Day 7: history and cotton candy

Well Good Morning . . . the view out our window with a very early wake up . . .

Nowhere did I read the sun would be up and bright at 435am, but the temperature totally makes up for it.  It is only 59 degrees!  I should not be surprised by the temperature as Gdańsk is on the Baltic Sea.  Seriously I might need some pants and long sleeves today.  While Gdańsk was one of Colin's 3 picks, I am happy to visit a new city in Poland.  We are off to a bit of a difficult experience this morning.  We are headed out of town to visit Stutthof Concentration Camp.  We arrived early and there was hardly anyone there.  

This is my fifth concentration camp to visit.  I am always amazed of the pure evil that existed in our world, and the beyond awful circumstances that humans had to endure just because of who they were. 

Stutthof is 34 km from Gdańsk and was the first concentration camp created by the Nazis outside of Germany in September 1939.  Within two weeks, there were 6,000 prisoners in the camp.  In 1943, the Nazis added a crematory and a gas chamber. The gas chamber had a maximum capacity of 150 people at one time. When the SS had too many people to execute, they also used wagons as gas chambers. Between September 1939 and May 1945, 127,000 prisoners were registered upon their arrival in the camp. The lowest estimation of the number of victims is 85,000. The real number is certainly much higher: the inmates who were selected for immediate execution at their arrival were not registered.  One of the worst crimes committed by the Nazis was in Stutthof. Professor Rudolf Spanner, an SS officer and "scientist" was owner of a small soap factory located in Danzig (Gdańsk). In 1940, he invented a process to produce soap from human fat. This “product” was called R.J.S. (Reines Judische Fett) which means Pure Jewish Fat.  Hundreds of inmates were executed for the production of soap. Rudolf Spanner was very proud of his invention. It was the last camp liberated by the Allies in May 1945. At the liberation, the Allies discovered chambers full of corpses used for the production of soap. After the war, Rudolf Spanner was not arrested and continued his "research”.

There really are no words to justify these types of places.  Just walking around in the open fields thinking about what happened here makes one sick and emotional.  I think it is always something to experience and learn so it never happens again. 

  

Even though I have been to other concentration camps, I still gets to me.  I am glad we went, and Colin could see a horrible part of history.  

It was back to the city center of Gdańsk where we decided to have a snack and people watch.  I had the best Pavlova and cappuccino!  

Neptune's Fountain is a pretty busy area with a lot of people so we got a good people watching show and a lot of laughs!

We walked a lot today!  I think it is one of my the most enjoyable parts of the trip, to just explore the cities by walking around with no plans.  Yesterday, I broke my prescription sunglasses.  Well, the side piece fell off in my pocket and miraculously the screw was also in my pocket.  I went to the front desk to see if they had a small screwdriver but no luck.  As we were walking today, I was on the lookout for an optical store (key word we looked for was optik).  We finally found one and went inside.  I kindly asked the lady if she could help me fix my broken glasses and that I had all the parts just not the tools.  She looked at it and said no problem.  Within 2 minutes she had the screw back in place and I was so happy.  I asked how much and she said nothing.  I wasn’t sure if I should give her money or not but we left.  Colin told me I should have at least given her a tip and then I felt horrible for giving her nothing.  We went to the hotel to rest a bit.  The hotel has old fashioned keys on a very heavy key fob that you return and pick up as you enter/exit.  I am sure the front desk grew tired of our constant comings and goings but there was no way I was carrying around that heavy key fob.  Colin discovered they have a mall and wanted to go check it out.  It was huge!  We spent at least an hour wandering around before finding a restaurant for dinner.   What did he pick?  Colin decided he needed beef so we are eating at T-Bone Steak House. 

Can you figure out which steak belongs to him?  Since we arrived, we have noticed kids selling cotton candy in one of the main squares.  Colin has wanted to get some and today we finally did. 

We took some funny photos and as I looked at them I had the best memory of Sean.  

It amazes me that I remember random things from over 20 years ago!  I have so many memories of this trip to Budapest with Sean and my friend Marilyn.  As we walked back to the hotel, I pulled up the photo and told Colin about this memory with his dad and cotton candy.  It was back to hotel to rest and relax.  My feet are feeling the steps today!

Steps:  22,098
Miles:  9.67