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Poland

Auschwitz

There is not much to write about visiting a concentration camp, especially one as notorious as Auschwitz. I don't think I said much more than "motherfuckers" over and over as I walked around.

Located at the former Polish army barracks outside the town of Oswiecim, this camp and the second stage built at Birkenau are synonymous with the Nazi death machine that consumed Europe in the 1940s.

Today, the brick buildings stand as mute witnesses to the horror that took place.

Walking along the gravel paths, one comes across guard booths where roll calls were made, and gallows where lives were ended.


Museum exhibits housed in the former barracks document in clinical detail the history of the camps

Gates protect the former cells that held doomed inmates

and flowers mark the "killing wall," where prisoners were lined up and shot.

The gas chamber, with the observation peephole, now houses a shrine to those who died here

and the crematorium illustrates the sheer evil of this barbaric place.

The danger signs scattered around were warnings to guards and inmates alike

and seeing these butterfly stickers in a window right next to the camp reminded me that there were 'regular people' complicit in the crimes committed here.

Visit Birkenau as well

The Northern Loop Trip
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