Travel to Krakow, Poland – Episode 185 Transcript

Travel to Krakow, Poland – Episode 185 Transcript

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Chris: No, that makes sense.

Raul: And I don’t know again if that’s just my luck that particular set of days but I’m glad I worked on some phrases and some basic stuff related to pleasantries, transportation and your numbers basically.

Chris: And in getting around in general you’re taking buses and public transportation and trains. And that got you around it sounds like generally fine except when the train isn’t working.

Raul: Right, right. No issues what so ever. I mean everything runs pretty well. Nothing at all to complain about or warn people about in my experience.

Chris: Ok. And then you also mentioned Auschwitz.

Raul: Yeah. Auschwitz, Birkenau are the two main camps in that area. Auschwitz being the original and Birkenau being the follower because they couldn’t mass do what they were doing; killing, and burning, and cremating, whatever. So Birkenau gets built afterwards. And it’s a day trip. Depends on how much time you want to spend and you should go to Auschwitz first because that’s where you get the movie, that’s where you may get the guided tour if you want to set it all in context and get all the information you need and then go to Birkenau which is some distance away. I guess you could walk it but it seemed a little too long to walk. Didn’t seem like a clear pathway. So what we did – we got to Auschwitz we took the guided tour (we skipped the movie because the guided tour would probably give us a lot of that information). It was eerie at first. If you had to pick something to give you the tone for what you were going to see. From the weather it was perfect. The weather was gray, foggy which gave you that sense of sadness and it set the mood I guess right for what I was to see. Auschwitz by all means go and get the guided tour. Go into the buildings where they take you. They will show you things that will shock you, move you, things that were property of the people who passed away, who were killed there. Other things, I won’t give it all away I suppose. But you really need to see it. They actually get to walk you through one of the original crematoriums which is very small and that about takes cares of any doubt you had or how you would feel because pretty much you see that and it becomes very, very real. Walking into Auschwitz for me felt a little odd because you see it in movies so I felt like I was seeing stuff I know from the movies. And it felt like a little bit hollywoodish for me walking through the gate. But again once you go through the buildings and see all the stuff they have to show you, obviously you are somewhere else. Birkenau, it got destroyed by the Germans when they were leaving so they reconstructed one little piece and then they reconstructed chimneys from the buildings that used to be there so you get a sense of how big the camp was and it is outstanding how huge that facility was. As far as the eye can see, you see those chimneys. For me the most shocking moment of all in both camps was standing at the platform where the people got off the train in Birkenau and that was the platform where they made a choice: do you live or do you die. I still get goose bumps talking about it right now. That to me was the most difficult moment I think. Definitely a day trip – it’s obviously worth the visit and more. It’s surreal in a way. You can’t just believe that you’re standing there. And you see the big crematoriums were demolished and they were never touched and you stand in front of them and your looking at them and you stand there in awe really of how could there be so much evil.

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