[dropcap custom_class=”whb”]Jay and I woke early again today. We ate breakfast at the hotel and was checked out of the hotel and on the road by eight. We were heading to Auschwitz. It is about a 1 1/2 drive. we needed to get there before 10. If we arrived before 10, we could enter the camps without having to join a tour group. We found it without any problem. The parking lot for cars was almost empty, but there were several tour buses already there. The people on the buses were milling around outside waiting to begin their tour. We were able to walk right in ahead of them and tour the camp. There were pictures inside the buildings of the prisoner kept there. You even were able to walk through the gas chamber and by the crematorium. It was a very humbling experience. After touring Auschwitz I, we went to the second camp which is about 2 kilometers away. There you saw the railroad that the Jews were brought in on. Some Jews were sent to the gas chamber as soon as they arrived. If the guards thought they were to weak to work then they were sent immediately to the gas chamber upon their arrival. t is hard to believe that something like that could occur.
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After touring Auschwitz, we headed toward Warsaw and our hotel for the night. t took us about 5 hours with all the traffic. There was a lot of traffic, especially big trucks. I think every other person in Poland must be a truck driver. we found the hotel this time pretty easily. We were staying at the Hotel Hetman, and as I found out, you have to reserve a parking space at the time you make your hotel reservations. Since I was taking a self drive tour, you would have thought that the tour organizer would have known this and reserved the space since they knew I would be driving. So we had to park on the street about a block away. This time I purchased the parking permit. I will have to buy another one by 8 in the morning.
We walked around some so that Jay could take pictures. Then we ate dinner. I wanted to go see a movie n the movie theater around the block from the hotel. I thought it would be fun to see an American movie in a Polish theater to see if they dubbed the voices or used subtitles. But Jay did not want to, so we didn’t.
