Auschwitz-Birkenau and Krakow Salt Mine 7/16

Saturday was an all day excursion to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps and then the Krakow salt mine. We did a guided tour package which included direct transportation to each stop which was good because they picked us up from our hostel and Auschwitz is just over an hour away. We started the tour by watching a 50 minute documentary to give us some background, numbers and photos/video from Auschwitz before it was liberated. 

If you read nothing else but this, please read this post I shared with my friends. 

Today I toured Auschwitz. I left with a heavier heart and a deeper understanding of the atrocities committed under Nazi regime. One of the saddest realizations I had today was that I'm not convinced we have learned from history. There is so much hostility and intolerance spreading like wildfire through the world to this day. I read this quote in Auschwitz today, "Those who do not remember the past are condemn to repeat it." Please remember the past, and with it evaluate your actions and what they may mean for our future.

Warning- description of the camp and pictures highlight the good and bad that happened under the Nazis regime. 

• The iconic gate of Auschwitz (pictured above) is the first sight you have on entering and it says “work sets you free” 

Hitler planned the final solution to kill over 11 million Jews which ended with killing approximately 6 million. 

• In Auschwitz the average life of a woman was 3-4 months and for a man 8 months

• Prisoners were exposed to the extreme temperatures in Auschwitz as they were not sheltered by much with this minimum clothing, no shoes, and little to know heating in living quarters. Temperatures ranged from -20C to 30C (-4 F to 86 F) air temp alone. 
• 9.5 million Jews lived in Europe in 1933, with the largest concentration of Jews in Poland at ~3 million. (One reason for this was because Poland was one of the few places that Jews were welcomed and in Poland the King was fine with the Jews staying on his land, giving many rights offered in few other places) 

Zyklon B, a pesticide that was used in the gas chambers to internally suffocate it’s victims. This is how Nazis could kill 2,000 people in 20 minutes with 10 canisters a total of 10 kg of cyanide. The victims were further striped from valuables including golden teeth and their heads were shaved to reuse gold and sell the hair (50 pfennig [today ~2500 euro) per kg of hair] before the bodies were sent to the crematorium. 

The ruins of the crematorium and gas chambers of Birkenau

• The places in the camp that the work was less bad and gave prisoners the best chance of living were known as “Canada” because Canada was associated with a good place to live, full of opportunity and wealth. 
• Auschwitz was the only camp that tattooed its prisoners
• Companies you may not have known were part of this history
• Allianz insured for fire and property damage to slave-labor production sites at the Auschwitz, Dachau and Buchenwald death camps
• Coca Cola collaborated with Nazi Germany in order to create the new drink Fanta for German soldiers because ingredients for Coke were scarce. Fanta came from the German word for “fantastic” and was shortened to Fanta. 

5 thousand were executed at the "death wall" outside block 11 in Auschwitz I. 

The prisoner saved actually survived the Holocaust

Birkenau entrance from the tracks

Birkenau- the end of the tracks . . . 

The afternoon in the salt-mines doesn’t have pictures at the moment because we had to purchase a “photo license” to take pictures officially in the salt mines. Therefore I didn’t take pictures but we split a license cost and one of my friends who brought a nice camera took some of us and the mines. When I get them I’ll share a few. To be perfectly honest, I was a little disappointed by this tour because the mine was so crowded that I felt we spent sooo long in transit on the stairs down the mine or waiting for the lift up because of the other groups that it was silly. Plus I was expecting to see more of the real mine vs what had be manufactured for tourism. Most of what we saw was various sculptures (from salt) which were cool but wasn’t THAT cool and our guide virtually didn’t give us any information beyond “this is a salt sculpture…” so… not planning on revisiting the Krakow salt mine any time soon. Literally the only facts I have from those 3hrs include: we went 135m below the surface, 1 million tourist come a year (over hyped in my opinion), in 1638 the first chapel mass was held in the mine, a total of 40 chapels were built but only 3 were used actively, the mine goes a total of 327m below ground.

Salt sculpture

Entrance hall and prayer area (chandeliers and wall paintings are made of salt too)

Artwork engraved and looking 3D for "The Last Supper"