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Visiting Auschwitz – How to Plan the Auschwitz Tour

Last Updated on 26/04/2024 by kami

Visiting Auschwitz, albeit a very somber experience, is one of the must things to do in Poland. The largest Nazi Germany concentration and extermination camp during World War II, where over 1,3 million people lost their lives, needs no introduction. Conveniently located near Krakow , Auschwitz can be an easy addition to your Poland itinerary.

It took me almost 37 years to finally visit Auschwitz (although I’ve been to other Nazi Germany camps in Poland), and even if I knew very well what to expect, the place still overwhelmed me with its cruelty and tragedy. And I think everyone should plan a trip to Auschwitz to understand history better and see what people are capable of when the ideology brainwashes them. And, of course, to pay respect to all the unnecessary victims. It’s important to visit places like Auschwitz so we can do our best to prevent similar tragedies from happening in the future.

If you are visiting Poland (especially Krakow , Warsaw , Katowice , or Wroclaw ), I prepared this guide to help you plan your Auschwitz tour without too much hassle. There are different ways to visit Auschwitz, but no matter which one you choose, be prepared for one of the most difficult yet necessary travel experiences of your life.

Table of Contents

Where is Auschwitz

The former Nazi Germany Concentration Camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, is located in a town of around 37.000 inhabitants called Oświęcim in southern Poland. Krakow is less than 70 km away, and Katowice is 35 km away. Warsaw, the capital of Poland, is around 330 km away from Oświęcim.

A brief history of Auschwitz

Even if Auschwitz is known mainly as the extermination camp, it was established as a concentration camp in mid-1940. It was one of over 40 camps in Poland that were supposed to be a solution to the problem of overflowing prisons full of arrested locals. The first people were brought to Auschwitz on June 14th, 1940, from the prison in Tarnow.

Since 1942 Auschwitz has also been used as the extermination camp where Nazis implemented their plan to murder Jewish people from all over Europe. At the peak of its operation, in 1944, Auschwitz was divided into three parts: Auschwitz I (the oldest one, in the old Polish military barracks), Auschwitz II-Birkenau (the largest one, founded in 1941, the majority of victims were killed here), and Auschwitz III (this was a group of over 40 sub-camps created near industrial plants, made for work prisoners).

Numerous Polish villages were demolished, and locals were evicted to develop such a large institution. The camps were isolated from the outside world. The total area was around 40 square kilometers, including all three Auschwitz camps and the so-called “interest zone” used for the technical or supply background, offices, and barracks for Nazis.

Since Auschwitz had a strategic location on the front line, in August 1944, the camp’s liquidation began – the prisoners were taken to Germany, and the evidence of the crimes was covered up. The liberation of Auschwitz took place on January 27th, 1945, when around 7,5 thousand prisoners were still held there.

Altogether, in the almost four years of operation, over 1,3 million people lost their lives in Auschwitz; the majority were Jewish (around 1,1 million), but also Polish (about 150 hundred thousand), Roma people (23 thousand), and other nations.

In 1979 Auschwitz was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List – it is the only former Nazi concentration camp with that title in the world.

How to visit Auschwitz

You can visit Auschwitz two ways: with a tour from where you are staying in Poland (most likely Krakow, Katowice, Warsaw, or Wroclaw) or independently, reaching the site by car or using public transport. Both options are doable; however, the tour is a slightly better one as everything will be taken care of for you.

There is a wide selection of tours to choose from that depart from Krakow as well as other mentioned cities. Most of them cover more or less the same things: pick-up from your accommodation, transportation to/from Auschwitz and back, the entrance ticket to the concentration camp, and the guided tour on-site.

When I visited Auschwitz, I arrived by train from Warsaw, with the change in Katowice. I was at the museum almost an hour before my guided tour of the site was supposed to start, and despite the poor weather (it was raining on that day), there was no place to hide and wait for the tour. Visitors were not allowed to enter the museum until a few minutes before the tour was about to start. Me and a few other unlucky visitors just stood near the trees, hiding under the umbrella and waiting for our time to enter the site. I can’t say it was a comfortable situation (but at least the weather worked perfectly well for such a sad place to visit). Recently, a new visitors center was opened so hopefully the situation is better.

When using public transport, you need to rely on the schedule of trains/buses and, just in case, plan to be at the site with some extra time ahead; hence a tour is a better option. Still, visiting Auschwitz is doable independently – I did it, and once the tour of the site started, it was really good.

Visiting Auschwitz – practical information

Visiting Auschwitz memorial site is free of charge; however, I recommend joining the tour with the educator provided by the museum. They have a huge knowledge of the place and the tragedy that occurred here and can answer all the questions visitors always have. Tours are available in various languages: Polish, English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Czech, and Slovak.

Even if you decide to visit the site independently, you still need to book the entry pass – those with free entrance start in the afternoon. You can buy/reserve your ticket online at the website of Auschwitz Museum here.

Currently, the price for the tour with the educator is 80 PLN for Polish and 90 PLN for other languages. When booking the ticket, you must state your full name and surname – this will be checked later.

Since tickets can sell out quickly, booking one at least a month in advance is recommended. If there are no tickets left for the day you want to visit Auschwitz, you can join the organized tour from Krakow or other cities, as tour operators usually have tickets booked in advance. Due to the sensitive nature of the place, children under 14 years old should not visit Auschwitz Museum.

Once you have your ticket, you need to arrive at the Auschwitz visitors center 30 minutes before your tour starts to go through the security check (it’s rather thorough, similar to the airport), have your ticket inspected (remember to have the ID or passport with you), get the headset for the tour and meet your group. You are allowed to have a bag or backpack with a maximum dimension of 30x20x10 cm; any larger luggage must be left in the paid lockers.

Auschwitz Museum is open every day except January 1st, December 25th, and Easter Sunday. Opening hours vary depending on the month and are as follows:

• 7:30-14:00 in December
• 7:30-15:00 in January and November
• 7:30-16:00 in February
• 7:30-17:00 in March and October
• 7:30-18:00 in April, May, and September
• 7:30-19:00 in June, July, and August

The closing time means the last entrance – after that, you are allowed to stay on-site for an hour and a half. However, if you want to see Auschwitz Museum properly, you need at least 3,5 hours for that – that’s also how long the standard tour with the educator lasts. It is usually divided equally between Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II- Birkenau. A free shuttle bus runs between the two sites every few minutes.

Taking pictures and making videos is allowed in Auschwitz, for individual use, except in two places: the hall with the hair of Victims (block nr 4) and the basements of Block 11. Your educator will remind you not to take pictures there.

Remember what sort of place you are visiting and behave there with respect. It might be obvious for most, but I can’t count how many times I’ve read news about inappropriate behavior in Auschwitz and other similar sites in Poland, so I think it’s worth reminding this is not your typical tourist attraction but a place of one of the greatest tragedy that ever happened in the world.

Getting to Auschwitz independently

If you decide to visit Auschwitz on your own, you must get to the visitors’ center, where your tour will start. The new visitors center, which opened just recently, is located at 55 Więźniów Oświęcimia Street in Oświęcim ( here is the exact location ). If you drive there, there is a large parking lot where you can leave your car before visiting the museum.

If you use public transport, there are both trains and buses you can take to reach Oświęcim. I recommend trains as they are slightly faster and more comfortable; however, some buses stop next to the museum, so that’s convenient. You can check all the connections on this website , where you can also find the location of the bus stop in Oświęcim (there can be three different ones).

The train station in Oświęcim is located at Powstańców Śląskich Street, some 20 minutes walking from the Auschwitz museum. It’s a straightforward way; you can check the map with the directions here . I recommend catching the train that gives you at least an hour between arriving at Oświęcim and when your tour starts.

Auschwitz tour from Krakow

Numerous Auschwitz tours depart from Krakow, so you will easily find the one that suits your itinerary and needs. Here are some recommended ones:

• Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum and Memorial Guided Tour from Krakow
• Auschwitz & Birkenau – Fully Guided Tour from Krakow
• Auschwitz-Birkenau Guided Tour with Private Transport from Kraków
• Auschwitz-Birkenau Guided Tour by Private Transport from Krakow

You can also combine visiting Auschwitz with Wieliczka Salt Mine , another UNESCO-listed site near Krakow and a must-visit place in Poland. Here are the tours that go to both places in one day:

• Day Trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau and Wieliczka Salt Mine from Krakow including Lunch
• Full-Day Tour of Auschwitz and Wieliczka Salt Mine from Krakow
• Auschwitz-Birkenau and Salt Mine Tour with private transport from Krakow
• Combined: Auschwitz Birkenau and Salt Mine private chauffeur from Krakow

If you decide to go to Auschwitz from Krakow on your own, you can take the train from the main train station to Oświęcim. They are rather frequent, more or less every hour, and the journey takes a bit over an hour (depending on the connection, the longest one is 1h20min).

If you want to take the bus, they depart from the MDA bus station, next to the main train station. The price for trains and buses is similar, between 15 and 20 PLN, although trains tend to be cheaper and faster. You can check all the connections and buy a ticket here .

Auschwitz tour from Warsaw

Even if Warsaw, the capital of Poland, is located over 300 km away from Oświęcim, it is possible to go for a one-day Auschwitz tour. However, you can expect a long day, and a large part of it will be spent traveling. But if you are visiting Warsaw only, Auschwitz can be a good addition to your Poland itinerary, so you can better understand the country’s complex history.

Here are some of the recommended Auschwitz tours from Warsaw:

• From Warsaw Auschwitz and Krakow one day tour by train with pick up and drop off
• One day tour to Auschwitz-Birkenau from Warsaw with private transport

Going for the day trip from Warsaw to Auschwitz independently is also possible using trains. You can take the 6 am train to Katowice and then change for the train to Oświęcim, arriving in the town around 10:30. If you decide to do that, you can book your Auschwitz tour for 11:30 or 12:00. On the way back, you can catch the train after 16:00 from Oświęcim to Katowice, and after changing for the train to Warsaw, you will be in the capital after 20:00.

Auschwitz tour from Katowice

Since Katowice is less than 40 km from Auschwitz, it’s easy to go for a day trip. You need to take the local train to Oświęcim, it takes less than 50 minutes, and the connections are more or less every hour.

Or you can go for a tour, here are the Auschwitz tours from Katowice:

• Auschwitz – Birkenau from Katowice
• Auschwitz & Birkenau English guided tour by private transport from Katowice
• Auschwitz tour from Wroclaw

Wroclaw is another popular place to visit in Poland, and since it’s located around 230 km from Oświęcim, you can go for an Auschwitz tour from Wroclaw too. If you decide to do it independently, you can take the train to Katowice and then change for the local train to Oświęcim. A one-way trip should take you less than 4 hours.

Or you can go for a tour; here are the recommended ones from Wroclaw:

• Auschwitz-Birkenau Tour from Wrocław
• Private Full-Day Tour to Auschwitz-Birkenau from Wroclaw

Auschwitz Museum Tour

As for the museum itself, here is what you can expect.

You will start in the oldest part of the concentration camp – Auschwitz I, where the infamous gate with the sign “Arbeit macht frei” (meaning “Work Sets You Free”) is located. Here, you will visit numerous barracks where inmates were kept – now you can see different exhibitions there, showing the reality of Auschwitz and halls with personal belongings taken from arriving prisoners – luggage, shoes, glasses, etc., or hair of Victims. You will learn all about cruel practices here, including medical experiments or torture.

Visiting this part of Auschwitz museum is a very somber experience, and it’s really difficult to comprehend the tragedy that happened in this very place.

Besides the barracks in Auschwitz I, you will also see where the camp commander lived or the first crematorium where Nazis started their experiments with killing using gas. In this part of the Auschwitz tour, you can take pictures everywhere except the two places in Blocks 4 and 11 – they will be clearly marked, and your educator will remind you about this restriction.

The visit to Auschwitz I takes around 1,5 hours. Afterward, together with your group and educator, you will take the shuttle bus to Auschwitz II-Birkenau, located some 3 km away.

Auschwitz II-Birkenau is where around 90% of victims died. It is a huge area that worked kind of like the killing factory, with four gas chambers and crematoriums. This is also where most prisoners arrived – you most likely know the view of the railway tracks and brick gate – that’s Auschwitz II-Birkenau. This part of the visit is mostly outdoors.

You will walk around the area, see the remnants of the camp, visit some barracks inside, and learn all about the horrific tragedy that happened here. When Auschwitz I has a more intimate, even claustrophobic feeling, Auschwitz II-Birkenau can overwhelm you with its scale and enormity.

You will spend around 1,5 hours here, too; afterward, you can take the shuttle bus back to the visitors center when you started your tour.

Final thoughts on visiting Auschwitz

Even though I’ve lived in Poland almost my whole life, and Auschwitz has been a familiar topic since I remember, it took me nearly 37 years to finally visit the place. Before I was in different Nazi Germany sites in Poland, mostly in Majdanek in Lublin, so I didn’t feel the need to visit Auschwitz too. But I don’t regret the decision to go there eventually.

You can read and learn about the place, but nothing can prepare you for visiting Auschwitz. Some areas look familiar (after all, pictures of the “Arbeit macht frei” sign or Birkenau gate are present everywhere), but you will still be overwhelmed by the place and seeing it in real life. It’s hard to comprehend the cruelty and tragedy that happened here, and dealing with all the thoughts invading your mind afterward can take a while. It can be one of the most difficult-to-understand places you will ever visit.

Still, despite it all, I think everyone should go to Auschwitz to see where fanaticism and totalitarianism can lead and why we should avoid them at all costs.

Further reading

I published many articles about Poland that you might find useful when planning your trip there. Here are some of them:

• 37 Amazing Things to Do in Krakow, Poland
• 20 Great Places to Visit As Day Trips from Warsaw, Poland
• 17 Amazing Things to Do in Lublin, Poland
• The Complete Guide to Visiting Slownski National Park, Poland
• Visit Grudziadz – One of the Hidden Gems of Poland
• 19 Amazing Things to Do in Gdansk, Poland
• Visit Sandomierz, Poland – One of the Prettiest Towns in the Country
• Visiting Malbork Castle, Poland – the Largest Castle in the World
• 25 Amazing Things to do in Wroclaw, Poland
• and many more!

If you are looking for articles about a specific destination – check out the map with all the articles I’ve published (and their locations). You can also join my Facebook group about traveling in Central Europe and ask your questions there.

Travel Resources

You can find the best accommodation options at Booking . They have many discounts and excellent customer service. Click here to look for the place to stay in Poland

Never travel without travel insurance , you never know what might happen and better safe than sorry. You can check the insurance policy for Poland here.

I recommend joining organized tours to get to know the place better and to visit more places during your trip. You can find a great selection of tours at Get Your Guide – click here .

For the end I left a few announcements that might interest you:

• Sign up to my newsletter or follow me on Bloglovin to get updates about the new posts
• Join my Facebook group about Eastern Europe, the Balkans and former USSR and connect with fellow travellers and enthusiasts of these regions – just click here!
• I’ve included a few handy links of services and products I personally like and use so you can plan your own trip to Poland too. They are often affiliate links. This means I will get a small commission if you book/purchase anything through my links, at no extra costs for you. Thank you!

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I am thinking of visiting Auschwitz in a couple of months, when I’m transiting Poland. I’ve been recently to France and saw Camp des Milles, an interment camp from September 1939, from where thousands of people were sent to Auschwitz. It was an emotional experience and it can’t even be compared to what horrors happened in Auschwitz. I’m not sure if I’m ready for Auschwitz. I need to decide soon considering that I need to buy tickets so far in advance. Thank you for your informative post.

I think everyone should visit Auschwitz. It’s definitely a difficult place to see but it’s part of history and these places are a reminder that we should do everything to prevent the history from repeating itself.

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The History Hit Miscellany of Facts, Figures and Fascinating Finds

15 Holocaust Sites, Museums and Memorials to Visit

Explore the harrowing events and effects of the holocaust through these important sites, museums and memorials around the world..

Harry Sherrin

21 sep 2021.

Between 1942 and 1945, the Nazis embarked upon the so-called ‘Final Solution to the Jewish Question’, a systematic program of extermination. In concentration camps across Europe, 6 million Jewish people were killed – around 78% of all Jews in occupied Europe.

The Holocaust was the most widespread and industrialised act of genocide the world has ever seen.

Today, that devastating moment in modern history is remembered in sites, museums and memorials across the globe. Here are 15 of the most significant, where visitors can learn more about the history of the Holocaust.

1. Yad Vashem

Yad Vashem in Jerusalem is a museum and a memorial of the Holocaust, in which over six million Jews, and at least five million from other ethnic groups, were murdered in an act of genocide perpetrated by the German National Socialist Party under Adolph Hitler .

Through exhibits including photographs, victims’ accounts, art installations and information panels, Yad Vashem offers a moving – and harrowing – account of the events of the Holocaust.

2. Anne Frank’s House

Anne Frank’s house was the site where German Jewish teenager and Holocaust victim Anne Frank , her family, the van Pels family and later a man called Fritz Pfeffer went into hiding from the Nazis during World War II. Tragically, the group’s whereabouts were betrayed to the Nazis and they were arrested and imprisoned in concentration camps. Anne Frank died in Bergen-Belsen in March 1945, but her diary was later discovered by her father and published to worldwide acclaim.

Anne Frank’s House is now a museum allowing visitors to see the moving bookcase, walk through the cramped secret annex and gain a true appreciation of the hardship this group endured in their fight for survival. The museum has collected and exhibits many original letters, photos and objects belonging to the Frank family as well as to the van Pels and Fritz Pfeffer. Anne Frank’s original diary is also on display.

3. United States Holocaust Museum

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC is dedicated to commemorating the Holocaust. Combining eyewitness testimony, displayed in films and documents, with over 900 artefacts including one of the railcars used to transport prisoners, the Holocaust Museum tells the story of this world event.

The museum also looks at the issue of genocide as a whole, displaying exhibitions about other atrocities around the world. On average, a tour of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum takes between 2 and 3 hours.

4. Auschwitz Concentration Camp

Auschwitz Birkenau was a concentration camp founded by the Nazis near the town of Oświęcim or ‘Auschwitz’ in Poland . It became the largest and most infamous camp of them all, central to Hitler’s campaign to exterminate the Jews. By the time Auschwitz was liberated by Soviet forces on 27 January 1945, the camp had claimed 1.3 million lives, the vast majority of whom were Jewish.

Auschwitz Museum is based at the original concentration camp site and offers visitors the chance to pass through the camp’s infamous arches bearing the chilling slogan of “Arbeit macht frei” or “Work will set you free”. Inside, visitors can tour Auschwitz Birkenau individually or in group tours.

5. The Holocaust Memorial - Berlin

The Holocaust Memorial in Berlin is an installation commemorating the genocide of the Jewish people perpetrated under Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. The Memorial is a monument to the six million European Jews who died in the Holocaust.

Made up of a vast dark granite maze and a subterranean information centre which has details about the victims, the memorial is a moving site.

6. Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp

Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp was used by the Nazis between 1936 and 1945. Its primary function was for the imprisonment and execution – or extermination – of Jews and political dissidents, including many Dutch freedom fighters, Russian prisoners of war and even some political leaders from invaded countries.

Estimates put the number of Sachsenhausen casualties at between 30,000 and 35,000, many of whom were shot, hung or exterminated in a specially built room in its infirmary. Much of Sachsenhausen was destroyed during and after its liberation by Soviet and Polish troops on 22 April 1945, but was rebuilt as part of the project to turn it into a memorial and museum.

7. Warsaw Ghetto

The Warsaw Ghetto was established by the Nazis to forcibly house the city’s Jewish population, with up to 400,000 people confined here from October 1940. In 1943, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising took place, a dramatic rebellion which occurred when the Nazis attempted to liquidate the ghetto and one which saw it razed to the ground.

Very little of the Warsaw Ghetto survives today. There are fragments of the original ghetto wall and several memorials including the Mila 18 monument where the uprising headquarters were located and an inscription where insurgent leader Mordechaj Anielewicz and the last of the uprising fighters perished. There is also the Warsaw Ghetto Fighters Monument and a monument at Umschlagplatz , the site from where Jews were transported to the death camps .

8. Haus der Wannsee-Konferenz

The Haus der Wannsee-Konferenz was the site of the infamous Wannsee Conference in which the Nazis planned how to carry out the “Final Solution”, the plan to murder the Jewish population of Eastern Europe.

Today, the site provides a moving memorial to the Holocaust as well as an in-depth history of the rise of the Nazi party, the growth of anti-Semitism and the atrocities committed against the Jews.

9. Dachau Concentration Camp

Dachau Concentration Camp was one of the first of many concentration camps set up by the Nazis to imprison and murder certain groups as part of their campaign of genocide.

Today, Dachau houses a memorial to those who suffered and perished under the Nazis. Visitors can tour the grounds and the remains of the camp and audio guides are available as are guided tours. There are several exhibitions detailing the history of the camp as well as a documentary shown at various times.

10. Jewish Museum - Berlin

The Jewish Museum in Berlin in Germany chronicles the history of German Jews over the course of two millennia. Housed in an incredibly modern building, the Berlin Jewish Museum displays historical objects, documents, photographs, multimedia presentations and even computer games relating to different periods of Jewish history and culture.

The exhibitions are arranged chronologically and cover various themes such as the living conditions of German Jews over the centuries, the role of Jewish women, tradition and change and the meaning of emancipation. The museum also looks at the issue of persecution, in particular during the Nazi era and the Holocaust, offering an insight into both the overall historical context and the lives of individual victims of the atrocities.

11. Theresienstadt Concentration Camp

Theresienstadt Concentration Camp in Terezin in the Czech Republic was a Nazi concentration camp during the Holocaust. Theresienstadt was originally an 18th-century stronghold known as Terezin Fortress. It was taken over during the Nazi occupation of the then Czechoslovakia in World War Two. Some 30,000 prisoners died at the camp, despite Nazi attempts to portray it as a humane institution.

Today, Theresienstadt Concentration Camp is open to the public and includes a museum as well as the possibility of visiting the former ghetto.

12. Krakow Ghetto Wall

Krakow Ghetto Wall is a stark reminder of the Krakow Ghetto, established by German Nazi forces in March 1941 as part of their campaign to persecute the Jews. Much of the Jewish population had already been conscripted to carry out forced labour since 1939, when the Nazis occupied Poland. In 1942, Krakow Ghetto was closed and all of its inhabitants were sent to concentration camps.

Some inhabitants of Krakow Ghetto were saved during the War by Oskar Schindler, whose famous Schindler’s List was made into a film by Hollywood director, Stephen Spielberg. Now, the Ghetto Wall, flanked by a former ghetto home, is the last remaining wall of those which once bordered Krakow Ghetto. The Ghetto Wall bears a plaque commemorating Krakow Ghetto.

13. Mauthausen Concentration Camp

Mauthausen Concentration Camp or ’KZ Mauthausen’ was a vast Nazi concentration camp in northern Austria. First established in 1938, Mauthausen Concentration Camp was built through the slave labour of prisoners from another such camp, Dachau. Over 119,000 of the almost 200,000 prisoners at Mauthausen Concentration Camp had died there by the time it was liberated by American forces on 5 May 1945.

Today, Mauthausen Concentration Camp is open to the public, who can see the original camp and the terrible conditions to which prisoners were subjected. There is a visitor centre and many memorials to the different national, ethnic and religious groups who suffered at Mauthausen.

14. Burgkloster

The Burgkloster (Castle Monastery) in Lubeck is considered to be one of the most important medieval monasteries in Germany. Established in 1229, the Burgkloster served as a monastery until the Protestant Reformation, after which it was used as a poorhouse until the 19th century. Under the Third Reich, the Burgkloster was used as a Nazi prison, bearing witness to terrible atrocities, particularly against Jews and those who formed the resistance movement.

Today, the Burgkloster is a museum of Lubeck’s history. Visitors can tour the building as well as viewing exhibits on the history of Lubeck’s Jewish community and about Lubeck’s time as an important member of the Hanseatic League. This was a medieval trade block which controlled much of the North Sea and Baltic Sea.

15. Tolerence Center

The Tolerence Center is one branch of the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum. A permanent exhibit operates at the Tolerance Center featuring the historical cultural and artistic heritage of the Litvaks, the Jewish community in Lithuania.

The displays include unique relics of the Great Synagogue of Vilnius and Jewish folk and professional art. The non-permanent exhibits, thematic events and projects are oriented toward themes including the cultural education of society, social dissemination of culture, unique cultural heritage and fundamental human rights.

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By: History.com Editors

Updated: January 24, 2024 | Original: December 15, 2009

Auschwitz, also known as Auschwitz-Birkenau, opened in 1940 and was the largest of the Nazi concentration and death camps. Located in southern Poland, Auschwitz initially served as a detention center for political prisoners. However, it evolved into a network of camps where Jewish people and other perceived enemies of the Nazi state were exterminated, often in gas chambers, or used as slave labor. Some prisoners were also subjected to barbaric medical experiments led by Josef Mengele (1911-79). During World War II (1939-45), more than 1 million people, by some accounts, lost their lives at Auschwitz.

In January 1945, with the Soviet army approaching, Nazi officials ordered the camp abandoned and sent an estimated 60,000 prisoners on a forced march to other locations. When the Soviets entered Auschwitz, they found thousands of emaciated detainees and piles of corpses left behind.

Auschwitz: Genesis of Death Camps

After the start of World War II , Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), the chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, implemented a policy that came to be known as the “Final Solution.” Hitler was determined not just to isolate Jews in Germany and countries annexed by the Nazis, subjecting them to dehumanizing regulations and random acts of violence. Instead, he became convinced that his “Jewish problem” would be solved only with the elimination of every Jew in his domain, along with artists, educators, Romas, communists, homosexuals, the mentally and physically handicapped and others deemed unfit for survival in Nazi Germany.

Did you know? In October 1944, a group of Auschwitz "Sonderkommando," young Jewish males responsible for removing corpses from crematoriums and gas chambers, staged a revolt. They assaulted their guards, using tools and makeshift explosives, and demolished a crematorium. All were apprehended and killed.

To complete this mission, Hitler ordered the construction of death camps. Unlike concentration camps, which had existed in Germany since 1933 and were detention centers for Jews, political prisoners and other perceived enemies of the Nazi state, death camps existed for the sole purpose of killing Jews and other “undesirables,” in what became known as the Holocaust.

Auschwitz: The Largest of the Death Camps

Auschwitz, the largest and arguably the most notorious of all the Nazi death camps, opened in the spring of 1940. Its first commandant was Rudolf Höss (1900-47), who previously had helped run the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany. Auschwitz was located on a former military base outside Oswiecim, a town in southern Poland situated near Krakow, one of the country’s largest cities. During the camp’s construction, nearby factories were appropriated and all those living in the area were forcibly ejected from their homes, which were bulldozed by the Nazis.

Auschwitz originally was conceived as a concentration camp, to be used as a detention center for the many Polish citizens arrested after Germany annexed the country in 1939. These detainees included anti-Nazi activists, politicians, resistance members and luminaries from the cultural and scientific communities. Once Hitler’s Final Solution became official Nazi policy, however, Auschwitz was deemed an ideal death camp locale. For one thing, it was situated near the center of all German-occupied countries on the European continent. For another, it was in close proximity to the string of rail lines used to transport detainees to the network of Nazi camps.

However, not all those arriving at Auschwitz were immediately exterminated. Those deemed fit to work were employed as slave labor in the production of munitions, synthetic rubber and other products considered essential to Germany’s efforts in World War II.

Auschwitz and Its Subdivisions

At its peak of operation, Auschwitz consisted of several divisions. The original camp, known as Auschwitz I, housed between 15,000 and 20,000 political prisoners. Those entering its main gate were greeted with an infamous and ironic inscription: “Arbeit Macht Frei,” or “Work Makes You Free.”

Auschwitz II, located in the village of Birkenau, or Brzezinka, was constructed in 1941 on the order of Heinrich Himmler (1900-45), commander of the “Schutzstaffel” (or Select Guard/Protection Squad, more commonly known as the SS), which operated all Nazi concentration camps and death camps. Birkenau, the biggest of the Auschwitz facilities, could hold some 90,000 prisoners. 

It also housed a group of bathhouses where countless people were gassed to death, and crematory ovens where bodies were burned. The majority of Auschwitz victims died at Birkenau. More than 40 smaller facilities, called subcamps, dotted the landscape and served as slave-labor camps. The largest of these subcamps, Monowitz, also known as Auschwitz III, began operating in 1942 and housed some 10,000 prisoners.

Life and Death in Auschwitz

By mid-1942, the majority of those being sent by the Nazis to Auschwitz were Jews. Upon arriving at the camp, detainees were examined by Nazi doctors. Those detainees considered unfit for work, including young children, the elderly, pregnant women and the infirm, were immediately ordered to take showers. However, the bathhouses to which they marched were disguised gas chambers. Once inside, the prisoners were exposed to Zyklon-B poison gas. Individuals marked as unfit for work were never officially registered as Auschwitz inmates. For this reason, it is impossible to calculate the number of lives lost in the camp.

For those prisoners who initially escaped the gas chambers, an undetermined number died from overwork, disease, insufficient nutrition or the daily struggle for survival in brutal living conditions. Arbitrary executions, torture and retribution happened daily in front of the other prisoners.

Some Auschwitz prisoners were subjected to inhumane medical experimentation. The chief perpetrator of this barbaric research was Josef Mengele (1911-79), a German physician who began working at Auschwitz in 1943. Mengele, who came to be known as the “Angel of Death,” performed a range of experiments on detainees. For example, in an effort to study eye color, he injected serum into the eyeballs of dozens of children, causing them excruciating pain. He also injected chloroform into the hearts of twins to determine if both siblings would die at the same time and in the same manner.

Liberation of Auschwitz: 1945

As 1944 came to a close and the defeat of Nazi Germany by the Allied forces seemed certain, the Auschwitz commandants began destroying evidence of the horror that had taken place there. Buildings were torn down, blown up or set on fire, and records were destroyed.

In January 1945, as the Soviet army entered Krakow, the Germans ordered that Auschwitz be abandoned. Before the end of the month, in what came to be known as the Auschwitz death marches, an estimated 60,000 detainees, accompanied by Nazi guards, departed the camp and were forced to march to the Polish towns of Gliwice or Wodzislaw, some 30 miles away. Countless prisoners died during this process; those who made it to the sites were sent on trains to concentration camps in Germany.

When the Soviet army entered Auschwitz on January 27, they found approximately 7,600 sick or emaciated detainees who had been left behind barbed wire. The liberators also discovered mounds of corpses, hundreds of thousands of pieces of clothing and pairs of shoes and seven tons of human hair that had been shaved from detainees before their liquidation. According to some estimates, between 1.1 million to 1.5 million people, the vast majority of them Jews, died at Auschwitz during its years of operation. An estimated 70,000 to 80,000 Poles perished at the camp, along with 19,000 to 20,000 Romas and smaller numbers of Soviet prisoners of war and other individuals.

Auschwitz Today

Today, Auschwitz is open to the public as the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum . It tells the story of the largest mass murder site in history and acts as a reminder of the horrors of genocide.

Images from the Death Camps

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The Unforgettable Experience of Visiting Auschwitz Camps

As part of a week long trip to Eastern Europe, with our main destination set on visiting Auschwitz, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect during the visit. I know no better word to describe my visit to the two Auschwitz concentration camp sites than the word harrowing  (extremely disturbing or distressing; grievous).

My Experience Visiting Auschwitz

We spent about 6 hours between the two sites, and the visit is something that is nearly impossible to even describe. The best I can do is show you what I experience with a little bit of the history I learned while there and hope just a little piece of my experience can be carried over. This is a place everyone needs to visit when going to Eastern Europe. It is a place that just cannot be grasped without going there yourself.

Auschwitz I

Auschwitz, which had been a Polish barrack prior to World War II with the Germans took over Poland. The Nazi’s then used the site as a concentration camp initially to house Polish prisoners. The camp was expanded and eventually was large enough to house 16,000 people.

The entrance gate to Auschwitz was framed with the saying, “Arbeit macht frei” meaning “Work will set you free.” It was intended to give a false hope to the people imprisoned there. As we walked through the gate to what felt like a very large site we tried to comprehend the number of people that would have been imprisoned here.The guidebook said that by the end of the camp, there were 16,000 people imprisoned here.

Many of the buildings held memorials and historical information about the events of the war and the things that happened here. It was hard to take in everything that we read and saw. One of the most moving exhibits was these rows of proped up striped uniforms behind barbed wire fencing. They looked as if marching to their death with a wall of actual photos of people from the camps in the background. It was a horrible thing that took place here, and it is so important that we learn about and remember what happened so that history is not repeated.

The heart wrenching memorials continued with exhibit rooms filled with belongings of the people from the Auschwitz camps – including their pottery, shoes, suitcases, even their hair which was crudely shaved from their heads before they were sent to work or to their death.

It was at Auschwitz I where they trialed the first crematory and gas chamber. Walking in through the gas chamber was something that is hard to put into words. You could just feel the impact of this place and see the claw prints on the walls from the innocent people who were locked in and poisoned by gas. The gas chamber lead to the crematorium where they would then dispose of the bodies by fire. This gas chamber was eventually put out of use as they expanded their extermination efforts with a series of gas chambers at the nearby Auschwitz II – Birkenau.

At Auschwitz I also experimented with mass sterilization, experimentation on twins, drug trials and more. These inhumane experiments left survivors permanently disabled and many were killed either for the experiments or during experimentation due to the effects. Many executions took place at Auschwitz as well.

It was a place of so much death that it was hard to be there and experience everything that this place once was, but so important to do so. We spent about 3 hours at this camp, then went back to the apartment for lunch and to head to the second site.

Auschwitz II – Birkenau

Just 2 miles from Auschwitz I, the Germans began to build a second camp, Auschwitz II – Birkenau that would become the largest Nazi concentration camp and a place of mass extermination of Jews and other captives. It was important that we had visited Auschwitz I first to learn of the history and see the exhibits so that we could come to this second site with more awareness.

But when we walked through the large entrance gates and onto the railway tracks that brought so many people here we were completely blown away by the sheer size and capacity of this second camp. We had thought the first camp was large. This second camp, was impossible to grasp the magnitude.

Most of the sites lay in ruins with just the brick fireplaces and foundation still in place, which makes it such a harrowing site to see cabin after cabin in ruins but as far as you could see in both directions. The camp was being built to hold 200,000 prisoners on 432 acres of land, but was only partially completed by the spring of 1944 with more than 300 buildings on the site and 11 miles of electrified barbed-wire fencing!

The tracks that ran right through the entrance of the camp to the very back of the camp brought in the prisoners who would then undergo a “selection” where the majority were deemed unfit to work. In most train loads brought in, 75% or more of the people were sent immediately to the gas chambers to be killed. We were able to see the ruins of these gas chambers, as they were destroyed towards the end of the war to hide evidence of their war crimes committed.

Those not immediately killed would be sent through an humiliating process at the “Sauna” house. The people would be filled through a series of rooms, sometimes taking hours between each of the rooms. Their belongings were taken from them including their clothing, their heads were crudely shaved, they were then showered en mass with often very hot or very cold water and disinfected. From there, they would be given a camp uniform and wooden clogs along with a camp number.

The people were then shuttled into one of the barracks. We were able to go into one of the wooden barracks that was designed to hold 400 people, with a total of 15 people per triple bunk. In practice, the bunk platforms would hold 10 people sleeping on simple straw mats with not enough room to even roll over.

There was an incredibly moving display of the prisoners photographs of their peaceful and happy lives up until this horrific war. To see these thriving people that lived lives very similar to my own was heartbreaking. I tried to grasp all that they were put through during these terrible years, but it was impossible to experience the gravity of the events that took place here.

In the Auschwitz camps, it is estimated that over 1.3 million people were brought including over a million Jews. Of those brought to the camp, over 1,100,000 people were killed the majority of which were gassed and cremated.  About 90% of the victims were Jews.

For ever let this place be a cry of despair  and a warning to humanity,  where the Nazis murdered  about one and a half million  men, women, and children, mainly jews  from various countries of Europe.

Auschwitz – Birkenau 1940 – 1945

It is my hope that we will learn from the past and never let something like this ever happen again. In order to hold this resolve, we must try our best to grasp the cruelties that have happened at places like Auschwitz. By understanding them we will better be able to spot and fight against the cruelties of humanity and stand up against what is so clearly wrong.

I would absolutely recommend taking a trip to Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II – Birkenau, it is a place that everyone should visit as it is an experience you will never be able to forget.

To see how we set off on a 7-day vacation while sticking to a $1,000 budget, see our tips for budget-friendly travel .

Then, read about the rest of our journey through 5 different European countries . Auschwitz was just one of our stops, but needed it’s own post to cover this incredible place. Read on to experience the rest of our vacation including an easy itinerary you can follow!

Wednesday 10th of January 2018

Wow, this is heart breaking indeed, I am always interested in learning more about history. I couldn't even phantom living back in that time nor any of my family being in that camp. I would love to have my family visit Auschwitz concentration camp, I'm sure it would be very emotional that's for sure!

Tuesday 9th of January 2018

We went there several years ago, it really is a place you never forgot and leaves such a lasting impression.

I can only imagine how heavy it must be to be there, to know what had happened. I think it would be a meaningful experience to share with my family when all of my kids are a little older.

Monday 8th of January 2018

Thank you for posting this. As a Jew this is especially meaningful to me. Both sets of my Grandparents went through the war and were the only survivors of their entire family. My grandmothers were both sent to labor camps and managed to survive while one grandfather managed to stay alive by hiding in the forest and joining up with some partisans. My other grandfather was sent to Siberia and made it through! #neverforget

Friday 12th of January 2018

Oh man, you have a strong family! #fighters

We just watched Defiant last night and not sure if that was anything like your grandfather's experience, but it was definitely amazing all that they went through hiding in the forests!! I was so inspired that seeing these people through it all not lose their faith!

Desiree Lopez

It is an important thing that Auschwitz still stands so that we can be reminded of what happened here. I enjoy visiting historical places like this.

Is there an appropriate age to bring children to visit Auschwitz?

Jan 30, 2022 • 5 min read

Understanding the Holocaust doesn’t come without distress Ulrich Baumgarten via Getty Images

This week saw Holocaust Memorial services taking place around the world, as we marked the 77th anniversary of the liberation of  Auschwitz Birkenau concentration camp by Soviet troops.

Since 1945, the former concentration camp has become a highly-visited historical site, with a record 2.15 million people taking the tour in pre-COVID 2018, many of them teenagers. But is there a ‘right’ age to bring a child or young person? Are children sometimes too young to be exposed to the horrors of the Holocaust? Official guidelines from memorial staff recommend that those under 14 do not visit. But this is just a recommendation, not a rule.

The remarkable plasticity of the teenage brain means there is an opportunity during these years to fundamentally affect, for good or ill, their understanding of the world. If we take time to expose  young people to the kind of profound experience that is Auschwitz-Birkenau , there is great hope that they will form an impression that will stay with them; an understanding of the horrors humanity is capable of and a determination to be vigilant against them.

This seems to be generally recognized, with many secondary schools organising trips. In the UK , the Department for Education has funded a programme since 1999, with over 40,000 students and teachers taking part in the Holocaust Educational Trust's, Lessons from Auschwitz Project . This is based around the premise that 'hearing is not like seeing', and aims to increase knowledge and understanding of the Holocaust for young people.

What to expect on a visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau

“I wasn’t scared to go, I was interested,” says 18-year-old Harry O’Donoghue, who was 16 when he visited Auschwitz-Birkenau with his mother and grandfather. “We had studied the period at school, and I had an idea of what to expect.”

Of the two camps, Birkenau left a lasting impact on him. “The huge, grey buildings, the iron fences, the guard towers. Auschwitz didn't look as I had imagined it," he adds. “In essence, it is a vast field, with wooden shacks and barbed wire. Trying to imagine 750,000 people here was difficult. In Birkenau, looking at rooms full of shoes, of human hair, spectacles, that brought the scale of it home more.” 

He found the suitcases and luggage the most distressing of all. The cases have labels on them, with names and dates of birth visible, so it's possible to calculate the age of the person to whom they belonged. A number of them are left open; seeing a pair of neatly folded pyjamas and a teddy-bear, packed by a three-year-old child, really affected him. 

Understanding the Holocaust doesn’t come without distress. Teenagers are highly emotional, there is a chance that some will feel overloaded, helpless in the face of the greatest monument we have to inhumanity and evil. When asked if she had worried about taking him, however,  Harry O’Donoghue’s mother, Deirdre , said no. Harry has always been an avid reader of history and he knew a lot about the period. The pair were also able to talk about it afterwards. Her father –  now in his 80s –  had always wanted to visit, too.

Emily Gleeson and a small group of classmates were warned that they might be overwhelmed when they visited Auschwitz-Birkenau. 

For 14-year-old Emily, the impact was immediate: “We prepared before going, including watching movies like Schindler’s List, to get some idea of what we would see, which was good.” She was also taken aback by how real everything felt – Auschwitz is not dressed up, or a museum; things have been kept as they were.

Most distressing for her was the room full of hair and personal belongings: “All those shoes, that was very disturbing” she says. “Suddenly, the scale becomes more understandable. It’s impossible to imagine one million people, but when you see a room with suitcases piled high up to the ceiling, you can begin to get an idea.”

Donna Gawell, a historical novelist, took her two daughters to Dachau when they were 11 and 15. They later visited Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Building children into educated future voters 

“It was a very profound visit for both [of her daughters] and I did little preparation with them as it was also my first time visiting," she says. "My daughters really appreciated the visit and for the next few years, used that experience as their topic for writing assignments in English and Social studies.”

Her youngest now reports that she is grateful for the trip, although she doesn't remember much. Donna believes it strengthened her and rendered her a more compassionate person. While Donna's daughter was shocked, she also says she wasn’t frightened or terrified and didn’t have bad dreams or anxiety about what she saw.

Donna continues: “I wouldn’t necessarily ask if my child wanted to go; I would make the decision for them. Most kids don’t realize what a unique experience they will have. Taking your child to Auschwitz is a gift to build them into a strong, compassionate, and educated future voter and citizen.” 

Editor's note: during  COVID-19  there are restrictions on travel. Check the latest guidance before departure, and always follow local health advice.

Not everyone welcomes young people at what is a place of solemn witness, sometimes of family trauma. There are stories of noisy groups taking selfies and behaving with a lack of respect. This may be the result of an inability to deal with the emotions raised, but it certainly comes across as callous. Emily's teachers were very clear with her and her classmates before they went about what was appropriate behavior, and the whole group stayed quiet.

Did the trip change the way she sees the world?

“I’m glad I went,” says Emily. “It was an eye-opener. It has changed the way I think – knowing that people can do that, can think like that.”

For Harry, it was definitely worth going: “It made me feel very sad – the coldness of it. Those places could have been built by robots. There was no human feeling in their design, and so obviously those who created them didn't think of the people they kept there as human. But it was important to see that.”

You may also like: The 70,000 small tributes to Holocaust victims that most people don’t notice Top 10 things to do in Poland  

This article was first published Dec 6, 2019 and updated Jan 30, 2022.

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• Map of World Remembrance
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Visitors to the Auschwitz Site

More than 44 million people from all over the world have visited Auschwitz since 1945. 

  Visitors to Auschwitz in 1945-1957

The Nazi German Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated by the Red Army troops on 27 January 1945. The camp grounds could be visited already in 1945, although visits were relatively limited at that time. After the beginning of organizational work to establish the Museum, the visits became more popular and in 1946 the number of visitors reached 100 thousand. The following year, in 1947, the number reached 170 thousand. During the first ten years of its existence, the Memorial was visited by two million people. 

  The highest number of visitors

For several decades the former camp was visited annually by approximately 500-600 thousand people; from the beginning of the 21st century that number began to grow. More than a million people from all over the world visit the Museum annually since 2007. 

The highest number of visitors was registered in 2014, when more than 1.5 million people visited Auschwitz. 

In 2014 most visitors came from:  Poland (398 thousand), Great Britain (199), USA (92), Italy (84), Germany (75), Israel (62), Spain (55), France (54), the Czech Republic (52), and South Korea (41). 

  Guides to the Memorial

Almost 300 licensed guides-educators, specially trained for this purpose by the International Centre for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust, and speaking a total of 19 languages, help visitors to get to know the history of Auschwitz. No other museum in the world offers this kind of service.

  Who visits Auschwitz Site?

Most of the visitors are young people, many of them come within various educational programmes. It is evident that over the last decade Auschwitz has become the fundamental Memorial Site for the entire continent of Europe. This fact reflects the actual significance of the history of the Holocaust and the trauma of concentration camp prisoners for the understanding of the history of Europe and its present face. 

The growing educational dimension of the site indirectly reveals the challenges the contemporary world still faces. Therefore, many politicians and state leaders come to pay tribute to the victims of the Nazis in Auschwitz. They deem it to be their moral responsibility to visit this place – one of the greatest warnings for humanity.

 Virtual contact with Auschwitz

Although personal visits to the Memorial Site and direct contact with its history and authenticity cannot be substituted, many people benefit from the Museum’s presence online. In 2014, the number of unique visits to the official Museum website at www.auschwitz.org was 12 million. Additionally, each day, thanks to social media –  Facebook ,  Twitter ,  YouTube ,  Instagram  i  Pinterest   – the Auschwitz Memorial reaches almost 200 thousand people on every continent. The Memorial can be also visited virtually at:  panorama.auschwitz.org .

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Holocaust Survivor Returning To Auschwitz: 'It's Like Going To The Family Cemetery'

Emily Russell

Vladimir Munk was sent to Auschwitz a few months before the concentration camp was liberated by Soviet soldiers in 1945. Emily Russell/NCPR hide caption

Vladimir Munk was sent to Auschwitz a few months before the concentration camp was liberated by Soviet soldiers in 1945.

Vladimir Munk remembers the day he walked free from Blechhammer, a sub-camp of Auschwitz in eastern Germany.

"I was happy," Munk says. He was sick and starving, but he had survived.

The Soviet Army liberated Auschwitz on Jan. 27, 1945. The concentration camp in Poland is where more than a million people, mostly Jews, were murdered during the Holocaust. This Monday, on the 75th anniversary of the liberation, Munk is traveling back to Auschwitz for the first time since he was imprisoned there.

A Single Mother And Her Child Continue A Circle Of Life Disrupted By The Nazis

Munk's parents were killed in Auschwitz, as were most of his family members. "So, for me, it's like going to the family cemetery," Munk says.

The decision to go back, though, wasn't an easy one to make. When he walked free from Blechhammer, Munk decided not to let the experience define him. He says he's known survivors who never recovered from the Holocaust.

"They are a survivor, but they never got over it," Munk says. "Yes, I'm a survivor, but I've tried to live a normal life."

Munk was born in Pardubice, Czechoslovakia, in 1925, and was a teenager when Nazi Germany invaded the country. A few years into the occupation, Munk's family was forced onto a train and sent to a concentration camp called Terezin.

A photograph of Vladimir Munk, (center), taken in March 1938 before the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia. After being imprisoned in concentration camps for years, Munk returned to his hometown of Pardubice, Czechoslovakia in May 1945 (right). Emily Russell/NCPR hide caption

A photograph of Vladimir Munk, (center), taken in March 1938 before the Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia. After being imprisoned in concentration camps for years, Munk returned to his hometown of Pardubice, Czechoslovakia in May 1945 (right).

After living in a Nazi-occupied city, Munk says going to Terezin was an adventure.

"I was 18 years old and living in a normal city like Pardubice, for Jews and especially young Jews, it was really like being in a concentration camp because you were not permitted to attend theatres, movies, sporting events, nothing."

Terezin was not an extermination camp, though space was tight and food was scarce. More than 33,000 people died at Terezin during the Holocaust.

Book News & Features

Renia spiegel's diary survived the holocaust. people are finally reading it.

At the time, though, most Jews and much of the world didn't know what was coming, that the Nazis were building gas chambers capable of killing thousands of people at a time.

At Terezin, Munk had a job, he was able to see his mother and father, and he got a girlfriend. Then, after two years in Terezin, Munk and his father were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Munk knew the concentration camp had a bad reputation among prisoners, but hadn't heard about the gas chambers. When they arrived, Nazi soldiers ordered Munk one way and his father the other.

He later asked a neighbor in Auschwitz if he knew what had happened to his father. Munk says the man pointed to the smoke in the sky and told him his father had gone up the chimney.

"So that was it," says Munk. "You never died in Auschwitz. You went up the chimney."

Vladimir Munk has saved jewelry he had made inside Terezin, a concentration camp north of Prague. He says the most popular was item was Terezin's coat of arms, center, which he had made for a girl he met there named Kitty, who would later become his wife of 66 years. Emily Russell/NCPR hide caption

Vladimir Munk has saved jewelry he had made inside Terezin, a concentration camp north of Prague. He says the most popular was item was Terezin's coat of arms, center, which he had made for a girl he met there named Kitty, who would later become his wife of 66 years.

His mother met the same fate, just months before the liberation of Auschwitz in 1945. Munk spent his first months free begging for food in Poland. Eventually he made his way back to his hometown in Czechoslovakia.

By the end of 1945 Munk had re-enrolled in school. He went on to earn a master's degree and then a PhD in microbiology and biochemistry. In 1949 Munk married Kitty, the girlfriend he had when the two were prisoners in Terezin.

Munk and his wife left Czechoslovakia after the Soviets invaded in 1968. They moved to Plattsburgh, N.Y., where Munk took a job teaching microbiology at the local university, SUNY Plattsburgh.

Italian Holocaust Survivor Faces Threats After Calling For Investigation Into Hate

Even when they had kids, Munk says they didn't talk to them about the Holocaust until they were teenagers. He says he didn't want the experience to define their family.

Munk is retired now and his wife of 66 years, Kitty, died in 2015. After a living a full life, Munk has starting thinking more about his time in the Nazi concentration camps and about the family he lost at Auschwitz.

"You are thinking of all your relatives from time to time,"Munk says. "I try not to think, but you think about it."

Munk is traveling back to Poland this weekend. While he's had time to pack and prepare for the experience, when he really pictures himself back at Auschwitz for the first time, Munk closes his eyes and shudders at the thought.

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Former ‘Bachelor’ contestant Anna Redman apologizes for ‘tone-deaf’ Auschwitz outfit inspiration post

‘i’m severely sorry for any pain i caused,’ redman said over post on fashion choices for visit to site of polish concentration camp, article bookmarked.

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Former The Bachelor contestant Anna Redman has apologized for posting an Auschwitz outfit inspiration video.

In a post shared on Instagram Stories, the 28-year-old shared what clothes she planned on wearing for each day of her upcoming trip to Poland, including the outfit she was going to wear to the sixteenth stop on her list, Auschwitz, where an estimated 1.1 million people were killed in one of the deadliest concentration camps during the Holocaust.

She shared with her 114,000 Instagram followers a photo of her in a black dress and sneakers, her planned outfit for the outing. She captioned the photo, “The best packing “hack.” Is somebody going to match my freak?”

In her comment section, critics slammed her for sharing something so “tone-deaf.”

“You know what’s embarrassing?” one person wrote. “How tone deaf you are to post an Auschwitz outfit on your stories.”

Another added, “This is tone deaf as hell and implies she’s going to be taking ‘aesthetic’ photos at a death camp where over 1 million people were murdered. Girl. Goodbye. This is f***** up.”

“This is one of the most spiritually bankrupt things I’ve seen in a LONG time,” a third noted.

“This is f****** gross man,” someone else commented. “I never thought I’d see an outfit guide for a freaking concentration camp.”

“Also that’s a crazy inappropriate outfit to wear at Auschwitz,” a fifth person said. “You’re at a concentration camp, not brunch.”

Since receiving backlash for posting her Auschwitz outfit inspiration, the Chicago-based internet personality the influencer deleted the story and posted the same image with an apology written in overlaid text.

“Hey everyone,” she started the apology. “I’m severely sorry for any pain I caused when sharing my packing notes story. I understand how flippant it came off labeling that day with the trip we are taking.”

She continued, “I understand that heaviness of visiting Auschwitz and have been planning accordingly since we added seeing it in our travel plans. Again, I’m very sorry and took it down as soon as I understood that gravity of the mistake I made.”

“I had no ill intentions behind it AT ALL,” she added. “And I hope you guys can understand that.”

For her upcoming trip to Poland, Redman will be traveling with her boyfriend of over 2 years, fellow Bachelor franchise alum Chris Bukowski.

The 35-year-old first appeared on the eighth season of The Bachelorette in 2012 and has appeared on five different seasons across all Bachelor Nation programs, leading him to earn the contestant with the most appearances. Meanwhile, Redman last appeared on the 25th season of The Bachelor in 2021, and afterward, on the 7th season of Bachelor in Paradise .

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Getting to the Museum

New Visitor Services Center of the Auschwitz Memorial is located at 55 Więźniów Oświęcimia Street. Read more...

The Museum is located on the outskirts of the town of Oświęcim, on provincial road No. 933. The tour starts at the former Auschwitz I camp. The Visitor Services Center is located at Więźniów Oświęcimia 55 Street. We suggest driving into this street from Legionów Street (DW 933).

The Museum is located approximately 1,500 meters from the railway station. Near the station, there is a multi-storey Park & Ride parking available.

Between April and October it is possible to reach the Museum by a special "M" line connecting the station and P&R with the main entrance to the Museum. The ride takes five minutes and the line runs daily between 9am-4pm. Tickers are available in ticket machines.

Buses of the Lajkonik company arrive directly at the Museum car park from Kraków (timetable: to the Museum | back to Kraków ) 

There are also bus and minibus stops near the Museum, with service from Kraków and Katowice. There are also two international airports within about 50 kilometers of Oświęcim: Kraków-Balice and Katowice-Pyrzowice.

Visitors coming to Oświęcim can find more information at the tourist information website: www.it.oswiecim.pl

More information for visitors (i.e. transport, weather)

Communication between former Auschwitz I and Birkenau concentration camps

Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau are situated 3,5 km from each other.

There are paid car parks available near both former concentration camps. The visit starts at the former Auschwitz I site.

The museum bus shuttles from one part of the Memorial to another. Departures from the former Auschwitz I concentration camp: between April - October every 10 minutes, between November - March every 20 minutes. No bus fare is required. 

Taxi services are provided by HALO TAXI company. You can find a taxi at the taxi rank in front of the Museum entrance. You can also call a taxi using the following phone number: +48 32 19 194.

The three kilometre distance between the former concentration camps can be covered by foot (through streets: Więźniów Oświęcimia, Jaracza, Leszczyńskiej and Męczeństwa Narodów), crossing the by-camp premises, where during the occupation were German industrial plants and workshops, warehouses, offices and technical backrooms, in which the prisoners would work and die. There are preserved remains of a few railway sidings and ramps [ Alte Judenrampe ], where the trains with deportees would stop and the members of the SS would make the selections.

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Images from www.auschwitz.org may be used only in publications relating to the history of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau or the activities of the Auschwitz Memorial. Their use must not tarnish the good reputation of the victims of KL Auschwitz. Any interference in the integrity of the images – including cropping or graphic processing – is prohibited. The use of the images for commercial purposes requires the Museum’s approval and information about the publication. Publishers undertake to indicate the authors and origin of the images: www.auschwitz.org, as well as to inform the Museum of the use of the images ([email protected]).

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Israel’s Holocaust memorial opens a conservation facility to store artifacts, photos and more

A teddy bear is displayed in a textiles conservation lab during the inauguration of The Moshal Shoah Legacy Campus and The David and Fela Shapell Family Collections Center, at Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, Monday, July 8, 2024. Israel’s national Holocaust museum opened a new conservation facility in Jerusalem, which will preserve, restore, and store the more than 45,000 artifacts and works of art in a vast new building, including five floors of underground storage. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

Yellow badges and a piece of luggage are displayed during the inauguration of The Moshal Shoah Legacy Campus and The David and Fela Shapell Family Collections Center, at Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, Monday, July 8, 2024. Israel’s national Holocaust museum opened a new conservation facility in Jerusalem, which will preserve, restore, and store the more than 45,000 artifacts and works of art in a vast new building, including five floors of underground storage. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

Paintings are displayed in a climate-controlled archive room during the inauguration of The Moshal Shoah Legacy Campus and The David and Fela Shapell Family Collections Center, at Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, Monday, July 8, 2024. Israel’s national Holocaust museum opened a new conservation facility in Jerusalem, which will preserve, restore, and store the more than 45,000 artifacts and works of art in a vast new building, including five floors of underground storage. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

A striped uniform worn by a concentration camp prisoner is displayed in a textiles conservation lab during the inauguration of The Moshal Shoah Legacy Campus and The David and Fela Shapell Family Collections Center, at Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, Monday, July 8, 2024. Israel’s national Holocaust museum opened a new conservation facility in Jerusalem, which will preserve, restore, and store the more than 45,000 artifacts and works of art in a vast new building, including five floors of underground storage. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

Exterior of the The David and Fela Shapell Family Collections Center on the he Moshal Shoah Legacy Campus, at Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, Monday, July 8, 2024. Israel’s national Holocaust museum opened a new conservation facility in Jerusalem, which will preserve, restore, and store the more than 45,000 artifacts and works of art in a vast new building, including five floors of underground storage. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

Sarah Reichert restores a painting in a conservation lab during the inauguration of The Moshal Shoah Legacy Campus and The David and Fela Shapell Family Collections Center, at Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, Monday, July 8, 2024. Israel’s national Holocaust museum opened a new conservation facility in Jerusalem, which will preserve, restore, and store the more than 45,000 artifacts and works of art in a vast new building, including five floors of underground storage. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

A worker peruses the documents archive at The Moshal Shoah Legacy Campus and The David and Fela Shapell Family Collections Center, at Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, Monday, July 8, 2024. Israel’s national Holocaust museum opened a new conservation facility in Jerusalem, which will preserve, restore, and store the more than 45,000 artifacts and works of art in a vast new building, including five floors of underground storage. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

Israeli President Isaac Herzog speaks at the inauguration of The Moshal Shoah Legacy Campus and The David and Fela Shapell Family Collections Center, at Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, Monday, July 8, 2024. Israel’s national Holocaust museum opened a new conservation facility in Jerusalem, which will preserve, restore, and store the more than 45,000 artifacts and works of art in a vast new building, including five floors of underground storage. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

Martin and Ilana Moshav on the podium at the inauguration of The Moshal Shoah Legacy Campus and The David and Fela Shapell Family Collections Center, at Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, Monday, July 8, 2024. Israel’s national Holocaust museum opened a new conservation facility in Jerusalem, which will preserve, restore, and store the more than 45,000 artifacts and works of art in a vast new building, including five floors of underground storage. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

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JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s national Holocaust museum opened a new conservation facility in Jerusalem on Monday that will preserve, restore and store its more than 45,000 artifacts and works of art in a vast new building, including five floors of underground storage.

Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, serves as both a museum and a research institution. It welcomes nearly a million visitors each year, leads the country’s annual Holocaust memorial day and hosts nearly all foreign dignitaries visiting Israel.

“Before we opened this building, it was very difficult to exhibit our treasures that were kept in our vaults. They were kind of secret,” said Yad Vashem chairman Dani Dayan . “Now there’s a state-of-the-art installation (that) will help us to exhibit them.”

The David and Fela Shapell Family Collections Center, located at the Yad Vashem museum in Jerusalem, will also provide organization and storage for the museum’s 225 million pages of documents and half a million photographs.

Dayan said the materials will now be kept in a facility that preserves them in optimal temperatures and conditions.

“Yad Vashem has the largest collections in the world of materials related to the Holocaust,” Dayan said. “We will make sure that these treasures are kept for eternity.”

The new facility includes advanced, high-tech labs for conservation, enabling experts to revisit some of the museum’s trickier items, such as a film canister that a family who fled Austria in 1939 brought with them. It was donated to the museum but arrived in an advanced state of decay.

“The film arrived in the worst state it could. It smelled really bad,” said Reut Ilan-Shafik, a photography conservator at Yad Vashem. Over the years, the film had congealed into a solid piece of plastic, making it impossible to be scanned.

Using organic solvents, conservators were able to restore some of the film’s flexibility, allowing them to carefully unravel pieces of it. Using a microscope, Ilan-Shafik was able to see a few frames in their entirety, including one showing a couple kissing on a bench in a park and other snapshots of Europe before World War II.

“It is unbelievable to know that the images of the film that we otherwise thought lost to time” have been recovered, said Orit Feldberg, granddaughter of Hans and Klara Lebel, the couple featured in the film reel.

Feldberg’s mother donated the film canister, one of the few things the Lebels were able to take with them when they fled Austria.

“These photographs not only tell their unique story but also keep their memory vibrantly alive,” Feldberg said.

Conservation of items from the Holocaust is an expensive, painstaking process that has taken on greater importance as the number of survivors dwindles.

Last month, the Auschwitz Memorial announced it had finished a half-million-dollar project to conserve 3,000 of the 8,000 pairs of children’s shoes that are on display at the Nazi concentration camp in Poland.