Today was a very emotional and powerful day. We visited Auschwitz Concentration Camp where approximately 1.1 million people, primarily Jewish people, were killed by the Nazis. Josh has suspected Roma heritage (more commonly known as gypsy, which is actually a slur towards that group of people. Although Josh is not close with his ancestry, he has asked me to include this for educational purposes). Approximately 23,000 Roma people were killed at Auschwitz and men, women, and children were treated horribly. We saw photos today of Roma children being experimented on.

We had a private local tour guide which allowed us to learn about the terrible things that happened there. I did not take many pictures out of respect, but our guide stopped and said please take a photo here a few times, so those are posted below. There are two camps, Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II. Auschwitz I was known as the work camp where prisoners were forced to work under terrible conditions. It was set up like a museum. The different buildings (former barracks) were set up with exhibits including photos and artifacts. Auschwitz II was known as the death camp and it is where people were brought in on trains and immediately sent to the gas chamber. That compound is more raw and left as it was found, aside from the addition of a beautiful memorial for everyone who was murdered in Auschwitz.

I enjoyed having a local guide because we were able to learn things that aren’t as common to be taught in schools and history books. I was happy to learn that in 1947 survivors of Auschwitz asked the Polish State if it could be turned into a museum and opened to the public so that nobody would forget what happened and teach people about the events that occurred. The original tour guides at the museum were the survivors themselves. Another thing that I learned about was some of the smaller everyday things that the SS did to make the Jewish prisoners miserable. In one room we saw Tallits which are Jewish prayer shawls displayed which are holy in their religion. The SS forced the prisoners to cut them up into smaller pieces and use the fabric to clean machinery. It was a very emotional experience, especially seeing the things left behind such as shoes and children's clothing, and going inside a remaining gas chamber. It was an experience we will never forget.

We saw a few other things today such as welcome signs for Ukrainians and we saw Ukrainians arriving at the bus station in Krakow with welcome bags. We also tried the local Krakow street food called Obwarzanek which is a bit of a mix between a bagel and pretzel. They are thought to have first been made by Ashkenazi Jews in Krakow’s Jewish Quarter in the late 16th century.