The plane left on time at 8.15 & arrived at Krakow at 11.15 local time. Beautiful clear skies most of the way.
The airport hasn't been open in it's present format for long, it's a really nice airport now.
So we got on the coaches which were to take us everywhere & began our journey to the first stop Oświęcim. On the way it was explained to us about the three different Auschwitz sites. We were going to be visiting 2 of them after our first stop.
We saw Auschwitz 3 - Monowitz from the bus, it's the 2 large chimneys in the photo. This was one of the first and largest of the sub-camps of Auschwitz. This particular camp did hold mainly Jews. It had and still has factories which were very important to the Nazis war effort. It was built in 1941 by the inmates. Apparently the ruins of the factories are still there behind a concrete fence, but there are no tours to this as there is not much left. Behind the fence there are some factories that were built by the Germans, that are still in use today.
We crossed over the river Vistula and was told an awful story about it. Local children used to play in the river in Summer - as children do. Then one day after playing in the river the children realised they were covered in a black goo like substance. They ran home to their parents to find out what had happened. It turned out that the Nazis had started dumping the ashes of the people they had killed into the River & that's what the children were covered in.
That was quite a start. We arrived in the lovely town of Oświęcim. It was explained to us that this was to give us a sense of what it would have been like before the war & how the war had such an impact on the town. Before the war it had a large Jewish population which made up about 58% of the population. They were an important part of the town, Synagogues and churches stood side by side and everyone worked together.
At the centre of the town was the Great Synagogue, which was supposed to be amazing inside and even visited by the Kaiser between the wars. This was burned down by the Nazis when they took over the town and forced the Polish residents to move out so the building of Auschwitz could commence. The Jews of the town were sent to the concentration camps.
The photo above is where the Great Synagogue used to stand, the street is still called Jews Street. It did feel strangely eerie stood there, thinking about what used to be there and what happened.
A few Jews did return to the town after the war, but now, where there were once over 8000 Jews living, there are no Jews living there at all. One man - Szymon Kluger did return and was looked after by the locals, because he was so traumatised he didn't speak much after his return, but he died in 2000.
A few photos of the town
We then went to Auschwitz 1.
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