Our first place we visited was Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. This is actually about two hours outside of Krakow. I had always wanted to visit to Auschwitz so I was thankful for the opportunity to visit, but was also kind of nervous to go. Driving up and seeing the long electric and barbed wire fences immediately made my heart sink a little bit. We pulled into the parking lot with what seemed to be about a million other tour buses. I was so surprised by the amount of people there.
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| The entrance gate to the camp with the phrase, "Works makes you free" |
We went on a guided tour through the camp. Being in the place where close to 2 million people's lives were taken from them was very surreal. Our tour guide took us through various camp buildings where people worked and lived. In these buildings, there are many collections of prisoner's clothing, shoes, and other personal items. The fact that the Jews brought so many personal items and items for daily use shows that they truly believed life was going to be normal again when they came here. All of these collections were extremely heart-breaking, but the worst for me were the disabled people's crutches and other aids. The disabled population was another group that Hitler targeted. Having someone close to me with a disability as well as planning to work with disabled people made me sick to my stomach to see this collection. Another disturbing collection they have is of women's hair. Women were forced to shave their heads and the Nazis saved all of the shaved hair. We also were able to go inside one of the gas chambers. This specifically, was also very unreal to walk through. I couldn't help but imagine what had to be going through those innocent people's minds when they were in there.
We also went to Birkenau camp which is very close to Auschwitz. This camp was where the unloading of the trains occurred. Prisoners from Auschwitz had to walk to this camp to work many times. The Nazis would count every person who left and every person who returned to ensure that it was the same number. It had to be the same number whether the prisoners were dead or alive so often times people had to carry their dead friends or family back into the camp.
Altogether, being here was just so unreal. It was, of course, extremely sad, but I did not have as much of an emotional reaction as I thought I would have. I don't know if this was because it was almost a numbing feeling to be there or if it was because of the rushed tour and the many tourists. It is definitely worth going to see though. It is such a huge part of history and is important for everyone to see so that we can be thankful for what we have to ensure that something this catastrophic never happens again.
Going to Auschwitz was really the only reason I decided to go on this trip, but I was so pleasantly surprised by the beautiful city of Krakow! My mom makes fun of me because after each city I visit, I tell her "Oh, I just loved this city!", but it is really true. Krakow was unique to each of the other cities I have been to. We stayed in the city center which was so fun.
Also, either all of the food is really good here or we just got really lucky with the places we chose to eat at! We had some awesome traditional Polish foods as well as some amazing desserts. I was also surprised by how fancy, yet inexpensive some of the restaurants were. I think we had candlelit dinners at almost every place!
Now, I am usually all about trying the local cuisine, but when I was walking down the street and spotted a restaurant called, "The Mexican", I literally jumped up and down and squealed with excitement. This was the first Mexican restaurant I had seen in Europe. Mexican food and peanut butter are the two things I miss the most so you can imagine why I was so happy! I convinced my friends to go eat there and the atmosphere and decorations were really cool, but I was kind of disappointed in the food. I think it was Mexican with a Polish twist. That's okay though because I will appreciate Mexican food back home even more now. :)
The highlight of the trip for me though, occurred when I was in the middle of searching for my usual Christmas ornament from the city in the markets in the main square. All of a sudden I heard a song that I recognized being played loudly in the square. I wasn't really paying attention and then I realized what song was playing! It was the Resurrection Sunday song that a large group of Christians did a flash mob to in a square (which I also visited) in Budapest! My mom had somehow found the YouTube video of this a couple years ago and we loved it! It was really cool to see such a huge group of Christians proclaiming Christ's name and worshiping Him through dance especially in this part of the world. So when I finally realized what song it was, I figured there must be people dancing to it just like the video in Budapest! The song had been playing for a while so I literally ran out of the market and to the square in hopes that they weren't finishing already. Sure enough, there was a big group of people (including nuns!) dancing to this beautiful song! After feeling like I was the only Christian here, it was so refreshing to see a group of believers worshiping our Lord together! I know that God orchestrated this flash mob for probably a multitude of reasons, but one was for me to witness it and be reminded that I am not alone. I love love love the ways the Lord shows His love for me. I have a video of the dance, but I can't get it to upload here. Stay tuned for when I upload it to facebook!
