Polska

My program, CEA took us on a weekend excursion to Poland and I am still unsure how I feel about that weekend. I left on a Friday afternoon and took a 10 hour bus ride to Poland due to traffic, construction and something about Poland not having freeways. It was a long ride of thinking about how the next day would turn out. On Saturday we took an hour bus ride to Auschwitz and then Birkenau, which is Auschwitz II. It was a very uneasy experience actually stepping foot on grounds that were used as a concentration and extermination camp for so many people. I don't have much to say about the actual camps, I will post the few pictures I took. Actually being makes your mind wander into thinking how this could have happened, it is so surreal. Words just can't express the feelings you get while walking through the blocks and the fields. As much as you are told how everything worked on the camps and what the Nazi's did to the prisoners, there is no grasping of how the prisoners felt while being there. It still feels like a dream because of the emptiness, it still doesn't fully register in my mind that I walked the grounds that the prisoners walked over 70 years ago. I will never understand how someone could brainwash people into thinking this was okay to do and then sit there and plan out the camps and how to get people there and actually build it. So many questions keep pouring out and so few answers. We all have a somewhat understanding of what happened in those camps but once going there that understanding vanishes. I will let the pictures do the talking. I only took a few because I did not feel the need to keep snapping shots. On Sunday we went into the center of Krakow and I will post a few of those pictures as well. The tour was only an hour maybe and I never got a good feel of Poland because it was such a short trip but I am really glad I got to go and see the concentration camps because I think it was something I needed to see for myself.