Hello Young Adventurers,

Today’s post is going to be a bit different than my usual ones, because the place I visited this time is unlike anywhere I’ve been so far.  So far, this journey has led me to see some beautiful and wonderful places, but there is nothing beautiful or wonderful about it here.  A few days ago I traveled to Krakow, Poland so that I could take a day to visit Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II- Birkenau, two concentration and death camps from back during Nazi occupation in World War II.  Out of respect for those who suffered and died here, I only took two photos here- one for each entrance to the camps which I took to share here for the blog.  I hope you forgive me for not taking more, but I just didn’t feel like it was appropriate to treat this place like another tourist spot.  If you would like to see and learn more, ask your teachers and I know they’ll help you find some historical photographs.

For those that do not know, concentration camps are places throughout history where people are forced to live against their will for a number of reasons, usually being a group of people that the government in control simply just doesn’t like.  Typically in these camps, conditions are rough- minimal food, limited space for people to sleep, poor hygiene, and usually long hours of hard work.  Some of these camps during the 1940’s took this a step further, though, and turned these concentration camps into death camps.  These were places where people were simply sent to be killed in gas chambers simply for being different.  At the time of WWII, these people were primarily Jewish Europeans, although there were other groups sent as well.

It felt like walking through a nightmare as we made our way through the two camps and learned more about their history.  There were walls of shoes in one building of all the people who were detained in the camp, as well as hairbrushes, and even plates that people had packed in their things.  You see, many people believed they were being sent to a safer place when they were sent to the camps.  One thing that really struck me, though, was how cold it was.  The day I visited, it was right at 32 degrees Fahrenheit.  I was in about 4 layers of clothes, a warm hat, a thick scarf, and gloves, and I was still so cold as we walked through the camps.  It hit me hard when I learned that during the winters, it can get down to almost -10 degrees Fahrenheit, and the people who were forced into the camps only had a thin, denim uniform they could wear and that was it.  I can’t imagine how cold they had to have been on top of everything they were dealing with.

Overall, just in the Auschwitz camps alone, over 1.1 million people died in the time of only about 5 years, sometimes up to 20,000 people in a single day.  Birkenau was the primary death camp, and was where Anne Frank was sent to when she was captured before eventually being sent off to other camps later on.  The camps are now treated as a memorial to those lost, in hopes that we make sure that things like this never happens agains.  I know talking and learning about this stuff can be hard, and it can make us feel sad.  Any decent human being is going to learn about this and be uncomfortable because it was real evil that walked on our world.  But friends, that’s okay.  It’s that feeling of sadness that helps us make sure we look after those around us.  It helps us learn to be kinder, gentler, and to make sure we don’t let people get hurt like this again.

“Arbeit Macht Frei / Work Sets You Free”

These chilling words that stood above the entrance to one of the darkest places on our planet where freedom was never going to be an option for many people. I’m extremely humbled today after visiting Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau.  There’s no comprehending the horrors that took place within these camps only a mere 70 years ago, and it didn’t stop here. Camps like these have continued to exist in the world, even today. We have to learn from history, learn from our darkness, and fight to ensure this stops. We are all different, and those differences are what make humanity so great, and yet we continue to fear them instead. As hard as today was, I’m incredibly thankful for the opportunity to learn and understand this piece of history more personally, and I highly recommend making your way to visit this site for yourselves one day. Lets be better, friends. Let’s fight to stop this hatred. Be a light. 

Have the Courage to shine bright against the hate, and Be Kind against all odds.

Mr. Weavil