POLAND - WARSAW & CRACOW
JEWISH CEMETERY WARSAW- This is the most overwhelming experience visiting the Jewish Cemetery in Warsaw, the largest Jewish cemetery in Europe. Hundreds of thousands of unmarked gravestones lay scattered and badly maintained because there were no surviving relatives from the Holocaust to look after them. It's so sad seeing that the majority of them died from 1939-1945 and also how young many of them were.
Looking out at the 83 acres of cemetery (which includes several mass graves of the victims of the Warsaw Ghetto), you start to get a sense of the devastatingly large amount of innocent people who were killed during the Holocaust.
Despite the sense of chaos you feel from the clattered, falling gravestones, there was something weirdly peaceful about it with the snow dusted over and the sun shining through the trees.
Back to the cute little old town to get some beers and Pierogies.
the beard is in it's prime
Mulled wine mit Schuss (with a shot)
Down the hatch!
CRACOW
Entering Auschwitz Concentration Camp in Cracow, Poland - Operated by Nazi German soldiers during WWII, at least 1.1 million prisoners died at Auschwitz, around 90 percent of them Jewish; approximately 1 in 6 Jews killed in the Holocaust died at the camp. From early 1942 until late 1944, transport trains delivered Jews to the camp's gas chambers from all over German-occupied Europe, where they were killed with the pesticide Zyklon B. It's chilling walking through the camp, retracing the footsteps of the innocent people held captive here and imagining how constantly terrified they must have been.
Outer grounds. Looking at the intense security surrounding the camp you imagine the prisoners must have felt so helpless and lost any hope of escaping.
This message is placed just as you enter through the gates.
Each building along this road was used for some different kind of torture or punishment.
TREATED LIKE ANIMALS - Hay was the only layer of comfort for prisoners brought in awaiting torture and punishment for resisting or disobeying. Hundreds of starving, abused men would have filled this room, some with illnesses, not showered for months.
The room where prisoners were told to strip before being sent to the 'Black Wall' just outside to be executed.
The 'Black Wall' where 20,000 people were murdered. A bunch of roses lay in front.
Another execution area with wooden boards riddled with bullet holes.
Hallway lined with prisoner photos
In the basement are the "dark cells", which have only a very tiny window and a solid door. Prisoners placed in these cells gradually suffocated as they used up all the oxygen in the cell; sometimes the SS lit a candle in the cell to use up the oxygen more quickly. Many were subjected to hanging with their hands behind their backs for hours, even days, causing their shoulder joints to dislocate.
