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Standing in freezing temperatures, watching my breath create flurries of white puffs in front of my face while I waited for a tour bus at 5:30 in the morning is probably not what I had initially envisioned myself doing for my four day weekend; though I should have seen it coming. After all, I am the one who decided doing a full day tour from Krakow, Poland in the middle of December was a good idea, but I digress. There I was, standing in the cold with two pairs of pants, two pairs of gloves, probably a total of four tops, and any other winter-y accessories you can think of. I was still cold. When the bus finally pulled up, I was beyond relieved. I quickly climbed up the stairs into the warm vehicle and plopped into the single-person seat nearest the door, joining my fellow tourists. After about thirty minutes of watching the city melt into the countryside, I fell asleep. Two hours later, we arrived at the first stop: Auschwitz I. We all clambered out of the bus and rushed to the front gates in search of shelter from the dreadful temperatures while the driver, Bartosch, left to find the tour guide. After twenty minutes of struggling to find refuge in the overcrowded bookstore, we met our guide and started the tour. Words hardly come close to describing the emotions I felt as we walked along the eerily beautiful buildings, saw the rooms we all heard about in books, and listened to stories that made my stomach turn and blood boil. By the end of this leg of the tour, my fingers were numb and my toes hurt so bad I almost couldn’t walk. Before getting back on the bus, I purchased a book from the bookstore which I read, nearly in tears, as we traveled to the next stop: Auschwitz II - Birkenau. When we got off the bus, we all wandered over to the front gates of the camp to reconvene with our guide. It is truly an image that will forever haunt my memories. The towering gate loomed over us casting dark shadows onto the railway tracks inside the camp. It was cold, still, and held dark memories. As we made our way down the tracks towards the far end of the camp, our guide told us stories of starving passengers fighting to survive in extremely harsh conditions inside the boxcars of incoming trains. She also told us about the unbelievable sorting that happened afterwards. Some passengers were sent off to work, while the rest lined up to enter a dark tunnel, never to be seen again. I saw the ruins of that tunnel. Thinking back to the book I was reading on the bus, I was now able to picture the process, as I had read the details and was now standing in the very spot where it happened. It was harder to process than I thought it would be. I saw the commander standing in front of thousands of people telling them where to go. I saw bundles of belongings stacked up along the train. I saw the hope families had when they were reunited, only to see it being taken away again. Reading facts in a history book could never have prepared me for what I felt standing on the ruins of gas chambers, feeling the cracked wood of children’s bunks, or smelling the dust that holds memories of sorrow and pain. I will never forget that smell. I turned around after walking back outside, and peered up once again at the tall, unnervingly proud gate; nothing there should feel proud. Not many who entered those gates were well fed, well clothed, or ever got to look back at them from the outside. I was one of the lucky ones. And that’s when I remembered how cold I was.