Sunday, December 01, 2013

PILGRIMAGE TO MEDJUGORJE, BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA, CUM HOLIDAY TO EASTERN EUROPE

Our coach had to be parked here as in many cities and towns, coaches and buses are not allowed. From here, we had to walk to the restaurant.

My Madam walking to lunch.

This is another magnificent church shot during our lunch break before heading to Auschwitz. Churches there are built of Baroque or Gothic designs.

A shopping mall?

Horse-drawn carriages are a novel way of city sight-seeing.

A briefing by our guide before our tour of the Auschwitz detention camp.

A stark and solemn pic of the old Polish military barracks of Auschwitz which Adolf Hitler converted into a detention camp for his grand scheme of creating a superior "Aryan" race. This camp and others in Poland were used to systematically exterminate people of Jewish or mixed Jewish origin from all over Europe and Scandinavia.

The 3 German words mean "Work brings freedom". But, in reality, people of Jewish or mixed Jewish origin were transported here to die. They died of hunger, medical experiments, being gassed or shot or diving into the electrified wires when they could not take the suffering. It's believed that some six million Jews died at Auschwitz and other detention camps in Poland.

The barracks in which prisoners were housed. In the worst of times, they were crowded many to a room and made to sleep on straw. A Polish priest gave up his life in exchange for a family man who was selected to die. Today, he has been canonised as St Maximillian Kolbe. I visited his cell but was not allowed to photograph it. When Blessed Pope John Paul II visited the cell, he left a large candle there in his memory.

Block 4 was used for "extermination" of prisoners.

One of several schematics showing the places in Europe and Scandinavia from where people  were transported.

The re-constructed wall where prisoners would be brought to be shot. Daily, offerings of candles and flowers will be made there for souls departed.

No comments: