Auschwitz

An hour and half outside of Krakow is Auschwitz. The former death camp is now a memorial and museum receiving over 1 million visitors a year. Jayme's sister Jill minored in Holocaust Literature in college and offered some good insight into the history and stories of survival.

Birkenau (pictured here) is the larger Auschwitz camp and functioned primarily as a death factory. Between 1.1- 1.6 million people died at Auschwitz, 90% of them Jewish. Jayme posted the following comment on her blog regarding our day, "We were walking through the camp at Birkenau and the wind blowing in the rain storm provided some relief from the heat, but with it came a burning smell that just comes from the ground. The entire area, an old farm, one massive grave, just pulses with the tragedy."