This UNESCO wold heritage listed place is around 25mins from Krakow and is one of the world’s oldest salt mines. Operating since the 13thcentury, everything underground is carved from salt – including the huge St Kinga’s chapel with decorative scenes of Jesus’ most important events carved into the walls. You can only enter the mine with a guide and our 1.5 hour tour was with a Polish lady guide who was very quirky and funny. She showed us the old salt mining techniques employed by the miners in the early days, the shafts and labyrinthine passageways, various sculptures and even an underground lake. We learnt that in the earlier days, salt was used as their main form of currency instead of money as it was of equal value to gold and the word ‘salary’ is derived from the polish word for salt.
This was the first place we visited when entering Poland from the Czech Republic. There are two sites – Auschwitz I which was the labour camp and Auschwitz II which was the extermination complex where the gas chambers were located. Jewish people and other prisoners would get off the trains coming from all over Europe and immediately be separated into two groups – those who looked fit enough for labour were sent to the labour camp and the remaining people (elderly, women, children) were sent directly to the gas chambers. Today, Auschwitz I has been turned into a really informative and moving museum, displaying lots of photos and a vast collection of leftover belongings that once belonged to the Jewish and other prisoners. At least 1.1 million Jews died at Auschwitz alone out of the 1.3 million people sent here and 90% of these were the Jewish people. It was a really sobering visit to the horrors of the Holocaust and Nazi regime.
A replica of one of the train carts used to transport the Jewish people to the camps.
