My Holiday Photo Blog | Rome, Krakow, Prague March Tour 2007




Birkenau Concentration Camp



Remark: Quite literally the end of the line and a surreal view. The Gas Chambers were only 100 yards to the right and left of us.




Birkenau Concentration Camp



Remark: Testament to the Thousands who perished at Aushcwitz Birkenau. Speaks for itself really.




Birkenau Concentration Camp



Remark: One of the many wooden watch towers dotted along the railway line into the camp. Another poignant moment.




Birkenau Concentration Camp



1: Iconic Image of The Entrance 2: Security Fence 3: Unloading People in 1943 4: The Gas Chambers ruins 5: Inside the huts




Birkenau Concentration Camp, Then & Now



1: Then & Now 2: Reflections 3: Map of Gas Chambers 2 & 3 4: View from Watch Tower 5: Inside the Watch Tower 6: Road to Chambers




Oswiecim Train Station



Remark: Oswiecim (pronouced Osh-ven-see-m) Train Station - Auschwitz was only the German name for the town. On our way back to Krakow.

About Krakow, Poland

Birkenau Concentration Camp

About:
As we were short of time we grabbed a taxi to Birkenau and visited the camp of the mass killings by the Nazis. Unlike Auschwitz, Birkenau is far less visited and has considerably less people around. The one thing you cant describe is the sheer scale of the camp. We covered barley a third of the camp in almost 2 hours. We followed the railway tracks from the gates all the way to the gas chambers (now just rubble) and sat pondering and observing the intensity of the surroundings. For myself though the most poignant spot on the camp is the watch tower, which you can still enter and observe the camp from the top. Its there, that you start to appreciate the size and importance of the place. To stand where the SS observed the complex is quite surreal.