No 3 Auschwitz and Birkenau

This is me, in case you wondered what I look like. You need to find your spectacles and use a bit of imagination, but it is me. Taken at the main gates to the Auschwitz Concentration camp in Poland this is the most familiar image of the camp which people these days recognise.

There are many web sites and books which have been written on the subject of the second world war and the programmes of death which the Nazis carried out, but this part of my blog is not concerned with that, more with the the visit I paid during the latter part of 2006 to Auschwitz and its lesser known but more diabolical counterpart, Birkenau.
The two camps are about three kilometres apart and lie about 65 KM from the beautiful city of Krakow in the south of Poland. Here is a map of the area to give you some indication of where it lies in relation to Krakow.

In a nutshell, Auschwitz was a small camp which was set up to perfect the methods of killing the inmates who came to the place. It also housed Interrogation and punishment areas. Birkenau on the other hand was purely built for the purpose of murder. As such it was incredibly successful.

People from all over Europe were trained in there and killed.

Enough has been written about both places for me not to repeat what has been already stated. But, just have a look at the aerial photograph to get some idea of the overall size of the place.

It took me over two hours to just walk around the perimeter and view what exhibits there were. A most incredible and awe-inspiring place, and a very sad place as well.

On my visit to Birkenau I was surprised to find the place full of groups of Polish school children. From the numbers of Polish people, including school children, who have visited the place it is apparent that a visit to the place is on the school timetable for every school in the country. Not a bad thing. Maybe it should also be on the timetable for every country in Europe and the middle east. The way things are going, it cannot be long before we see the same excesses and barbarity coming to the fore again as we saw then, and in Russia during the times of Stalin.

No 2 Redundancy

Something of a milestone day today. I was made redundant, or to make it more accurate perhaps, my job was made redundant and I was officially given a 'Fond Farewell' by my employer.

Why is it that when a job is made redundant it is always couched in such mealy mouthed terms so that the person losing their job is made to feel that it is not them, as a person, who is facing the chop, but the position? More and more throughout my working life I have seen the common sense and human attitude to life and other people disappear. Now the young, over educated and rather nasty types have taken over in the work place. An over generalisation I know, but that's how I have become since working for my last employer, as they seemed to have more then their fair share of gobshites working for them,

However, I am not going to do a Victor Meldrew on you. "Stuff them all", is what I say. The last words which my 'manger' said to me as she wished me goodbye, was to say, "Well, end of an era, isn't it?" I said, "No, It's the start of a new one".

And it is. I am only 60 years old, and have no intention of kicking the bucket just yet. I might, however, just become a Grumpy of Fart, and start sounding off on here about all and sundry. But I doubt it. Not really in my nature....

No 1 Rainy Day in Lancashire

It must be a rainy day in Lancashire. I've found myself at 6.15pm on a wet Thursday setting up one of these blog things. No idea what I will put in it, but no doubt in time I will get the hang of it.

I read somewhere the other day that the day of the blog has come to an end - almost. Just my luck to start one when they appear to be folding up. Anyway. Not a lot of people will be viewing this, as I tend to write a load of drivvle. Is that how you spell it?

So, here's an image of a rainy day in Venice. Nearly as nice as Lancashire