Visiting Auschwitz, or Auschwitz Concentration Camp, is not an experience for the faint hearted. But uncovering the true horror of places like Auschwitz, is an important part of history, both past and present.
VISITING AUSCHWITZ CONCENTRATION CAMP
Visiting Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II (Birkenau) will leave a definite mark on your heart and soul. Witnessing first hand the history of mankind’s evil will be unfathomable.
Attempting to make any sense from this atrocity will be impossible.
In this post, we outline the details of how to visit Auschwitz, together with details of our own personal experience.
BRIEF HISTORY OF AUSCHWITZ
Auschwitz is a former WWII Nazi German concentration and death camp, located in southern Poland. It is a word etched in people’s knowledge of history.
Of the estimated 1.3 million prisoners sent to Auschwitz concentration camp, a staggering 1.1 million died.
The majority of prisoners were sent to their deaths in the gas chambers, while others died from forced labour, starvation, infection or disease and medical experimentation.
Synonymous with evil and genocide, Auschwitz is in fact 3 separate concentration camps.
AUSCHWITZ CONCENTRATION CAMPS
Auschwitz I, was founded in 1940 as an army barracks for detention of Polish political prisoners. This role however, quickly changed to that of concentration camp, and place of mass murder. Prisoners included Jews, Poles and Gypsies. The camp is located in the suburbs of Oświęcim.
Auschwitz II-Birkenau, located about 3 km away, was opened in 1942 as a solution to the overcrowding at Auschwitz I. This became the largest camp and the place were about 1 million people died, the majority of them Jews.
Auschwitz III, Monowitz, now completely destroyed, was a forced labour camp.
On January 27 1945, the Day Of Liberation for Auschwitz-Birkenau, came, when the gates of the camp were opened by Russian Soldiers.
The grounds and buildings of Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau concentration camps are now a museum, and open to visitors.
They serve as a memorial to all those who lost their lives, and as an education tool for understanding the atrocities as part of history.
SHOULD YOU VISIT AUSCHWITZ?
In 2019, 2 million 320 thousand people from all over the world visited Auschwitz and Auschwitz II-Birkenau Museum.
The sites of the former German Nazi concentration and extermination camps are not a tourist attraction to tick off your list.
A visit to this historical site will be a sobering experience. You will discover first hand, what atrocities human beings can do to one another.
Some would say that it is important for people to bear witness to this genocide, so that it is never forgotten or repeated.
Is reading about such dark periods of history enough to fully understood them? Can you feel the same depth of emotion without visiting the place where the atrocity took place?
These are questions only each individual can answer for themselves.
GETTING TO AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU MUSEUM
The Museum is located roughly 70 km west of Krakow, on the outskirts of Oświęcim. You can reach the museum easily either by car, public transport or on a tour.
NOTE / The museums of Auschwitz and Birkenau are located 3.5 km apart. A FREE museum shuttle bus, transports visitors from one concentration camp to another. From April-October it leaves every 10 mins / November-March, every 30 mins.
BY CAR : Take the A4 and national road 933, which takes around 75-90 minutes. Paid car parks are available near both former concentration camps.
BY BUS : If you want the cheapest option, take a direct bus from the bus station, located next to Krakow railway station. There are several operators to choose from, so for full flexibility just buy a single ticket. Find the bus timetable HERE. Journey time approx. 1hr 45mins / Single Fare 10-12 zloty.
BY TRAIN : Trains to Oświęcim leave from Krakow Glowny train station. Located about 2 km from the train station, the museum can be reached by local buses or on foot (about 25 min walk).
Find the train timetable HERE. Journey time approx. 1hr 40 mins/ Single Fare 15.60 zloty.
BOOK A GUIDED TOUR FROM KRAKOW : Although the most expensive option, I highly recommend taking a guided tour from Krakow.
This will include pick up from your accommodation, transfer between the two camps and a private tour. You are paying for the convenience.
DETAILS FOR VISITING AUSCHWITZ
LENGTH OF THE AUSCHWITZ GUIDED TOUR
General tours for individuals are around 3.5 hours, and include visits to both camps.
You should allow about 90 minutes for the Auschwitz site and the same amount of time for Auschwitz II-Birkenau.
At Auschwitz, you see the original camp buildings and permanent exhibitions. You will see prisoners personal belongings such as glasses, shoes and human hair, taken from them on arrival.
At Auschwitz-Birkenau, you tour the prisoner barracks, the unloading platform (ramp), and the ruins of gas chamber and crematoria II or III.
To get a complete picture and sense of the place, it is important to visit both camps.
Numerous tours, in several different languages, are offered every day. After passing through security, you will be given a set of headphones so you can follow the audio guide, even if your guide (educator) moves ahead of the group.
NOTE / Check the official site for up to date opening times/tours during Coronavirus
DO YOU HAVE TO VISIT AUSCHWITZ WITH A GUIDE?
As the site of the museum is so vast, I would highly recommend visiting with a guide. You will get so much more from your visit, being able to ask questions and putting what you see into context.
At the time of writing, we are all in the throes of the Coronavirus. Thus, places like Auschwitz are adapting the museums for safety of staff and visitors.
As things are changing, it is best to check the official website, for present updates on visiting restrictions. However, it is safe to assume, that visitor numbers will be restricted, and visits required to be booked well in advance.
WHAT ARE AUSCHWITZ OPENING TIMES & COST
- Aside from January 1, December 25, and Easter Sunday, the Museum is open every day.
- Entrance to the museum is from 7.30 am with varying closing times throughout the year. ** click here for up to date hours **
- Admission to the museum is FREE, but you have to pay for a tour. This cost will be included if you visit with a tour group from Krakow.
- A general guide for tour prices can be found here.
VISITING AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU ON A TOUR
Most tours begin at Auschwitz I and the following text is from my own sobering experience. I personally felt that taking too many photos, detracted from getting a true feeling for the place.
TOUR OF AUSCHWITZ I CAMP
As we passed under the replica sign “Arbeit Macht Frei”, it felt like we were entering another dimension, one I knew I would never understand.
Etched into wrought iron, the irony of the words is not lost on me. “Work will set you free”, a phrase common across all Nazi camps. The tone of our visit is immediately set.
Auschwitz I, was the first camp for both male and female prisoners. The red brick buildings, or “blocks”, housed prisoners and had various functions including torture. Surrounding the compound, is electric barbed wire, and wooden watch towers.
Most of buildings have now been converted into museum exhibitions to which the public has access. Every block served its own gory purpose.
Entering Block 4, you quickly start breaking down the sheer scale of deaths, when you put names and faces to some of the prisoners.
You can’t help but wonder what emotions were running through their minds at this point. Panic, terror, numbness, horror, disbelief ……as they were totally dehumanised.
Your guide leads you from block to block, relaying the torture, horrors and deaths that happened here, in great detail.
This is not a place for idle chatter. This is not a place for snapping photo after photo. Indeed, you are left speechless, at a loss to what to say, even if you wanted to.
Moving from block to block, from one graphic detail to another, you barely have time to really articulate what you are seeing and learning. Your brain swims with all the facts being relayed.
It is only when you stop in front of a display of over 7 tons of human hair, that your brain plays catch up.
The scale of these horrors come crashing down on me.
Displays of mountainous piles of glasses, of shaving brushes, of suitcases and of shoes, including children’s shoes render me senseless. On arrival, prisoners were stripped of all their possessions.
Reading the statistics of the Nazi horrors is completely different to being here.
Seeing these displays brings everything into sharp perspective and it is truly staggering to comprehend on any level.
Exhibits include original sketches of the gas chambers and empty canisters of tins of Zyklon B used for extermination.
The tour moves on, to seeing the living conditions endured by the prisoners. I can’t even allow myself to consider the fear they must have felt.
At the reconstruction of the “Wall of Death”, now a flower adorned memorial, we pause and reflect on the thousands of prisoners whose lives ended here.
I say a silent prayer to the same God that Pope Benedict XVI prayed to, during his visit in 2006, as I desperately try and make sense of this evil.
Block 11, the Death Block, is claustrophobic in the extreme and here, prisoners served time in tiny standing cells as they starved to death.
Father Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish priest, offered his own life so another could be spared.
Another Block was the site of unimaginable horrors as the Nazis, led by Dr Mengele, conducted experiments on prisoners, especially twins.
We walk into the remaining gas chamber, whose furnaces burnt corpses daily.
I am staggered by people taking photos inside the furnace …… WHY???
We are shown the family home of camp commandant Rudolf Hoss, hidden from the camp horrors, behind a fence.
And finally the gallows where he met his fate.
Back in the minibus, we made our way to the second camp, each of us lost in our own thoughts.
TOUR OF BIRKENAU CAMP
Birkenau is quiet and void of visitors when we arrive. The first thing you notice is the camp’s sheer size. It stretches far and wide over more than 400 barren acres.
In 1945 as the Soviet Army approached the camp, the Nazis destroyed most buildings to hide any evidence of the atrocities.
Enclosed by high barbed-wire fences and looked over by far reaching watchtowers, the camp is vast.
The camp has a completely different feel to it, compared to Auschwitz.
Whilst Auschwitz was built up and focused on several different details, Birkenau is huge and was all about extermination of prisoners.
This was achieved in the camp’s four gas chambers.
Opened in March 1942, it is estimated that 90% of the victims of Auschwitz Concentration Camp died at Birkenau.
The temperature is minus 10 degrees, a sharp wind is blowing and there is a smattering of snow on the ground.
A central railway track enters the camp through an arched opening housing a main watchtower. This would have been the prisoner’s first introduction to Birkenau.
It feels strangely symbolic following the same railway track which brought thousands of prisoners to the camp.
Packed like sardines into cattle cars, thousands of unsuspected men, women and children arrived with only a small amount of luggage.
Prisoners were immediately processed into groups, with the vast majority being sent straight to the gas chambers.
Under the pretense of having a shower, the weak, elderly, children and those unfit for work were led to their deaths.
Only walking around this bleak empty landscape can you get a real idea of the immense scale of the camp. And hence the thousands upon thousands of prisoners led to slaughter.
You can see the remains of the men’s barracks, the ruins of a gas chamber and see how prisoners slept. Tightly packed, each barrack could hold up to 800 people.
Standing in the freezing December winter, I tried to imagine a child standing out for roll-call. Wearing rags and barefoot, for maybe hours at a time, the sight is unimaginable.
The Nazis were not concerned with prisoner’s living conditions.
They would be cramped, lying on top of one another, starving, freezing cold, filthy, exhausted and all in the knowledge that the gas chambers were waiting for them.
As I stand looking at the lake where people’s ashes were thrown, I hope fervently with all my soul, that each and every person is at peace.
Most of this part of the tour is outside, and in the freezing cold temperature I feel quite numb, both physically and mentally.
It is extremely difficult to focus the many thoughts that arise from a vist to Auschwitz. I struggle to comprehend the level of heinous crimes. How it can be possible for one human being to be capable of such inhumanity and evil.
I can only empathise with the plight of those who lost their lives. It would be wrong for me to assume anymore. Impossible for me to even think I could know what the prisoners went through. I have not walked in their shoes.
However, more questions arise that I cannot answer.
How does anyone survive such a horror? How is it possible for someone living such a nightmare, to want to survive?
The sheer will for anyone to still want to live, is staggering.
What I can identify though, is profound, deep rooted sadness.
Sadness for the unspeakable horrors these people had to endure. Sadness for the loss of every single life.
And sadness for the mental struggle the survivors had to face, for the remainder of their lives. For most, being physically freed from the camp was just the beginning of another journey for them.
I leave, hoping that I have adequately shown respect for every person’s memory and that I carry the images of Auschwitz with me, as a respect for their suffering.
I silently promise every lost soul, that I will keep their memories alive.
Have you visited Auschwitz and Birkenau? How were you affected by what you saw and learnt?
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