[Travel] Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum

[monty uk]

Roy Hodgson took the England team there during the Euros in 2012.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/18373960

 

[Binney on acid]

It is a must. I'd also recommend The Schindler museum. For me, it enhanced the experience. Give yourself plenty of time to wander around. You'll need it!

 

[hans kraay fan club]

Yes. Go. Horrible but absolutely worthwhile.

 

[Binney on acid]

I'd recommend giving the Salt mine a miss. Salt is salt is salt. It's impossible to make it interesting or sexy. Krakow is a wonderful city, with some phenomenal architecture. They don't use the euro and prices generally speaking are inexpensive. Be warned! Ensure that you purchase a bus ticket before you get on the bus. The wife and I assumed that we could pay the driver, and we were fined £50 by a couple of Nazi type thugs. The Fuhrer would have been proud of them.

 

[theboybilly]

As ever, NSCers do the business, have booked it as part of the Tour. Thanks to all on this thread.

As indeed I have for March next year. Well done NSC

 

[timbha]

I'd recommend giving the Salt mine a miss. Salt is salt is salt. It's impossible to make it interesting or sexy.

I think you missed the point. Didn’t you go in the underground “cathedral” 100s of metres deep?

 

[CorgiRegisteredFriend]

As part of your visit make sure you go to the Pinball Museum. We spent about 4 hours in there playing the machines which are all free play once you have paid roughly £8 to get in. Lots of old arcade games too. You get a wrist band for the day so you can enter as many times as you like up to 10 p.m. There is also a small bar inside.

 

[The Mole]

I went there last December - I had similar thoughts feeling I should go. I’m very glad I did even though it is not a fun day out. And it’s probably more important now than it ever has been.
The things that really got to me were the human touches - the belongings, the hair - it makes you realise that these were normal people trapped in an abnormal world.
So my advice is do go if you can but don’t worry if you feel you can’t. There’s no right or wrong. Just respect it as I’m sure you would.

On a lighter note - enjoy Krakow - it’s a beautiful city. I’d recommend the old Jewish quarter - lots of good bars and restaurants

 

[portslade seagull]

Went there with the wife and friends. Truly harrowing experience how anybody denies anything like this happened is beyond me Also Schindler's factory was opened up for the 1st time whilst there. That was also good having seen the film

 

[StillHateBellotti]

Congratulations on the news.

I went last year and have a fascination with the great wars, but this place is on another level. Our tour guide was from the area and had family members who were in the camp. Her knowledge was amazing. It was Birkenau that got me, the shear size of the place. It is a must do if going to Kraków. Also heard the salt mines were amazing.

Kraków is a lovely place , loads of places to eat and drink, it’s cheap if you find the right places. I will dig out some of the restaurants and send you a link, the foods amazing. As above the Jewish quarter was great, there is a famous restaurant that did the most amazing lamb shanks.

 

[swindonseagull]

Congratulations on the news.

I went last year and have a fascination with the great wars, but this place is on another level. Our tour guide was from the area and had family members who were in the camp. Her knowledge was amazing. It was Birkenau that got me, the shear size of the place. It is a must do if going to Kraków. Also heard the salt mines were amazing.

Kraków is a lovely place , loads of places to eat and drink, it’s cheap if you find the right places. I will dig out some of the restaurants and send you a link, the foods amazing. As above the Jewish quarter was great, there is a famous restaurant that did the most amazing lamb shanks.

Would appreciate if you could post links here.

 

[Not Andy Naylor]

Yes, you should go. Also to the Wieliczka salt mines. Both unique experiences in their way.

 

[Jesus Gul]

Went there around six years ago with some friends on a day trip from Wroclaw (great city, little quieter I guess than Krakow).

Harrowing especially seeing all the Israeli kids with flags draped over their shoulders sobbing as they mill around the place.




Big display of inmates shorn hair that hasn't decomposed - only thing you're not allowed to take a photo of if I recall.

 

[Bevendean Hillbilly]

My Grandfather died at Auschwitz.









He fell out of his watchtower.

Boom tish.

 

[MattBackHome]

Further to all of the above I found myself physically exhausted, due I guess to the sustained tension and emotion of the whole trip. That and the constant mental switch between the micro (the individual stories) and the macro (the sheer scale of Birkenau) and my inability to make the two meet. It's bewildering. So be prepared for that.

 

[Kaiser_Soze]

The salt mines are incredible. The huge chapel, carved by hand by the miners was a thing of wonder. The smaller scenes are still impressive. Think you missed the point of them as they are now.

 

[daveinplzen]

I was told that we lost relatives there, and Majdanek. I saw my mothers family name on a memorial at the Terezin transit camp, where they parked up kids for the onward journey. That was harrowing enough. Can only imagine Auschwitz. Interesting side-note concerning Terezin. Gavril Princip died there in 1918.

 

[Bevendean Hillbilly]

When I did a lot of work in Poland some years ago one of the Polish lads took me and one of my German colleagues way out to Treblinka where there is nothing left at all of the death camp because the Nazis utterly destroyed it as the Red Army closed in.

This is the thing that a lot don’t realise...I didn’t...Auschwitz-Birkenau was predominantly a slave labour camp where gassing of the inmates was done to eliminate those who were not useful to IG Fahben, Krupp, Bosch, Braun, BMW, Mercedes etc who all had mega factories around the camp to exploit the free labour.

By far and away the TRUE death camps were hidden in the Far East of the Reich at Treblinka, Majdanek and Sobibor. These places were literally slaughter houses where Jews, and others, were brought on trains, marched in, gassed, burned buried repeat.

What there is there are some sculptures and a train platform.

But as you walk around you start to notice tiny fragments of bone all across the site it’s literally EVERYWHERE the grass won’t grow across the whole area, trees won’t take and I don’t hear a bird sing, a bee buzz or anything that you would normally hear in a Polish forest in summer.

The Nazis, afraid of the Russians finding hundreds of thousands of charred, maimed corpses in the two massive pits forced workers to disinter all the remains and crush them with heavy machinery it is this process that leaves this cursed ground coated with bone shards, teeth and all the pathetic human detritus strewn across a huge area.

My German friend (whose Grandfather had served in the Waffen SS on the Eastern Front) was hugely affected. He told us that his Grandad was an unrepentant Nazi until his death in 2003. He said that he didn’t believe that he ever really accepted that the Holocaust existed. My mate said he wished the old boy was still alive as he would have forced him to visit this dreadful place.

I’m not a believer in Woo. But the evil and suffering that took place there is still palpable. If you stumbled on the site by accident with no clue of the role it played in the final solution you’d know. You’d feel it I guarantee. It’s just so tainted.

I’m not actually advocating Treblinka as a tourist destination. There was almost no one else around when we visited, just some Russian lads. No one spoke. F*cking horrible horrible place.

 

[bhafc99]

When I did a lot of work in Poland some years ago one of the Polish lads took me and one of my German colleagues way out to Treblinka where there is nothing left at all of the death camp because the Nazis utterly destroyed it as the Red Army closed in.

This is the thing that a lot don’t realise...I didn’t...Auschwitz-Birkenau was predominantly a slave labour camp where gassing of the inmates was done to eliminate those who were not useful to IG Fahben, Krupp, Bosch, Braun, BMW, Mercedes etc who all had mega factories around the camp to exploit the free labour.

By far and away the TRUE death camps were hidden in the Far East of the Reich at Treblinka, Majdanek and Sobibor. These places were literally slaughter houses where Jews, and others, were brought on trains, marched in, gassed, burned buried repeat.

What there is there are some sculptures and a train platform.

But as you walk around you start to notice tiny fragments of bone all across the site it’s literally EVERYWHERE the grass won’t grow across the whole area, trees won’t take and I don’t hear a bird sing, a bee buzz or anything that you would normally hear in a Polish forest in summer.

The Nazis, afraid of the Russians finding hundreds of thousands of charred, maimed corpses in the two massive pits forced workers to disinter all the remains and crush them with heavy machinery it is this process that leaves this cursed ground coated with bone shards, teeth and all the pathetic human detritus strewn across a huge area.

My German friend (whose Grandfather had served in the Waffen SS on the Eastern Front) was hugely affected. He told us that his Grandad was an unrepentant Nazi until his death in 2003. He said that he didn’t believe that he ever really accepted that the Holocaust existed. My mate said he wished the old boy was still alive as he would have forced him to visit this dreadful place.

I’m not a believer in Woo. But the evil and suffering that took place there is still palpable. If you stumbled on the site by accident with no clue of the role it played in the final solution you’d know. You’d feel it I guarantee. It’s just so tainted.

I’m not actually advocating Treblinka as a tourist destination. There was almost no one else around when we visited, just some Russian lads. No one spoke. F*cking horrible horrible place.

Agree. I went to Majdanek in 1993. Wasn't straightforward to get there, but like you at Treblinka I was pretty much the only visitor, which made it even more impactful.

 

[Bevendean Hillbilly]

Agree. I went to Majdanek in 1993. Wasn't straightforward to get there, but like you at Treblinka I was pretty much the only visitor, which made it even more impactful.

The atmosphere there is the same I imagine. It’s difficult to explain what it feels like. Hopeless? Empty? I must admit that, until I visited, I wasn’t aware that there were the three totally dedicated extermination camps which the Germans used so ruthlessly.

I’ve since read that the station had flowers and jolly posters on the walls with fake timetables and departure information displayed to fool the Jews that there were onward destinations for them. They were met from the trains by “nurses” and smart officers who told them they were to be given a health check and showers to ensure their comfort for the journey.

The gas chamber had a massive Star of David over the door to soothe the poor sods. The trip from the train was through some tall hedges to hide the incineration pits from the passengers and locals and the burning was done with bodies laid on petrol laden logs like sardines in a criss cross fashion layer upon layer.

The pits were enormous 300ft long by 100ft wide.