Ever since I’d read Brock & Bodie Thoenes books, The Zion Covenant, I’d wanted to visit Vienna, Prague & Warsaw. I made it to Vienna & Prague in 2013, so when the opportunity presented itself to extend a layover in Warsaw, I knew it was my time to visit Old Warsaw Ghetto & to see Auschwitz.

We drove down from Warsaw the day before, it’s about a 4hour drive, and stayed at the 7th Room Guest House, which we thoroughly enjoyed. We planned the earliest time to get into Auschwitz, 7:30am, so we could maximize our time there, as we had to get to Krakow for our flight that afternoon.

We made our reservation through the Auschwitz – Birkenau website. We thought it might be a lot to take in so we figured 4 hours would be plenty, but it really wasn’t. It’s two separate camps that you visit, and Birkenau it’s a very large camp so plan on lots of time.

Auschwitz was incredible. It’s just so hard to understand how people could do this to one another. There are multiple exhibits in different buildings so we kind of meandered a little before we realized each building had a different exhibit. There was snow on the ground when we were there, making it easy to see just how cold the prisoners must have been. We didn’t even feel right using the hand warmers we’d brought.

We were glad to have experienced this part of history, it makes us thankful for what we have, and hopeful that it won’t happen again in the future.