Thanks to the ESN of Bratislava which organised a trip in Poland, we had the chance to discover the concentration and extermination camp of Auschwitz use in the Second World War by German Nazi. We passed three days in Poland at Krakow and I am going to talk you about the first day where we visited Auschwitz-Birkenau.
First, we went out from Nitra early at 5:00 a.m. to join the ESN of Bratislava in Bratislava bus station at 7:00. We took approximately 7 hours to go to the city where there is the Auschwitz concentration camp. 10 kilometres before arrived at this camp, we could have perceived that every building is marked by this second world war, the atmosphere is quite heavy and we imagine already what it could be in the past. In my opinion, I cannot live around 10 or 15 kilometres of this camp, I felt uncomfortable un this environment.
After our arrival, we passed 1h30 in the first concentration camp called Auschwitz I. We had a guide who explained us the story of this camp. Each person had a headphone to listen this guide who spoke in a microphone. You can see below some pictures about this first camp where the life conditions were the less bad.
After this visit we take a bus during 5-10 min to go to the next extermination camp which is called Auschwitz-Birkenau II. We took also 1h30 to walk in this camp where thousands of people died and where the life conditions were the worst. A part of this camp is destroyed, for example buildings were lived prisoners and the 2 gas chambers. This camp really affected us because we can still see the rail which cross the camp, so we could imagine many things.
We finished by take a time on the memorial dedicated to these concentration and extermination camps. These 3 hours were intense for us and this visit will stay in our memories for the life.
Just below, some pictures about this camp:
Charlie Planchenault
Erasmus in Slovakia 