Auschwitz visit Forums

darach

Anyone visiting Poland who is interested in the holocaust should visit Auschwitz. Visit to Auschwitz camps are free but to see the film 15mins costs 3.5pln. To have a guided tour including the film costs 39 pln. To stay in the car park which is very large with no facilities costs 12 pln for 24 hours, to stay at the Centre for Dialogue and Prayer which is a hotel owned by the church, next to Auschwitz camp and has toilets, showers and electric costs 23 pln per person per night and is actually very nice. Open from April to November. You can also get a bus or a train from Auschwitz to Krakow, buses run approx 15 times a day and cost 18pln return. At todays rate 4.5 pln = £1.00.
Derek & bel

peachy

Thank you for that info, it will be very helpful to us when we set off for Poland near the end of June. One of the reasons for going, is to visit Auschwiz. We are trying to plot a route across Germany at the moment.!!

Lin

darach

Hi Lin, as we were in the car we came across to Amsterdam then stuck with the motorways across to Dresden which is an absolute must be seen! Get a site near town and go in on the train. From the railway station you can walk to the old town in under 10 minutes.
We crossed the border at Gorlitz which has now no border police, we actually went inland to the mountains to go skiing, but if you head for Krakow, Auschwitz (Oswiecim) which is the polish name of the town is approx 70 kms before on the 44.
Derek & Bel

devonidiot

My eldest son and his wife visited Prague two weeks ago, thoroughly recommended the place. They visited Auschwitz, and said it was a very, very sobering experience, it was impossible to comprehend what happened there.

annetony

I visited Auschwitz in 1969 when I was still at schools, and it was an experience to say the least, I was in awe of the sheer numbers of human beings that were tortured and slaughtered there, and one of the most moving things I saw was all the photographs of the victims on the walls, I will visit again when I go to visit my cousin with Tony in a couple of years, we should have gone this year but My daughter has just announced she is getting Married next May, so we have put the visit on hold for now, and I am on a diet Laughing

Anne

griffly16

I would also recommend going a few miles further up the road to Birkenau (where the famous shot of the train tracks enter the compound). Just to see the scale of the numbers of prisoners that were held there is overwhelming.

The plaques in every language warning against the same thing happening brought me to tears...

Griff

peachy

Thankyou Derek and Bel,
So much to see and I just hope we have enough time. We have got nearly 3 weeks....Cant wait till we retire. We are going to head for Aachan and then across to Dresden and then like you suggest stop over and have a look around.

Lin and Fred

darach

Just a quick one, as we have very poor internet access but if you are interested in castles, approx 25 kms south of Dresden is a castle called Konistien(not sure of spelling) Camp site in the town and unbelievable castle. Just to the east on the A6 of Dresden which is an easy road to use to meet up with the motorway to Gorlitz (border of Poland) is Colditz castle if passing worth a look.
Derek & Bel

Alfa_Scud

I went on a stag do last year to Krakow, big lash up going in plenty of bars for beer & best vodka!.

Managed it for a couple of days, then we decided we had to do something else - a visit to Auschwitz somebody decided, not a typical stag trip, & to be fair I was a little nervous about 30 blokes going to somewhere like that, some of them could be quite, er shall we say, politically incorrect.

The taxis picked us all up at about 8.30 to take us there, most people still bevvied up etc etc. When we arrived there, parked up in the car park, the taxi driver organised a tour guide for just us (as recommended if there are, i think, more than 10).

Within about 15 seconds of walking under the famous gate, everyone was stone cold sober!
It's a harrowing place to look round, some of the exhibits really make you think, the piles of shoes, the replica human hair which, incidentally, was used to make socks for the German soldiers. The tiny punishment cells (as if being there wasn't bad enough in itself), where 6 or 8 people would crawl in then have to stand as there isn't sufficient space to crouch/sit/lie down.

A weird place initially because the buildings, & I make no apologies for this, actually look quite nice from the outside, you can almost imagine arriving there thinking it wasn't too bad - how wrong can you be?

Again we followed this with a trip up the road to Birkenau, this place just makes Auschwitz as an environment look plush. Row upon row of what can only be described as chicken sheds packed with bunks - horrific. The memorial at the end of the train line is truly emotionally evocative.

30 blokes on a stag do stood round blubbering & hugging makes you realise just how much of an impact the place has. You know what was actually being fought for - freedom, equality, peace. Almost seems like a waste of time sometimes nowadays.

Would I recommend a visit? I'm not sure you can recommend something like this.
Would I go again? Not sure to be honest, it was terrible in the best possible way.
Am I glad I did go? Absolutely, although glad is probably an inappropriate word.

After a very quiet ride back to the hotel, & an almost silent thoughtful hour in the bar, boy did we celebrate being alive!!
An experience I will never forget.

Suenliam

Chris - thanks for your post. You have said so much in so few words.

Although I have never visited, I feel it is a place one should visit, if only once. You can't put a price on life, equality and freedom.

Sue