Poland: Visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau

Visiting the former Auzchwitz concetration camp today was quite possibly one of the most unsettling travel experiences I have had thusfar. To simply be at the place where approximately 1.5 million people were slaughtered for no good reason in such a calculated and devious way was moving enough. Let alone to walk through the buildings where people were stored like cattle in depraved and cruel conditions.

The two most shocking points for me were the rooms full of belongings that belonged to some of the condemned. There was a room full of suitcases, with the owners names on them. Piles and piles of children's shoes. A whole corridor with glass walls with pits of adults shoes on each side. Tangled messes of wire and glass that once were spectacles. Piles of hairbrushes, toothbrushes, saucepans. All these things once belonged to someone, someone who was killed meaninglessly.

Also, the gas chamber. Being in a place where thousands of jews were killed daily was just... upsetting.

It's the kind of place that makes you question humanity.

But one of the irritating things about the day was the complete lack of respect that most of the tourists visiting had... they were barging around with their cameras despite it saying not to take photos, talking loudly despite signs asking people to stay silent. I saw one guy walk up to get his photo taken next to the place where they hung prisoners, and then one lady was taking photos of the ovens where the bodies of the victims were burned. Their behavior was sickening, I couldn't believe how disrespectful some people were. And what for? "oh yes, that's a photo of John and I standing in a courtyard where the Germans executed 1000 prisoners by gunfire... see the bullet holes in the walls next to John's head?". Some people are... just ugh.