Early one morning, a private tour company picked us up from Krakow and drove us about an hour outside of the city to see the sites of the World War II concentration camps Auschwitz and Birkenau. I grew up reading “The Diary of Anne Frank” and have listened to stories from my fiancé’s family of Polish survival during the Holocaust, but I somehow didn’t think the tour would have the emotional impact on me that it did. The buildings that remain as memorials and museums tell a story that’s hard to see and harder to forget, but they’re a beautiful tribute and a stark reminder that I think everyone should experience.
Photo taken at: Auschwitz-Birkenau