- 12:30pm, It's Midsummer eve, my holiday started yesterday, but still I'm not feeling too much on holiday yet. Been so busy at work, that haven't had the time to think much about our coming trip. Barely I've been able to plan the whole trip in advance...sort of...

- Seven and a half hours still to go, when the flight that takes me and my fiancé to Warsaw leaves from Helsinki-Vantaa airport. This time we do not have enough time to go with a bus, another "Kautra Come And Fly With Us" tour have to wait to some other occasion.

- Two weeks in Poland, mainly photographing and visiting the concentration camps. Our main visits will be the camps of Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec, Majdanek and Stutthof and I guess that we'll be able to find something else to visit too while traveling. Some of those camps are a bit far away from any of the major cities, so we'll see how me manage to reach those remote camps.

- My backpack is again stuffed to it's limits...my back hurts even when we haven't started the journey yet. It will be interesting to see, how many people are planning to travel on Midsummer eve to Poland. Not quite the country where you would expect Finnish people spending their Midsummer festival.

- 22:00pm, Well the flight went nicely and there were quite many people flying to Warsaw. Even our backpacks found their way to Warsaw. It would not be too nice to spend two weeks in same clothes...

- 7:00am, It's so light from the very early morning, that I haven't been sleeping much. I got up already at 4:30am, been dozing since that. My fiancé on the other hand don't seem to be suffering from any insomnia. In the evening, the darkness covers the land very quickly. I've already forgotten our Krakow experiences, that how quickly the darkness really comes. The weather forecast seems to be promising a hot and sunny day.

- The plan for today is to visit The Citadel and then just look around Warsaw, with no other special plans. Tomorrow, Treblinka.

- 9:00pm, Visited The Citadel and at the same time, we happen to come across the Fort Legionow, which is very close to The Citadel. Don't know much about the history of Fort Legionow, but it seemed to follow a similar architecture than the Fort's in Krakow. Red bricks and a round shape. Also it seemed to contain a working company inside, just like the Fort's in Krakow. Have to check out the history of that place when we'll get home. Warsaw does seem to contain many different Fort's, five if I calculated correctly, are represented on the map. Too bad that we do not have many days to spend in the city. Most likely we could easily spend the two weeks in this city. 

- We also tried to visit the former Gestapo HQ, but for some reason it was closed, even when the official brochure claims, that it's only closed during the Mondays. Anyways, the ride back to the hotel was a wild one and was a reminder, that we are not in Kansas anymore...

- In the middle of the freeway, the clutch got broken from our taxi, or at least I assume it was a clutch. I've never heard such noises coming out from a car, as I now heard when the driver struggled to drive the car to our hotel. I guess some parts even got loosen from the car and were left to the freeway. A bit bumpy ride say the least, but at least we made back alive to the hotel, while the taxi driver was left standing to the street, wondering that how the hell is he going to drive the car back to home...

- We've walked a lot in the burning heat, as The Citadel wasn't a very small place at all! Also the arrangement there was somewhat strange, the actual museum was a very difficult to find, even the taxi driver didn't know the place. Also, some parts of the Fort is still in use by the Polish army, so we just couldn't walk freely around the place.

- Tomorrow, we will be heading to Malkinia with a 7:40am train and from there, we would need to find some transportation to get to Treblinka. The weather forecast is predicting a bit wet weather, hopefully not too wet...

- 8:30am, In a train going towards Malkinia and from there to Treblinka. We just haven't got a slightest idea that which bus could take us to the area of the Death Camp. Taxi from Warsaw would have been one option, but we decided not to waste money just yet to the taxi, when there's still days ahead of us. It takes about two hours to reach Malkinia with a train from Warsaw. This particular train, which a very  loud one, seems to have seen better days.

- The train seems to be stopping on every small station, in the middle of nowhere, where I cannot see a single building in anywhere. Such a small places is making me a bit nervous, that how small place the Malkinia really is?

- I'm very sure, that we'll be soaking wet today. The sky is nearly black. But, at least it won't be as hot as yesterday...

- 6:00pm, Back at the hotel. It's absolute mad to think, that there in the very small area, are the remains from a nearly million people. The camp area is very very small, tiny I guess would be the correct word to describe the area. Like in Plaszow, here also are remains from the camp, from which the books remain silent about. What was a new for me, was that there actually was two different camps, the Treblinka II, which was the extermination camp, to which people from all over the Europe arrived only to die immediately. The Treblinka I on the other hand, was a penal labour camp, located about two to three kilometers from the Treblinka II. All of the ruins and small memories remaining in the area, are from the Treblinka I camp. Mind is again numb, million people in such a tiny area...

- While walking towards the Treblinka I camp and back from there to the entrance of the memorial, the cuckoo kept on calling constantly. If the expression is correct, that cuckoo is calling for death, then that particular cuckoo cannot stop it's calling, as calling for million dead people, takes awhile...

- Reaching the memorial was quite simple, we managed to find most likely the only taxi in the town, numbered as 1. Using mostly sign language and written numbers, we managed to get that taxi number one to pick us up from the memorial. The railway station itself, from where we were able to find the taxi number one, was in pieces. I've seen abandoned buildings in a better shape than the railway station is. While entering the station for the first time, looking for the bathroom, the sight was something unbelievable. Wooden ceiling bending dangerously downwards, a stray dog sleeping on the floor and graffiti's everywhere. Still, it is a working railway station with a ticket booth and even a mother and a child waiting for the train, no bathroom though.

- Tomorrow, we will be leaving Warsaw behind of us and heading towards Gdansk. Hopefully we can sleep a bit longer than today. The weather was on our side today, even as the clouds were really black, no rain came down on us. Tomorrow it's sun shine according to the Polish weather forecast.

- 12:00pm, Left from Warsaw with the eleven o'clock train towards Gdansk. A hot day, but fortunately in the Polish trains, you can push the window half open, something which isn't possible in the Finnish trains. A nice feature I think and also makes it possible to take pictures from the train. A nice way to tour around Europe with a train and photographing while hanging from the open window of the train.

- It will be interesting to see, where we can find a place to sleep, as nothing hasn't been arranged in advance. I'm already a bit nervous, if all of the pictures are really in the external memory card reader or not? I've used the device thousands of times and always the pictures have been stored correctly. Still, when I'm not even able to see from the memory card reader, that how much space has been used, it leaves a certain feeling of uncertainty, that what if...

- As we now stayed in Warsaw for nearly three days, we noticed that one particular feature which was so annoying in Krakow, seemed to be missing completely from Warsaw. Not even a once, there was a person sponging cigarettes from us, not once! In Krakow, that was constant and it didn't matter whether you were smoking or not...perhaps it's some sort of a local custom?

- The train is a very nice one, a much better than the local train taking us yesterday to Malkinia. This one even has a padding in the seats!

- 5:00pm, Finally, a hotel room for us. I didn't really think in advance that Gdansk would be such a popular tourist city, but at least when you try to find available hotel room, it seems to be a very popular place. There would have been a rooms for us for a one night, but that didn't quite go along with our plan. Finally, after almost taking a room from a five star hotel, we managed to find absolutely great hotel, which had a room available for us for the entire length of our stay in Gdansk. Located next to a music academy, it's even possible to hear some singing and playing from the academy.

- There's also a change in our plans. We need to fly back to home on Wednesday, next week, as there's been a death in the family. Looking our schedule and making few adjustments, we are still able to make the whole planned trip, even as we have to get back home three days earlier as originally planned.

- 10:00pm, It feels really strange to be in this city, a city that seems to be so familiar to me from my postcard collection. The same scenery and buildings are still here, that were photographed for a postcards seventy to hundred years ago. Also, the suffering that the city and it's people have seen during it's long history seems so close from the many books I've read during the years. The misery, fear, terror, anger and hate...

- The architecture in the city is completely different from rest of the Poland. It doesn't resemble at all for example Krakow or Warsaw. The fact that the city has been connected so closely to Germany can been seen even by a blind person, from it's architecture. Many German style buildings are standing right in the central area of the city and I guess, that similar features can be found, if one starts to go towards the present day Kaliningrad. First impression about the city is, that it's a very beautiful place, with a lot of interesting and fascinating buildings around. Another place, where two weeks would not feel too long. Looking at the map, here also are many fortifications around the old town and a Redoubt Napoleon, located near the railway station.

- The Granary Ruins, a memory from the Second World War seems to be located inside a fence, with a busy street going near the fence, even when official information claims that those are a nice place to visit, if one is not scared of hobos. Hopefully the entrance to the ruins doesn't prove to be a too difficult matter, as those are something that I certainly would like to see. We just need to find a place where to get inside the fence.

- Tomorrow we'll visit Westerplatte, a place from where the Second World War started.

- 8:30pm, Westerplatte seen and photographed, along with a two quite massive ruins, possible remains from the wartime. 

- It was interesting to see the place, from where the Second World War started. Although much doesn't remain in the area, mostly an ugly and massive memorial, with a few remains from bunkers. The area remained a bit of Viapori, if you forget the massive and ugly memorial, which seems to be so popular in Poland. I guess the reason why the memorials are not really fitted appropriately to the landscape is because most of them were build in the fifties and sixties, a time when bigger was better. I bought few books from the museum and while reading the books, it's strange to note, that a deep hate towards the Germans, is still alive and doing well in Poland. For example the suggestion which was made by the veterans of Westerplatte, to deny access from Germans to Westerplatte, during the celebrations seems strange for me, but perhaps it makes sense for the veterans and the Polish people? Both sides died there, because of something which didn't make much sense, or to which an ordinary people didn't have much to say about. I don't really believe nor will anyone ever be able to convince me, that history or present day for that matter, is so simple that there's only the good and the bad, black & white.

- After Westerplatte, we explored a two massive ruins. Those might remain from the wartime, as the architecture from the outside wasn't very modern, inside on the other hand there was some glazed tiles which looked quite new, but those might have been installed later in the history of the building. While we were then heading yet for another ruin, we came across pools of blood in the street, with guards patrolling the street. Not a very good sign to go and explore. We managed to explore the building quite thoroughly from the outside and what was left from the interiors, meaning mainly bushes. But as I was starting to change memory card, the drunken group of men, which had been observing us for the entire time we were there, started to cross the river from the nearby bridge. We decided that it's better to be paranoid and head back to the hotel and come back on another day, than to stand there and see, whether our paranoid was justified or not.

- Gdansk is absolutely a great place, history, ruins and thief's, as my cigarettes were stolen while we were in a restaurant. Thankfully nothing more valuable was taken. We both could spend a lot more time here.

- Tomorrow, we will try to find our way to the concentration camp of Stutthof. Something new which I also today learned, was that Westerplatte was for a brief period, a sub-camp for the Stutthof.

-9:00am, On our way to Stutthof. The bus is going really slow and we would be faster in Stutthof with a scooter. The weather is still on our side and the sun shine still continues, but still it isn't too hot.

- The scenery is really nice, idyllic one could say. The architecture is still a very much German, with even a German looking farmhouses. Makes us wonder, whether those have survived the war, or did the people build German looking houses after the war, which wouldn't make much sense, when the hate towards Germans is quite deep. Driving even further towards Kaliningrad would take us to the area, which just sixty to seventy years ago was part of Germany. Still, this area was devastated so completely during the war, that I doubt that so many farmhouses would have survived the battles, that raged here in the Spring of 1945.

- 6:00pm, The relatively small concentration camp of Stutthof seen and the journey back to Gdansk went fairly well.

- Talking about the memorials, the Stutthof memorial is a bit creepy. There behind a scratched and stained perspex lies remains from people, skulls and bones. To us, dignity from this memorial was quite far away. It might have been a decent looking memorial for the victims, if the perspex would have been in a good condition. Now it just made us wonder, that how come the relatives of the people who perished here, have allowed the museum to put the remains on display like that?

- I don't know, perhaps it's a question of culture or something, but while being on the subject of the memorials, I rather would see a simple and even a small monument on a plain field, rather than these huge stone monoliths. I really don't think, that it's relative to the size of the monument, how much you can raise the awareness of people of the crimes committed in the place. The skulls and the bones behind the scratched and stained perspex certainly wasn't too respectful for the victims...

- The Finnish flag flies also in the crematorium, to honor those Finnish victims that died in Stutthof. According to the camp history, the Finnish seamen who happened to be in German ports when Finland surrendered, were interned and transferred to Stutthof. It's just that official Finnish history books, remain silent about these men and thus, I do not know much about them too. It's strange to note, that the official history sometimes leaves something out from the books...

- KL Stutthof was never a huge camp and even when it's size was relatively small, the museum still doesn't own the whole area of the camp. For example, the new camp kitchen is fenced off from the museum area and just rots there, with it's windows broken and water getting into the building. Also the DAW factory halls, are not part of the museum. A bit strange from some landowner, to keep those buildings to himself and not giving up them to the museum, especially when the kitchen is in a really poor condition.

- Like always, the camp area was really beautiful, it makes it hard to realize what happened there, not so long ago. Also, we were quite late in the area of the memorial and as a result, there was a lot of people. In advance, we had agreed of trying to be as early as possible in these memorials in order to avoid the masses of people and the scenes of people posing in front of the gas chambers and crematoriums. This unfortunately wasn't possible now, as the bus ride took so long from Gdansk.

- Traveling from Gdansk by bus was very simple, but getting back to Gdansk proved to be a different matter. First of all, while going to Stutthof, we saw a funny looking train and laughed that it's a train for tourists, as it was one of those trains you seen in amusement parks. While we were waiting for a bus, near of the railroad tracks, the bus that had a sign: GDANSK, didn't pick us up, we started to understand, that it's not a tourist train, but a real working railway, with a funny looking couches and a train. That's why also the timetable was really strange. We were standing in a train station, not on a bus station and as a result the bus didn't stop. 

- Listening the advices from a young American man, we started to walk to the nearest town with a bus station, in order to be sure, that the bus really stops and takes us to Gdansk. Quiting the advice from the American: "It's about 1,5 miles to the nearest bus station. Just chill out, walk and look the scenery. You're now in Poland"

- The journey back to Gdansk after the advice to chill out, was made in a very bumpy bus, after the driver picked up two madly waving tourists on a road from Sztutowo to Stegna.

- Tomorrow, we'll hang out in Gdansk. We'll also need to try to arrange our flight tickets to an earlier flight to Helsinki, in order to be on time in the funerals. The Malbrok Castle which was one of the places where we were suppose to go, will be left to some other occasion, as we haven't even checked the Granary Ruins yet.

- There's plenty of time to complete the whole planned trip, meaning of heading to Lublin and visiting the concentration camp of Majdanek and the extermination camps of Sobibor and Belzec. Next Wednesday we'll fly back to home, if both of us manage to change our tickets. I'm quite confident that my fiancé will not have any problems, as it's her relative that died, but I might have some difficulties, as I'm not related. If I'm not able to change my ticket, I'll stay in Poland for a few days and fly back as planned on 9th of July. Otherwise we'll make a personal bankruptcy if I need to buy a new ticket.

- 4:00pm, Tomorrow we will be heading to Lublin. It will be interesting to see the town, as I do not know absolutely nothing about the city. I've got some ideas about the place, but tomorrow we'll see with our own eyes, what kind of city Lublin really is. 

- We've definitely planned to come back some day to Gdansk. History, ruins and the buildings along the sea and river, makes the city just really idyllic. Perhaps to some other people, not caring so much about those things, the city doesn't offer much.

- Thinking about the Spring of 1945 when the Russians approached the city: the horrors that the ruins that now stare tourists eating and drinking must have seen. Although I must admit that before our last trip to Poland and now this summer trip, I was quite ignorant about the suffering endured by the Polish people during the German occupation. I've known that the Germans didn't handle Polish people with a silk gloves, but the extent of the reprisals and submission have been unknown to me. The modern day Poland really doesn't make too much noise about those things, when many other countries do remember loudly the things that they went through.

- Visited the Granary Ruins also today, which in the end, was quite easy to enter. Just walking through some kind of an industrial area and the ruins are in front of you, with no other tourists around and I cannot blame them. We two would probably be the nightmare of an insurance company or some traveling agency, doing just the things that those instances always warn about. Well, but at least the Polish police kept on patrolling the street leading to the ruins, so some heavier back up was with us. The fenced off area, contains some archeological investigations, so we kept out from there, but otherwise were able to look closely the ruins, which have stand like that from the 40's.

- We both managed to change our flight tickets to an earlier flight to Helsinki, without any difficulties. A big thank you for the LOT office in Gdansk! Tomorrow, we'll spend six hours in train, in order to reach Lublin.

- 11:00am, On a train going towards Warsaw, where we will change a train, that will eventually take us to Lublin. Been reading the book which I bought from Stutthof and there really was Finnish people in Stutthof, that even had to endure the death marches deeper into the Germany, as the Russian were closing in on the Stutthof camp, during the last months of the war.

- I'm a bit amazed, that this fact isn't told at least in any of the history books that I've read in Finnish. Over a hundred Finnish seamen were interned into Stutthof! I would really like to know a bit more about them, who they were, what was their fate, is there still some of them alive? I think that when we'll get home, I'll try to ask about this issue from the Finnish section of Jad Vashem.

- On another note, the service in this train is absolutely great. Free coffee and wafers for all!

- 3:30pm, Well, we managed "accidentally" to go and sit to the first class coach in the Lublin train. We climbed to a coach and found an empty place to sit. A bit later the conductor who didn't speak a word of English, started to explain something in a very excited voice. Happens so, that we were sitting in the first class... Managed to agree with the conductor that we'll move to the second class without paying any extra for our time spend in the first class. Now we are sitting on a floor in the second class, which is absolutely full! My fiancé is claiming, that she did say to me, that we are in the first class, but at least I didn't hear anything...or at least I wont admit anything... Still about one and a half hours to go before Lublin. It's hot and too many people, not a very pleasant trip.

- 9:00pm, Arrived to Lublin and the town happens to have a hotel from the same chain of hotels, in which we were staying during our trip to Belgium and they even had an empty rooms. Excellent hotel chain, with a good breakfast and the satellite connection, so that we can watch the German MTV and the never ending SMS commercials...JAMBO RAVE HIPPO! ORDER NOW!

- The taxi driver which drove us to the hotel seemed like a nice man and we managed to agree a price, which he would charge to drive us to the extermination camp of Sobibor, which is located a bit far away from Lublin and behind a rather difficult public transportation connections. The taxi driver doesn't speak nearly any English, but some German, so I'll guess we'll manage with my school German, that I haven't used in fifteen years.

- Tomorrow, Sobibor.

-8:30am, On a taxi heading towards Sobibor. If this trip goes as planned, I'll think we'll ask Lech the taxi driver to drive us to Belzec too. It's also a place, which is quite far away from Lublin and even when there is a train going to Belzec from Lublin, it takes awhile and there's not that many trains running between those two places.

- 2:00pm, There's not much left from the extermination camp of Sobibor. Mainly memorials and signs telling what structures have existed in the area. However, some remains from barbed wire remains in the trees and many of the trees in the area, are scarred from barbed wire. You can clearly see from the trunk of the tree, that there has been several barbed wire lines going from one tree to another, the scars are very visible.

- Sobibor in the middle of nowhere, containing a piece of the Europe's dark history. The camp area is a forest now and contains a lot of mosquito's and other bugs, some of them kept a very loud noise, like a chain saw flying in the forest. Don't know what insects those were, but they looked like wasp, just a much much bigger and louder ones. The guard tower, from which I've seen modern day pictures has collapsed according to the museum official. Sad thing I think and shows clearly, that there's not enough money to keep everything preserved. One thing that affects to the lack of money, is that just 7 000 people visited Sobibor during the year 2003. That's not much, it's a really low figure, but as Sobibor is not close to any of the major cities, visiting the place means that you really have to want to see the place, you are not going to stop there by accident.

- Lech is driving like a mad man, keeping a speed of 140km/h on a road that's seen a better days and has a speed limit of 70km/h, absolutely mad. No wonder that Poland leads the statistic of road accidents and deaths in Europe, when people are passing by other cars in this speed. Sometimes there's two to three cars passing some other at the same time.

- But even as you are close to death while sitting in a taxi like this, it's a much better option to reach Sobibor, than taking a public transportation, which would have taken forever to reach even Wlodawa. The distance from Lublin to Sobibor is something like a 100 kilometers, from which Lech charged us 300 zlotys. It's a good deal I think, just as long as you can afford it.

- When we get to the hotel, we'll ask Lech to drive us to Belzec also. Majdanek on the other hand, is located right in Lublin, so we'll manage to find our way there on our own.

- The scenery is a very beautiful one. The houses look quite expensive and some are even better looking than in Finland. One get's an impression of a quite rich country. It's not at all shabby looking country, like one could expect, especially after listening the propaganda, that all Eastern-Europe countries are in poor condition.

- 10:00pm, We've been just resting in our hotel room and watching the Live8 concert. Lech will drive us tomorrow to Belzec. The camp is a much further away than Sobibor. I had though that it would be much closer to Lublin than Sobibor, but seems that it's not the case. The distance from Lublin to Belzec is nearly 150 kilometers. We agreed a price of 350 zlotys for this trip.

- It's a good deal, when you think that we will be driving 140km/h, the local bus certainly would not keep a pace like that...

- 9:00am, On our way to Belzec. Lech had even bought some cherries for the trip, good service. It's going to be a very hot day, although there's few darker clouds in the sky. So far, we haven't got wet during this trip. Only once it has rained and it was an early morning, so we were not going anywhere yet.

- 9:30am, Lech is keeping an absolutely insane speed. I've noticed that the German tourists are keeping even a faster speed, perhaps they have not noticed, that they are not on any autobahns?

- I've managed to talk a bit with Lech, even when my school German is really poor. I can understand German quite well as does my fiancé, but talking or even writing German is a different matter. Lack of practise. On the other hand, Lech's vocabulary is nearly limited to repeating: Scheisse Autobahn!, which is not quite true, some of the roads are in a ok condition.

- 13:00pm, The memorial in Belzec was massive, now I can understand why there has been some criticism about the memorial. It covers the whole area and while building it, they have been forced to dig a lot in the area of the former extermination camp. Still, I'm not sure did I like the memorial or not, it does fit somehow to the landscape, but I think that the memorial in Sobibor has been the best one I've yet seen. It has been fitted very nicely to the forest, it's not massive and it will be a timeless memorial.

- According to the museum official, we were the first Finnish tourists to arrive to Belzec. It's not a very surprising fact, as Belzec is located 15 to 20 kilometers from the Ukrainian border and the road from Belzec to Lublin doesn't lead anywhere else than to Ukraine. I've not heard too many Finnish families going for a car holiday to Ukraine. Belzec is also a place, where you really need to want to go, you are not going to accidentally just stop by there. Sobibor is even closer to the Ukrainian border, I think that the distance to the border from the camp area is only 5 to 10 kilometers.

- Our journey is getting closer to it's end. Tomorrow I'll think we will just hang around in Lublin and perhaps see the Lublin Castle and on Tuesday we'll go to Majdanek. Then, on Wednesday we'll head to Warsaw and fly home.

- It has been a very interesting trip and everything has gone nearly as planned. The idea for the summer trip of 2006 is already developing in my mind, as the bus and train connections seems to be quite good inside of Poland and to other countries. You could even get to Kiev and to the Black Sea from Warsaw by train.

- Lech is entertaining us, telling how many people have died and in which accidents along this road. Very entertaining... I've been able to talk a bit with him, using mainly German and flavouring the conversation with the few Polish words that I know and some English words.

- 5:00pm, Nothing special today. It was a really really hot day today. I bet it's over 30 degrees of celcius in the shade. We visited the Lublin Castle which is an very old castle and is also connected to the fate of the European Jews and to the Polish nation. It's a former prison of Gestapo, but today there's not much left from the prison, mainly just the sign asking visitors to behave with dignity, in order to honor the memory of those who died in the hands of the Gestapo.

- Otherwise, there's a museum in the castle, showing different archeological findings from the region. 

- Rest of the day we just walked around the city, shopping and eating. Our things are already packed, so that there is no hurry tomorrow, after the visit to Majdanek. It's a biggest place that we will visit during this summer trip and I bet we are quite exhausted after the visit. I'm just a bit nervous, that we left the biggest place to be visited and photographed to the last day, when there is only one day left for the whole area. Auschwitz-Birkenau took us two days to visit. Hopefully we manage to see the entire area. On Wednesday, we need to be on a morning train, heading towards Warsaw. After that, the trip is over.

- 7:00pm, Majdanek was a big place. Bigger than Auschwitz but smaller than Birkenau. The construction of the barracks is a similar to the barracks in Birkenau. On this trip, only the Stutthof clearly had a different kind of constructions. Although in Treblinka, Sobibor and in Belzec, there's no original barracks left.

- The area of the former concentration camp of Majdanek is also dominated by the massive memorials. The second memorial, which contains the so-called "compost", where remains from people remain is another example of a bit thoughtless memorial. It would be ok, if one could be sure that all of the people visiting the place, behave accordingly, but now as the remains are under the open sky, any person feeling so, can throw whatever into the memorial, garbage etc.

- We were quite early in the camp, so early that not all of the exhibitions were open yet. As hours went by, there were some tourists, but not too many. Again, parents brought quite small children to the camp, even when the museum has denied access from children under 14. One of the children got frighten of me quite badly, when I was standing silently in the gas chamber, taking a photograph. 

- While eating on a restaurant after the visit, we thought about how people are a bit surprised and perhaps uncomfortable, when you announce that you are spending your holiday, visiting the concentration camps. We do not find any oddness in that. Every person should visit at least one of the camps in his or her life, so that you can really ask from yourself the question: What would I have done? On which side I would have stood? Would I have been the person, closing the airtight door or would I have stood on the other side of the door, looking the door closing and hearing in the darkness: "Mommy, it's so dark".

- I bet that everyone would immediately answer, that they certainly would not be the person closing the door, it's the easiest answer. However, when you start to think about the history and what happened in the 30's and in the 40's, I cannot give a definite answer on which side I would have stood. It's a troublesome question, especially when you understand, that people are able to do a horrible things. Like stated, things are not good and bad, black and white, there's the grey are in between and that grey area makes it hard to answer to a question like that: On which side would I have stood?

- Five concentration and extermination camps in less than a two weeks. Even when all of these places have the same story behind, one cannot stop asking the question: Why? Even when the question is absurd, as it's also a question, to which there isn't a definite answer, it does occupy you, when you read about it over and over again. I'm definitely committed of visiting and photographing all of the camps, from which there remains even a memorial.

- One another question that we were discussing while eating, is that how anyone can deny that the camps existed or that there wasn't no gas chambers or crematoriums? There's so much evidence around, official orders, transportation lists etc, etc. Even when you deny that there was no gas chambers or that no one was killed in those, you still got 800.000 pairs of ownerless shoes in Majdanek. Where did those come from? Where are the owners of those shoes?

- To me personally, it's irrelevant question if the people died in gas chambers, or if they died to diseases, starvation and to random executions. The fact remains, that there are 800.000 pairs of ownerless shoes in Majdanek, in Auschwitz even more, along with artificial limbs, glasses, clothes, watches etc. Where are the owners of all of those things? Where did they go? The question really isn't whether they died in gas chambers or not. The fact is that they died, other things are irrelevant to the discussion.

- 10:00am, On a train going towards Warsaw. It's again hot day to spend in a train. This time we even found our way to the second class, which is not as full as when we traveled to Lublin. A last look to this beautiful country and then to home and to work. 

- 14:30pm, In the crappiest airport in Europe, the Warsaw Frederic Chopin Airport. The check-in is an absolute mess. Information desk said that you can go to any of the check-in desks, which pleased us, as there was one huge queue in the hall. After queue the lady at the desk said, that there's only one queue, which is the long one, stretching from the desk to the exit. I refused to queue in that massive line of people and found another queue. After a while I found an airport official and explained the situation, after which we were let yet to another small queue. VIP queue and perhaps a queue to a very pissed customers.

- I also tried to ask from another official, that is it always a mess like that in this airport, but the official refused to answer, just stared at me. Even when one Finnish guy said, that it's always a mess like that in the Warsaw airport, I still refuse to believe it. They got to have some computer problems or something.

- 15:45pm, After getting through the check-in and passport control, the situation doesn't seem to be any better than in the check-in. The screens showing departures, still shows flights that took off two to three hours ago. Also cancelled and delayed flights are still in the list, meaning that there's not enough space in the screen, to show any of the flights that should be leaving soon. As a result, our flight isn't showing in the screen. The whole damn airport has only one screen, which is a bit bigger one, to show even our flight, which leaves in 40 minutes. And that screen is located in the remotest corner of the airport, that one can find.

- Absolutely amazing airport, you can hardly believe that you are in the capital of a large nation and this airport is the biggest one in the whole country! I certainly would not want to see the much smaller airports.

- 21:00pm, Home at last, as the flight at least left on time. The queue to the security control was also a huge one and we just and just made it through on time, even when they wanted to search my camera bag.

- In the end, after visiting five camps in less than two weeks, only one question remains:

What would I have done?