I’m currently in Poland on a solo trip for my birthday eating and drinking my way through Krakow and Warsaw, as part of the trip I visited Auschwitz which was an experience

It was such a lovely day and I arrived at about 8am. There was a sense of calm and beauty to the area as the light of the day crept through the trees

This becomes truly different and you go inside and walk through those gates and you see those words “Arbeit Macht Frei” (work sets you free). My time spent at Auschwitz was an education I’ll never forget. I thought I had a pretty good idea of the horrors that went on in the camps but I had no idea of the shear scale. It’s not until you’re there and see it up close that you can get a much better understanding of it

Walking through the camp, the museum and into the rooms and gas chamber was an education like no other. You don’t get a true sense of what went on in the camps and the scale until you’re actually there. It’s an experience and education that will stay with me forever

A post shared by Jide aka Tendai (@tendai01) on Oct 3, 2018 at 3:29am PDT

Parts of it were deeply emotional and triggering and will be subject to a longer post soon

What I wasn’t expecting was then visiting Auschwitz II – Birkenhau. The shear size of the site is dizzying. I spent 4 hours on the site and didn’t cover it all. You’re witness to what was a highly efficient death factory. It was deeply emotional

Auschwitz I was deep and then visiting Auschwitz II – Birkenau was dizzying. The thing that initially gets you is the shear size of the camp. It was 10x larger than I ever imagined – I explored the camp for 4 hours and couldn’t cover it all. The level of the horrors that went on in there was something else and deeply sobering. It’s an education everyone should experience.

A post shared by Jide aka Tendai (@tendai01) on Oct 3, 2018 at 5:14am PDT

There is an eerie feeling to the place. Despite being surrounded by so much lush nature there are no animals and birds don’t even fly over the site. There are a dead sort of silence to it

Despite the deep emotional nature – its an education that I believe everyone should witness at some point in their life. In these times that we are living in of extremism and an increase in the right wing fundamentalism – its a poignant reminder to us into what a rhetoric like this can lead to