In my recent adventures I have went to Terezin, A salt mine, Schindler's factory, Auschwitz, and many hours on the road! YET AGAIN!!  As though im glad the trips are getting more and more interesting i'm wishing most were not so depressing!!! As such trips mentioned most have a bad taste to them.  Even though these trips are my favorite!

SO let’s start: Terezin- was a holding center during World War II, this was not a concentration camp though strongly involved with the Holocaust! I enjoyed my day trip to Terezin because it was an interesting twist to the Holocaust that I was not aware that existed!

After we headed out on our trip to Poland we made a quick stop to a Iron Factory! It was pretty cool to see how the process worked then. The Factory has now been turned into a museum.  They took was through the steps and what each part did of the factory. Super interesting. 

The salt Mine was amazing. I was not realt thrilled when I found out we were going to spend THREE hours looking at SALT!!! If I must say not thrilled! But to my surprise, that was one of the coolest trips that we have taken on this trip.  The Salt Mine was in Krakow, Poland.  I like Poland there currency sucks but Poland was nice. We spent four days in Poland.  Ok back to the Salt mine. We get there and its raining and horrible weather, Martin tells us it is extremely cold in the mine so we are not thrilled about that either. So we get in the mine finally and its not even cold what so ever! IT was perfect  :)!  I think im getting married there (future note for my husband).   I was even a brave girl and licked the wall, yes it ws pure salt! It was soo cool, I loved the mine definatily  worth going to. I just shows you should never make an assumption on a place before you go to it.

                While in Poland we also went and seen Schindler’s factory.  Which I hope is now put on the schedule for the rest of the study abroad Czech students.  This factory is not a museum. It goes through the 5 years when Krakow was over taken and ruled by Nazi’s! The museum had real sounds (just like if you were there in that day and age) . I really enjoyed this museum for the content that was in the museum and the sounds and videos that were there. But the museum I thought was a little confusing on the lay out and I felt I missed some of the museum do to this.  Reguardless I enjoyed the portions I got to see. :) I for sure recommend this museum.

The best yet worst part of the trip to Poland was to go to Auschwitz!  I have learned a large amount of information on Auschwitz leading up to this trip. But I was not prepared like I thought I was, this was a very moving trip. (MOM if I ever get you to Europe you are going on your own to Auschwitz, sincerely, your Daughter) :) just a little message.

 Auschwitz was not the emotional roller coaster I thought It would be but there were a few parts that im thinking oh my gosh how could someone be such a horrible disaster and be ok with themselves.  I was HORRIFIED, about this experience and intellectually and emotionally I couldn’t handle going back, it would be to much. The hardest parts were when I saw all the hair that was there, the baby clothes and shows, these babys are my nieces age and i imagined as I was looking at these items that they were my nieces ages they had no life didn’t know right from wrong and still were being brutaly killed and beaten because of something they had NO control over. And as we went from room to room and I was seeing names like “Weiss and Cohn” it tore at the heart strings a bit more every time.  I HATED Auschwitz, it made me and makes me sick to think of what happened there. 

                We also visited Auschwitz II- Birkenau this was where  Nazi’s planned to ease congestion at the main camp. Himmler intended the camp to house 50,000 prisoners of war, who would be interned as forced laborers. Plans called for the expansion of the camp first to house 150,000 and eventually as many as 200,000 inmates.  An initial contingent of 10,000 Soviet prisoners of war arrived at Auschwitz I in October 1941, but by March 1942 only 945 were still alive, and these were transferred to Birkenau, where most of them died from disease or starvation by May. By this time Hitler had decided that the Jews of Europe were to be exterminated, so Birkenau was repurposed as a combination labor camp / extermination camp.

I strongly feel this tour was way to rushed and should have been taken on a much slower pace.  TO truly soak everything in and experience what they had to experience even if its just for a moment, it is so important!