I've just come back from a holiday in Poland. Visited Wroclaw, Kracow, Zakopane and have to say they are beautiful places, not what I expected how an ex communist country could be now.
But have to say, eye opener (not highlight) of the tour was visiting Auschwitz - Birkenau. We had a tourguide who said enough to just open your eyes to what went on there, sher didn'y say too much to cause distress or offence, just stated the facts. She did open up and say she has been giving tours for 25 years and every day at the start it is difficult. Going into the Block 11 prison block and seeing the standing cells, suffocation cells, starvation cells was shocking enough.
Block 10 where Josef Mengele did his experiments along with others, what went on there was appalling.
I think the worst was seeing the museum block where they had a room full of human hair, shaved off the heads of pretty much everyone that entered the place. A room full of childrens shoes and clothing was really shocking and realising those children never got into the camp.
But then realisng the numbers. At it's peak, over 10,000 people a day were being put into the gas chambers!
In 8 weeks in 1944, nearly half a million people were murdered.
It wasn't just jews, the figures speak for themselves
960,000 Jews
150,000 Ethnic Poles
23,000 Gypsies
The numbers are unbelievable, perhaps that is why there are so many Holocaust deniers, but whilst I was in Poland, I read the book Auschwitz by Laurence Rees. I don't know whether the book had it's own agenda, but what I found sickening, wasn't the persecution, the selections etc, but how humans could continue a persuit of work to make a more efficient extermination factory, which is what the death camps were.
I had my eyes opened and truly hope the world never has to experience the likes of that era again. Only time will tell though.
I sincerely hope this post doesn't cause offence. I for one will never go back again. It's not somewhere I think anyone would want to go, but perhaps should go, especially the deniers. It is their rhetoric that I find quite offensive - perhaps if they opened their eyes and mind, they would acknowledge the horror of what went on, but I think they are probably too narrow minded to do so.