Visit a Historical Site: Auschwitz

Last year I lived in Poland. Since I was there for the full year I had plenty of time to travel the country and visit places so I took advantage of the cheap train tickets and crisscrossed the country. One of the places I went to was a little town about an hour away from Kraków called Oświęcim.

Its a cute little town. One warning though, the bus stations is on the opposite side of town from the train station. I arrived there by bus and needed to meet us with some other people who were arriving by train. Instead of buying a ticket for the city buses I decided to walk, it ended up being a 7 or 8 km walk across the city.
When Poland was under German occupation in World War II Oświęcim was known by its German name Auschwitz.

The city had contained a polish munitions barracks before the war and when the Nazi's arrived they decided these barracks would be the perfect site for a concentration camp. Local townspeople were forced to help turn the barracks into a camp. They added a second floor the already exists soldier's living quarters and when they finished they were then imprisoned there. Inside the building were remnants of what had happened there.

 Zyklon B canisters.

 Eyeglasses, prosthetic legs, and suitcases taken from people sent to Auschwitz. Items taken from prisoners were sent a part of the camp known commonly as Canada (canada was considered the land of plenty). Prisoners that worked in Canada generally were better off than others and there was the opportunity take items (such as food and other needed supplies). One room contained a case full of human hair. The Nazis would cut off the hair of those sent to Auschwitz and then used it to make fabric. Upon seeing the suitcases and the hair some of the people in the group I was with started to cry.

 Ink that was used to tattoo identification tattoos on prisoners arms. Auschwitz was both a concentration camp and a death camp. In a concentration camp the prisoners are recorded. In the death camps, those sent there were not recorded at all, instead they were sent straight to the gas chambers.

 Identification symbols for the prisoners

 Gestapo Court

 Prisoners would have their hands tied behind their back and then they would be hung by them from these posts as punishment.

 Wall were firing squad occured.

 Rudolf Höss's house and the gallows he was hung from after the war.

 Inside of a gas chamber and the hole the zyklon b was dropped into

 Crematoria

Auschwitz I was considered to small for the plans the Nazis had so they demolished the houses in nearby villages in built Auschwitz II/Birkenau over the remains. 

 Remains of the crematoria/gas chambers. When it became obvious they would loose war, the nazis blew up the gas chambers in an attempt to cover up any evidence of what they did.

 Inside of prisoners living space. There is absolutely no insulation.

Toilets. Prisoners were give only 10 -30 seconds to use the restroom.

Auschwitz is a very emotional place. The Birkenau part especially has an eerie feel to it. Just standing there you feel that something terrible has occured in that place. When walking through there is hard to imagine that thousands of people stood in the very same place, suffering terribly.

Attend a Reenactment: An Ongoing Post

I like reenactments, thus I try to go to as many as I can. I'll probably go to the Texas Renaissance Festival at least 2 more times so this post shall be updated then.

 

World War II Reenactment in College Station

Back in March? ( it doesn't seem like its been that long, this year is going by way to fast) my friend Ayla and I drove to College Station for a World War II reenactment. After a very....exciting....drive through tiny back roads (that for some reason had 70mph speed limits) we neared the location of the reenactment. I'd worried that we would accidentally drive past it with out noticing but it turned out not to be a problem. Large American and German tanks are pretty hard to miss. Thanks to a few wrong turns we arrived there a bit later than we meant too and the battle had already started.

 We did however get there just in time to see the charge of American tanks that helped them win the battle. You don't quite realize how big those things are till you see them in person. 

Maybe 20 minutes later the battle had ended with a victory for the Americans and we were allowed to walk across the field and talk to the reenactors. (After they made sure all explosives were safely discharged of course.)  

As we walked around we talked with many of the people. All the weapons were actually working guns just loaded with blanks. The reenactors also carried around the same papers that a person of that time would (id papers from their respective countries ect) Its amazing the amount of work that is put into the reenactment to make it as authentic as possible.

As Ayla and I walked around the gentlemen in the panzer tank jokingly hit on us and warned us that the American soldier wouldn't as much of gentlemen. 

Ren Faire

So far I've been to the Renaissance festival twice this year. I went to the opening weekend (Oktoberfest) with my dad and later I went to Pirate weekend with a group of friends. We also plan on going back for the closing weekend Celtic Christmas. 

For Oktoberfest I planned on getting there early. Like most of my plans that did not happen. I took longer getting ready then I expected and just before I left my house it started to rain. Luckily by the time my dad and I got to the faire the rain had stoppped. The ground however was muddy which made walking hard. (Heels and mud are not mixture) We walked around for a bit and the stopped at Polonia, the polish area, to get food. As we finished eating we noticed the sky was during dark again so ended up leaving. Turns out that was the perfect time to leave. Just after we got in the car it began to  pour. 

 Since I never got around to fixing my dirndl I just wear some random clothes from my closet.

Later on in October I went back to the ren faire for Pirate Weekend with friends. Friday night when I got off work I met up with some friends and we drove down to the ren faire. We camped there than night so we could avoid traffic and get to the fair early. We ended being in the fairgrounds from 10am till closing fireworks around 8pm. Mostly we walked around looking at what was going on and what was being sold.

 

This time I actually planned out an outfit. I ended up going with a steampunk styled outfit since I already had a lot of the items needed to make one. Last minutes I sewed a skirt to go with the outfit. Once again I ended up wearing heels. While the ground wasn't muddy they still sunk into it making it difficult to walk on grass. This always ends up happpening, I wear shoes that really aren't suited for what I am doing. It also ended up being a little chilly that day and both the shirt and skirt were thin. Once big problem I hadn't of was the wind. The shorter layer of the skirt is a circle skirt made from two full circles of fabric and its made from a thing fabric. When the wind would blow that skirt would just fly up and because of the shear amount of fabric it was hard to stop it.

That night we camped again and then left sunday morning to go home. 

Overall it was a fun weekend, I plan on going back for Celtic Christmas with the same group of friends. This time though I'll try to wear shoes better suited for the ground.