Visiting Auschwitz

Auschwitz and Birenkau were made into a museum a mere TWO YEARS after WWII ended.

Getting There:

You have the option of a  50+ euro 10 hour tour. It includes transportation there and back as well as shuttle between Auschwitz and Birkenau and a guide for the day. Easy.

Skip it.

Instead, take the bus or train to the town of Oswiecim (where the concentration camps are). You can buy these tickets at the central station in Krakow. The trains leave every hour or so and take about 1.5 hours to get there. Bus is better because it will take you right to Auschwitz entrance. If you take the train, you will have to walk about 20 minutes to the museum.

Visitation Options:

For most of the year, you need a tour guide to enter the museum. You are able to explore the grounds on your own before 10am and after 4pm- but not all showrooms are opened. If you decide to visit the grounds at one of these times, make sure you have reserved at the website www.visit.auschwitz.org . On this website, you also have the ability to sign up for a tour, but for some reason there were no English options on the website. When we arrived at 830AM to the museum, we were able to get our ticket for solo exploration (which is free) and also booked a tour with an English guide for 1015AM. It seemed like there were 4 tours every hour in English. 

As a student it costs 30zl and as an adult it is 40zl. GET THERE EARLY! Jack and I arrived by 830 and we still had to wait in line a good thirty minutes just to go explore the grounds. When we went back out to meet our tour group, the line for tickets was at least 30 people long. Auschwitz only allows a certain number of people in every hour so depending on when you buy your ticket, you will be allowed in the grounds at a time after that. The later you come, the longer you will wait.

Etiquette:

This SHOULD go without saying: as tour guide said, it should not be treated as a tourist attraction. Over 1 million people were murdered here. Taking pictures posing with the train that transported people like livestock to the gas chambers is NOT appropriate. I was horrified at some of the people smiling and throwing up peace signs in front of the gates and barracks where 70 years ago this placed served as as death camp. Take photos, sure, but be respectful.

German for "Work will make you free"... 

Our tour guide was really amazing. A lot of details and stats that I forgot from my history classes. I won’t really go too much into history and stats because you can google that. But walking around where all of this happened...

The monstrosities. For example, if you were a prisoner and miraculously escaped from the concentration camp, ALL of your family would be captured and killed. If your family was already in the camp, to the Death Wall and killed.  

Or at least locked in isolation.

If you helped a Jew, you and your family were sent to the concentration camp and/or killed.

Most of the people that had mugshots done were Polish becacuse IF they escaped they would be able to talk to locals of the town where the concentration camps are located. Most people that came into the concentration camps did not survive long enough to need a picture/name records.. which is why there are no exact numbers of how many people were murdered.

It’s appropriate to cry.

Birkenau was especially eery...

Auschwitz is a full day thing. We left with the train from Krakow at 657 and didn’t return until after 3pm. 

I recommend you go with someone. It can help you digest what you are seeing and hearing. So thank you Jack for the company.  I know some people think that going to a place like Auschwitz is “perverse,” but I do think if you are in Krakow you should go. It’s important for us to never forget what happened. The mass murder that happened during World War II can be very abstract for us that are so separated by time and space… But when you walk around those campgrounds, you can feel the evil that perpetuated. It’s very hard to describe but you are never at ease when at this (or any) concentration camp.