Well, I now have 2 days worth to write and it's about 3:30 AM, so I'll try my best to think back... On Friday, we went back to Auchwitz and Birkenau for a complete tour. Auchwitz I is mostly reconstructed, but it was rebuilt so that most of it is the same way it originally was. Now, the camp is really more of a museum.
First, we saw a 20 minute film in Auchwitz. It was in black and white with English narration, and parts of it were very graphic. Walking around the camp, we had a Polish guide. We walked through the barracks, which were now exhibits, each barrack with a different "theme". One was about the Jews, in a Yad Vashem type style. There was one barrack that showed actual living conditions, which were incredibly bad. We saw cells that were about three feet square and completely dark where four people were packed in to stand for hours on end.
Another exhibit showed the belongings of the Jews that were confiscated.
There were huge amounts of everything - carefully labeled suitcases,
eyeglasses, shoe polish, packages of hair, about 40,000 pairs
of shoes, and lots more. One exhibit had clothing taken from babies.
