Spring Trip - Lublin City of Inspiration

At last, my desire to travel to some places nearby was granted. I'll acknowledge the depth of my desire to travel, and I marvel at the power of the imagination to carry me to places I've never been. The chief motive of my long desire to be on the road again is not only to see the touristy places and landmarks of Poland but to see the other side of it.

Since it took me a couple of months to backpack around, the cold weather didn't prevent me to carry my backpack and be on the road again. The joy of travelling is unimaginable and a great memento to share when I'll be aged of time and could no longer make a mile step at all.

Lublin city isn't among the places in the eastern part of Poland  that I most likely to see because I don't hear much of it as the main course of any local backpackers talk that I met in Warsaw.

Nevertheless, I went there to satisfy my curiosity just as it won't take me a day to get there. I stayed in a hostel for a while and indulged myself to look around and letting me to be lost. As an "itchy feet" (since then), getting lost makes me to discover of the hidden parts of the place that I went to.

Just as my feet led me somewhere dictated by my instinct, I just found out that there's nothing much to see in Lublin.

It's pride the Old Town, isn't much that big nor impressive but the old structure remains a big picture of an old Jewish community back then. I tried to go deep down hoping I could see more of Lublin's beauty but it got me bored afterwards because of the same old Polish sight that I could normally see around Warsaw.

The city is not big nor economically way progressive, I haven't seen any shopping malls in the heart of the city but stalls of clothing stores mushroomed around. In other words, I could be easily bored if there's nothing much to hang out when you are tired of roaming around.

To be exact, I didn't enjoy much in Lublin ,yet, I haven't any regrets at all. It may not be filled with adventure & discovering but it's nice to be in a place that is totally different from I know. Asking, If I'd recommend Lublin ..well, depending on what you are after and look for in a place, better yet, I'd still advise it for a day trip...don't get stuck in the city.

Auschwitz II – Birkenau Experienced

Auschwitz-Birkenau is the world’s biggest concentration camp established by the Nazis during the World War II in Poland. It is also world known symbol of the Holocaust. Auschwitz Camp-I is the starting point of the holocaust tour before Birkenau. For lone traveller or group of tourists who don’t have any vehicle or tour guide can visit Birkenau by a shuttle bus provided by the camp. It’d only take a few minutes to reach the place. Having completely a lone long tour the Auschwitz 1, I knew in my mind that there’s something’s missing that I hadn’t seen inside the camp based on the pictures that I Googled before I came down to Krakow. And so, I asked the young American-Jewish lad stood next to me busily taking pictures if there’s another camp aside from the 1. From that, I walked around looking for some knowledgeable person to ask if there’s a way I could possibly get to the next Camp, good thing that the people I asked with could speak English & showed me directly to the location of the shuttle bus rightly in front of the Auschwitz office.
My excitement had no bounds that my holocaust exploration didn’t ends there. According to the infos I got about Birkenau ” It was initially served as a concentration camp and as a place of deportation of Poles, alongside Soviet prisoners. In 1942 it also became the biggest camp of immediate and mass extermination of Jews, Poles, Roma people and representatives of other nations & ethnic groups.” Usually, some visitors declined the opportunity to visit Auschwitz 2 – Birkenau, it’s there that the impact of holocaust can be fully felt through the collosal size of the slaughtery done of the second camp. It became the most savage of all the Nazis death factories with thousands of prisoners held that time. As I went through the entrance of the gate of Birkenau, a vast & wide expansion of space was flashed before me as if an endless horizon. It was really a huge camp with little remains bricks barracks at the left side and a wooden barracks at the right side that used to be a quarantine area. At the furthermore part of the camp lies the numbers of the crematoria ruins and at the most top part is the remains of dynamited gas chambers, which was destroyed during the Auschwitz Jews uprising when thousands of Jews refused to be herded to the gas chambers. Auschwitz-Birkenau is the spot of the tragedy, inhumanity and the survival of the will. The former barracks of the prisoners turned museum stands as a testament to the incomprehensible atrocities of the second WW while paying tribute to the millions of lives unjustly taken. It was also considered concentration camp hell to the prisoners who were frequently struggle to survive the ruthless of the Nazis regime.
If someone would try to visit Poland, Auschwitz is the first top place that I’d certainly recommend because when you get there you’ll become completely immersed and loose track of time. Some fond moments of your life that you went through in the past were easily slipped away in your mind temporarily while inside the camp. Visiting Auschwitz added ones historical knowing for sure, that it is even more tragical comparing in the Philippines. I was even telling the holocaust survivor that I’m grateful to God Philippines isn’t a part of Europe, ‘coz if it does surely my parents and my ancestors would have been slaughtered & by that I won’t be here where I am right now. The feeling of gooseflesh in Auschwitz-Birkenau wasn’t that forceful comparing to that in the Auschwitz I, yet, so many questions had come in mind if I were one of those prisoners, would I be able to survive and stay strong still till the liberation day? Just try to think, during that time, kids & teens were being separated by their parents so as wives would be separated to their husbands before they were herded to the camp, lucky it’d have been to be if you’ll meet your family & friends inside the Auschwitz camp.
Cramming inside the camp mixed with other prisoners coming from other countries, so as diseases was expansely scattered around because of hunger, the lack of tidyness and personal hygiene, adding the lack of heater which the worst during winter, prisoners had no winter clothes to warm themselves but dressed them in a striped rags. Their possessions and their own clothing were taken out from them. Well, history as it is but it will remain as reminders but a warning to humanity around the globe that holocaust remained a painful memories and human suffering to those who experienced the genocide war and occupation.
My Auschwitz –Birkenau tour was an experienced worth to tell, that I saw, I felt, I cried, the anguish and grief of those holocaust victims.

Auschwitz Concentration Camp – Visit

Was blog absent for over a considerable number of days, our internet connection at home is disconnected still - the reason I was inconspicuous online. Amid that, I was on a long weekend holiday in Krakow southern part of Poland for four days. My long weekend vacation was ungratifying as I’d say it, four days weren’t enough which Krakow has so many sightseers to offer and one of that is the WW II historical place Auschwitz. It is only one hour & a half by bus from the center of the city of Krakow which the fare was as low as 20 zlote back & forth. There’s a lot of tour guide agencies in the city that offers good services, charging 125 zlote for adults and 105 for students going to the most visited tourist place in Poland.
Upon knowing that it’s possible to travel to Auschwitz without a tour guide, I immediately went off to the bus station early at 7 in the morning to be an early bird. It took me an hour curiously observing around since I didn’t know whom to approach & everything was in Polish like the signs and schedule. My desire to investigate & learn had led me directly to look for a bus departing for Auschwitz. Rightly then, I found my way boarded on a bus with fellow foreign visitors. As we closely arrived, I could see far-off the principal face of the Concentration Camp I - was already rounded with buses, cars, and tourists. In spite of the bad weather ( it was raining & partly freezing) it didn’t prevent us to see the so-called death camp. To get a bird’s eye view of the camp & a way of looking at its brief history, everyone has to go through a film screening about the holocaust though it wasn’t a must. If you are a lone traveler & wish to go around refusing to join an English group tour without staying much longer is the easiest way. Or you could go around by yourself renting a walkman type of radio with recorded voices on it in different languages to feel the holocaust history deeply while wandering around. The tour of Auschwitz Camp I begins by passing beneath a replica of the infamous ‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ ( Work Makes You Free) entrance gate, which is oxymoronic because nobody was freed instead ended up in a gas chamber.

On entering the camp, the feeling of aghast & mostly disturbing was indeed incomprehensible, observing along with the circuits of the camp, goggling the notable pictures inside the barracks that was once an atrociously dwelling place of the victims of holocaust was an extravagantly pathetic experienced I had on my travels, that sometimes in the history of mankind a horrendous mass slaughter took place.

The most stirring part of emotions was meeting up close to a holocaust survivor while I was blending with the American-Jewish High School students by chance inside the barracks. Everyone became so tacit when an old lady stood up in the midst of the crowd introducing herself while we were staring at a huge picture of the Jewish kids framed with burb wire around. The entire room was completely mounted with emotions, tears were visibly seen on every cheek of the spectators (including myself) while listening to her tear-jerking story of how she survived the pangs of death and cruelty inside the camp. Without getting the chance to pass – I asked her several questions & of course taking pictures with her.

A tour guide pointed to the picture of the holocaust survivor.

Another gooseflesh scene was inside the gas chamber, I could feel the pain & agony of those innocent lives exterminated inside the incinerator. That’s when the group of American-Jewish students and their guardians started to emit a long uncontrollable doleful sound of cry while inside the gas chamber offering a prayer and a chant in remembering their ancestors. I honestly felt restless being inside the incinerator looking at every nook and cranny of the small dark room imagining how those 350 Jews cramming inside with fear helplessly without the chance to escape. The walls, ceilings, and the fume still marked the dark soot of incinerated souls of both kids & adults when they were forcibly thrust to get in the gas chamber.

I didn’t expect in my life that I could get a quick vis-a-vis of a holocaust survivor on that day, of course getting the opportunity to visit Auschwitz was a rare chance. My attention grew even more greatly to learn about the holocaust. This summer vacation here in Europe, paying a second visit to Auschwitz is a primary option in mind aside from trekking to other concentration camps close to Warsaw like Treblinka & Sobibor.