Our Internet connection went down last night. We realized how much we depend on it, because we were lost without it. At about 9:00 pm we started playing a game of Scrabble.
Last Thursday night, Elder Stumpf called us and told us that he had some good news and bad news for us. He said the good news was that we had some firewood. Elder Durrant asked them why we would need firewood. He said we probably didn't and the bad news was that his bed broke. So we went over to the elders apartment to see if the bed could be repaired. And it couldn't. We asked what happened and Elder Stumpf confessed that he had pretended to be Superman and jumped and flew one too many times. So off the Elders and Wayne went to IKEA to buy a bed. It was quite hilarious. They put the six foot box into our little car and Elder Smith had to scrunch around it. The Elders put the bed together and took the old one down the stairs and put it by the big trash bin. As they were climbing the stairs back up to their apartment, they just happen to look out the back window and saw someone hauling it away.
Friday, we went down to Katowice to be with Elder and Sister Reed and Elder and Sister Lloyd. We decided that the six of us would go visit Auschwitz that day. We got to Auschwitz about 11:30 am and there was a huge line for tickets. When we got in the door, one of the workers looked at us and told us to come with her. She took us right up to the front of the line. We're sure it was because of our name tags. Anyway, we got into a tour group for English speaking tourists. Needless to say, it was a very sobering day. Can't really express the feelings I had or really tell you about the things we saw. We were able to take some pictures, which follow:
This is the famous entrance with the words, "Arbeir Macht Frei" Work makes you free.
This is the barbed wire/electrical fence that went all around the camp.
Here is a picture of some of the clothing that was used by the prisoners.
This bedding was used by the "elite" prisoners. Those who were the ones chosen to look after a group of prisoners.
This is where everyone else slept.
This was their bathroom.
This is known as the "killing wall" When prisoners disobeyed they would be either hung, hung upside down or brought here. They would face the wall and the Germans would shot one bullet in their head. There were glass cases full of shoes, eye glasses, crutches, braces, and prostheses that they took from the prisoners, women's hair that had been cut, and the suitcases that they were told to bring their belongings in. Each suitcase had the person's name, age and address written on it.
This is the crematorium at Auschwitz. It is the only one in tact from the war.
This is the inside of the crematorium.
After we went through Auschwitz, they took us by bus over to Birkenau, which was a mile away. It was the second concentration camp and the one that had the Zycon B gas chambers. You should know the picture below. This is what is usually shown in books for Auschwitz.
This place was huge. It held 90,000 people. Most of them Jews. The people would arrive by train, which sometimes took up to 9 days to get there. They were told they would be relocated. The trains were so crowded, the people had to stand the whole time and they weren't fed anything. When they got to the camp, there were two or three doctors on the platform and they would look at each person, if they were healthy they would be sent to the barracks, if not healthy and/or carrying a baby they would be sent immediately to the gas chambers. They were all shaven and told to undress, because they were going to get to take a shower and get rid of the lice and filth. The Germans even made the gas chambers look like showers. When they filled the rooms the gas would come in through vents in the ceiling. It would take about 11 hours to drag all of the bodies out of the chambers and to the incinerators. This happened everyday. They would gas about 8,000 to 9,000 people a day.
This is a picture taken by the Germans. These are Jews arriving from Hungary.
These are the stairs leading down to the gas chambers. The Germans blew up the gas chambers and crematoriums 7 days before the Russians came. This is what is left of one of them.
We took more pictures, but I think that this is enough. It was really sad to think that men could do what Hitler wanted done to so many people.
On a lighter note, Sunday was awesome in church. We had people there from Russia, Holland, Brazil and France. Most of them had gone to the temple in Kiev. It was fun to sit and listen to all of the languages being spoken. But we had over 50 people at church. WOW!!
Monady was our P-day and we decided as a District that we would spend some of them all together. So this one we went to the zoo. They say the zoo in Wroclaw is the biggest in Poland. So here are a few pictures of animals that you have already seen, but it was a fun day for all of us. We went to McDonald's afterwards.
And here we are being silly.
Late Wednesday night, Sis. Blake called and asked us if we would be able to drive her to the doctors office on Thursday. She got an infection under her nail on one of her fingers and it looked terrible. She had to call the mission office first and get permission and they also told her what medical facility to go to. So Thursday, Wayne went to a meeting with Pres. Cielinski to discuss Home Teaching and then we went to pick up the sisters. The doctor gave her a prescription for an antibiotic cream. Hope it works.
We hurried back to the church because the 4 of us had a meeting with a mother and son. It was a very good meeting. I was able to bear a little bit of my testimony in Polish to them. The sisters are hoping that they will accept a commitment to be baptized. And so are Wayne and I.
Well, next Tuesday we leave for Slovakia for the YSA Conference. We hope we have the internet, so that we can keep in touch. We are really excited for this opportunity. And we really hope we will be able to find the place. We'll let you know what happens.
We love you all and miss you.
No comments:
Post a Comment