The Most Amazing Way to Travel - Auschwitz Salt Mine Trips, A Day

Following the defeat from the September Campaign of 1939, when Polish soldiers had tried to repel the German invasion, the town of Oswiecim and also the surrounding areas were incorporated inside the Third Reich. Concurrently its name was changed to Auschwitz. After 1939, in the SS and Police Headquarters in Wroclaw (Braslau), the thought of setting up a concentration camp had also been proposed. The state justification with this plan took it's origin from the overcrowding of the existing prisons in Silesia, and also on require conducting further waves of mass arrest among the Polish inhabitants both Silesia and the all German-occupied Poland.

Several special committees were convened, whose task it had been to consider essentially the most favorable position for this type of camp. The supreme choice fell upon the deserted pre-war Polish barracks in Oswiecim. Situated a long way out of the developed portion of the town, they might quite easily be expanded and isolated externally world. Take into consideration not without significance was the convenient position of Oswiecim - an import and railway junction - within the existing communications network.

An order to proceed with intends to found a camp was presented with in April 1940, and Rudolf Hoss was appointed its first commandant. On June 14, 1940, the Gestapo dispatched the 1st political prisoners to KL Auschwitz - 728 Poles from Tarnow. Initially the camping ground comprised 20 buildings - 14 at walk-out and 6 by having an upper floor. During the period from 1941 to 1942 an additional story was put into all ground-floor buildings and 8 new blocks were constructed, while using the prisoners as the employees. Altogether the camping ground now contained 28 one-story buildings ( excluding kitchens, storehouses etc. ) The normal number of prisoners fluctuated between 13-16.000, reaching at one stage ( during 1942 ) an increasing total of 20.000 people. We were holding accommodated in the blocks, where even cellares and lofts had been for this specific purpose.



Since the quantity of inmates increased, the spot taught in camp also, grew, until it absolutely was changed into an enormous and horrific factory of death. The monstrosity in Oswiecim - KL Auschwitz I - became the parent or "Stammlager" into a whole generation of latest camps. In 1941 the making of another camp, later called Auschwitz II-Birkenau, was commenced inside the village of Brzezinka 3 kilometers away and in 1942 the camp ground in Monowice near Oswiecim-KL Auschwitz III-was established about the territory in the German chemical plant IG-Farbenindustrie. Furthermore, during the years 1942-1944, about 40 smaller branches of the Auschwitz complex happened these fell underneath the jurisdiction of KL Auschwitz III and were situated mainly near steelworks, mines and factories, where prisoners were exploited as cheap labour.

The camp in Oswiecim ( KL Auschwitz I) and in Brzezinka (KL Auschwitz II - Birkenau) are actually maintained as museums ready to accept the public. The main constructions and objects in Birkenau are the remnants of four crematoria, gas chambers and cremation pits and pyres, the special unloading platform were the deportees were selected as well as a pond with human ashes. In Auschwitz a real construction will be the "Death block."

Furthermore in the camps are very preserved blocks and a section of prisoners barracks, the primary entrance gates for the camps, sentry watch towers along with barbed wire fences. A few of the constructions destroyed with the Nazis were rebuilt in the original elements - as an illustration the ovens inside the crematorium I. Some objects were completely destroyed from the SS obliterating the traces of these crimes. In the instances of special importance the constructions were reproduced from the museum and used in the same area while they were during the existence of the Auschwitz camp. Above all these are the basic "Death wall" as well as the collective gallows at the role-call ground.

The prison blocks from the camp at Auschwitz contain exhibitions portraying a brief history of Auschwitz or tracing the torments of the several nations whose individuals were murdered here. Higher than the main gate at Auschwitz - in which the prisoners passed daily enroute to function (returning 12 hours or more later) you will find there's cynical inscription: "Arbeit macht frei" (Work brings freedom). and so on the small square through the kitchen the camping ground orchestra would play marsches, mustering the thousands of prisoners so they could possibly be counted more effectively by the SS.

That's a short details about a camp along with what you may expect when you're there.

Salt Mine in Wieliczka is a second part tours in a day.

Wieliczka Salt Mine near Krakow remembers the periods from the Middle Ages. It one of many world's oldest salt mine on the globe. This is the only mining facility in the world functioning continuously since the Middle Ages to the, allowing the evolution of mining technology in several historical periods. Wieliczka Salt Mine is approximately 300 km of excavation on 9 levels, the very first which - the amount of Bono - goes to a depth of 64 meters, while the latter lies 327 meters underneath the surface. Total period of sidewalks, connecting about 3000 excavation (sidewalks, ramps, service chambers, lakes, wells, shafts), exceeds 300 km. The tourist route is 3 km, consists of 20 chambers at depths from 64 to 135 meters.

For more details about Zakopane tour from Krakow explore this web site.