I’d wanted to visit Auschwitz for a long time. I think – like many people – I felt an obligation to go and bear witness to what happened there and pay my respects.
I’ve found myself reading a lot about Auschwitz over the past few years, actually. I find WWII really interesting. I studied German and Russian at university, which meant learning about the impact of this war across half of Europe. In my final year, I did a module on the Holocaust in film, which really opened my eyes to just how many people suffered at the hands of the Nazi regime – and just what that experience really meant.
When I told people that I would be going, a lot of friends or colleagues said it was somewhere they’d wanted to visit too. So I wanted to write an account of my experience of visiting the memorial site. This isn’t intended to be an ultimate guide (this post from Kami does an excellent job of that already) – and it’s certainly not intended to be a review of the museum, but really just a re-telling of my experience for anyone who is interested in visiting themselves.
Visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
The good news is that visiting the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum is free of charge. Any individuals can join a guided tour, which you can book onto online (where you pay a fee of your chosing to the tour guide). Tours run at very frequent intervals in many languages and last around three hours. I think the vast majority of visitors join a guided tour.
The entire site is made up of three parts: the new visitor centre, Auschwitz I (the original part of the concentration camp and the administrative headquarters) and Auschwitz II -Birkenau (the largest part of the camp). Auschwitz II – Birkenau is located around 3km from the visitor centre but free shuttle busses run every 10 minutes.
Starting the guided tour
The tour started with a short film about the site of Auschwitz and its history. It blended the few existing photos of the camp with the current site to highlight just how close we were to one of the worst crimes in human history.
The film is a solemn reminder – not only of what happened here – but how no evidence of the death camp was intended to remain. The Nazis attempted to destroy all trace of Auschwitz and what had happened here, blowing up buildings and slaughtering eyewitnesses as the Russians closed in. The short film reminded us, the visitors, that choosing to visit Auschwitz and remember what took place here is an act of resistance against Nazi ideology.
Entering the camp
A few moments after watching the film, we passed under the well-known sign and entered the concentration camp.
The first part of the tour takes you through several different blocks of Auschwitz I. Our guide explained the specifics of how the camp functioned and we entered several blocks where photos and maps explained more about what life was like for people imprisoned here. There are also several photographs of the earliest victims of the camp, as well as personal belongings of those who perished.
Seeing the personal effects of real people who passed through Auschwitz is tough. Recalling the opening video, our guide explained that thousands of these items also became evidence of what happened here – and on what scale.
This part of the tour gives you a thorough glimpse of how the camp began and evolved to meet the „needs“ of the Nazi ideology, including the first experiments of gassing prisoners with Zyklon-B.
I will say that this part of the tour gets quite busy. The buildings that we entered were all relatively small with several groups entering one after another. Due to the one-way system, it felt a bit like a conveyor belt at times. I’m not sure if this was due to a busy time of day or season.
Auschwitz II – Birkenau: the extermination camp
After around two hours, we took the shuttle bus across to Auschwitz II – Birkenau. At this part of the guided tour, there is a lot of walking to cover the points of interest: chiefly the place where thousands of victims arrived at Auschwitz, the remains of a gas chamber and a visit to a barracks in the women‘s camp.
The sheer size of this camp was truly mind-blowing and not something I think I’ll ever forget. The ruins of the barracks stretch into the distance, literally as far as the eye can see. It’s not hard to imagine how truly helpless you would feel being a prisoner here.
Additionally you’ll see that the majority of buildings (including most barracks and all gas chambers) are either in ruins or only partially reconstructed, which gives you an idea of how close the retreating Nazis were to burying their crimes here. We viewed a gas chamber which has been preserved in the ruins that the Nazis left it in.
The guided tour ends here, but you’re free to continue your visit independently. I opted not to go back to the first camp, so I’m not 100% sure if that would have been an option.
What it was like to visit Auschwitz
As I mentioned, I’ve spent a lot of time over the years studying or reading about WWII and the Holocaust – that is to say, I would consider myself fairly knowledgeable about the topic. But still, parts of this tour really blew me away: the sheer scale of the site and the numbers of the victims; the lives erased with only a suitcase or a pair of glasses left behind; the horrifying efficiency of the camp. These are all things which feel a lot more real when visiting Auschwitz – they are undeniable truths.
And because of this size and scale, the guided tour of Auschwitz has a lot of ground to cover: three hours is not a lot of time. And I say this simply to guide expectations of someone looking to visit, but there isn’t much time to stop and reflect during the tour itself – particularly in the blocks of Auschwitz I. And naturally, the guided tour isn’t able to delve into the personal experiences of many victims, although our guide did give a few good examples, such as the resistance of Franceska Mann, which stayed with me.
My resounding feeling is that visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum is very important and I’m happy to done so – and there are also additional ways of remembering the individuals who passed through here. (I’ve also included a few other places I’ve been to, which I would also recommend visiting below.)
On a final note, I wanted to add that visiting Auschwitz and remembering what happened during the Holocaust remains important, despite – or even because of – the time that has passed. There are very few witnesses to this dark chapter still around today and soon, there won’t be any. It’s a scary thought that what happened there could one day be forgotten.
Beyond the tour: remembering Auschwitz
I would recommend following @AuschwitzMemorial on Twitter / X. On a daily basis, they share photos and information of some of the recorded victims who perished at Auschwitz. Often the photos they share are of the victims’ lives before the war began, which I think is a respectful way of remembering that these people were more than their tragic ends.
The account actually reminds me of Stolpersteine, small square gold plaques dedicated to the memory of Jewish people who were deported to concentration camps. These small memorials are placed outside the former homes of those people, which means you’ll find them throughout Germany and Europe.
How to visit Auschwitz: the practicalities
In terms of getting to the museum, you can either travel there independently or book onto a tour leaving from a nearby city (like Krakow.) I travelled there myself via train from Katowice, but honestly it wasn’t worth the hassle. My advice would be to book onto a tour from Krakow. An organised tour from Krakow would very likely sort entry tickets for you. If you’re booking direct to visit independently, make sure to do so ahead of time. For more info, I found this guide from Kami really useful.
After Auschwitz: other Holocaust museums to visit
I also wanted to include here two other museums that I think would also be worth visiting. I was reminded of both during my visit to Auschwitz and I think that both helped me to broaden my knowledge of the Holocaust.
POLIN – Museum of the history of Jews in Poland, Warsaw
I would really recommend visiting POLIN. This museum is seriously one of the best I’ve ever visited. As the name suggests, it is dedicated to a thousand years of Jewish history in Poland – a history that was almost entirely wiped out by the Holocaust. One element of WWII that always fascinated me was the huge demographic change that happened in Europe during this period, but this is something else entirely: a whole community and a culture that today no longer exists. On the eve of WWII, the Jewish population of Poland was around three million people. Current estimates are 10,000-20,000.
The museum covers so many aspects of Polish history, including the partitions of the country. Personally, I learned a lot about the development of Jewish and Polish identities and the rising number of people who felt both Polish and Jewish in a society that often wanted to define them as one or the other.
The museum is incredibly detailed, but expertly presented and the storytelling is very experiential: the sections devoted to the most prosperous times are open, airy and light. The rooms become smaller and darker as the Holocaust approaches until finally the space is small, cramped, crowded with the walls and floors at sharp, jagged angles. Definitely worth spending some hours to experience.
Topf & Sons – Builders of the Auschwitz Ovens: Place of Remembrance in Erfurt, Germany
Naturally, this museum came to mind a lot during my tour of Auschwitz. Topf & Söhne (Topf and sons) was the company which designed and built the ovens in the crematoria at Auschwitz II-Birkenau and several other concentration camps, which were used for burning the corpses of millions of people.
The museum is located at the company’s former headquarters in Erfurt. The company had shown communist leanings during the war, secretly employing and shielding several communists and so was able to keep operating after 1945, as Erfurt was located in communist East Germany.
The history of the company wasn’t fully explored until after German reunification, when it was proven that Topf & Söhne had been fully aware of what the ovens were used for, visiting Auschwitz on several occasions. In addition, the company had continually striven to improve the efficiency and capacity of their ovens – despite no order from the Nazis to do so. They did so simply to profit.
The exhibit is an interesting one as it examines the idea of corporate liability and denial during the Holocaust, looking at how companies throughout Germany benefitted directly from the Holocaust and leaving questions on how this should be dealt with.
A personal note to end on:
I hope you found this blog post useful. It was a strange and difficult one to write (and also re-write, which I did a few times), but it felt important to get this all down and to somehow try and encourage remembrance of this period. Auschwitz is a hugely significant place in human history – for the most tragic and horrifying of reasons. But even outside of this physical place, there are poignant and important sites of remembrance across Europe focused on how the Holocaust and WWII shaped the continent. And engaging with these sites and with this history feels as important today as ever.
