While visiting Kraków we took a day trip to Oświęcim to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. After we visited Dachau in 2009 we said we didn't need to visit another concentration camp because it is just wrenching. But we were so close in Kraków, and it was actually Armistice Day (Veterans Day in the US), plus it's the best-known concentration camp. 
It was even harder for me this time, now that I'm a parent, to think about how many children suffered and died. The parts of the exhibit that talked about kids were just too much.
Auschwitz was an actual labor camp, and the nearby Birkenau was the extermination camp. Over 1 million people are estimated to have died at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Below is a photo that only begins to capture the eerie sea of chimneys at Birkenau, where the Nazis rushed to destroy everything just before the camp was liberated. They deconstructed most of the barracks, except the chimneys, which still stand. And they go on as far as the eye can see.
In the next photo is the shooting wall next to Block 11, the so-called "death block." Here prisoners were shot by firing squads in great numbers. The windows in the adjacent Block 10 are boarded up so there were no onlookers.
The memorial in the next photo (which is also translated into all of the languages of Auschwitz victims) pretty much sums up the entire place. It's definitely "a cry of despair."
It was even harder for me this time, now that I'm a parent, to think about how many children suffered and died. The parts of the exhibit that talked about kids were just too much.Auschwitz was an actual labor camp, and the nearby Birkenau was the extermination camp. Over 1 million people are estimated to have died at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Below is a photo that only begins to capture the eerie sea of chimneys at Birkenau, where the Nazis rushed to destroy everything just before the camp was liberated. They deconstructed most of the barracks, except the chimneys, which still stand. And they go on as far as the eye can see.In the next photo is the shooting wall next to Block 11, the so-called "death block." Here prisoners were shot by firing squads in great numbers. The windows in the adjacent Block 10 are boarded up so there were no onlookers.The memorial in the next photo (which is also translated into all of the languages of Auschwitz victims) pretty much sums up the entire place. It's definitely "a cry of despair."
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