The Horror Of The Holocaust.

OSWIECIM (AUSCHWITZ).

The site is nice and quiet until 11:30 when a low loader delivers a new motorhome directly behind us. We're awake and it proves difficult to get back to sleep.

So we're awake in plenty of time for the parkrun if not fully rested. Parking is free at the weekend so that's a bonus. Start talking to a couple from Brisbane when we're joined by a Polish lad. He explains that he is from Kracow but now lives in the UK. Whereabouts? Huddersfield, what part? Marsden, Clough Lea behind the church. He also works with Johnny, Ann and Chris' son. What a small world!

The course is dead simple and mainly flat, basically running around the park between the two football stadia. Jostle with a guy from Limerick over the final kilometre. Everyone is friendly and several make the effort with Rosie and I. Rosie met a family from Essex, close to Brentwood. Unusually, there is a group photo at the end, no-one seems keen to leave. See if you can Wally!

We leave after breakfast for Auschwitz. Make good time and arrive just before 1pm, park up and head for the ticket office. Then, our problems start. There are now more passes for today. We've already paid for the night so ask about tomorrow. Sorry, it is closed on Easter Sunday. We can use the free bus to Birkenau about 2 kilometres away. Entry is available, there. It gives us a feel for the magnitude of the horrors. We stay for a couple of hours. The Essex family are there at the same time. They'd booked a tour but found the same problem as us, no passes.

There is a catholic church on the perimeter of the camp and we learn that there is a mass at 6pm. We can use the the free bus to return. It is a high mass with a ceremony using candles that we don't have at home. Before mass, two fireman stand guard over the tomb. Then a number of women dressed in national dress arrive followed by men in fancy hats. The church was packed half an hour before the start and there were tens of people outside . We have to leave at 7pm even though it hasn't finished because we're in danger of missing the bus back.

Really tasty beefburgers from the shop we stopped at on the way at midday. It seemed to be a poor man's Aldi, designed on the same lines but without the space and light. Still, the food is great.