DAY 4 - Even less full, as most of it was taken up by Auschwitz. Never mind, I'm sure this is still interesting to most, though there won't be much text as it's pretty self-explanatory.

So, guess where I am today? No, I won't tell you (though I already have), I think it's pretty obvious.







Interestingly, it seems that the buildings in Auschwitz I (there are 3 main camps and lots of tiny bits) were there before the war, for the Polish army, so the Nazis just reconfigured it to their own purposes. That's why these buildings look like nice brick buildings.





It's quite a strange place to walk around.








It's all very similar (it's a camp, so everything's very uniform).








They'd spend hours counting prisoners, so in bad weather the counter guy would shelter in this little wooden thing. The prisoners, alas, were not so lucky.









Pretty clear, that.








Don't touch the fences! No, they're not electrified. Now.








This is where people were executed, bullet style. I say that because there were many other ways of killing here.







It does seem like a hotel complex or holiday resort. Weird feeling.








Even better from high up.








We're free!








Sort of. This is where Rudolf Höss, first commendant of the camp, was hanged. It's specially built for him, as only he was hanged here, after the war. Not to be confused with Rudolf Hess, Hitler's Deputy. That confused me too.





Under here, gas chambers lurk. Auschwitz I is tiny, though, compared to the other camp at Birkenau: there's not really a huge gas chamber complex. But many were killed nevertheless.






And the entrance to said chamber. Unlike most of the camp, where you must act with respect as if it's a cemetary, but in here you are asked to not even speak, given that it's the actual set of rooms where thousands were killed.





"Warning: High voltage, danger to life".








And now onto Auschwitz II: Birkenau (sounds like a movie title). This is the infamous trainline leading to the station where people were herded off into two lines: workers, and those who were just gassed on the spot.





From the front gate of the camp.








Not sure why it goes into the ground like that.








It's not clear from the photo, but that field stretches out a long way, with so many chimney-like things.







A closer look. Not sure where it leads, exactly.








And a final shot. What I neglected to take a pic of is one of the millions of wooden stables for prisoners to sleep and wash in. Unlike the more permanent looking buildings in Auschwitz I, these do look like they were simply erected quickly. Auschwitz I was originally simply a prison, but at some point the authorities decided that prison was a waste of time and killing everyone was much easier. So the vast Birkenau complex was constructed, and not even finished before the war was over. You get the feeling they wanted to continue this for a long time.

In summary, it's a strange tourist attraction. You get rather numb to seeing all the exhibits: 80,000 shoes, 2 tons of hair, loads of suitcases with names on them... I guess some people could be very emotionally affected by it, but I just walked around like a bit of a drone, looking at everything without quite realising the gravity of it all. The one part that got me a little was a long wall with mugshots of Polish prisoners who were there early on. Eventually they stopped bothering with photos as their appearance altered completely with the lack of food, but to see several hundred pictures of ordinary Poles with the time they came into the camp, and the time they, er, left, was quite sobering.

I guess if you're nearby you could go yourself. I don't think it's worth getting a guided tour: as nice as the guy was, he didn't really tell me much that I didn't already know, and the museum is free anyway. Still, worth a look.

After getting home I ate free dinner and went straight out for a vodka tasting evening with the hostel. Excellent vodka, some of it went down without any burning etc at all. After that, I spent some time trying out this microbrewed beer with the others, but after we went to a couple of clubs where nothing was happening (Sunday's a dead day here, it seems) we headed back to the hostel. Salt Mines tomorrow, hopefully that'll be fun.