trip2006

Rufus: Yes the translation feature on the search engines is great when looking at less touristy places like Hungary.

I am planning a trip to Europe april 2006 and am going to hungary poland czech republic. And it is great when trying to view some of the sites from these places.

Apparently all of these areas have informative and not so touristy memorials to the holocaust.

There seems to be quite a bit of info regarding holocaust memorials on the net and any google or yahoo search will give you hours of info.

Here are a couple i have found

http://www.shoaheducation.com/camps/location.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/...st/cclist.html

Also there is quite a bit of info regarding the Schindler jews and different places like his factory in Krakow which would be interesting to see.
This site details a tour in Krakow
http://www.scrapbookpages.com/poland...zimierz01.html

I have heard very similiar stories to what USNR has said regarding the handling of certain sites so would be a good idea to find out which ones you wouldn't want to waste your time at.

A little bit off the track, but my only experience has been the Holocaust museum in Washington DC and i felt it was very good in the way it detailed the holocaust. Though one person was a little bit offended with idea of people being given an indentity card and being herded into the elevator that starts the exhibition in order to give a small idea of what it may have been like for a prisoner being treated this way.

There were quite a few people who became very emotional when viewing the exhibits, and i think if you are going to one of these or any other memorials detailing 20th century atrocity i guess it's best to be mindful that there may be people there who have first hand experience regarding these places.

cztravel

Hi! I have a professional, registered tour guide contact based in Prague and she organises trips to Terezin and Auschwitz etc.

Her name is Karolina. Mention Mark from HotelRaider.

[email protected]

PixieLady

Thanx to everyone who has posted any information as I too am planning to visit many Holocaust memorial sites next year when I travel across Europe.

I have nothing practical to add as I have yet to visit these sites but there are a couple of books that are proving invaluable to me. They are 'Holocaust Journey: Travelling in Search of the Past' by Martin Gilbert and 'Concentration Camps: a travellers guide to WW2 sites'. The first is a story about the route taken by history students visiting Holocaust sites and the second book is more of a practical guide to where everything is and what is left there to see. Might be useful if you don't have enough info from the ever useful internet!

syclark

Thanks to everyone for the information. It sounds like the best idea would be to go without a tour group then take guided tours of the areas I want to see. Thanks again for all the ideas. I don't know how people traveled before Fodors.

richardmart

I am not so sure how much an informed guide would help. In most of the important sites in Poland there is little there to see unless you came with some knowledge. One of your respondents mentioned Gilbert's "Holocaust Journey(s?. It is excellent. If I have only five to eight days to visit Poland and some Holocaust sites, then I would skip Auschwitz-Birkenau. I know this sounds heretical, but one can no longer walk the grounds without being in a tightly controlled tour environment. Auschwitz I is a rather disgusting Holocaust-lite event filled with people stamping their life-list book---been there,done that. Access to the huge gas chamber-sermatoria complexes at Birkenau is apparently again extremely limited. The camp curators seem to go back and forth on this. I would fly to Warsaw and use day 1 resting and checking out Polish girls. They are beautiful. Then, it is relatively easy to find to a group tour arrangement to visit Treblinka forty-five (million) miles north of Warsaw. Treblinka is beautifully memorialized but be sure to walk the mile or so to the original slave labor camp whose inmates built the death camps. There is still semi-open mass grave sites in the area, document them, but watch your feet. Day 3, take the train to Lublin, stay in the Orbis hotel, Unia, then have them arrange for a cab driver to pick you up at the hotel, take you to Majdanek in the suburbs and return to pick you up about three hours later. That would day 4 for me. Majdanek is the best preserved of the six death camps in Poland, although it was not an Operation Reinhardt camp (aka a pure "death camp&quot actually the second largest, after Auschwitz-Birkenau, slave labor facility in human history.
There are both carbon monoxide and hydrogen cynadine gas facilities, as well as a crematoria complex with human ashes remains in them. Behind the major gassing facilities are the tank ditches where 20,000 plus Jews were shot during the so-called "harvest fest" (See Browning's "Ordinary Men.&quot When you return to the hotel, you will need to drink heavily, but before you do, have someone take you to Globonik's headquarters behind the hotel parking lot. Swear to your heart's content. Now, if you aren't ready to kill yourself, preplan by having contacted a group called "Our Roots" in Warsaw. Have a guide from their organization pick you up on day six and drive you to Sobibor death camp. A few months ago I would have recommended Belzec, but there is a new memorial there. With all honor to the creators of the new memorial, their creation renders Sobibor the most lonely and haunted place on the freaking planet. I strongly recommend "Our Roots" as do others on the web. Ask for 'George' for a driver. Sobibor alone will trouble your sleep forever. If you have any questions, please contact me. I am an academic working on a guidebook to use to visit Holocaust sites. Good luck and see pictures!

PixieLady

Wow, that was an incredibly detailed suggested trip! I'm very impressed. I have been fascinated by the subject of Nazi Germany for years; this was fuelled when I did A level History a fair few years ago now. I have seen numerous WW2 memorials and cemeteries but have yet to make it to any of the more substantial sites (despite living in Germany when I was doing my A levels!). I'm grateful for the infomration and may come back to you if I have any queries as I'm planning on spending a lot of time in Poland and Germany on my travels next year. All the best with the book, that'll be another one to add to the collection! Thanx again.

dan_woodlief

"Hitler's Death Camps: The Sanity of Madness by Konnilyn Feig" is an excellent book that combines top notch history of the camps with information on their post-war states. A great overview of the Holocaust and the system behind it is "Destruction of the European Jews" by Raul Hilberg. Personally, I think I could only get something out of a tour of a camp if led by a survivor or a historian of the period. Other than that, I would think the experience would be enhanced by reading ahead and doing it solo because it is possible to comtemplate and reflect without rushing around with a group.

Ozarksbill

We were in Auschwitz-Birkenau in June on my birthday. There are guided tours. Tomboy and lindal have described the experience. It is a somber place as one strolls along paths between barracks and into the buildings for the exhibits. You will find old enlarged photos of prisoners on the walls, and various collections behind glass of mounds of shoes, eye glasses, suitcases, hair and such of executed prisoners. Also there is the wall for executions...just a single shot in the back of the head, no firing squad. And then the gas chambers and crematoria...

Yes, reading up before and after about the whole policy of annihalation of Jews and others is important. I bought a just published little book (157 pp) at Auschwitz museum called "Auschwitz" by Sybille Steinbacher. Am now reading speeches and essays by Vaclav Havel, former Czech president, "The Art of the Impossible," some sober reflections about how human beings could do such unspeakable things.

I can't concieve of touring Holcaust sights. One is sufficient. But everyone might see at least one. We also spent time in Kazirmiez (now part of Krakow) where many Jews once lived, eating in a restaurant where Schindler would meet his family and where Spielberg relaxed, visiting old cemeteries, synagogues, the Schindler factory one day to be developed.

Ozarksbill