After our magical day in Wrocław, our group made the journey to Kraków — one of Poland’s most culturally rich and emotionally complex cities. It’s a place where stunning architecture, thriving food culture, and deep, painful history all exist side by side.
We kicked off our time here with a walking tour along the Royal Route, once the ceremonial path taken by Polish monarchs. This route winds through Kraków’s Old Town, past many of its most iconic sites — including the Floriańska Gate, where street musicians filled the air with music and local artists displayed paintings against the medieval stone walls.
We stopped for a cone doughnut (as delicious as it sounds) before making our way to Kazimierz, the historic Jewish quarter. We explored a flea market and grabbed a zapiekanka — a toasted baguette topped with mushrooms and cheese — a Kraków street food classic. We then visited Wawel Dragon, a whimsical statue that breathes fire every few minutes, delighting tourists on the riverbank.
Later, we visited Wawel Royal Castle, with its massive courtyard, which sits proudly on a hill overlooking the Vistula River. We wandered the gardens, and admired the towering spires of St. Andrew’s Church.
The following day, we visited Auschwitz-Birkenau.
We passed under the infamous wrought iron gate marked with the phrase:“Arbeit macht frei” — “Work sets you free.” A lie crafted with surgical precision to deceive, to keep hope alive long enough to break people before killing them. Standing beneath that gate, I couldn’t help but think of the thousands who arrived here after days packed into cattle cars, starving, afraid, unaware of what awaited them. Many still clung to the hope that this was simply a labor camp — a terrible place, perhaps, but survivable. This sign was part of that manipulation. It was meant to suggest that hard work could earn you survival or release. In reality, it ushered people into forced labor, abuse, starvation, and death. It’s chilling how ordinary the sign looks at first — black wrought iron, elegant script. Almost decorative. But once you know its meaning — once you’ve walked beneath it — it becomes something else entirely. A symbol of false hope. Of systematic cruelty. Of the way the Nazis weaponized language to manipulate and control.
Our guide told us that many prisoners didn’t even realize where they were when they first arrived — especially those taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Some still clung to the belief they were being “relocated,” that they’d be put to work, that their families might be safe. This sign played a part in maintaining that illusion, right up until the very end. Standing there, I thought about how terrifying it must have been to be forced through those gates, stripped of identity, forced into uniforms, tattooed, beaten, starved — and still holding onto even a sliver of hope that this might end with freedom. That hope, in itself, was another thing the Nazis took. Even now, I find it difficult to put this experience into words, and found myself tearing up while writing this. You walk through the same gates where millions of innocent people entered, and never walked back out. You pass the buildings, the barbed wire, the barracks. And although the place is quiet, it screams with what it holds.
We stood in rooms where people were packed wall to wall, robbed of dignity. We saw piles of shoes, each pair a person. We saw a room filled with women’s hair, shaved before they were sent to the gas chambers. We read about the “doctors” who performed brutal medical experiments on Jewish women — removing uteruses, mutilating bodies, injecting formaldehyde into wombs. In the courtyard between the brick barracks, we saw a wall littered with bullet holes — the execution wall, where countless prisoners were lined up and shot.
One story our guide shared hit harder than all the others. A young man arrived at Auschwitz at 18, crammed in a cattle car for five days without food or water. When the train stopped, his family was taken away to “get clean.” He remembered being angry — why did they get to shower first? He didn’t even say goodbye. Days later, he asked another prisoner when his family would return. The man looked at him and said: “Can’t you smell the burning flesh? Can’t you taste the human ash in the air? That is your family.”
That moment shattered him. He never recovered from not saying goodbye — and decades later, returned to Auschwitz to tell the story himself.
That story is not written in a museum. It’s not printed on any placard. And it made me wonder — how many other stories like his will never be told?
What stuck with me the most was not just the scale of death, but the precision of cruelty — the intention behind every act of violence, the way women’s bodies were targeted for destruction because of their power to continue a culture. The fact that military leaders wives chose to live near these camps and raise their children there, knowing that innocents were being suffocated in chambers just a few hundred metres away.
Since visiting, I have learnt about how sexual violence was used as a tool of genocide — how women were raped, and forced into “negotiated” sexual relationships for survival. Parents tried desperately to protect their daughters — smearing soot on their faces, cutting their hair, dressing them in rags — only to witness the cruelest forms of violence that they couldn’t prevent.
It was the most horrific place I have ever been, and yet I believe it is essential — even a moral responsibility — to go if you are able to. The horrors that happened there are not distant history; they’re recent enough that survivors still walk among us, and their stories must never be forgotten.
The ride home after our visit was silent. We were a loud group before — always laughing and sharing stories — but not then. Each of us were staring off into space, trying to make sense of what we had just seen. Auschwitz is not a place you visit and move on from. It’s something you carry with you. It made me think deeply about the human capacity for cruelty — but also about the importance of bearing witness. As hard as it was, I am grateful we went. We owe it to those who didn’t walk back out through those gates to remember, and to tell the truth.
That night, after dinner at a cozy local spot, we tucked into a hidden speakeasy for a Polish vodka tasting — sampling everything from cherry-infused to traditional clear varieties. We ended the evening in the courtyard of our hotel, sharing snacks, stories, and laughter under the stars. There’s something really special about travel friendships — how quickly strangers become people you trust with your silence and your memories.
While I greatly enjoyed experiencing the architecture, culture and cuisine of Krakow, no trip there is complete without confronting the truths preserved at Auschwitz—a sobering experience that gives deeper meaning to everything else you see.
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