Auschwitz

Originally posted 15/08/2013

The other full day in Krakow we spent out in the countryside. We saw Auschwitz in the morning - both Camp I and Berkenau, and then in the afternoon went to the salt mine.

• There were a few rooms we weren't allowed to take photos in. They included a room filled with 2 tons of human hair that was cut from corpses after gassing. 7 tons was harvested in total, most of it sold to the textiles industry.

• Another such area were the prison cells inside block 11 (The death block). They included various methods of torture. Suffocation cells. A starvation room. Standing cells (no room to sit down).

• Supervisors of the blocks were usually non-jewish prisoners that were there for criminal reasons. They were put in charge because as criminals they had no morals and would rule with an iron fist.

• Block 11 was also used to test Cyklon B before they developed the gas chambers to determine the most efficient and effective dosages.

• Prisoners were given about 900 calories per day. No where near enough to live off. They were woken at 4am and given two cups of coffee, they would march to a work site, work 11 hours, then march back. In addition they had roll call every day which could run for hours. They didn't get a lot of sleep, maybe 4 or 5 hours if lucky.

• Hitler never actually visited a concentration camp and saw the atrocities there. Too much of a coward.

• After the chilling morning at Auschwitz we spent the afternoon at the salt mine which was a lot of fun.

• This is a salt lake and grotto in the mine. Seven people died here once, their boat overturned in the grotto. They didn't drown though - they died because the lake was so salty and bouyant that they couldnt dive under the edges of the boat and suffocated in the little bubble of air.