friday 28 may 2010 - vienna to austrian tyrol via mauthassen

WARNING: CONCENTRATION CAMP PHOTOS BELOW,
please dont view the images if you dont want to. [below them is swarovski crystal museum, so just scroll fast until you see bright colours]

today is ashleys birthday hooray, and we are heading to swarovski crystal museum and shop. but on the way, we are making a very solemn stop at mauthassen concentration camp. zsofi said that it is important for us to understand the history of the country that we are in, and that the camps were a part of it. its not compulsory to go, but all of us went in. its free to go in and watch the movie that they showed, and then to view the camp it was only a few dollars, which went towards the maintenance of the camp.
you hear about concentration camps and what happened a little bit in school, but it is such a surreal experience to walk the grounds that these people walked, view all of the barracks, and rooms where they gassed people, stored them, the rooms they used to remove gold items from their teeth, and the big ovens that they incinerated the remains in.
it really showed me a different part of human nature, that made me wonder how on earth they justified it to themselves and were able to sleep at night. i like to think that im a nice person, i care for others around me, and i cant stand blatant dishonesty, or neglect for other peoples welfare or welbeing [really grates me!], so to see that large groups of people that ran the camps, and the people that even thought it up, and the people who were behind the propaganda campaigns to keep the people of the country in the dark about exactly what they were up to, what the hell is wrong with them?! what warped way of thinking enables people to think that it is ok to persecute certain types of people? and then any one who wanted to help the concentration camp people who managed to escape, were sent to camps as well, so it was really, really hard.
if you dont know the full history of this, i recommend reading up on it, and also try and find stories about the heroic local people who hid and tried to help the escapees.
below are some of the images i took at the camp, please be aware that they are a bit upsetting, so please dont view them if you dont want to.....

MAUTHASSEN CONCENTRATION CAMP

the bus ride after the camp until our lunch break was spent in silence pretty much, with everyone mulling over what they had just seen. no idea what everyone else was thinking, but i was sitting there feeling extremely grateful for being born in nz, at the time that i was. knowing that they also sent sick people to the camps made me realise that i could have been one of them, and spent time being thankful for an amazing public health system, being able to have freedom of thought, freedom of speech, the abillity to travel and have a career that i love, being able to come and go from my house as i please, and having medicine available that enables me to do it all, and not be crippled from my arthritis. i really honestly think that alot of the time, we honestly dont know just how lucky we are!



SWAROVSKI
in the afternoon we arrived at the swarovski crystal world, and looked through the really cool museum, and had a look through the shop, i bought a nice white swarovski pen to keep in my camera bag, just incase im at a wedding and the signing pen is a bic, i can quickly swap it for my pretty one for the photos :)

GENDER BENDER PARTY
we arrived at camp, had dinner [potatoes yay!] and got ready for our gender bender party! i beautified joseph as a gorgeous beach babe [he really does have amazing eye lashes and cheek bones, he makes a very pretty girl!], and i dressed up as an emo, which was fun trying not to smile for the evening, when everyone looked so funny! i ran down with my camera and took a bunch of shots, then put it back in my room and enjoyed the rest of the evening