What you see and learn about Auschwitz and camp 2 called Auschwitz-Birkenau

 Holocaust Memorial Day is in January, recalling the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland, where the larges concentration camp was situatedarn and the huge majority died. Our guide told us that although we were tired after touring several barracks buildings and the forecourt were the roll call was held and poeple were hanged, we must go on to Birkenau down the road. 

In Auschwitz you see te railway track which brought the trains from all over Europe. In Auschwitz, you see the receiving room where those who were kept alive were given numerical stamps on their arms, and you see the before and after photos, inlcuding one girl I recall. 

After 3 months the inhabitants were so thin and haggard they were not recognizable from photos and needed numbers. Then in other blocks you see the suitcases with names, then the children's shoes, the eyeglasses. The underground cells for the priest who took the place of a prisoner and was held until he starved to death or was killed.

When you reach Birkenau with the gas chambers, you go from the individual horror to the horrifying scale of the tragedy. You see the fields surrounded by tennis netting and watch towers. 

Your guide, who usually has a connection such as a relative who died there, is a guide for a set time and then needs a break from the emoitonal strain. Your guide says, this field held the French, the next field held the Italians, the next field held the Greeks, the next field held ..." Jews and other prisoners from the whole of Europe, transported here, en masse, and exterminated.

All the more remarkable are the ones who got away, some just before the war, or after the war started before the killings. Plus discoveries of items buried at concentration camps or elsewhere. And new reserachers, seeking grandparents or other relatives as the internet expands the numbers of people doing family research.

For more about the survivors and Prince William and Kate see previous post.

Interesting Websites

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auschwitz_concentration_camp

https://holocaustlearning.org.uk/learning/untold-stories-for-key-stage-2/

 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9192831/Survivors-Britain-escaped-Nazi-Germany-mark-Holocaust-Memorial-Day.html

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-9189127/ID-tags-children-aged-6-12-murdered-discovered-Sobibor-Nazi-death-camp.html

About the Author

Angela Lansbury is teacher of English. (Advanced English and English as a Second Language or English as a Foreign Language, French and other languages, an aspiring polyglot.)

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Member of many toastmasters  speaker training clubs, and speaking contest judge.

Angela Lansbury, the author of 20 books including Wedding Speeches & Toasts, and Quick Quotations, has lived in the USA, Spain and Singapore. 

She  has several blogs and writes daily on at least two of the following:

travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com

dressofthedayangela.blogspot.com

translateforfun.blogspot.com

 Please share links to your favourite posts.

Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland - why you should visit, or at least investigate, and what to see

What do we all know and like about Poland, and Polish Jews? Poland is the land of the bagel! Brought to London and New York and eventually worldwide, originally by Polish Jews. The Russians expelled the Jews who moved west to Poland; and those Jewish travellers who could afford it travelled on, some via the UK, to the USA.

And warm filling red beetrot soup, called Borsht.


From Ukraine, Russia, Poland, restaurants in London, England, jars in the supermarket. And on menus in the restaurants in Krakow.

Bagels and borcht. Filling food to console you, after the horrors of Auschwitz. For years I did not visit Poland, for fear of the compulsion to visit Auschwitz. It was everything I feared. Unforgettable. Is there any light relief?

Yes. We have mostly heard of the music of Chopin, and films such Polanski's The Pianist, and Schindler's List, based in Krakow (pronounced Krakov).

 Let's start with the flag of Poland which you might see on brochures and websites and planes even before you reach the country. It has a plain white band above red. The white of the flag is hard to see on a white background, so I have shown you a picture of the flag flying against a blue sky.

The Polish flag is similar to several others. (More for you on flags in next post.)

Now, where is Poland?


Map of Europe showing Poland, from article on Poland in Wikipedia.
In more detail from the Poland Portal in Wikipedia.


Auschwitz is in south Poland, just across the border, outside the pretty, historic small, ancient capital of Krakow.



Krakow was near the border and small, so the Germans were able to quickly surprise, invade and capture it, thus saving the beautiful buildings from destruction. (Unlike larger and more central Warsaw, which resisted invasion and was destroyed by the invaders.)

Krakow
So the quaint, pretty capital of Krakow (pronounced Krakov), perfectly preserved with its cathedral square, and wrought iron signs, is your happy home base, before visiting the horrors of Auschwitz.

Hotel Base
On a side trip from the captal, Warsaw, we visit the former capital, Krakow. We stayed in a small boutique hotel overlooking the main square of Krakow. Larger modern hotels with more amenities are around the outskirts, but it is easy to walk around the whole area including the former Jewish quarter and Jewish museum.


Auschwitz
Huge with masses of coaches including Polish schoolchildren for whom it is a required visit where they learn what was done on their territory, not by Poles but by Nazi Germans to Poles and a greater numbers of Jews, Romanies, homosexuals, political prisoners and others.



Double area. The barracks where people were confined, photographed on arrival and numbered on their arms on arrival because three months later they were so thin and haggard they were no recognizable from the first photos. Stacks of suitcases with names on the sides, children's shoes.

Stories of personal horror. Underground prison cells where a priest offered to replace another prisoner. Quad where roll call was taken to witness hangings.

Birkenau
Must see the second area, Birkenau, half a mile down the road. The killing area where areas the size of football fields, with electrified tennis netting and guard towers. Yes, miles of fields, each area the size of a football field for a different nationality and language group, going on for as far as the eye can see, so you realise the sheer scale of the deaths, and the significance of those railway from all the countries of Europe, crossing Europe, all leading here. America has Jews in every city. But Europe? hardly any. Now you know why so many European cities have a Jewish Synagogue with a list of names, a tiny congregation. Nothing left. Where did the people go? Here.

I had been to Dachau, outside Europe, and seen the map of the railway lines, and shrugged. A map of railway lines. So what, I had thought.

To visit Auschwitz and realise that trains from all over Europe end here, puts the sheer scale of the holocaust in perspective.



Who survived? A person who survived was a translator. Because even with a machine gun, its useless to shout to people to stand, or march out, or lie down, or take your clothes off, if they don't know what you are shouting.

Anne Frank, hidden for most of WW2, was one of the last to arrive at Auschwitz. She survived, put to work, surviving on the rations of food donated by her mother, who died. As the Russians arrived to liverate Auschwitch, and the Americans and Allies were on the brink of invading Poland, the Germans retreated, taking Anne Frank to Bergen-Belsen in Germany where she died.

Schindler's List
Returning to Krakow, on a brighter note, you can visit the museum on the site of the factory featured in the film Schindler's List. Schindler kept them all alive, just a short drive away from Auschwitz. As you may recall from the film, he entertained the German Nazi officials, and saved so many. I spent ages watching the videos, every testimony and praise and thanks to him and stories of incidents involving his kindness and ingenuity you can see on video film.

Useful Websites
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poland
https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Search?q=auschwitz
.uk/Attraction_Review-g946539-d284154-Reviews-Treblinka_Memorial-Treblinka_Mazovia_Province_Central_Poland.html#REVIEWS
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagel
https://www.annefrank.org/en/anne-frank/main-characters/edith-frank/

About the Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
I have many more posts, on Treblinka, the film Song of Names, German Language, and destinations around the world. Please share links to your favourite posts.

Poland's Points of Interest: A-Z Auschwitz to Warsaw: try Chopin's favourite food, gingerbread

Problem
Flying into Poland's current capital, Warsaw, first you must see Poland's two major cities of Warsaw and then smaller Krakow, the former capital.  We flew from Warsaw to Krakow to save time. Then what?

Answers
Start with the monument to Chopin in Warsaw, and end by eating one of his favourite foods, gingerbread, in Torun.

Warsaw - the huge capital city, with museums and monuments - and music.
A city tour will take you past the
1 Chopin monument,
2 Jewish Museum,
3 WWII museum,
4 Old quarter, walls and reconstructed streets of boutiques, restaurants, many arched roof cellar restaurants. Eat Borsht, beetroot soup.

A big city, concert halls and massive WWII monuments and memories: on a general tour our guide talked about Poland versus Russian occupation, the Katyn massacre, Jews in the Warsaw ghetto. On my second day I took a Jewish tour and visited a Jewish cemetery and the Jewish orphanage, still in use, with the statue in the front garden of the orphanage director who could have escaped when the orphans were taken to Auschwitz but chose to stay with them and accompany them and comfort them on their last journey.

If you have a third day:
5 Fryderyk Chopin Museum in O Castle

The Fryderyk Chopin Museum in Warsaw, Poland, established in 1954 and dedicated to Polish composer Frédéric Chopin. Wikipedia

Address: Pałac Gnińskich, 00-368, Okólnik 1, 00-368 Warszawa, Poland.

Krakow
Second city you must see is quaint little Krakow with its pretty medieval cathedral square. It's in the south, just over Germany's northern border.  The Nazis captured it quickly and made it their HQ so it was preserved. Walk to the old Jewish quarter and Jewish museum. Next day take a tour to Auschwitz.

Recover eating an Ashkenazi Jewish favourite food, which is a national Polish dish, borsht, beetroot soup. The Polish version is rich and thick and creamy and filling, unlike the Russian version which is a clear soup.

Borsht. Photo by Dmitri Dzema in Wikipedia.

Beauty and the beast. Every school in Poland and almost every brochure includes trips to:
1 Auschwitz and Birkenau;
2 Schindler Museum; and the
3 Salt Mine.

Why do you have to see the sister site of Birkenau after Auschwitz? Auschwitz is compact, like a boarding school with a series of houses. Each room has exhibits explaining something different.

One room explains why Auschwitz was the camp where people were tattooed after being photographed. Those 'lucky' few who were kept alive to work had shrunk and wizened with hollowed cheeks so that after three months the second photos shows they were unrecognisable. Therefore prisoners were given identity numbers on their arms.

See suitcases with names painted on the outside, a pyramid of shoes, a mountain of children's toys - a small, dirty torn teddy bear.

Auschwitz gives you claustrophobia. Birkenau gives you agoraphobia.

Birkenau is a huge empty space surrounded by barbed wire. Walk inside two or three reconstructed aircraft size hangers, with tiered wooden bunks, no bedding, rebuilt by survivors who had built the originals.

The guide tells you: "This field is not the whole area. It's just the crematoria and the hangers housing Dutch people whose relatives have been gassed. This field for the men. The next field for the women. The next was for the French. The one after that for the Germans. The one after that for the Greeks. The one after that for the Romanians. The one after that for ..." All surrounded by watchtowers and barbed wire, for miles.  I may have got the countries in the wrong order, but you get the point, the horror of the sheer scale.

Why so much Jewish memorabilia in Poland? The Russian ruler, after the assassination of his father, pushed out the Jews over the Western border. So more Jews lived in Poland than any other European country. The Jews were forced from the continent-size area of Russia into the smaller country of Poland.

A century before Auschwitz, a small number of organized Jews set up textile factories and built mansions, whilst the poorer ones were the tailors, workers, scholars, painters and writers.

Anne Frank was in Auschwitz, and survived. Anne's mother passed her small rations to her daughters to keep them alive. The Germans retreated back to Germany, dropping off the skeletal Jews into Belsen, where the Red Cross food parcels were stored outside the camp. Inside, the prisoners starved to death or died of disease, like Anne after her sister. Some survived, you will know if you watch interviews with survivors in the documentary film Shoah, by eating dead bodies.

The Russians liberated Auschwitz in a cold January, celebrated, solemnly, as Holocaust Day. The Americans and British arrived in Belsen.

(The Jewish Museum in London has archives of photos available to historians but photos are not displayed because it is too upsetting for descendants. Instead the museum shows jollier exhibitions about happier, later times, such as designers, and singers such as Alma Cogan, Amy Winehouse in their heyday.)

Why is no mention made of Anne Frank in Auschwitz? Because she is already well demented where she lived in Amsterdam where she is a Dutch heroine. Her memorial wooden name marker is in Belsen where she died. Poland prefers to tell the story of Poles, such as the Polish priest who took the place of a man condemned to die, and not of one individual already so well documented elsewhere, when no trace of her is in Auschwitz. (I presume they have her photo on arrival at Auschwitz?)

What other cities and sights can you see and admire in Poland?

Answer
Here's an A-Z of cities' highlights:

Bialystok
In the nineteenth century it was home to many cultures and languages. Inspired the creation of Esperanto by Ludwig Zamenhof.

Bydgoszcz
1 Museum of Soap and the History of Dirt (Museum Mydla I Historii Brudu)

Gdansk - known for its
1 Amber Museum, and
2 Neptune fountain landmark in the old town.

You see amber everywhere in Poland, the shops along the streets of Warsaw. Little red yellow and green ovals set in 925 silver - or maybe silver plate, for under £100, in the UK.
Gdansk adjoins Sopot.

Amber Story
In the UK watch out for cheaper pieces which are very pretty but probably fake amber. I saw a bargain in a window in the UK. I asked for it to be shortened to fit my wrist. The shop did not charge for the time spent chopping and re-attaching the clasp, but kept the bit cut off to sell it.

I asked the shop for a receipt saying it's amber, for insurance - at a jewellery shop in Hay on Wye in Wales. After some reluctance, the shopkeeper wrote the receipt.

I grabbed the receipt and ran off to catch my coach. Later I read the receipt and found my bargain amber was described not as real amber but synthetic amber. Now you know why you are being asked to pay higher prices for larger pieces on pendants in the top hotels in Poland. (If it's beyond your budget, or you can't decide between two or more pieces, try to bargain for a reduction on buying two or more.)

Lodz
Physically, geographically, the heart or centre of Poland. Sad stories of WWII.

Lublin
Read The Tailor of Lublin - a short story in a collection of stories in  book of the same name by Isaac Bashevis Singer, was a Yiddish tale of a tailor, immortalised by a prolific author who went to the USA and wrote nostalgically about the characters from his former home in poorer areas of Poland.
That's why you feel you have heard of Lublin, and feel warmly towards it, even if you know nothing else about it. (Check for copies of The Tailor Of Lublin on Amazon if you like to read a proper paperback or hardback book.)

Olsztyn
1 Landmark St James's Basilica, is a bishop's seat, and towers over the town.
2 Astronomer Copernicus lived in the city as a church official. See his astronomical instruments in the castle.
3 Astronomical Observatory and Planetarium.
4 Gothic and art deco buildings and lakes.


Poznan

Rzeszów
Southeastern Poland. See the
Rzeszów Cellars (Rzeszówskie Piwnice) under the main square. The cellars were used for storage by merchants and under wartime attack as a place of refuge.

Sopot
Sopot seaside - part of the Tri-city with Gdansk and Gdynia
1 Poland's most photographed building is Sopot's Crooked House, a wonky pub, part of a shopping centre, in a pedestrianised outdoor street.

Everything is crooked, curved. The roofline is like a boat or spoon. The top edge of the windows dips. The doors curve in like a waist - not just the door but the whole, large centre section of the building. You wouldn't think it could stand, but it does.

Indoors are illustrations by the (Jewish) artist who inspired the building. His tombstone, which you can see on the internet, is dramatic.

 Sopot's other claim to fame is
2 Europe's longest pier. The pier extends back to a town square which becomes an
3 Ice rink in winter.
Spot adjoins Gdansk.

Szczecin (Pronounced Stetchin, hear it in Wikipedia)
1 Gingerbread biscuits with sea symbols such as sailors, ships, and anchors. Eat them.
2 Buy them as gifts or souvenirs They can be used to decorate Christmas trees.

Tarnów
Tiny Tarnów is warm, with narrow streets. In addition to
1 Jewish sights: trail: cemetery gates with stars; graves with blue ribbons and blue railings; plaques on walls; brick bimah (pulpit) in street mini park with inscription and protective roof. (Photos in TripAdvisor.)
2  The Ethnography museum has 'Europe's only exhibition on the Romanis', says the Poland Cities guidebook. (I thought Romania had something. I must check.)

Torun - Birthplace and home of astronomer Copernicus. World's capital of Gingerbread.
1 Copernicus Home Museum. Muzeum Mickolai Copernica.
1 Amber Museum, and
2 Neptune fountain landmark in the old town.

You see amber everywhere in Poland, the shops along the streets of Warsaw. Little red yellow and green ovals set in 925 silver - or maybe silver plate, for under £100, in the UK.

Amber Story
In the UK watch out for cheaper pieces which are very pretty but probably fake amber. I saw a bargain in a window in the UK. I asked for it to be shortened to fit my wrist. The shop did not charge for the time spent chopping and re-attaching the clasp, but kept the bit cut off to sell it.

I asked the shop for a receipt saying it's amber, for insurance - at a jewellery shop in Hay on Wye in Wales. After some reluctance, the shopkeeper wrote the receipt.

I grabbed the receipt and ran off to catch my coach. Later I read the receipt and found my bargain amber was described not as real amber but synthetic amber. Now you know why you are being asked to pay higher prices for larger pieces on pendants in the top hotels in Poland. (If it's beyond your budget, or you can't decide between two or more pieces, try to bargain for a reduction on buying two or more.)

2 Cosmopolis Fountain.
3 Gingerbread Walk Of Fame in Old Town Square. Brass plaques in the shape of gingerbread biscuits. Make gingerbread in shop's workshop.
4 Actors in 16th century costume walk the old town at night.

Wiki says: The precocious 15-year-old composer Frédéric Chopin stopped over in Toruń, where he  sampled the city's famous confection and grew so fond of it that he wrote a letter about it to his friends and colleagues. He even sent some to Warsaw. In honor of this, Poland's largest producer of Toruń gingerbread, the Kopernik Confectionery Company, has created a special heart-shaped gingerbread called Scherzo, bearing Chopin's likeness on the wrapper.

Toruń holds an annual celebration of gingerbread called Święto Piernika (the Gingerbread Festival). It's in
June.

Wroclaw
Wroclaw had the tallest and the smallest.
1 The tiny dwarves, statues, only knee high or smaller, beside little doorways or other delights. You can take a guided tour or buy a guidebook.
2 Salvador Dali sculpture, in front of the Sky tower.
3 The Sky Tower, Europe's tallest skyscraper.

Easy To Learn Polish Words
Polish - English
aquarium - aquarium
historii - history
i - and
Muzeum - museum
mydla - soap
stary - old (remember as old as the stars)

English - Polish
and - i
aquarium - aquarium
history - historii
Museum - Museum
old - stary
soap - mydla

Useful Websites
Pl at the end of the website name stands for Poland. EU stand for the EU or European Union.
en stands for encyclopaedia.
www.akwarium.gdynia.pl
www.planetarium.torun.en
www.poland.travel/en
www.rzeszow.pl
www.szczecin.eu/en / www.seaofadventure.eu
www.torumtips.com
www.visittorum.pl

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. See my later post on the dwarves. Please share links to your favourite posts.

News in Brief:- Babi Yar gravestones display planned - and light relief from Kiev metro

Reading a poem about Babi Yar. Photo from Wiki, public domain, I presume because it was taken at a public place and public event, photo from US library, author unknown, from an article on poems by various authors on the subject of the Bai Yar massacre of more than 33,000 people, almost the entire Jewish population of Kiev, the biggest group in Europe, plus other local people who also died at the ravine.

Problem
Today was national poetry day in the UK. The 2017 theme was Freedom.

Just after I read about this I opened a page of news about Babi Yar. I remembered the poem about Babi Yar where so many died. It starts, No monument stands in Bab Yar ... You find several version of it, depending on how the translators have chosen to translate each word. It is no Monument stands, no gravestone stands, no stone stands, no memorial rises, no grave reminds you. Depends how you think it translates best, evoking the emotion, whether you think it should be sadness, or anger, or shock, or chill, stillness, ghostliness, fear, desolation, protest.

Postage stamp issued in 2011 to commemorate the 1941-43 massacres at Babi Yar outside the capital, Kiev. Photo from Wiki. Public domain.

Is there anything to see at Babi Yar near Kiev in the Ukraine? It is the place where Jews were massacred. Thousands. September. Yevtushencko wrote a poem about the lack of acknowledgement at the place and in Ukraine contrasts with Auschwitz in Poland.

Auschwitz seems to be on every brochure of tours which you pick up in Krakov, as well as numerous films. Polish schoolchildren are taken there.

Would Babi Yar in Ukraine upset me? I have been to Dachau and Auschwitz + Birkenau, assorted Jewish museums, Anne Frank House.

What is there to see at Babi Yar? They are planning to relocate gravestones retrieved from a cemetery as well as items found in the ravine. But what is there to see now?

I found pictures on
Jewish News
Babi Yar Website
Find a grave
Wikipedia.

I could identify several monuments. The most interesting and memorable monument and story was the personal story of the heroine of the Jewish Resistance. She is shown by a statue.

You can plot a walk past the various monuments. I was expecting to see a museum, but the site seems to be a website in two languages. To find this photo I looked in Wiki for this statue of the young woman (member of the Jewish resistance, imprisoned and killed aged 22). To learn about her I used the links to the other websites.

Menorah, seven branch candle stick lit on the eve of the Sabbath, with candles reparenting th seven days of the week. Monument to Jews killed at Babi Yar in 1941.

Monument to children on the site of the Babi Yar massacre, now a public park. Notice the date 1941. photo from Wikipedia in Ukrainian.

I noticed that one of the photos of Babi Yar was copied from the Ukrainian Wikipedia. I never realised there was one. I suppose there must be a wikipedia in many other languages. Although I don't speak Ukrainian, and it would take a while to copy every sentence or paragraph from different areas into Google Translate, I thought it would be worthwhile to look and see if they had more photos of Babi Yar. Sure enough they did. You have to type in something which their website will recognise. I typed in babi dar, found a page with that in a caption of acknowledgements for a photo. I clicked on that site with what looked like Ukrainian (similar to Russian, Cyrillic script) and there were the photos I wanted. I have not yet had time to translate all the captions and acknowledgements. If yu want them please go to the Ukrainian wiki. Go to the UkrainianWikipedia. You will find more photos of Babi-yar.

Grand station in Kiev with chandeliers. Photo from Wikipedia in Ukrainian.

Delightful Stations
In contrast to this sadness, see the delightful underground railway stations of the three train lines (more lines planned). The stations, like the ones in Moscow and St Petersburg, are designed as People's Palaces, with statues, giant historical paintings, chandeliers, pillars of different colours, with light bands around the top, like giant colourful torches, arches like cathedrals with patterned edges, trains painted blue.

https://nationalpoetryday.co.uk
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babi_Yar_in_poetry
https://new.findagrave.com/memorial/5913027/jewish_memorial_at_babi_yar

I have written a guidebook to Jewish sites worldwide. I have written about ten books on popular subjects (such as How To Be The Best Man) published by mainstream publishers and ten more of minority interest self-published including a Poetry Workbook. For a selection of my books, see Amazon and Lulu.com

Angela Lansbury

Kate and William's Tour to Berlin and Memorials You Might Visit

 Kindertransport Museum memorial, Liverpool Street station, London.

My photos of the Kindertransport statues are copyright. The ones in Wikipedia are free - check their photos and permission.

Problem
Kate and William visited Stutthof near Gdansk in Poland, then flew to Berlin where they saw the Berlin Holocaust memorial and a camp. Yes, but they took a plane between them.

Their visit has encouraged others to follow in their footsteps to Holocaust museums and camps and memorials. Where are the Holocaust museums, concentration camps and memorials and which could you see on a visit to Berlin, Germany, Poland or another country? A Tripadvisor reader asked which ones were within reach of a stay centred on Berlin.

Why visit more than one? If you are not trying to trace an ancestor's route, why would you impose that sadness on yourself, whether on a business trip or a holiday?

The knowledge that it is there dominates other thoughts in your mind. It's like looking at road accidents. You are mesmerised by the horror. Feel that by witnessing, although you cannot help anybody who is dead, you can somehow prevent future tragedies to yourself and others by learning lessons and warning other people how to watch out for danger. You feel that it would be disrespectful to ignore it and just party.

A visit to Auschwitz is very harrowing. I had put off visiting Poland for years and when I reached Poland I found visiting Auschwitz was unavoidable. The Poles want people to know that although it was on Polish soil it was organised by the German Nazi party. Every Polish school takes children there. The concentration camp is on most tours from Krakow, either as the main feature of the tour or part of a combined tour to other locations such as a salt mine, and Auschwitz was just as bad as I feared.

Answer to tour planning problem - lists

GERMANY
Berlin has the Berlin Wall museum on general tours but you may want to spend time at:
Berlin - Holocaust museum, the one with the concrete block maze outside.
Munich - Dachau camp.

POLAND
Krakow, former capital. Beautiful small city with a preserved square and medieval cathedral. Preserved because it was just across the border from Germany and the Germans invaded and quickly captured the small city by surprise and made it their Nazi HQ. Jews were sent on trains from German and all over Europe to Auschwitz outside the city.

1 Auschwitz
This is where Anne Frank and her sister and mother were sent. Elderly and children were gassed, the useful able bodied adults who survived selection set to work. Learn that the able bodied prisoners had tattooed numbers because after three months they had aged and thinned so much that you could not recognize them from photos taken on arrival.

2 Birkenau
You can do both on a combined tour. Although it is possible to visit Auschwitz without Birkenau, the main day tour takes you to both. As people selling tours tell you, it is essential to see both to understand. The shock is that it goes on for miles. Field after field, each separated from the next by barbed wire and huge, high watch towers, with a different field for each country and language group. This field of hangars with bunk beds for the French; this field for the Germans; this field for the Poles; this field for the Greeks and so on; and on; and on.

3 Schindler's Factory
Finish with a story which had a happy end for many, a museum in the former factory of Schindler, with videos of survivors saying 'what he did for me'.
Liberated by Russians.

Warsaw
The large capital to tour. Many tours will first pass the Chopin monument, then the Jewish Ghetto and / or the outside of the Jewish Museum. Many other tours go inside both the Warsaw war museum and the Jewish Museum. (I asked for another private tour going to the Ghetto, the Synagogue and the Orphanage.)
Jewish Museum.
WWII Orphanage. Statue outside (ask a driver on a private tour to stop) and exhibition inside the orphanage. (Tours by appointment because the place is in use and not enough visitors or guides to run a tour except on demand.) Heroic head was offered the chance to be rescued by the resistance, but chose to accompany the little children on the train to Auschwitcz where he and they died.
(Jewish cemetery has WWII memorial. Interesting, but not a major attraction.)
(Synagogue.)

Czech Republic
Prague. Large Jewish Museum and a combined ticket for a group of synagogues and cemeteries.
Terezin camp. The place where the Red Cross were deceived into thinking all was well, as shown in a film. (Prague also has a museum on Franz Kafka. )

Tips
Belsen. Back in Germany - where the retreating Germans took the Auschwicz survivors on a forced march.  Then they died of mal treatment or mal nourishment, although Red Cross food was stockpiled outside. Anne Frank and her sister died here.

On a tour through Germany we unexpectedly drove past the sign to Belsen but had no time to stop because we had a route with hotels and meetings arranged and had not looked at the map and seen that we were passing Belsen. Liberated by Americans.

What are the main features of each place?

Dachau
I went to Dachau near Munich first. We started with the jollier tourist sites marked on maps.  We had photographed the fairytale castle of Neuschwanstein immortalised by Disney, spent a jolly evening in the wine district. Then before leaving the area, took a sobering look at Dachau.

I remember staring at the map of all the train routes to Auschwicz. The texts and human guides seemed to think it was very important. I wondering why a map of train routes was such a prominent feature. I was more interested in finding out about people than looking at maps. The grim stories of what life was like and how people died, and the glad news of the liberation of the camp and the survivors. Also the physical evidence, the photos and written records, human witnesses of the liberation - proving that the holocaust took place.

UK
Jewish Museum in London. Kindertransport statue on Liverpool Street station. Memorial to Anne Frank in a central London Park.
Other Jewish museums and Holocaust memorial centres in other cities.
In London, England, it seemed absurd that anybody would doubt the holocaust. Later my mother told me that post-war the cinemas had shown news reels.

My mother, who lost her first husband in WWII at El Alamein, had lost nobody in the holocaust. But she sympathised and chatted to everybody in shops in Edgware and Hendon and Golders Green. I remember her diverting to a shop to buy stockings, even though they were more expensive, because she felt sorry for the woman serving and wanted to give her a sale and talk and listen to her. The assistant would enquire after our family. Then when mother enquired after the woman's family. She would respond happily about one relative in England. Then she would look sad and say of another relative add, "I had a ... but. "

Years later I met two people at my Writing Group. One elderly woman with a German accent came to the UK just before WWII. She said of her mother, "She wrote to me in 194.* but I never heard from her again." (*I forget the exact date.)

My travel agent had a family photo. Her cousin survived WWII, as an unborn baby. When there was a roundup in a block of flats, the people upstairs knocked on the front door and said, "Your pregnant daughter, quick, come up to our flat."  The travel agent's cousin was the unborn baby whose mother was saved. My travel agent said to me, "You see, there are good people."

Tips
Check out websites for (alphabetical order):
Auschwicz
Belsen
Berlin
Birkenau
Jewish Museum, London
Kindertransport
Krakow
Munich
Schindler's factory
Schindler
TripAdvisor forum on camps within reach of Berlin
Wiki article on list of concentration camps
Yad Vashem website (Documentation of those lost in the Holocaust, stories from survivors and tributes to the Righteous Gentiles who saved Jews, such as Schindler.)

Kinderstransport Memorial, Liverpool Street Station, London.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. I have several more posts about destinations in German, and Poland, and England, holocaust memorials and synagogues and WWII worldwide. Please share links to your favourite posts.