ARBEIT MACHT FREI "Work sets you free" is the sign you cross under when you enter Auschwitz death camp. It was a cruel joke by the Nazis as no one went free from here.
The original electric fence surrounding the camp.I did a day tour from Krakow to Auschwitz and nearby Birkenau, the largest concentration camp ever created. 1.1 Million people, mostly Jews, were murdered here between 1942 and 1945. I was told that this tour was a "must see" when visiting Krakow. I had visited the killing fields of Cambodia before, so I was hesitant to go. I wish I hadn't gone, and this will be my last visit to such a place. I stopped taking pictures in the first 5 minutes. Auschwitz is such a horrifying place, that I was physically drained and ill afterwards. I went back to my hostel and slept 12 hours. I agree that it is crucially important that people remember what happened here, in order to make sure it doesn't happen again. (Though it has; in Cambodia in 1975, in Bosnia in 1995, in Rwanda in 1994, in Darfur in 2003.) But I know history very well, and I don't wish to visit these places anymore.
