Our last day of the trip we spent in Krakow. It was a radiantly beautiful and sunny day, and during the afternoon hours, strolled about in the bustling street life in and around the main square by the powerful St. Mary's Church and the Market Hall, and enjoyed it very well. Krakow is a really beautiful city!

We started the day with a visit to the Jewish Quarter (Kazimiers) and an ancient synagogue still in use: Remuh Synagogue and the nearby Jewish cemetery. Then we wandered around the surrounding area and saw including some places where scenes of Schindler's List recorded. Then we went to the neighborhood where the Jewish ghetto was during the war and saw the various memorials and the ghetto walls existed.

Although Krakow had a koncentr ationsläger: Płaszów, which was purely a labor camp and not intended for "extermination." We visited the place where it has been and saw the monument erected over all those who nevertheless died / killed in the camp (according to our guide about 20 000 people). Besides the high memory monument in stone, there is just nothing that resembles the site's history. It is more like a lush green today. Before we went into the area we looked at Amon Goeths commandant villa (Goeth had a hobby to shoot dot on the Jews in the camp: in the movie Schindler's List, he does it from his balcony) and the villa where the SS had their headquarters we watched also.

We also got a quick look at Oskar Schindler's factory. Most of his workers he brought the Jews in Płaszów; early to make a lot of money on slave labor, end the war, because he realized that he could save lives by taking them to the factory, even though he was at that time only lost money to keep running the factory instead of making a few and had to pay a lot of bribes to keep his workers alive.

At night we had the privilege of eating at a kocher restaurant while we were listening to great live music by Jascha Lieberman Trio.

A really good day!

Remuh Synagogue, with fences format menorah-candle holders

Synagogue inside

It was filmed a scene from the film Schindler's List in

The monument in Płaszów

The same monument with religion misses the fore

St. Mary's Church

Jascha Lieberman Trio

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After lunch, we stepped on the bus again and left Rabka. Bus journey was a bit shaky with one, unfortunately, just as shaky and jittery Schindler's List on DVD, on our way to Oswiecim and Stalag; thus the main camp Auschwitz I. Most shocking was still what was in there.

It is as well not to describe.

The hair ... the cut off her hair lying in drifts in a huge glass case that stretches along a long wall. Two tons of cut hair, from murdered people. Yet it is surely only a fraction of what is saved - what is not caught or burned up before the camp was emptied.

The drifts with shoes. An entire room filled. And that special booth, with a big pile of little shoes ... kids shoes. For similar sizes that are at home on the hall carpets of religion Misses - our children's shoes. Then watery eyes. A small stand of children's clothing and other things that the little ones come to the camp had in their suitcases, like a little doll. And the suitcases, clearly labeled with your name, the owners believe that one day they would leave the camp. A large pile of glasses and a sea of ​​small belongings - shaving brushes, toothbrushes ...

We are entering a gas chamber. Walking the path of thousands became the last. We stand at the cremation ovens and shooting the gaps while the stream of tourists walk past with their guides and the whole situation feels totally surreal.

The images of emaciated people. The portraits of prisoners, with name, age, date of arrival and date of death. Behind the glass and frame burn their serious looks.

It is as well not to describe. And it does not really understand.

The famous sign

Brick barracks behind barbed wire

Crematory ovens

Inside the gas chamber

Cykon B-cans

Annelie in front of a photo depicting women and children on their way to the gas chambers.

Eyeglasses

A large pile of children's shoes.

Children's clothing and photos with information on some of the approx. 240 000 children who died in the camp.

The toilets at Auschwitz I.

Bedding configuration.

Annelie at one of the poles where prisoners sentenced by hanging them up in their hands bound together.

"Halt!" Barbed wire that surrounded the camp was electrified. On the ground ... a single rose.

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This morning we sat in a bus to travel 1.5 hours by rainy Polish landscape to the village Rabka. In Rabka established a school for SS soldiers, where they were trained to kill, often on live targets that were running there: Jewish men, women and children.

After parking at the former SS school and had told us what took place on the site, we wandered through the forest, where 20,000 Jews were shot and buried in mass graves. We passed overgrown trenches and bunkers, and hidden in the woods was an old jew cemetery.

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The afternoon we spent in the remains of Auschwitz II - also called Birkenau. A strange feeling of unreality hung in the air, then we among birds and budding early summer greenery wandering around the place that has become a symbol of evil itself. That so many incredible people have lost their lives in the most gruesome circumstances, and so cold organized and detail projected shapes on the ground we tread ... it's hard to grasp.

We started the tour in an authentic railroad car used to transport people to the camp, mostly Jews. One hundred people per carriage, often several days' journey without rest: a bucket of water in one corner of the carriage, a bucket to defecate in at the opposite corner. Once, when people had to step out of the carriage, took the divisions. Young healthy and able-bodied men and women had come into the camp's female and mansdel. Old, children under 15, pregnant women and the sick got instead go together in one particular point to "shower" the man said - and afterwards they would get coffee / chocolate and reunited with his other relatives. But, as we know, after all, so it was not what awaited them. They went straight to their death in the gas chambers.

Birkenau is large. About 175 football fields to the surface. Everything is surrounded by high barbed wire fence when the camp was used was electrified. The strategically placed guard towers casting shadows in the sunny grass where early summer flowers sprout. 60 years ago there was hardly any grass, everything was trampled by inmates who performed chores ... the camp prisoners, until further notice, had to live. Until they became too sick, too tired, for degraded to work. 1.1 million people were murdered in Birkenau, mostly Jews. 25% of these were children under 15. It boggles where we go from barracks where they slept like packed sardines. The guide talks about surreal numbers as we look out over the ocean with barracks: 500 people slept in each barrack. Approximately 3,500 people arrived at the camp every day during the most intense period of the war. The gas chambers gassed to 2000 people at a time, sometimes we had time with 20,000 in one day. We see the remains of the gas chambers and cremation ovens of. The numbers in your head spins.

Inside the house where they shaved off people all the hair, took care of their clothes and valuables - in the house can be given in particular photographs of some of the people who came to the camp; photographs they had to get there, taken before deportation .

It grabs the horrendous while. When you look into the eyes of little children who see posing on the black and white images. Siblings as holding hands, with mischief in her eyes. Then the horror so close. For none of these little ones had no chance. They were killed instantly. What excruciating pain as the site carries, all separations from loved ones; separation between the working working mothers and small children. Perhaps followed a grandmother or grandfather with the small into the gas chamber, perhaps they tried to calm the children. Or could it, in panic? When two thousand people climbed on each other in desperation at not being able to breathe during the approximately 20 minute long execution that followed when the poisonous gas filled chambers?

The cruelty is so very difficult to understand. The fact that people today can call themselves neo-Nazis and glorifying Hitler and the Nazi ideology, is even more incomprehensible.

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During the morning Religion Misses with students walking in Oswiecims old Jewish Quarter. We visited the museum and synagogue, and then walked to the Jewish cemetery - a place that was destroyed during World War II but has since been completed after the war ended.

Before the Germans came to town, there were twenty synagogues and about. 8000 resident Jews. Today there are no Jews left.

Now expected to lunch, and then we go to the labor camp Auschwitz II, Birkenau.

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Tomorrow we are off again. Now we finally got our students as part of Project: Respect and go to Poland and study visits to Auschwitz and Krakow Rabka among others. (We've written about the trip here .) Little körigt is understood to head out on a trip like this in the tail end of the semester and academic year with all ordinances, national sample (no, not in religion), and ratings and we suspect that there will be a last minute packing for both of us!

Our students, in the project, is now blogging. We obviously put out a tab directly to the students' blog, and anyone interested in following them, our journey and our project here .

Last week was also the local newspaper for a visit, while our guide from the Swedish Committee Against Anti-Semitism visited the school to prepare our students a little before the trip. Here writes Dalademokraten about our trip.

Tomorrow morning we go ... and of course we check in on the blog as soon as we get the opportunity!

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Today is our last day here in Jordan; tomorrow morning we pack up and then we sit on the plane to Vienna, where we spend the night before the next plane takes us to Sweden. On this day, we have it pretty easy. The morning was spent at the hotel where some work and studies done by. At 13 o'clock we went to Mecca Mall - a huge shopping center with a variety of shops. A little gifts for the children were purchased and tired of all the walking in stores with poor ventilation, cigarette smoke from surreptitious smoking shop owners and perfumed air, we landed on the hotel room. Tomorrow morning we will, as I said pick it up a bit and maybe we have time with an hour writing by the pool. Now we have been joined at the hotel by a busload of Swedes, so it may be that the hotel's pool area will be used by more: before it has been deserted there.
We feel quite satisfied and completed our trip now. We have experienced a lot, with memories of a lifetime and learned a lot. We go home with a lot of material to both our teaching and our site. And now we actually crave most to get home and kiss and hug our children. Yes, their fathers also, by all means.

Malin viewing "barbie dolls".

Storefronts

Prayer room in Mecca template.

Annelie bought glue to fix the glasses that broke yesterday.

Opposite Koran ended up of course also in the shopping basket.

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Early on Saturday morning, we sat on the bus to head south through the country, and just over four hours later we arrived in the resort of Aqaba on the Red Sea.

Our plan was to take two days of spring break / vacation, but our plans changed. Instead, we visited the ruins of one of the earliest Islamic remains, the city Ayla, from 630 - that is a time when Islam was still in its infancy.

We also visited the ruins of a 300-century church, one of the earliest known churches built just for the specific purpose, then that church.

The highlight though was when we were using a kind taxi driver, named Isam Abu Raya, went with us into a mosque. Unfortunately, it was just time for prayer when we arrived, so we could not go all the way.

Mosque by

We were not really prepared for mosque visit was when we did not know that our taxi driver could take us there. Malin had indecent vadkorta pants and had to take on a loan skirt, and with our strandsaronger around the head, we became respectable enough to get into the holy land.

We went around and looked in the Aqaba area from northern Aqaba to the border with Saudi Arabia. When we passed through Aqaba port, we learned that it now comes very many containers there, when several neighboring countries, civil unrest or conflict, and therefore can not ship there. From Aqaba transported supplies continues by police and military escorts.

We also walked around and visited the public beach in Aqaba.

It did not feel so good to be at the public beach. Although we were quite dressed (long sleeves and long pants) we were very stared and swimming felt wrong.

Our hotel was a disappointment: not only no promised balcony and wifi (which we paid close attention to the book, but then there was made that we could not blog) ... it was generally trashy and dirty too. So on Sunday morning, right after breakfast, we went to a better hotel, not to stay but to be real tourists a day. The day was spent in a beach chair with ocean, pool and plenty of sun, in a place with other Western tourists where it felt okay to bathe in bikinis. Then we stepped on the last evening bus for a four hour journey back to the capital.

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Today, Religion Misses had an absolutely fantastic day, and we realize that it is not possible to describe our experiences with today were the words or pictures ... but we make a small effort nonetheless.

The day began with our driver took us on surprises. First, a Greek Orthodox church where we visited a church service, and then on to the Apostles in Madaba.

Annelie on the way into the Greek Orthodox Church in Madaba.

Chapel in the Greek Orthodox Church.

The priest gives communion.

After our church visit to Madaba we continued towards Moses Mountain / Mount Nebo, the mountain where Moses stood with his people after the long trek from Egypt and looked over Palestine, and also the place where Moses should have died according to the story. Amazing views of both Jordan and the Dead Sea, Jericho and Jerusalem mountains.

Malin on Mount Nebo.

View of the Dead Sea, Jericho and Palestine.

The monument that stands erected on Mount Nebo.

At the winding roads we drove down the mountain and then on to Bethania and the Jordan River, and the place where Jesus was baptized by Johanna Baptist according to legend. After a short hike at the winding paths, we reached "The Baptism Site."

The place where Jesus, according to legend, baptized by John the Baptist. In retrospect, then the place has become a sacred memorial has been built up stone foundation which makes a cross formed by the water, which is a small backwater of the River Jordan.

Pilgrims on the other side of the Jordan, that the Israeli side.

Border with Israel.

Religion Misses at the Jordan River.

After our visit to the Jordan River we went to the Dead Sea. The public beach was very full, and we therefore decided to go to OH Beach Hotel, an incredibly beautiful hotel with a private beach. There, we ate a fabulous lunch with an indescribable view of the Dead Sea, and much laughter we floated since about as helpless corks in the salty water.

Lunch restaurant with the Dead Sea in the background.

Malin lunch.

Annelie looking out over the Dead Sea shore.

Malin floating in the Dead Sea salt water. A very strange feeling to suddenly be weightless.

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