Poland

So...right now i'm in Krakow and tonight will be our last night here. Today we spent most of the day visiting Auschwitz and Birkenau Concentration Camps. It was unbelievable. I don't really think I can describe what it felt like to be there and to actually see one of the most infamous Concentration Camps where 1.5 million people were killed. Where the camps are located is just about 60km or 36miles outside of Krakow. The temperatures can go as low as -20C or -4F in the winter time. Today for example at 4:00pm it was -15C or 5F. The sun was already set by 4pm... The ground was covered in snow and the humidity was at .....through my fairly thick gloves i could feel the chill from the wind...tomorrow i'll be wearing two pairs. We walked through the unimaginably enormous camp at Birkenau and after just 20 minutes in the cold (not even the minimum temparture granted) I was already close to the point of not being able to continue the walk through the camp. Imagine what it must have been like for the prisoners who lived, worked, were tortured there for months. 1 women miraculously survived 8 months there...unfathomable. I was merely walking through...not being worked to death, not being experimented on, not being tortured, not being starved and I had to turn back after only an hour. When we learn about what happened...we don't actually realize how unbelievably cold it was in combination with the torturous conditions....

Yesterday, we visited a museum attributed to the Jews of Galicia. Krakow is part of the western most portion of former Galicia. I believe Grandpa Brawer was from Lwow (Lvov) part of the eastern portion of Galicia in current day Ukraine. There was also some mentionings of Lwow in the museum.

Tomorrow we'll do some more sight seeing around the city and then we'll be off to Berlin around 8pm on an overnight train. We'll arrive in the morning and sight see from there.

This has been a great trip so far...I learned a lot...I've had great company...including Stefano (my friend from Rome), 2 of his friends from Rome, Cecilia (a friend who flew in to meet me in Poznan and will travel with me even back to Spain), Andrea (friend from Reggio Calabria in the south of Italy) and his friend also from RC.

Tomorrow we will be leaving Andrea and his friend and we'll continue in a group of 5 to Berlin. On the 8th I'll be flying back to Spain and Cece will meet me there on the following day.

(To be expanded upon...with pictures added)