Visiting Auschwitz: a personal reflection

Before I went

I had delayed this visit for two years. Not out of indifference — the opposite, really. I wasn’t sure I was prepared for what it would mean to stand in those places, and I had a vague, unexamined concern that the experience would be reduced to something I consumed and moved on from. A lot of people visit Auschwitz as part of a two-day city break. I wasn’t sure what to make of that.

What I eventually understood — partly from reading accounts of survivors, partly from the scholarship around Holocaust memory and commemoration — is that the discomfort of visiting, the struggle to comprehend, is not a failure of imagination. It is an appropriate response to an event that resists full comprehension by design. You go not to understand but to acknowledge.

Getting there from Kraków

Auschwitz-Birkenau — the Memorial and Museum at the site of the German Nazi concentration and extermination camps — is located in and near the town of Oświęcim, approximately 70 km west of Kraków. The journey by coach takes roughly 90 minutes. A guided tour from Kraków is the most practical option for most visitors, and it includes transport, a licensed guide, and timed entry to the site.

Guided Auschwitz-Birkenau tour from Kraków with hotel pickup

The museum requires advance booking for timed entry. In summer this means planning two months ahead or more for guided tours; self-guided slots sell out faster than many people expect. The entry to the site itself is free; what you pay for is the guided tour component, which is mandatory during high season for the first part of the visit.

I went in November. The visit was quieter than it would have been in August, which I think was right for me personally. Whether that matters to you depends on what you are looking for.

Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau

The memorial consists of two main sites. Auschwitz I was the original camp, established in 1940 in a former Polish army barracks on the edge of Oświęcim. Auschwitz II-Birkenau, constructed from 1941 about 3 km away, was the industrialised extermination centre — the largest of the Nazi death camps, where more than a million people, the vast majority of them Jewish, were murdered.

Most guided tours begin at Auschwitz I. The brick barracks are now exhibition halls. Block 4 contains the evidence of mass murder: the statistics, the photographs, the personal effects — hundreds of thousands of shoes, suitcases still bearing names and addresses, two tonnes of human hair shorn from victims and collected for industrial use. The exhibition does not overreach or sensationalise. It presents evidence. That is sufficient.

The gate at the entrance to Auschwitz I bears the German words Arbeit Macht Frei — “Work Sets You Free.” It is one of the most bitterly ironic phrases in history, placed above the entrance to a camp from which there was effectively no exit.

The guide I was with was measured, precise and prepared for questions without deflecting them. Good guides at Auschwitz are skilled in a particular way: they must help visitors engage without either overwhelming them or sanitising what happened. Mine was excellent.

Birkenau

The bus journey to Auschwitz II-Birkenau takes about ten minutes from the main site. Birkenau is incomprehensibly large. The camp covered 175 hectares; in August 1944, around 100,000 people were imprisoned there. The visible remains — the ruins of the crematoria, deliberately blown up by the fleeing SS in January 1945, the rows of barracks stretching to the horizon, the railway platform where arriving transports were met and immediately “selected” — communicate scale in a way that the exhibition halls at Auschwitz I cannot.

The railway tracks run into the camp through the iconic gatehouse. This is where the selection took place: those deemed capable of forced labour to one side; those — the elderly, children, most women — to the other, directly to the gas chambers. The process was bureaucratic and rapid.

Standing on the platform is a particular kind of silence.

The International Monument, at the far end of the tracks, was erected in 1967. The plaques at its base carry the inscription “For ever let this place be a cry of despair and a warning to humanity” in 22 languages, including Hebrew, Romani, and Polish.

What I want to say to other visitors

This is not a tourist attraction in the ordinary sense. It is a memorial site, and it asks something of you. A few things that felt important to me:

Come informed. Even a brief introduction to the history before you arrive — who was murdered here, why, how — changes what you see and hear. The museum provides context, but you will absorb more with preparation.

Be quiet. The site has specific rules: no photography in certain areas, respectful behaviour throughout. These are not bureaucratic restrictions. They reflect the basic dignity owed to the dead. Mobile phones off, or at least on silent.

Don’t rush. Many tours offer three to four hours at the two sites combined. This is barely enough, especially at Birkenau. Some visitors choose to extend their time at Birkenau specifically; the self-guided option allows this.

The street agents are not legitimate. Tours sold by individuals approaching you near the Rynek in Kraków are not affiliated with the museum. Some are simply overpriced; some may not guarantee entry. Book through the museum’s official website or through reputable licensed tour operators. Our guide to visiting Auschwitz from Kraków covers the options.

It is appropriate to feel whatever you feel. Some people cry; some are silent; some find it difficult to process in the moment and need time afterward. All of that is valid. What the site asks is that you take it seriously.

Coming back to Kraków

I returned to Kraków in the early evening. The train station was busy and ordinary. People were going about their ordinary lives. I sat in a café near the Rynek and drank a coffee and watched the square for a while.

The distance between the cattle car platform at Birkenau and the medieval market square 90 minutes away is not only geographic. Part of what the visit does — what any serious engagement with this history does — is make you aware of adjacency. These events happened here, in this part of Europe, within living memory of people still alive when I was born.

If you are visiting Kraków, visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau is not obligatory. But it is one of the most important things you can do. Our guide to visiting Auschwitz with respect and the WWII Kraków history guide provide further context. The WWII history itinerary combines Auschwitz with the Schindler Factory Museum and Kazimierz into a structured three-day framework for those who want to engage with this history seriously.

Go prepared. Go quiet. Go.