I’ve been home for a week now and I’ve had time to catch up on sleep and think about everything that I did for the past 3 weeks. On the “Self-assessment” tab of this blog, I’ve written a few thoughts about how I feel my trip went. (August 1)

Today is my last day abroad which is so hard to believe. I’ve been in Frankfurt for 4 days now and after a few hours of exploring on the first day, I was already feeling bored. In the last few days, I’ve taken the train and visited Mainz, Stuttgart and Heidelberg, all of which I loved. I think I don’t particularly enjoy Frankfurt because there are skyscrapers everywhere, which makes it feel like just another American city to me. In a few hours, I will head to the airport and fly back home. In the next few days, I’ll post a reflection of my trip. (July 24)

I spent the last 2 days exploring around Krakow and I think it wins as my favorite city this trip. The last 4 photos are from a tour I took today around the Jewish quarter of Krakow, the Krakow Jewish ghetto and also Schindler's factory. Oskar Schindler was a member of the Nazi party, however he could be seen as a good one. He employed hundreds of Jewish people in his factory as a way to keep them from being sent to concentration camps. Early tomorrow morning, I will take multiple trains and travel all day to Frankfurt, Germany, the city I flew into to and I will spend a few days there before heading home. It's hard to believe that I only have 5 days left. (July 19)

Today I went to Oświęcim, Poland and visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. There were 3 Auschwitz camps in the area and 2 are still around, Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II Birkenau. Like most people, I only ever really knew about this camp when people talked about the Holocaust. The first camp seemed to remind me of a little town because it was much more organized than the other camps I went to. This might just be because Auschwitz I still had all of the buildings while the other camps only had a few buildings and the rest destroyed. The first place we went to was the main gate with the words "ARBEIT MACHT FREI", something at most of the camps and a gate that I've seen pictures of before. My tour guide took us inside a few of the buildings, which were used for things like kitchens, infirmaries and sleeping quarters. Since the site is now a museum, we saw a lot of things like victims' shoes, luggage and even the hair they shaved and cut off the women. Even though Auschwitz I was technically a concentration camp and it a death camp, meaning the prisoners had to do hard labor, which generally drove them to death, we saw the gas chamber and crematorium. After about 2 hours, we took a bus a few minutes away to the Birkenau camp, which was the death camp. The only purpose of this camp was to kill as many people as possible. When we arrived, the first thing I noticed is how massive the camp is, especially now that I can compare it to the other camps I went to in the last 2 weeks. The main gate and the train tracks leading inside is something that I've seen pictures of before, so it was crazy to witness it in real life. There were dozens of rows of buildings, most of which are now destroyed, so we walked to the back of the camp where the 4 crematoriums once were. When Hitler and the Nazis knew they were losing the war and that it was coming to an end, the crematoriums at Birkenau were bombed to destroy any evidence of the murders, so our guide took us to the ruins. Unlike Auschwitz I and the other camps, there were no museums or exhibits at Birkenau, so we didn't spend as much time there, but the depressing atmosphere didn't make me oppose leaving. Just like the other camps, I tried to observe the other visitors of the camp. Since Auschwitz-Birkenau is the most well-known camp, I knew it would be a different experience. There were hundreds of other visitors and tour groups there at the time I was and that was very early in the morning. At some of the exhibits, we actually had to wait in line. The other camps I visited weren't nearly as crowded as this one, especially Groß-Rosen which was mostly deserted. I also took notice to what people chose to take pictures of. I didn't see anyone taking inappropriate pictures of themselves in front of anything, but I did notice a lot of people in my group taking pictures of things like a photo of malnourished prisoners that were in the exhibits. It makes me wonder what they need a picture like that for. There were many places in the camp, like the gas chamber, where photography wasn't allowed, and rightfully so. Before I boarded the bus to return to Krakow, I tried to have a quick conversation with the tour guide, who seemed to be the most knowledgeable out of all the guides I've had on this trip. She told me that the Auschwitz-Birkenau guides had to take a 5 month course to be trained, which included paper exams, oral exams and a practice walk-through tour of the camps. She told me she had always been interested in the Holocaust and the concentration camps all her life and wanted to be able to teach others. This is something that the other tour guides I walked to said as well. Auschwitz-Birkenau was my 5th and final camp, so I will spend one more day exploring Krakow, then take a 15 hour train to Frankfurt before flying home in a few days. (July 18)

I just left Wroclaw and I’m now going to be spending the day traveling to Krakow, but yesterday I went to the Groß-Rosen camp. Getting to the camp was much, much different than the other 3 camps, which had buses that went directly to the site. After taking multiple trains to the town of Rogoznica, I then had to walk for 45 minutes on the side of the road to reach the entrance. Once I got there, I noticed how deserted this camp seemed to be compared to the others I’ve been to, probably due to the fact that the only way to reach the camp is by your own car or by walking. This camp also didn’t offer English tours, so I spent around 2 hours exploring by myself. Even though Groß-Rosen was not an extermination camp, it was one of the most brutal. On the site, there was a rock quarry that the prisoners were worked to death at. Out of the 4 camps I’ve been to so far, Groß-Rosen definitely seemed to be the eeriest, but that may be due to the fact that it was a grey day and it was pretty quiet outside. Since I didn’t go on a guided tour and there were not many visitors at the camp, it’s hard to determine how strong the impact is on people. I really enjoyed Berlin and did not want to leave and go to Poland. However, I really liked Wroclaw in the 2 days that I wandered around. Once I reach Krakow, I will spend 2 and a half days there and visit the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, the most well-known. (July 17)

Today I spent the day wandering around and exploring Wroclaw. The area around my hostel isn’t the best but once I got to the city center, it’s everything I imagined Poland to be. I also went on a tour around the city that was aimed at the Jewish and WWII history of the city. We went to places like the Jewish quarter, where the population is predominantly Jewish, and the old Gestapo building, which is now used by the police. At first I did not want to leave Berlin and come to Poland, but I’m really liking it here. Tomorrow I will travel 2 hours by train to the Groß-Rosen camp in Rogoznica. (July 15)

I am now in Wroclaw, Poland, but here are some photos of my last night in Berlin. The East Side Gallery, which is parts of the Berlin Wall that are now covered in art, is something that I’ve always wanted to see and I’m glad I took a bus and a train for over an hour to see it on the opposite side of the city from where I was staying. My trip to Poland yesterday wasn’t the smoothest, it took almost 10 hours because of slip-ups with the trains I was supposed to take so I’m glad to finally be here! I took 2 semesters of German and I can understand a little of the language, but Polish is completely foreign to me. Today I plan to explore the city. (July 15)

I took a train to Oranienburg today and visited the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Like Buchenwald, after liberation the Soviets used this as a “special camp”, so there was lots to see. My tour guide, Thomas, was very energetic and excited about the camp. He seemed to know so much about the camp, the Holocaust and even history about Berlin and the wall. One of the questions I planned to ask was about any special guests he’s ever had in a group and just like my Dachau guide, he actually answered it while we were walking around. He said that a few years ago he had an elderly Polish man on his tour who was actually a prisoner in the Sachsenhausen camp when he was in his early teens. Towards the end of the war, the guards would make large groups of prisoners walk for miles until they collapsed and died. These were called “death marches”. The Polish man was on one of these and American soldiers actually intercepted them and liberated them. Compared to Dachau and Buchenwald, this camp was a lot more crowded. There were especially a lot of English-speaking tours going around, as well as other languages like Spanish. Like I’ve said before, this just shows that the impact of the Holocaust and the concentration camps is still as strong as ever since people from all over come every day, visit and pay their respects. The weather today was very cloudy and cold, which make the atmosphere depressing, as expected. Even though there were tons of people at the site, it was generally quiet, adding to the eerieness. Tomorrow I will leave Berlin and take a train over to Wroclaw, Poland. (July 13)

I spent yesterday and today exploring Berlin and I think it has officially tied New York as my favorite city. Having the transportation pass has made it so easy to go from one place to another whereas I walked everywhere in Munich. I visited a lot of places that had to do with WWII and the Holocaust, like memorials for the Jewish and gypsy victims and a museum at the site of the former headquarters of the SS, Gestapo, etc. A lot of the things that I saw and read about I remember from the concentration camps I’ve been to. The museum also includes around 2km of the Berlin Wall. I also toured the Olympic park from 1936 and Hitler actually opened those games because he was chancellor at the time. I also saw some Berlin landmarks like Checkpoint Charlie, the Berlin Victory Tower and the Brandenburg Gate. As opposed to when I first arrived, I’ve gotten used to walking through the forest to get to my hostel and I’ve ever made a few friends here. Tomorrow I will take a bus into the city center and meet my tour group for the Sachsenhausen camp. (July 12)

I’ve been in Berlin for a few hours now and I already like it so much more than Weimar. However, the hostel I’m currently staying in is insanely different than the ones in Munich and Weimar. Like I said in a previous post, my Munich hostel was right in the city and most places were a comfortable walking distance and my Weimar hostel was really nice and looked more like a hotel. However, this is not the case this time. When I got off the train at the Berlin hauptbahnhof, it took me forever to figure out that I need to ride a tram to a bus station then take a bus to my hostel. Since my hostel is about 20 minutes away from the HBF, I decided to buy a 7-day pass for all types of transportation. When I got off the bus, I typed the address into the maps app and I can’t tell you how shocked I was when I realized I had to take a muddy path 20 minutes into the woods to reach my hostel. Walking this path to and from the hostel every day is going to definitely add to this trip, but I haven’t decided if it’s positive or negative. I will be in Berlin for a day longer than I was in the other 2 cities, so I plan to explore tomorrow and Wednesday and visit Sachsenhausen on Thursday. (July 10)

I’ve been in Weimar for a couple of days now and I’m finding that I enjoy it a lot less than Munich. There are not a lot of things to do or see here. I think I’m enjoying this town less because it’s a much smaller town compared to Munich, where 2 days was nowhere near enough time to explore, and the fact that a significant majority of the people here don’t speak English, as opposed to Munich where most did. Today I took a bus and spent about 5 hours at the Buchenwald camp, which felt much bigger than Dachau. Much like Dachau, many of the buildings that once stood there were destroyed and now there are just photos and descriptions of what happened there. Unlike my trip to Dachau, the tours of this camp were only given in German. Due to this, I had to pay for an app on my phone and use headphones to listen to an audio tour. At each of the 25 spots throughout the camp, I was told about what happened there during the times when the prisoners were there. Since I didn’t have anyone to talk to, I’m unable to answer the questions that I included as part of my project. However, I did learn a lot about Buchenwald. In one of the photos I posted, the main exntrance gate, you can see a clock. The time is set at 3:15, the time that U.S. soldiers officially liberated the camp. Another interesting fact is that after the Nazis surrendered and the prisoners were finally set free, most camps were left desertered. However, Buchenwald was kept in use as a “special camp” for the Soviet Union until 1950. Another concentration camp that was turned into a special camp was Sachsenhausen, which I will be visiting in a few days. As I said, Buchenwald seemed much larger than Dachau. At Dachau, I was unable to tour the SS buildings because they have since been put to other uses. At Buchenwald, the fences and paths that the guards used to patrol and many of their buildings, including their command building, were still present. My only complaint so far about the two camps I’ve seen is that since a lot of the buildings have since been destroyed and they now have museums and exhibits in their places, it doesn’t feel as authentic as it should. Just like at the first camp, I tried to see how people acted while walking around the camp and the exhibits. The visitors at Buchenwald behaved much more appropriately, in my opinion. Most of the time, everywhere was quiet, which was pretty eerie. I only saw one instance of someone taking a disrespectful picture, and that was a guy doing a peace sign in front of the site where the trains unloaded the prisoners, which is the first photo I included. However, there were a lot more people visiting Buchenwald, despire the fact that it was a Sunday, and I think that’s a terrific thing. It shows that people still care and still want to learn about what happened. Tomorrow I will leave Weimar and take a train to Berlin, where I will eventually visit the Sachsenhausen camp. (July 9)

I visited my first of 5 camps today: Dachau. Before I arrived and while I was on the tour with a group of 30, I decided I wouldn’t take pictures out of respect, but after the tour I had some time to look around myself and I wanted some to post for this blog. If the rest of the camps are anything like this, it’ll definitely be an experience. Prior to planning this project the only camp I had ever heard of was Auschwicz, like most people, but I learned a lot of interesting facts about Dachau today. Since the camp was created in the early 1930’s, before WWII has even started, it was one of the first. Also, this camp mainly had male prisoners. Something that I found incredibly interesting was that when we visited the gas chambers and crematorium, my guide said that there is actually no evidence of anyone being killed there. It’s my guess that the officers who worked there didn’t document all the people they put to death or destroyed the proof before liberation, but the fact that they had those buildings is proof enough. When I was planning this project, one goal was to chat with the guides and get a better understanding of themselves, the camp that they gave tours at and the current impact of the camps today. After the tour ended, I asked my guide if she would be willing to answer a few questions for a research project. She said she would love to and she told me that she chose to work at the Dachau camp because she had lived in the town most of her life and she wanted to keep the history of the camp alive. She also said that one of her most impactful memories as a tour guide happened when former American soldiers came and toured a few years prior. They were some of the men who liberated the camp in the 1940’s and when they toured, they wore their complete military uniform, something that she said she will never forget. Looking back on my visit to the camp, something I realized was that despite the fact that the memorial should be a very solemn place, many of the visitors were not treating it as such. This may be due to the fact that a lot of families with young children and school field trips were there, but a lot of the people were chatting and laughing while looking around. Something else that was extremely disrepsectful was that people were taking very distateful photos, like a smiling selfie infront of the main gate that reads “ARBEIT MACHT FREI”, which translates to “work will set you free”. Visiting Dachau was an amazing experience and I’m interested to see what the other 4 camps on my trip are like. Tomorrow I will leave Munich, which I have enjoyed, and travel to my next stop: Weimar, Germany (July 6)

Despite the fact that I had to spend the day fighting off the urge to sleep from jet lag, I saw some really cool things today: the Marienplatz, a street market, an old toy museum, the Isar river and St. Paul Roman Catholic Church. Since my hostel is right in the city and right next to the Hauptbahnhof (main stations for trains, buses, etc.), it’s fairly simple to get around. Instead of spending my money on a pass for transportation, I have been walking everywhere so that I can see the city I’m in. However, it is pretty annoying when I realize that I wandered for over an hour and then need to make my way back. The hardest part of this experience has been not knowing the German language, but since this is a big city and a lot of tourists come through, most citizens speak English as well. Tomorrow’s agenda: the Dauchau concentration camp. (July 5)

After a long day of traveling by both airplane (delayed 3 hours) and train (missed the first one), I’m finally in Munich, the first city where I’ll be visiting a camp. I took this picture of the Frankfurt train station to show how huge it is… and that’s not even showing everything behind me. Definitely beats the T station back in Pittsburgh. Stepping off the plane and realizing that I’m all alone in a foreign country was one of, if not the, most frightening moments of my life. I had to stand in line at customs for what seemed like forever and while I was waiting for my backpack at baggage claim, I was secretly hoping it would never come so that I wouldn’t have to leave the airport and venture off by myself. By the time I finally figured out how to get to the airport’s train station and get over to the main station (posted above), I felt fine. Like I said, once I got to the main station and figured out which train was going to Munich, it was too late and I watched it pull away. However, it all worked out in the end and I made it safely to my first of 6 cities, Munich. (July 4)

I am currently sitting at the gate in the Pittsburgh airport and waiting for my plane to arrive. I flew to Florida by myself a few years ago and even though this is much, much different, flying alone is the least of my worries. My Magellan has officially started! Next stop: Frankfurt (July 3)