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.