When history class comes to life

After a long night on our night bus we landed ourselves in KRAKOW, POLAND! We spent the first few hours of the morning in a little cafe where we had some good food and most definitely took advantage of the comfy furniture and had a much needed nap. For some reason I can sleep anytime anywhere besides on a night bus or a night in the airport...but I mean Im a pro at sleeping everywhere else. Ive even gotten pretty good at airplane middle seat sleeping. Id say thats pretty impressive and a great life skill... Our first thing - and really the only thing - on our to do list in Poland was visiting the famous and historical Holocaust concentration camps. We waited for our bus to head about an hour to Auschwitz and Birkenau. Birkenau being the biggest camp and Auschwitz being the most deadly. Quick story - as we waited for our bus there was a sweet old man walking down the street with two ice cream cones, one in each hand. He was obviously super happy having these two cones and as he walked past us he handed one of the cones to his wife. So sweet right?! Well they went to get on their tour bus and the bus driver, who was not very nice, told them eating was not allowed on the bus and they needed to throw the ice creams away. The mans face went from so happy to so disappointed so fast, it made me want to cry. He grabbed his wife's cone and made his way over to the garbage. I gave him a little smile - showing that I felt his pain - and the sweet old man asks if I want his ice cream cone! He walks over and says he has to get rid of it, so he thought someone should enjoy it. Of course I took it and told him thank you and that I was sorry he couldn't eat it. What a sweet guy! So I enjoyed a free double scoop ice cream cone and it was quite delicious. Still feel bad for the sweet man, but Im glad I could enjoy it for him. 

We were blessed with a nice bus driver... they ended up not having enough room for us on the bus, so the bus driver got us a private car to take to the camps. Our driver was so sweet and we actually found out his daughter attends one of the ILP schools in Poland, small world. He wasn't technically a tour guide, but he showed us so many cool places like where Schindler lived, where the actual boy in the striped pjs took place and buildings where Nazis would hold meetings and other things like that. So much history in this city, it was crazy! Im not a big history fan, but the holocaust was always an interesting thing to learn about. Such a tragedy and it blows my mind how recently it happened. We started off in Birkenau and walking the grounds of this place was unreal. (Super hard to put this place into words so bear with me) The barbed wire, the crammed barracks, the lookout towers, the train tracks - this is where it all happened! Every time I would think about how this was the actual place it happened, where people were starved, mistreated, worked to death and viciously killed - it would bring tears to my eyes. Such a surreal day.

The train tracks that would bring thousands of people into Birkenau

This barrack was where the women and children slept. They would sleep on these wooden slabs with some straw. The one thing that got me every time was thinking or reading something about how children were experimented on or how families were split apart. (seriously crying right now typing this) The thought of being split apart from my family and not knowing what was happening is thee worst thought ever. I can't imagine what these people went through, but I'm grateful for the experience I had to walk where they walked and to learn more about these horrific years. I feel as though the holocaust was always a terrible thing that just happened in the history books, but seeing these camps made it come to life real quick. 

The picture on the left shows the road that people would walk daily as they were herded to the gas chambers to be killed. 

At the end of the train tracks is a memorial that has this plaque in every language of the people deported into the camps. Too much to learn and realize at sites like these - Life is precious, EVERY life is precious. 

Auschwitz - this place has been turned into more of a museum which was super cool. Each barrack was dedicated to a different part of the holocaust. For instance, one building would be dedicated to a country that was involved or one building would talk all about how the women were treated etc. 

This was The Netherlands building and it had a lot of stuff on Anne Frank. Lots of cool quotes all over the walls that were tear jerkers. 

The quote on the left definitely did it for me. How would it be to be raised in this mess?

The cans of Zyklon B used in the gas chambers

The shoes taken from the little kids as they entered the camp

This picture is really kind of gross, but so sad - the hair shaved from the heads of the deportees. 

The outside and inside of the gas chambers. 

The scratches on the wall from the victims slowly dying. 

Excuse my face, don't really know how to take a selfie in a place like this, but the picture below is where the bodies were cremated. Such a touching experience that I will forever remember. We spent four hours at these two camps and I wish we could've had more time. There was so much to read and look at and learn about. Its one thing to read about history in books, but wow it is such a cool experience to be there in real life. Definitely the highlight of the weekend - is that bad to say? You know what I mean... but I do recommend this site to any and everyone. So much to learn and gain from this experience. 

Told ya Im a pro middle seat sleeper. After our day at the camps we headed back to Krakow for some dinner. I had some traditional Pierogis - a noodle stuffed with mashed potatoes and cheese so uh duh, it was delish. Then we braced ourselves for another night on the bus... why do we do this to ourselves you might ask? Its cheap and by this point all of us are pretty poor so we've just learned to rough it. Plus it saves us time, instead of sleeping and traveling, we can travel while we sleep - if you're lucky enough to sleep. 

I wasnt lucky enough to sleep a ton, but I caught a good few naps - one at the airport and a dang good nap on our flight. Really though, I don't remember take off or landing, I was OUT! best flight ever. Super awesome weekend, still blows my mind that I can spend a weekend visiting two countries. Europe is pretty awesome. Poland was #20 on my country list so wootwoot! Much love from crack cow <3