"Auschwitz - A production line of death " a Oswiecim Travel Page by jo104

It has taken me some time to do a write up on my visit to Auschwitz, it was an opportunity for me to pay my respects for the pointless deaths of over a million Jews, Poles, Gypsies and Soviet prisoners of war.

When I decided to visit the museum and memorial of Auschwitz-Birkenau I realised that a lot of people simply are unable to bring themselves to visit a place of such horrific historical tradegy. This is the reason I have decided to share my experiences on VT, to quote George Santanyana "Those that do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." How sad it is that this is true humanity has not learnt from the mistakes of the past and there is still mass genocide taking place in this modern day and age - will man ever learn.

If you do plan on visiting the memorial of Auschwitz, I would suggest you do some pre-reading on the subject of the holocaust. I have made some suggestions of books I found helpful in preparing myself.

Please be respectfull of the situation and the somber enviroment, DO NOT TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS OR VIDEO INSIDE THE EXHIBITIONS, this particularly annoyed me as it is specifically not allowed and this is clearly stated. Rather purchase some postcards and give some money back to the museum.

The museum recommends that children under the age of 14 years do not visit the memorial, personally I would agree that Aushwitz is not a place for young children the exhibits display gruesome images. When we visited there were groups of school children who even at an older age did not treat the grounds of Auschwitz with the respect it deserves.