"Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it."

They say that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. If this is true then I really hope that we have learned from the Holocaust. Last Saturday we went to Auschwitz Concentration Camp that is located in Poland and it was an experience that I was glad I did. However I never want to do that again. Our day started out around 10 in the morning, with no idea what to expect for the day. The travel time was about three and a half hours away, stopping twice for the bus driver and once for food at McDonalds. What really impressed me about the driving here is how close the bus driver got to hitting another vehicle but was not worried. Once we got to the first camp I had a sense of interest but not exactly excitement. We waited for our professor to check us in and find our guide. Once that was done we went through a small security check, we all received little headsets that way our tour guide could communicate with us without having to talk loud. I really enjoyed that they had these because it showed respect for what happened here and felt like it should be and not a tourists place with people yelling all the time. At first the tour felt like a normal tour of some where historical. Our tour guide did an amazing job explaining what happened here and what daily life was like here. However, it just did not feel real. That was how I felt until a certain room. This room was a large room that was spilt in half, and on one side was piles of human hair that was cut off the people who died. This really hit me hard because it puts a picture to the people that had been murdered here. The pile was a lot taller than me and filled the entire left side of the room. For respect reasons we were not allowed to take pictures and trust me that is a picture I never want to see again. After this we walked through other rooms that had what was left of their stuff. What happened was that they were told to leave all of their luggage at the platform because it would be a lot easier for them to do that and collect it after registration. Which of course was a lie. Then they had to line up into two lines with men on one side and women and children on the other. This was the time of judgement. Either they were sent one way to work until they died or straight to the gas chambers to be murdered. Everything that happened in the camps makes me wonder but what kind of person can look at someone and decide their fate within 20 or so seconds. After everyone had left the platform then workers would come and collect the luggage where they would take it to a storage room where it was sorted. These rooms were called Kanada one in Auschwitz and Kanda two in Berkenau. The next couple of rooms that we went into were collections of that stuff. Below are a couple pictures just to give you an idea. What is really sad is that this stuff is not even close to all of the stuff that was collected through the years. It is only the stuff that was left there was the evacuated the camps. A good majority of the stuff was already sold to another country for money.

Some of the pots and pans found.

Some of the luggage found.

After we saw these we went into building number 15 and this is where the basement is one of the worst places to be here. This is where people would go for solitary confinement. There were four rooms that were starvation rooms where they picked whoever they thought was a problem. Right across the basement was the standing rooms where four people would have to crawl onto their hands and knees and stand in this tiny room. This is where they slept so they would sleep standing up and then get up in the morning and go work a ten hour day just to go back to this tiny room and sleep standing up. Upstairs of this building is where they had washrooms where people would strip down all the way till they were naked and be walked out into this courtyard and be shot in the back of the head. We did not see much of building fourteen but that is mostly because of all the messed up things that happened in there. This is where doctors would do their experiments on people just to see what would happen or if it was possible. Almost nobody survived this place. I wanted to keep going on about all that I saw in this awful place but it honestly just really makes me upset. They say that they were people who were messed up in the head but I do not even think that comes close to it. The only reason that death camps came into the picture was because fifteen leaders decided that they wanted to experiment all of the Jews. They killed 6 million Jews alone during the Holocaust and it is truly sad that it happened.

Sign that leads into the camp.
"Hard work will set you free"

Gate.

Another look at the gate with a guards tower.

Looking at the gate from the inside.

One of the rail cars that they would pack full.