Page 12 - Flaming Cauldron – Issue 64
P. 12
ACC ASSOCIATION NEWSLETTER
The first view you get Birkenau
Poland 2024
By Nick Joyner
Part of history never to be forgotten And yes we did a city tour and the guide was really
I will start you from the beginning of the trip. good but in our own time.
Poland, to be precise Krakow! Before we carry on this is about my trip and
We arrived, decent enough hotel, off the centre some history that has taken place, this is not a Nazi
but within walking distance of ‘the Square’, those slagging article, what has happened has happened
that have been there understand what I mean. ‘The and must never be repeated and history never to be
Square’ is the centre of Krakow and in the old town. forgotten! You make your own opinions about the
All the life is around the edge of this place, bars, history of this.
This is where the SS
restaurants and night life. ‘The square’ is 100m from Like us many of you will have been to Bergan
officer sat on roll call,
the market hall in all four directions built on a cam- it was down to his Belsen and seen the atrocities of history there from
ber to stop the market hall flooding. The further off discretion on how long WW2 and the way people behaved. The place is
‘The Square’ the cheaper the food and beer. And the roll call parade took horrific and the sheer disregard for life is very evi-
trust me theres plenty of places to eat and drink dent. The only thing missing there is the buildings
there, and for the record the cakes are amazing! to show what took place where. However, these
The old town is amazing and yes like everyone else two places Auschwitz and Birkenau we visited are
that’s been there we visited the Jewish Quarter, different, one, Auschwitz is fully intact, the other,
Schindler’s factory and went on a boat trip on Birkenau, partially intact or under a refurb to rec-
the river. And no, we didn’t do the salt mines as reate the history. These places portrait an accurate
knees are shot and couldn’t walk it. The history and part of history that took place.
architecture of Krakow is unbelievable, well worth So lets start, Auschwitz!
seeing and admiring. There, that’s some history
As you approach Auschwitz you drive past the old
done, the rest is over to you if you have never been
military barracks to get to the place. This starts to
and memories for those that have.
give you a feeling of the scale of the system that
You will get plagued to go on tours around the
was put in place. On arrival you get an introduction
city, we learnt to say ‘did it yesterday thanks’. They
to the place then the tour starts, as you get closer
thank you; you thank them, and everyone is happy. The famous Auschwitz sign
you get a strange feeling in the air, it’s weird but
the whole atmosphere changes as you approach the
gates to enter the camp, hard to explain the feeling.
It’s strange as it resembles an army camp we lived
in in Germany. It was a Polish army camp before
the German army took it over and then the SS etc
moved in. You can see the famous sign, some letters
are upside down and some the wrong way wrong
as a dig at the SS. The original sign was stolen and
fortunately recovered. Unfortunately, the original is
in 3 pieces in a museum archive. The camp is sur-
rounded by electrified razor wire and is intact.
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