Day 71b1n June Warsaw-Auschwitz-Krakow

Here we are, the first day of summer in the northern hemisphere.  Today it is to be 26 Celsius. I expected it to be a bit cooler. We left the hotel at 8AM and made good progress until we hit traffic from an accident.  We turned off to an American embassy (This is what our tour guide calls McDonalds).  Our problem was that there was a busload of kids in front of us.  Unfortunately we also had to negotiate a Romanian mother and her children begging rather persistently outside.  After lunch we hadn’t travelled too far when we came across the traffic jam again. After we had lunch back on to the highway and we after about 5 minutes we hit a road jam again.  Apparently there were two trucks that had an accident at 7AM this morning. All up we were in traffic jams 2½ hours we felt sorry for the bus driver Petr. 

The flat countryside gave way to gentle wooded hills. We arrived at Auschwitz late instead of 2.30PM at 4.00PM.  Our tour of Auschwitz 1 was informative and confronting.  The displays of human hair of 50 000 murder victims and huge piles of baby shoes highlighted the evil perpetrated against the innocent but it is impossible to imagine the terror, horror and enormity of the crimes committed.  Our guide was Simon, a Christian Pole who pulled no punches.  He quite rightly said that Poland was never liberated but annexed by the Soviets and that the Germans elected Hitler and so the Germens are culpable.  They have about 80 000 German visitors a year and the tour guide told us that they come well prepared. He told us that he met a survivor a few years ago who said that she could never wear stripes again. Our tour guide took us to Auschwitz 2 which was 25 times larger to show us the enormity of the crime.

The first photo is of Auschwitz 1 camp which were brick buildings and a collection of Zyklon-B canisters.

Other photos show the entrance and some of the timber buildings remaining.

Our Hotel is the Sheraton, Krakow but I am yet to see one of the famous ponies of Krakow!  The Hotel is close to the river and has views of the Royal Castle on the hill.  Krakow has the second oldest university in Europe and is still a major university town (800 000).