Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp: a guided visit to the horrors of the Holocaust

21 Nov

Symbol of the atrocities of the Holocaust, the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp is one of the most infamous places on Earth. After all, it was here that over 1,1 million people, mainly Jews, died during World War II at hands of the Nazis in the biggest extermination campaign ever seen in history.

During my visit to Krakow, I booked a guided tour to the Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau camps, a very tough but extremely educational and necessary visit to remember the horrors of the past to make sure that they are never repeated.

How to visit Auschwitz

If you’re visiting Krakow, there are multiple options to organise a trip to Auschwitz. I had previously gone to Auschwitz on my own, but during my last visit, since my time in the city was quite limited, I decided to book an Auschwitz-Birkenau guided tour from Krakow with GetYourGuide. The tour included two-way transport to the camp with a certified guide, entry tickets and a documentary screening during the journey.

I went for the morning option, so my tour departed at 6:15 am from Krakow city centre, just next to the Jewish quarter. The journey took about 90 minutes each way on a small van for about 15 people and was followed by a 3-hour visit of Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau camps. My guide had excellent English and knowledge, so my visit wouldn’t have been the same without her.

If you prefer visiting on your own, there are a few different options for public transport. The cheapest method is getting there by bus, which costs 12 złoty (approx. €3.80) one way and takes approximately 1h 45m. There are a few different companies covering this route and the bus leaves from the Krakow bus station, located just next to the train station. The bus drops you off near the camp, but you'll need to walk a little bit.

You can also catch the direct train that links Krakow and Oświęcim‎, the city located 2km from the camp. The journey takes from 1h30 to 2h30 depending on the train, but you will need to get a shuttle or a taxi from the city to the entrance of the museum. One-way tickets have a price of 15 złoty (approx. €3.5)

Please be aware that if you're visiting on your own, you will still need to join a guided tour depending on the time of the visit. Individual visitors can only access Auschwitz I without without a guide before 9am or after 5pm, but Auschwitz II-Birkenau can be accessed on your own at any time. Times are more restricted during the winter months, so I’d recommend to double check the opening times on the auschwitz.org website.

That said, I personally think that booking a guided tour to Auschwitz is an absolute must. Entrance to the memorial itself is free of charge, so you will only have to pay to join the guided tour. Prices start at 60 złoty (approx. €14) for a 3,5 hour tour, but there are also options for longer visits. Tickets for the guided visit can be purchased online at visit.auschwitz.org. They tend to get sold out, so it’s always good to book them in advance.

History of Auschwitz

All around the world, the Auschwitz concentration camp has become a symbol of terror, genocide and the Holocaust. After the German invasion of Poland, the Nazis changed the name of the city ‎of Oświęcim‎ to Auschwitz, which was the name by which the camp became known. Over the years, it was expanded into three different camps known as Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II-Birkenau and Auschwitz III-Monowitz, which were surrounded by over other forty subcamps.

The first people to be brought to Auschwitz as prisoners and murdered here were Poles. They were followed by Soviet prisoners of war, Gypsies and deportees of many other nationalities.

Beginning in 1942, however, Auschwitz became the setting for the most massive murder campaign in history, when the Nazis put into operation their plan to destroy the entire Jewish population of Europe. The great majority of Jews who were deported to Auschwitz - men, women and children - were sent immediately upon arrival to death in the gas chambers of Birkenau.

When the SS realised that the end of the war was near, they attempted to remove the evidence of the atrocities committed here. They dismantled the gas chambers, crematoria and other buildings, burned documents and evacuated all those prisoners who could walk to the interior of Germany. Those who were not evacuated were liberated by the Red Army on January 27, 1945.

On July 2, 1947, the Polish Parliament established the State Museum of Oświęcim - Brzezinka on the sites of the former camps at Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau. In 1979 these camps were formally recognised by UNESCO by their inclusion to its World Heritage List.

Auschwitz I

My visit to Auschwitz was divided into two parts: I first visited Auschwitz I, the original part of the camp that contains all main exhibitions about the history of Auschwitz, including multiple original photographs and objects from former prisoners. The visit then continues with Auschwitz II-Birkenau, where you can see some of the original barracks, the very damaged remains of the biggest gas chambers and crematoria, as well as a monument to the victims and the famous door with the rail tracks.

After a short break of 15 minutes to get some coffee, we picked up a pair of headsets to hear all the explanations of the guide. These are mandatory in guided visits.

The first thing that we saw inside the camp was its famous gate with the words Arbeit macht Frei, meaning ‘Work sets you free’. This was a common slogan placed by the Nazis at the entrances of some of their concentration camps in a poor attempt to justify the forced labour of prisoners. However, it was a big irony as in most cases, the only thing that set you free in Auschwitz was death.

On October 7th 1941, a camp was established in Auschwitz for Soviet prisoners of war. About 10,000 men were registered as prisoners and held in a special fenced-off compound comprising blocks 1-3, 12-14 and 22-24.

Most of them died of hunger, hard work and SS brutality. Many others were gassed or shot by order of a special Gestapo commission. Those who refused to work were forced naked out of their blocks in the freezing winter weather and doused with water, as a result of which many froze to death.

Within five months, by March 1942, some 9,000 had died. The remainder were transferred to the newly constructed Auschwitz II-Birkenau.

The area just on the other side of the gate is where the corpses of prisoners shot while trying to escape were often displayed as a warning to others.

One of the many torments of life in the concentration camp was the daily roll-call. The entire prison population of thousands of prisoners had to stand to attention during the roll-calls held on the central square that we visited next.

When new buildings were constructed over the original roll-call area, the prisoners were lined up on the camp streets in front of the blocks. The roll-calls often lasted several hours, and sometimes even a dozen hours or longer.

This last visit to Auschwitz took place during autumn, and the temperatures were already freezing. My first visit took place at the end of winter, with the entire camp covered in snow and temperatures well under zero degrees. I could only but imagine the terrible suffering of prisoners standing on the cold for hours during the roll-calls wearing only a very thin uniform.

Many prisoners died during these calls, especially as they were severely unnourished and weak due to the heavy forced labour. Those who survived were sometimes left handicapped for life, as their feet sometimes froze and shrunk to a point that they could no longer walk or stand on their own.

Some of the blocks of the camp are open to visitors, containing exhibits and galleries that cover the horrors that took place at the camp. The first exhibition, called ‘Extermination’ can be found in Block 4.

The exhibition explains how Auschwitz was the largest Nazi German concentration camp and since 1942 also a mass extermination centre for jews. As you enter Block 4, you can see a map that shows the main sites (ghettos, transit camps and prisons) from where the jews and prisoners of other nationalities were deported to Auschwitz.

In the years 1940-1945, the Nazis deported at least 1,300,000 people to Auschwitz:

1,100,000 Jews
140,000-150,000 Poles
12,000 Roma/Gypsies
15,000 Soviet prisoners of war
25,000 prisoners from other ethnic groups

1,100,000 of these people died in Auschwitz, with approximately 90% of the victims being jews. The SS murdered the majority of them in gas chambers. After being murdered, prisoners were burnt in the crematoria of the camp and their ashes were thrown into the surrounding lakes. This makes Auschwitz the biggest cemetery in Europe.

After the liberation of the camp, a big part of these ashes was recovered and put into an urn that can be found as you enter Block 4. It is heartbreaking to look at it and think that it contains the rests of thousands of people, a terrible outcome caused as a result of pure hate.

Places from where prisoners were deported

All these 1,300,000 people were deported to Auschwitz during different periods of the operation of the camp. The timeline followed by the Nazis was the following:

June 1940: begins the deportations of Poles. The Nazis sent 140-150,000 Polish prisoners to the camp, where half of them perished.
June 1941: begins the deportations of 25,000 prisoners of various nationalities. About half of them perished in the camp.
Summer 1941: begins the deportations of 15,000 Soviet prisoners of war. Most of them died during their imprisonment and only a few survived.
March 1942: begins the deportations of 1.1 million jews. Auschwitz started fulfilling two functions; whilst remaining a concentration camp, it became yet another site of the Holocaust, the biggest mass murder in the history of mankind, perpetrated by the Nazis. About 1 million deported Jews were murdered by the SS, mainly in gas chambers.
February 1943: begins the deportations of 23,000 Roma (gipsies). Of this number, 21,000 perished.

The visit in Block 4 continues with an exhibition called ‘The Road of Death’. When prisoners arrived in Auschwitz, a selection process took place on the railway platform. Those who were to be murdered in the gas chambers were assured that they were going to take a shower. Fake showerheads were fixed to the ceiling of the gas chambers.

Beaten and intimidated by SS dogs, 2,000 victims were crammed into the chamber, an area of approximately 210 square meters. The chamber door was locked and Zykon B was poured in until the victims suffocated to death. The bodies were stripped of gold teeth and jewellery, their hair was cut off, then bodies were burned in the crematorium. Victims’ personal documents were destroyed.

This part of the exhibition contains some original photographs that show how the selection process took place. One of them depicts the exact moment of the selection, when an SS Doctor decided which prisoners were fit to work, and which prisoners weren’t fit to work and were sent straight to the gas chamber. Most prisoners considered not fit to work were women, children, the elderly and anyone with a handicap. Prisoners didn’t really get any physical examinations; they were selected merely on how they looked.

In this picture, the doctor is making a sign with the hand that is sending an elderly man to the left-hand side straight to the gas chambers. Just like that, after looking at a human being for a few seconds, they decided who had the right to live and who would be executed.

This part of the exhibition also contains a mockup of one of the gas chambers at Auschwitz II-Birkenau, which was blown up at the end of the war by Nazi officers when they realised that the Red Army was approaching.

Jews from the Tét ghetto (Hungary) arrive at Auschwitz II

Carpathian Ruthenian Jews arrive in Birkenau

At the end of Block 4, there is a display of dozes of canisters of Zyklon B, the pesticide used by Nazis to suffocate prisoners to death in the gas chambers.

Prisoners were brought to the gas chamber under the premises of getting a shower and being disinfected. The first part of the chamber was what looked like an undressing room, where they had to leave all their clothes before taking their shower. To ensure that prisoners kept calm and they indeed believed that they were getting a shower, the chamber was divided in multiple numbers and SS officers told prisoners to remember the number where they had left their clothes to ensure that they could pick them up later. This of course never happened.

After getting undressed, they were sent inside another chamber that looked like a shower. The doors were shut, and SS men supervised by a doctor threw the Zyklon B through some vents on the roof. Victims suffocated to death within 20 minutes.

Our guide told us how Zyklon B was a very cheap method of extermination, as it could be easily refilled after its used and it could continue to be used over and over again.

The next part of the exhibit is located in Block 5, which displays many of the objects that belonged to the prisoners of Auschwitz. Before entering, our guide reminded us that all those objects used to belong to somebody, a person just like us that had family, friends, feelings, dreams, a future ahead of them. All that was lost or taken away at Auschwitz.

The first part of the display, and probably the toughest, is a huge exhibition of human hair. Prisoners had their heads shaved off at the camp, and their hair was later used as textile to create socks, uniforms for soldiers or bed sheets. When the camp was liberated in 1945, it was found over 7 tones of human hair. Since after all this hair is part of the body of a victim, photography inside is strictly forbidden.

When prisoners were sent to the camps, they were told to visibly mark all their suitcases to ensure that they could recover their belongings. Their luggage had to be left behind at the train station and they would then recover it later. However, this never happened. The Nazis took all objects of value from the suitcases, and prisoners never got them back.

In Block 5, you can see thousands of objects that used to belong to prisoners of Auschwitz, including the actual suitcases with the name of their owner, as well as glasses, orthopaedic boots, kitchen pots and shoes. Walking through the block surrounded by all these objects was absolutely heartbreaking.

With the entire group speechless after having visited one of the toughest sections of Auschwitz, we entered Block 6, which presents the life of prisoners and the treat they received in Auschwitz.

After arriving at the camp, all prisoners were registered, assigned a camp number, and classified in the appropriate prisoner category. Prisoners were divided depending on the group that they belong to: Jews, Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, Gypsies, Homosexuals… Everyone received a prisoner garment and shoes.

At first, prisoners were registered with a photo. However, as the numbers started to increase, they opted for a cheaper option: everyone got tattooed their camp number instead. In this section of Block 6, the walls have hundreds of imagines of some of these prisoners, including their camp number, name, date of birth, occupation, date of arrival and date of death.

Block 6 still preserves some of the typical interiors of a room for prisoners until spring 1941. Prisoners slept crowded together on straw mattresses. In the morning, they had to gather up the mattresses and arrange them in the corner of the room. From 1941 to 1945, prisoners slept on three level wooden bunks that had to be made up to military standards each morning. Usually, two prisoners slept on each level.

The lavatories, which were used from 1941 to 1945, were communal and with no privacy whatsoever. Due to overcrowding in the barrack, such sanitation facilities were not sufficient for all prisoners. Before these were installed, prisoners had to use a provision field latrines.

The last block that we visited was Block 11, also known as the “Death Block”. It served several functions, of which the most important was its role as the central camp jail. Male and female prisoners from all parts of the camp complex were held in this building. Most of these people were suspected by the camp Gestapo of involvement in clandestine activities: attempting to escape, organising mutinies or maintaining contacts with the outside world.

Poles from outside the camp who had been arrested for rendering aid to prisoners were imprisoned here too. Following brutal interrogations, they were in most cases sentenced to death by shooting.

In the early years of the camp, the Strafkompanie (penal unit) and Erziehungskompanie (re-education unit) were also held in this block. The prisoners of the penal unit, to which almost all the Jewish men and Polish priests held in the camp at the time were sent on arrival, were assigned to the most back-breaking work; most of them died.

For some time, the block also held the Sonderkommando, the special unit of prisoners employed to burn the bodies of the dead, and from 1943 on, Polizeihäftlinge (police detainees) were also held here. These were Poles from the area under the jurisdiction of the Gestapo in Katowice who were suspect of involvement in the resistance movement. They would be held here awaiting sentence from a special German summary court. Usually, the penalty was death.

In the basement, known as the bunker, were punishment cells for the SS confined prisoners regarded as guilty of violating camp regulations. In 1941, prisoners sentenced to death by starvation were held here.

Over the period of 3-5 September 1941, the SS carried out experiments in the basement with Zykon B in preparation for the mass murder of Jews: 600 Soviet prisoners of war and 250 Polish political prisoners, selected from the camp infirmary as human guinea-pigs for this experiment, were murdered here in this way.

There were three different type of cells in Block 11: starvation cells, where prisoners were locked with no food or water until they perished; suffocation cells, where prisoners were crammed in hundreds with no ventilation until they could no longer breath; and the standing cells, a tiny cubicle where 4 men were locked up with so little space that they couldn’t even sit.

It was in one of these cells that Maksymilian Kolbe, a Polish Franciscan friar, volunteered to die of starvation to save the life of another man. A small memorial with flowers can be found in the exact same cell where he died, but out of respect and for safety reasons, photography is not allowed inside any of the cells of Block 11.

From 1941 to 1943, the SS shot several thousand people at the execution wall in the courtyard located between Blocks 10 and 11.

Most of those executed were Polish political prisoners, above all, the leaders and members of clandestine organisations and people who helped escapes or facilitated contacts with the outside world. Poles who had been sentenced to death in nearby towns were also brought here to be shot, including men, women and even children who had been taken hostage in revenge for operations of the Polish resistance against the German occupation. Prisoners of other nationalities and ethnic origins, including Jews and Soviet prisoners of war, were also sometimes shot at this wall.

The SS administered brutal punishments here: floggings, and also the torture known as ‘the post’, in which prisoners were hung from a post by their wrists with their arms twisted behind their backs.

The execution wall was dismantled in 1944 on the orders of the camp authorities. Executions were subsequently carried out elsewhere, most often in the gas chambers and crematoria at Auschwitz II-Birkenau. After the war, the execution wall was partially reconstructed by the museum.

The camp authorities designated Blocks 19-21 and 28 as an “infirmary” (Häftlingskrankenbau) for sick prisoners. Among prisoners, it was known as “the crematorium waiting-room”. Medication and treatment facilities were in very short supply and many people died. From 1941 the SS doctors carried out selections among sick prisoners. Those whose return to work was considered unlikely were killed by lethal injection or in the gas chambers.

Patients in the infirmary were in any case frequently used by the SS doctors in medical and pharmacological experiments. These experiments included sterilising both men and woman by injecting acidic substances in their reproductive organs or removing them.

There were also experiments on twins, as well as freezing experiments where prisoners were submerged in freezing water to simulate the conditions of armies in the Eastern front and see how much they could survive. Many of them died or suffered permanent injury as a result.

The infirmary was a focus of clandestine resistance, especially in helping and rescuing others. Many people were saved because of this.

The most infamous doctor of this infirmary was Josef Mengele, also known as the “Angel of Death”. He was the main responsible for performing most of these deadly experiments. After the war, he ran away to Argentina under a false identity and lived hidden for decades. He was only discovered after his death in 1979 when he had a stroke while swimming and drowned in Brazil. His remains were identified by a forensic examination 6 years later.

Leaving the blocks behind, we entered an area with booths were the SS officer responsible for conducting the roll-call and collecting reports on the number of prisoners took shelter during inclement weather.

In the centre of the area, the SS officer in charge of the roll-call received reports on the numbers of prisoners present. If there seemed to be anyone missing, prisoners had to continue standing at attention until the SS were satisfied, regardless of the weather, sometimes for twelve hours or more.

To intimidate prisoners, the SS also conducted public hangings here. The largest such execution was carried out in 19th July 1943, when twelve Poles suspected of helping three other prisoners to escape and of maintaining contacts with the outside world were hanged together on purpose-built gallows.

Our next stop was the place where the camp Gestapo was located. Prisoners suspected of involvement in the camps underground resistance movement or of preparing to escape were interrogated here. Many prisoners died as a result of being beaten or tortured.

The first commandant of Auschwitz, SS-Obersturmbannfürer Rudolf Höss, who was tried and sentenced to death after the war by the Polish Supreme National Tribunal, was hanged here on April 16th, 1974.

Just next to it is a building that was originally built as a munition bunker, but was later used from 15 August 1940 to July 1943 as a crematorium. In the autumn of 1941, the largest room, which had been designed by the camp authorities as a morgue, was adapted for use as an improvised gas chamber, the first of its kind in Auschwitz. Using the gas produced by pellets of Zykon B, many thousands of Jews were murdered here by the SS within hours of their arrival at Auschwitz.

Several groups of Soviet prisoners of war were also murdered here in this way, as were sick prisoners whose return to work was considered unlikely. Poles from outside the camp who had been sentenced to death by the German summary court were shot here.

The last stop of our visit to Auschwitz I was the gas chamber and crematoria. After the establishment in Auschwitz II-Birkenau of two more improvised gas chambers in spring and summer of 1942 for the mass murder of the Jews, the gassings here were gradually stopped. Later, with the completion in Auschwitz II-Birkenau of four purpose-built gas chambers with crematoria, the burning of corpses here was also stopped in July 1943.

The building was subsequently utilised for storage and then as an air-raid shelter for the SS. The incinerators, chimney and some of the walls were dismantled, and the wholes in the roof through which the SS had poured Zykon B were sealed.

After the war, the museum partially reconstructed the gas chamber and crematorium. The chimney and two incinerators were rebuilt using original components, as were several of the openings in the gas chamber roof.

Auschwitz II-Birkenau

We had a small break before continuing to the second part of the visit, the Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp. Both camps are 3km apart, so we boarded our van and drove for less than 5 minutes before we reached the second camp.

Contrary to Auschwitz I, the Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp doesn’t really contain any exhibitions; instead, you can visit some of the original buildings where prisoners used to live, as well as the remains of two gas chambers and a monument to all victims.

Auschwitz II-Birkenau was built in October 1941 due to the overcrowding of the first camp. The original plan was to build a camp that could host 50,000 prisoners of wards, but the camp reached an occupation of up to 200,000 prisoners. It was almost 20 times bigger than Auschwitz I and was mainly used as an extermination camp with the only objective to exterminate the Jewish population.

The camp is accessed by its famous door at the end of the train rails, where most trains with deportees stopped. Every day, up to 40 to 50 wagons filled with Jews arrived to these gates, mainly coming from Hungary. Many of them travelled for over 2,600 km and upon arrival, all of them were divided into ‘fit’ and ‘unfit’ to work. Those who were considered unfit to work were sent to the gas chambers as soon as they crossed the gate. That’s the reason why it soon became known as the “Gate of Death”.

During the journey, hundreds of people were crammed into each wagon, which were originally designed to carry cattle or goods. Prisoners had no space to sit, move or even breath, and many of them suffocated on the way or died due to the poor sanitary conditions. Sometimes, prisoners only realised that the person next to them had died when they get off the train, as they were so crammed that corpses couldn’t even fall.

The journey would sometimes take multiple days, not because of the distance, but because prisoners were not important enough for the Nazis and trains were sometimes stopped for hours or days for no reason before they reached the camp.

Original wagon where prisoners were transported

Many of the buildings of Auschwitz II-Birkenau were destroyed by the Nazis just before the end of the war, but one can still visit some of the original barracks.

They were very rudimentary wooden buildings with bunk beds where over 500 prisoners were crammed. Prisoners slept side by side in the same bed, and usually wore the same uniform for work and to sleep. The barracks had no insulation from the cold or heat, so temperatures were very high during the Polish summer and dipped to -20 degrees celsius during winter. The barrack was kept warm with a small stove that wasn’t enough to heat up the entire building, so prisoners often fought to find a place to sit on top of the stove during the coldest nights.

Every morning, 150 people were allowed to go to the bathroom in groups. The toilets, which were originally constructed as a stable, consisted of hundreds of single buckets with no privacy whatsoever. Prisoners were given 30 seconds a day to go to the bathroom before they had to start their 12h of work. Diseases were very common in Auschwitz, including diarrhoea and dysentery, so 30 seconds a day was certainly never enough for most inmates.

The first gas chamber that we had seen in Auschwitz I was gradually abandoned after two more provisional gas chambers were built in Auschwitz II-Birkenau. After the nazis planned their Final Solution, which had the objective to exterminate all Jews, mass murder of Jews was finally moved to Auschwitz II-Birkenau. In addition to the two temporary gas chambers, the Nazis built four additional crematoria with gas chambers to exterminate as many people as possible.

In November 1994, the Soviet Red Army was approaching the camp, so the SS officials started evacuating over 130,000 prisoners to other concentration camps. They dismantled and blew up some of the crematories as a last attempt to hide all evidence of the killings. It wasn't until January 27th 1945 that the Red Army reached the camp and liberated the over 7,500 prisoners that had been left behind during the evacuation and were still alive. They also found over 600 corpses.

The ruins of the two gas chambers that we see today correspond to Crematorium II and III, which had the biggest gas chambers in the camp. They were blown up by the Nazis just before the camp was evacuated, and today they are in the same state as they were found by the Red Army.

Our visit ended at the International Monument, erected in 1967 on the western end of the Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp, just between the ruins of Crematorium II and II.

It was selected through an international competition with over 400 entries, and it is composed of a jumble of dark stones that represent the victims. On the floor, there is a row of granite slabs that look like a tomb with an inscription in all the main languages spoken by prisoners of the camp, including Polish, Hungarian, French or Russian, but also the languages spoken by the Jewish population of Europe, such as Yiddish or Ladino (Judaeo-Spanish). The inscription in English reads as follows:

“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

Visiting Auschwitz will for sure be one of the toughest experiences of your life. The horrific stories behind the Holocaust can’t leave anyone indifferent and being on the site where it all that took place is just heartbreaking.

In order to fully understand the relevance of this place, a guided visit inside is an absolute must. My Auschwitz-Birkenau guided tour from Krakow was fantastic from start to end, and definitely very educational and carried out with the utmost respect.

Although not everyone may want to go through such a tough experience during their travels, I firmly believe that a visit to Auschwitz is something that everyone should do at least once on their life, especially on a time like ours when hatred and discrimination are rampant. After all, as the quote by the famous Italian philosopher George Santayana says: “those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

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