Visit Krakow & Auschwitz – Part 3
Previous posts (Part 1 and Part 2) in this short series that follows our trip to Poland included plenty of pictures showing the beauty of Krakow, the magnificence of the salt mines and the other places that we wandered to and visited.
I mentioned in Part 1 that one of the reasons we decided to head for Krakow was that we were keen to visit Oswiecim and the war time sites of the death camps known as Auschwitz.
This post has a selection of pictures from our visit to Auschwitz, there is much there that it is simply not appropriate to photograph. There is little else for me to say, other than it really is impossible to get a sense of the place without visiting – the sheer scale of the camps, especially Auschwitz II (Birkenau) is hard to describe.
It’s murder and genocide on an incredible industrial scale.
Getting there
Oswiecim is a Polish city, annexed to the Third Reich by the Nazis and had its name changed to Auschwitz, and so of course is better known the world over for being the site of the largest of the German Nazi concentration camps and extermination centres.
The city of Oswiecim is around 20 miles from Katowice and about 40 miles from Krakow and it’s easy enough to get there from Krakow with regular bus and train service running from the main station in Krakow.
This Wikipedia article provides some detail and overview of the horrors of the death camps, and if you are not familiar with the events that went on there – you really should be.
This link will take you to the Auschwiz Birkenau site where there is extensive information and reading material.
Picture gallery
Pictures in this set are from our visit to Auschwitz I and II (Birkenau). Clicking on any of the images below will open a picture gallery that can be clicked or scrolled through.
In Part 4
Don’t forget to check out Part 4
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Hi Tony, Good to see you both looking well and enjoying getting out and about…do it whilst you can !!
This part 3 brought back memories to when Pat asked me if I could take time away from work (when I was self employed) to make up adult numbers on a school 6th form exchange to Prague and Berlin. The film Schindlers List had just been released and it was known amongst staff that the Headmasters mother had been incarcerated at Terezin Camp nr Prague. As a visit to Terezin was listed in the itinerary it was mooted that the pupils watch the film…They did. Helen survived the camp…. and being deported to Belson by dancing (she was a ballerina) to entertain the guards..
We did visit the camp which I understand is still today as we saw it then…very little has been touched since being liberated. Helen Lewis wrote a short book called “A Time to Speak” which the pupils also read en route.
I believe those 6th form students were the first to visit the Eastern Bloc just shortly after the “Wall” came down. Our trip also included Dresden….and East Berlin… both with lots of visible evidence of WW2. Take care.
Thats a really interesting bit of information, sounds like it was a fascinating trip. There is so much to see isnt there, we were in Prague just before the first Covid lockdown and really enjoyed ourselves (was part of a driving door around parts of Europe for a couple of weeks. How are you keeping and how are you doing?