washrooms were only installed inside of the buildings in 1944.  Prior to that, inmates had to walk to the outdoor facilities.  When they had to take a shower, they had to walk naked to the washrooms, which were  also outside.  There was no electricity in the beginning, and there was only a very small heating system (a ceramic fireplace) which was insufficient for heating the entire floor.

Nowadays, the camp is very clean and peaceful and it's hard to  imagine the atrocities that went on here.

There are 28 two story buildings that mostly housed inmates in Auschwitz I.  They were designed to hold 700 people each, but in reality held about 1200. 

From 1941 to 1943, there was a "Death Wall" near cell block 11.  Cell block 11 was the very worst.  You could be housed in a regular cell where you slept on the floor, perhaps awaiting your death, or the following could happen (from the Auschwitz website):  "From the beginning of 1942, prisoners were also punished by confinement in standing cells. These were four spaces measuring less than 1 sq. m. each. The only source of air was a 5 x 5 cm. opening covered with a metal grille. Entry to the standing cell was through a small opening at floor level, closed with bars and a wooden hatch. Four prisoners were confined in each of these spaces for the night. They had to go to work in the morning. The punishment was applied for periods from several nights up to several weeks in a row."

People were also shot here at this wall.  Perhaps this was a more benevolent way of dying at Auschwitz.  There isn't a lot of information about how many people died here but it's estimated to be around 1,000. More people were shot here at Auschwitz, but not necessarily here.

We continued on the tour and our guide told us more about what humans were used for at Auschwitz.  There were quite a few doctors who performed medical experiments on humans, such as sterilization, experiments on twins, the effects of starvation, the effects of toxic substances on the skin, and the effects of new drugs on the human body.

It was nearly impossible to escape from Auschwitz as you needed to get through two layers of barbed wire and past the guards in the towers who kept watch over these areas 24/7/365.  A total of 928 people attempted to escape (about half of which were Polish) and only 196 people were ever successful. The first person to escape from Auschwitz coincidentally caused the first death at Auschwitz.  It was June of 1940 when Tadeusz Wiejowski arrived at Auschwitz.  He was a Polish cobbler who friended some other local Polish civilian electricians who were at the camp to do some electric work.  In the early days, this was normal as contractors of this sort came and went.  They provided him with an electricians uniform and one day, he just walked out of the camp with the others.  As a result, over 1300 people were made to stand for 20 hours.  Dawid Wongczewski, a Polish Jew who was sick at the time with tuberculosis could not stand for that long and he collapsed and died. Wiejowski went into hiding but was caught in the fall of 1941 and shot.

The Crematorium at Auschwitz I became a gas chamber (the only one here) in the fall of 1941. Here, the SS poured Zyklon B through holes in the roof to kill those inside, which was mainly composed of Soviet POWs, Jews and those too sick or old to work. In December 1942 it ended at Auschwitz I as Auschwitz Birkenau took over all of the mass killings.  In November 1944, the mass extermination of the Jews ceased across all of the camps. Knowing the Allies were closing in, they began to dismantle the gas chambers in an attempt to cover up their crimes.

I didn't take any pictures inside the gas chambers as I found that to be very disrespectful.  Those who arrived sick - or too old or young to work - were immediately sent to the gas chambers, without even registering at the camps.  Thus it's impossible to give a completely accurate figure with regard to the number of deaths - but it's estimated to be around 1.1 million people.  In total, it's thought that 6 millions Jews and an estimated 11 million people from other groups (Gypsies, Non Jewish Poles, Serbs, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses and Soviets/Soviet POWs) were murdered during the Holocaust.

Auschwitz II - Birkenau was our next stop on the tour.  Birkenau was much, much larger than any of the other camps here.  According to the Auschwitz website, "The Germans managed to build a total of approximately 300 housing, administrative, and infrastructure barracks and buildings, 13 km. of drainage ditches, 16 km. of barbed-wire fencing, and more than 10 km. of roads within an area of about 140 hectares at Birkenau."  Not much is left of any of these buildings.  Much of the land had been "taken" by the Germans from the locals.

A sign at the main administrative building at Auschwitz Birkenau.

In the background behind the train tracks, you can see the remnants of some of the barracks that were at Auschwitz Birkenau.  After the war, museum personnel rebuilt the chimneys of these wooden buildings, and that is just about all that remains of the camp.

A guard tower (some of these are original, not sure about this one though) and a few rebuilt brick buildings at Birkenau.

We walked through the administration building and into the camp, walking along the railroad tracks that led down to where the gas chambers were.  There are no longer any gas chambers at Birkenau as they were all destroyed at the end of the war, before liberation. There are some ruins of Crematoria II, III, IV and V,  but we did not go far enough down the tracks to see them.

One example of a railroad car sits on the tracks at Birkenau.  Prisoners would get out of the crammed railroad cars and were lined up based on gender.  Generally, women and children were immediately sent to the gas chambers in Crematoria II and III.  You might have survived if you were deemed fit to work in the camps.  Around 900,000 people met their death this way at Auschwitz- if they made it there at all.  The rail cars were crammed full of people (80-100 people per car) and conditions were dark and unsanitary.

Guard tower at Auschwitz Birkenau.

As I mentioned before, these chimney stacks were rebuilt after the war.  Some are reinforced to prevent further demise.  Their goal was to preserve the chimneys as well as the foundation walls of the buildings, so that all could get a sense of scale.

Our last stop was the "Death Barrack" where women who could not work were kept before they were sent to the gas chambers. Those who got upper bunks were lucky - they got to sleep on wood.  Those who slept on the bottom bunk were forced to sleep on rocks.  

Each of these buildings was heated by (not shown in this picture) a small ceramic fireplace - probably half the size of the one we have in our small home.  Of course, it was insufficient and many women got sick and died.  There was no food or water in this barrack, and when it was full, women just had to stay outside in the elements in a locked yard.

Many women died in here before they could even be sent to the gas chambers.  Women slept 7 or so across in each bunk.

One of the most gut wrenching things I learned on this day was that the starvation and illness brought about many cases of diarrhea.  Those who were on the bottom bunks often found themselves covered in feces that had leaked through the upper wooden bunks.  As if dying at the hands of monsters wasn't enough, they were forced to die without dignity.

Visiting Auschwitz Birkenau was an unforgettable experience.  I only wish we had more time there.  The worst part, for me is hoping that the world has learned from this atrocity, but knowing that we definitely have not.  Mass genocides continue to occur - Rwanda, Darfur, Myanmar, Bosnia... the list goes on. And now look what is going on in Syria! It's honestly so overwhelming. 

Until next time, Auschwitz. We must never forget.