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The salt mine in Poland was very interesting and I think that it would not be as interesting if it was not so old, for the mine was started hundreds of years ago, but I do not think that the mine was only interesting for that reason, I also thought that it was interesting because you could rub your hand across the wall and then you could lick your hand and it would be salty. The mine also had wood walls that were piled a certain way, so that the mine would not collapse, which I think is very cool. When you are on the tour they give you head sets and little radios, so that you can here them clearly, the thing that I thought was cool about that, is that they worked so far under ground. They also had churches in the mine, the churches were very pretty and they had very nice art work, but the stairs were made of the salt rocks that were in the mine, and those were very slippery. When you were done with the tour, you are able to walk around a large circle in the mine that has different rooms, that you can shop, play, and eat, then when you are done with that you can go up on the lift.

Concentration camps: While we were in Krakow Poland we went to two concentration camps, Auschwitz and Birkenau. They were very interesting but the first thing that I did was throw up all over a big tree in Auschwitz. It was white because I had had bad milk that morning. We saw where the prisoners stayed and where they were gassed. Unfortunately I could not focus very well due to my loss of food in the not very distant past so I cannot tell you any more.          SORRY 🙁
Actually I can but it will be hard. There were lots of pictures of men who survived the concentration camps all taken by the Soviets since the Nazis took no photographs. There were just a couple pictures of children and only one of the girls survived Auschwitz. The reason for this was that she had blond hair and blue eyes. The Nazis believed that anyone with these traits was part of a superior race. The symbol of Auschwitz was the arch at the main gate. “Work is liberating” it said although not one prisoner was ever set free until the Soviets arrived. The first prisoners to be confined to concentration camps were German criminals but when the Jews started to be taken the German criminals were made into “enforcers”. They beat the other prisoners to death even for not moving quite fast enough or tripping and falling on a loose stone.

Poland – Auschwitz/Birkenau concentration camps (July 4, 2013).

We added Poland to our itinerary shortly before we left Austin at the request of Nadine, who had read books about the WWII concentration camps in Ms. Carson’s 4^th grade class at Mathews Elementary. Nadine wanted to see the camps first hand.

Driving west from Krakow you pass through several small towns and through a hilly area with nicely plowed fields, somewhat like the eastern part of upstate New York. Nothing on the drive indicates what happened near here 70 years ago other than the traffic signs for Oswiecim, which you begin to see occasionally as you leave Krakow. Oswiecim is the Polish name for Auschwitz and today it is a nice little town about an hour west of Krakow. If you turn left at the roundabout in Oswiecim you will reach the Auschwitz concentration camp in a few minutes.

The original Auschwitz camp is small. The part we walked through looked about 4 football fields square. The entrance to the main section of the camp is under a metal arch that reads, “ARBEIT MACHT FREI” or “Work makes you free.” My first impression after passing under the arch was how so many people could be murdered in such a small place. The Nazis murdered over a million people at the Auschwitz camps, many by hanging and shooting, but more by gassing and working/starving them to death. Although Jews were the primary recipients of this brutal behavior, the Nazis also practiced their torture and murder here on political prisoners, gypsies, criminals and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

We saw the basement cells where prisoners were locked up and starved to death, and the execution wall where prisoners were shot after summary trials. The most moving room we walked through was the shower room where prisoners were gassed. The room is about the size of two Mathews’ classrooms. Adjacent to the shower room is a room containing several large black ovens similar to the ovens you see at Coopers in Llano, except that in front of each oven is a metal gurney-like device about a body length long that can be pushed on a metal track that runs into one end of each oven. Nadine told me that this was the kitchen where they cooked the camp food. There was complete silence from everyone walking through these rooms. You can feel the thousands of people who were killed and incinerated in these two rooms. The pictures in the camp are haunting, both the pictures taken of the prisoners when they arrived at Auschwitz, and also the pictures of the stick thin prisoners who were alive when the Russians liberated Auschwitz in January 1945. The pictures of the child prisoners are tragic.

I can believe that a small number of evil people would organize a mass murder of innocent adults and children. However, it is more difficult to understand how a much larger number of people participated in these murders.

The Birkenau camp is close to Auschwitz, but after spending several hours at Auschwitz we did not have the stamina to spend much time at Birkenau. Birkenau is a much larger camp, most of which was built of wood and is now gone.

The Swedish farm: We are at an organic farm in northern Sweden and this family has chickens and pigs and dogs and horses. There are 4 children. A one year old, a three year old, a five year old, and a seven year old.  The horse’s name is Balu. He is a twenty year old minnie horse. They also have a ton of pigs and chickens. It can be really fun to feed the pigs. When I caught a brown trout I fed the bones to the pigs after we ate it. I also fed a chicken carcass to the pigs after supper. The biggest pig devoured both in less than thirty seconds all by himself. It was amazing. The dogs names are Tilda and Alice. Tilda is Alice’s mother. Alice is huge but Tilda far outweighs her. Balu is really hard to move and sometimes gets out when the children leave the gate open. I drive the lawn mower around and mow grass alot. Then I feed the mowed grass to the pigs. They eat everything except for orange peals. The fence that surounds them is electrified so that the adult pigs can’t get out. For some reson the shock does not bother the baby pigs so they pretty much go where ever they like.

Four differences between Texas and Sweden: First, barbed wire is banned in Sweden. At the farm where we stayed the pigs were kept in the fence by electric wire. I’m not sure if an electric shock is more humane than barbed wire, but I doubt electricity will work on large Texas ranches. Second, it is against the law for parents to spank their children in Sweden. Third, Sweden has a “right to public access” law that allows anyone to walk on, camp on, fish on (but not hunt on) and generally enjoy someone else’s private property as long as they don’t mess things up and don’t come right up into your yard. I’m sure the law is more detailed than my description, but that is the gist of it. This right of public access seems to have worked pretty well in the past, although I’m told that there have been discussion about it recently because large, organized groups of immigrants are coming into Sweden and picking berries on private property and not only profiting from this activity (which I understand is not against the law) but also blocking roads and otherwise bothering the landowners. Fourth, my impression is that most people I met in Sweden seem to trust and have confidence in their federal government.