Auschwitz
This weekend I took a day trip to Kraków and Auschwitz. I went to Dachau last summer and so i thought I would be a little more prepared this year to see a concentration camp. But the sheer size of Auschwitz-Birkenau was overwhelming, especially when I began to calculate how many people it could house. You can tell that everyone who walks in gets chills and that in itself is a testament to how well these sites have been preserved. I really disliked that the polish government insists on calling it Oswieciem instead of Auschwitz, it’s german name. I think that since the Germans built the camp, it’s name should be preserved too. But I think this is a small symptom of a much larger issue with memorialisation in Poland. I have one picture from Auschwitz, since I felt like it would be disrespectful to take a lot of pictures but didn’t want to forget the emotions I felt while walking through.
