Day 23
Location 5: Krakow
Nov. 23 2022
FYI: This is a serious, sad post.
Today I visited Auschwitz-Birkenau. It is the largest of the German Nazi concentration camps and extermination centers. Over 1.1 million men, women and children lost their lives there. Many of whom were innocent citizens who had committed no crime other than being Jewish.
One portion of the memorial and museum was a room filled with the shoes of victims. It was an overwhelming amount of shoes. A massive pile stretching across an entire room. We later learned that once SS soldiers learned of the impending liberation of the camp, they tried to destroy any evidence of their crimes, including destroying victims' shoes. So the shoes we were looking at were only a small percentage of the total shoes collected at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
This is not a photo of the room of shoes I described above. This is a separate room containing only the shoes of children.
It was a very cold day. Everyone was visibly cold. It was interesting to compare our discomfort with the suffering of the millions of victims who spent 11 hours working in this cold, for the entire winter.
I was honestly relieved when the tour ended to be out of the cold. The tour was three hours. And I had a jacket and multiple layers on, not thin, striped pajamas.
The Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial and museum is kept as a reminder of the unimaginable evil that human beings are capable of, so as to prevent anything like it from happening again. Below are some links (listed in alphabetical order) to charities that help communities that are often discriminated against.
Planned Parenthood provides a wide range of services — namely preventive care, including birth control, testing, and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, and screenings for cervical and other cancers.
TMCF supports the Black College Community and provides unparalleled access to a funnel of opportunities for students to journey to college, through college and into a career.
This organization provides information & support to LGBTQ young people 24/7, all year round.
Trans Lifeline provides trans peer support. They're run by and for trans people
World Vision supports people affected by the crisis in Ukraine by providing food, educational supplies, and shelter.