Auschwitz Birkenau
Auschwitz Birkenau - German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp (1940-1945) was the principal and largest of the concentration camps that were erected by Nazi Germany and today serves as a place of memory for the Holocaust.
Auschwitz I, the original concentration camp, was the administrative center for the whole complex, and the site of the deaths of mostly Poles and Soviet prisoners of war. Auschwitz II (Birkenau) was an extermination camp and the site of the deaths of over 1 million people. The highly authentic remains such as barbed wire, railway sidings, platforms, barracks, gas chambers and crematoria, in combination with the personal items left, are testimony to how the mass murder took place and to the lives of the victims.
Community Perspective: one of the most touching and horrific WHS. Make sure you visit both camps: the sheer size of Birkenau is overwhelming.
Map of Auschwitz Birkenau
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Andrew_Kerr
When I went to Krakow for the first time I deliberately chose not to go to Auschwitz, I know what happened there and it's truly horrific, I didn't feel that I needed to witness the place where those horrific events took place at first hand. That was 12 years ago and I returned to Krakow in 2024 with my wife who was keen to visit and pay her respects, so this time I went.
If I had to sum up my experience in one word I found the site to be depressing. The fact that it was so well organised, so regimented and clearly designed like a modern factory for processing purposes, the purpose in this case was mass murder on an industrial scale. The matter of fact way that the Nazi's experimented to find the most productive way to kill people is probably the most disturbing aspect of the site for me. All my life the thing that troubled me most is how a cultured and civilized race of European people could perpetrate such crimes against humanity, if they can sink to those depths anybody can.
Am I glad I went? I have to be honest and say no, as I stated earlier I knew what happened there. Film footage of camps being liberated are still far more shocking and emotive than visiting a site where these events took place. Also, I'm not entirely comfortable with the way it seems to have become a "must see" site on the tourist trail either. I witnessed smiling people taking selfies at Birkenau that only added to my general feeling of depression. This is not a place to take selfies and post them on social media and it shows a lack of respect and intelligence of those people.
This is just my view, my wife is glad she went, she spent a lot of money in the bookshops primarily to support the site. When I asked her if she was glad she went she said, it's not about being glad I went, I felt compelled to go and witness this myself and hope than nobody forgets these terrible things. I understand her completely but I don't feel I needed to go.
The other problem I have with this site is that I don't feel it fits with the ethos of WHS listings. This doesn't celebrate "cultural and natural heritage around the world considered to be of outstanding value to humanity". In fact I would argue that the opposite is true. Of course Auschwitz needs to be maintained and promoted as a place of respect and mourning and of the testimony of mankind's inhumanity to man, I just don't believe that a UNESCO listing is the right vehicle for this. Having said that, if you accept the reasoning behind it's inclusion then why is not included as a group that encompasses all the death camps that the Nazi's built, Dachau, Bergen Belsen, Treblinka, Buchenwald etc? I don't understand why they selected the worst of them, for me it somehow lessens the importance of those other places because fewer people were murdered there.
Zoë Sheng
Chinese-Canadian - 08-Jan-23 -
Auschwitz is certainly special and there's been much reviewed about it already that I might not feel I can add much "new". When I visited in 2016 there were guided tours only and when I arrived late I was allowed to enter on my own in order to find the group. Naturally that was quite hard because listening to the audio doesn't indicate where the group is suddenly located and only the quality will give you an idea how close you are. I eventually found the group and the reason I mention this is because I wonder if I want to have the group. Sure, you see everything and get lots of info, and most of it is important but I also found it very depressing to listen to the guide. One of the people in the group then asked out of the blue: "how can you do this kind of tour every day?" and "aren't you too sad to be here all the time?" She gave a good response but it made me think.
If I were here without a guide it would still be depressing as hell but it would just give me an overall "oh these were shoes from the workers" idea. I think I don't need the deeper sadness attached with the private stories the guide can relay to us visitors. I know what the site stands for and I didn't come here to get the satisfaction to know it better.
So another issue is that the site is from a recent war and these days none of these sites would get inscribed. That doesn't mean Auschwitz will get removed but I think it shouldn't be a special case just because it was "so evil", "extremely antisemitic" or on an epic scale. It also doesn't mean Auschwitz was the "best" concentration camp from the pick with some other guests saying Dochau was a better example of one of these camps - not that I had visited that. I think after Auschwitz one has enough of an insight into the evil Nazi legacy and it was good to see what movies and TV shows depict, realizing that it was indeed right here and it wasn't too long ago. In the end it was more of a history lesson than a sightseeing trip. I only took 10 pictures of the entire camp with the one above and the "Arbeit Macht Frei" being the highlights because it doesn't feel like a place I want to have pictures of for my collection.
I wonder why I had rated it so high when I visited but I still have good memories of it, and it is an important site even if it doesn't match to most of what is on the world heritage list. There are slave related places but most of the listed sites are positive that inspired, progressed humanity. I don't actually feel the horror from Auschwitz does that to me. Perhaps because I'm educated well enough and don't need to be fed the truth about what has happened. For me this isn't an eye opener but I can see that for many it will be. I also believe this will stay in their memory like it does for me.
In retrospective I find that it doesn't cover the entirety of the WWII crimes and atrocities but extending to other sites for the war doesn't seem to be an option. Having visited WWI memorials which seemed different and also grasp your emotions I would prefer those on the list but as previously said UNESCO is currently not inscribing any recent war related sites.
Els Slots
Hardly two weeks after the WHC meeting of 2015 that gave me no less than 9 'new' sites, I hit the road again for my 580th WHS. The start of daily KLM flights to Cracow drew me to a revisit of Southern Poland. I had been to Cracow in 2005, visiting the Old Town, the Wieliczka Salt Mine and Kalwaria Zebrzydowska. At that time I decided to skip Auschwitz, as I wasn’t really in the mood for what I knew would be a very moving visit.
This time around I started with Auschwitz Birkenau, staying overnight in Oswiecim. I had reserved entry for 8 a.m. on Saturday morning. Visitor numbers are limited to 100-200 an hour depending on the hour, so it’s best to pre-book a spot. Later in the day places fill up quickly, as after 10 a.m. these include guided tours in German, English, Russian, Spanish or Polish.
When I arrived at about 7.50, already some 100 people were queuing to get in. The doors do not open until 8 a.m., and then you have to pass security first. You’re allowed to bring in hardly anything, and I even was turned away on my first try because of my tiny backpack! So bring only a camera. Or an umbrella. Or nothing.
Auschwitz I Camp lies in the urban area of the Polish town of Oswiecim, it really isn’t on the outskirts as it is sometimes described. Its very urban setting came as a surprise to me. And also its looks: it reminded me of those 19th-century company towns, with neat rows of brick buildings. This was the administrative center of the Auschwitz Camp system, and it had offices and hospitals. Behind closed doors, terrible things happened of course, and sometimes even in plain sight as with the public hanging of prisoners (which were mostly Polish and Russians incarcerated here). Most of the buildings now contain exhibition rooms, telling about different aspects of the camp and the fate of prisoners from various nations.
Auschwitz II or Birkenau lies 3 km away, in a rural area. This was the largest extermination camp of the Nazis, which could house 100,000 prisoners at the time. Over one million people were killed here, in what was like an industrialized process. Its 175-hectare terrain held more than 300 brick and wooden buildings, of which 67 are still intact.
It's a long walk to cross the terrain, but it does give you a sense of the scale of this camp. The barracks lie in long rows next to the main track and the railway. Most are not accessible and are located behind barbed wire. At the very end, there are the collapsed gas chambers, which were blown up at the end of the war by the SS to cover up their actions. In the woods behind it still stands the building where the prisoners were ‘introduced’ to the camp, and were stripped of their possessions and clothing. This ’dehumanization’ is again presented soberly (mostly bare spaces with an information sign), but I found it the most moving part of my visit.
Besides the enormous size of it all, it struck me that Camp Birkenau lies in a wooded, almost idyllic environment. Any moment you expect a fox running across. I thought that the Polish had let nature return to this area, but also in photos dating from WWII itself you can see that there was a forest here then. There is a very painful picture on display of prisoners among the trees, waiting for their turn to go into the gas chambers.
Dark Tourism may be a relatively new trend (the phrase was coined in 1996), but Auschwitz already entered the WH list in 1979 (after having even been proposed for the first list ever in 1978, but then neigbouring Cracow and Wieliczka Salt Mine were given preference). Visiting ‘dark heritage’ is sometimes described as an uneasy mix of disaster tourism and memorial. Auschwitz tends to lean toward the latter, it is not as blood heavy as other dark sites that I have visited such as the former Tuol Sleng prison in Cambodia or Saddam’s Red Prison in Iraqi Kurdistan. The displays here are sober, and the total has an understated subtlety. I also appreciate that entrance is free, and there is very little commercial activity around the site.
Hubert
We visited Auschwitz and Birkenau in August 2014. We arrived at Auschwitz early in the morning, because we felt that it is better to visit the camp individually than with a guided tour. From April to October during peak hours (10 am to 3 pm) the visit is permitted only with a guide. Several of the barracks show exhibitions on specific topics or are dedicated to the victims from certain countries or ethnicities. But it is hardly possible to visit all of the them. Most poignant were the rooms with personal items: shoes, suitcases, glasses.
But I was even more shocked by the extermination camp in Birkenau, the sheer size of the area is overwhelming. Of course I've seen documentaries and read a lot and I knew about the inconceivable number of people who were imprisoned and murdered here. But it is something entirely different to see the place of these incredible atrocities with your own eyes.
In Birkenau, most of the wooden barracks were destroyed or demolished, only the brick chimneys remained, an endless number of them. We inevitably slowed down the pace when we walked along the rail track to the ruins of the gas chambers and on the gravel paths between the barracks, in silence and deep in thoughts. No words to describe my feelings.
You should visit both camps to get a complete impression and you should take your time, not only because it is a large area, but mainly because it takes time to cope with all the impressions and emotions.
The photo shows a part of a memorial in Birkenau near the the so-called "Sauna" building.
It has been argued that sites of unculture like Auschwitz should not be included on a list of cultural and natural treasures, an legitimate opinion. But although I think that the WHC should be very reluctant to inscribe such sites, I think the inscription is justified, because testimonies of the collapse of civilization are also part of the heritage of mankind. Everyone should visit Auschwitz and Birkenau at least once in his life.
Clyde
I visited this WHS in September 2014. This is one of the most touching and horrific WHS I've been too and it definitely deserves its place on the list for mankind to be aware that such atrocities should have never happened in the past and mustn't occur in the future. It is now possible to visit Auschwitz individually only from 08:00-10:00 and 16:00-18:00. Otherwise you'll have to visit with another 25-40 people on a guided visit. Since this WHS isn't an attraction but a site to experience, I believe that the best way to visit is in silence and in touch with your inner self. I arrived in Oswiecim around 8am and there were some parked cars already in front of the Auschwitz museum. However, the place is huge and being able to visit individually means that most of the time you're alone in each section. By the time the group visits start, you'll have to queue to even enter a section which doesn't make sense to me personally. The most shocking experience to me was to see the room with plaits and shaved hair. As the first groups started to flock in, I proceeded to the exit and drove to Brzezinka to visit Auschwitz II Birkenau. This site covers an incredible surface area where unspeakable horrors took place. The gate to hell and railways are worth visiting to experience the sheer size of this place. I'm glad I visited this WHS. Even though we've read, listened, seen quite a lot about the scourge of these concentration camps, we have possibly got used to hearing about it and therefore might not be shocked anymore. Visiting this WHS will definitely be a shocking experience and rightly so.
Willem van Altena
This is truly the most disturbing and terrible place on earth. We need to remind ourselves to which depths we can sink as human beings.
Klaus Freisinger
It's hard to add anything meaningful to the other posts. This is really an incredible place, and even if you have been to other concentration camps before (like Mauthausen), Auschwitz is on a different scale. Of course you have read and seen a lot about the place, but actually seeing it is quite different. Unfortunately I had no time to go to Birkenau (there are shuttle buses, though), which I think is even more horrific. Definitely a must-visit site. By the way, I think the recent name change proposed by the Polish government to add the "German Nazi" part is a bit strange. Did anybody seriously think it was run by the Poles?
Basia
Poland, Oświęcim - 08-Aug-08 -
To correct one of the previous reviews,Auschwitz is not near Oświęcim. Auschwitz is a German name for Oświęcim, just as Birkenau is for Brzezinka. I live here and I really recommend for everybody to hire a guide as one is not able to understand the history behind the site by oneself (even if you buy one of those thin guidebooks). Of course I do agree that it is not an ordinary site, as you visit it not for enjoyment or appreciation of art but for learning something about one of the greatest tragedies in human history. Unfortunately, not everybody understands that.
Jose Gomes
I've read all the comments did above and I agree with the majority of what is said there. However, I think that everyone if arrive as a normal tourist will in some minutes feel the atmosfere of the camps and will immediately adopt the most adequate conduct. I think that pictures of the site are not only necessary but crucial to tell our friends what we saw there and call their attention to tell them that what happened there was not only the killing of thousands of people. Those who suffered there had a name and picture, and were not only one more person.
I've heard some comments on the bus trip from Auschwitz II to Auschwitz I from other visitors that what impressed more those visitors were the shoes from kids and the hair. For me, those were not the items that impressed me significantly. What impressed me were the bags with a name painted on it that puts a picture on those who suffered and the fact that when they carried the suitcase they believed that they would make a trip for another horrible place but possibly they would be treated as war prisioners. In those bags and suitcases they carried dishes, polish for the shoes, etc. Also, the size of Auschwitz II and that road connecting directly the railroad to the gas-chambers...
David Berlanda
Italy / Czech Republic - 05-Feb-06 -
In our trip to Poland we have seen, near the town of Oświęcim and the village of Brzezinka, the concentration and extermination camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau, the largest in the Third Reich, where the Nazi commanded by Adolf Hitler systematically starved, tortured and murdered 1,5 million people from 24 countries, among them a great number of Jews. It was created by Himmler in 1940 and directed by Rudolf Höss. There are many tragical evidences, preserved in the conditions in which were in 1947, when the museum was founded: fortified walls, barbed wire, electrified fence, platforms, roll call square, sectors of wooden and bricks barracks for men and women with cells and small latrines, deposits for the belongins of the deportees, the Russian graveyard, gallows, false hospitals (wainting rooms to the gas), gas chambers, five cremation ovens, false showers, laboratories for experiments on people, Gestapo camps, entrance gates, railroads, a barrack (work camp for the Russian soldiers) where was for the first time used the gas Zyclon B for extermination, a wall (Death Wall) where were shot 20000 prisoners, bunkers, a barrack where are 70 tunes of hairs, 48000 pairs of shoes, glasses, brushes and dentures. There is also the terrible writing on the entrance arch: “Arbeit macht frei”, that means “The work makes free”.
I was really schocked by the tragical evidences of the camp, but it's absolutely worth to be visited for more understing the horrors of the genocide. However I think it don't justifies the inscription because, in my opinion, tragical war places like this (or like Hiroshima or Robben Island) can't be in a list where are inscribed the treasures of the humanity and of the nature. Anyway it represents well all the concentrations camp because it is the most important.
Photo: Oœwiêcim - Entrance gate and barracks of the concentration camp of Auschwitz
Rob Wilson
I full agreement with the others here, that this isn't a place to be treated lightly.
One does get the feeling from some of the displays that the Final Solution was a crime against the Polish people rather than the anti-semetic genocide that it actually was.
Nonetheless this does not 'spoil' (for want of better word) what is a heart-wrenching experience.
This is a place that everybody should visit at least once in their lifetime.
Natalie
Having recently visited Auschwtiz and Auschwitz-Birkenau, I feel impelled to contribute my own response here. In agreement with previous reviews, I would like to reiterate that this is not a trip or tourist destination to be considered light-heartedly. Many visitors come to the camp, wanting to stroll through and catch a glimpse of the site of such dehumanizing and barbaric acts. This is not something (in my humble opinion) that can be achieved in a matter of hours.
If anyone reading this is planning to visit or looking for advice, I would strongly recommend devoting an entire day in order to absorb the full effects of everything here that deserves observing. In my experience, I felt as though I was in a state of semi-shock upon entering the camp(s). I was reluctant to take any pictures. I felt that saving the images of what I saw as a personal "souvenir" of my trip was somehow disrespectful to all of the atrocities that occurred there.
In retrospect, I think that if I had spent more time at each of the camps, perhaps I would have overcome such feelings. I now regret not taking any photos personally, not for the purpose of displaying them for others when recounting my experiences, but just for my own memories. Everyone undoubtedly experiences different reactions and feelings when visiting Auschwitz. Those emotions cannot be recreated by hearing the stories on TV, nor by seeing the images on the internet.
I strongly urge visitors to make the most of their visits and, yes, even to personalize their visits. A guided tour is definitely worth the time and/or expense. Auschwitz will perhaps be one of the most disturbing and horrific things you see in your life; and yet it is most deserving of being remembered properly.
Ian Cade
This is not a place that should be visited light heartedly, I was a little distressed to see that some people had come here just as casual tourists; it really is not the place for this type of trip.
I visited in both the winter and summer and the difference in temperature is massive, I can not think of living in these conditions (-15° in winter 35° in summer).
I would strongly recommend having a guided tour as this gives you an insight to some of the most unimaginable parts of the complex. The Auschwitz area is the most intact part of the site and contains lots of exhibits (rooms full of shoes and hair being particularly poignant), and the only standing charnel house and gas chamber, the absolute horrific sense of the place hit me upon entering here, it was perhaps the most unpleasant feeling I can imagine and took me a long time to get over.
The Birkenau complex is a necessity to visit the sheer scale of the area is soul destroying. This part of the camp was built for one purpose, and this can be crippling when you view the vast compound. It seems like a huge machine designed for the most ruthless and efficient process of murdering people.
The site can be reached easily from Krakow via Oswiecim station and there are buses to Auschwitz from there (it is possible to walk) Birkenau is a little further on you will probably be able to quite easily pick up a taxi to make the short transfer there.
Nothing can sum up the scale and effect this place had on me and I am sure has had on almost every one who has seen it.
Jeremy Tollpuddle
Don't treat a trip to Auschwitz like you would a trip to any where else on the UNESCO list. this was a truly horrific journey and one which should not be taken lightly. the order of the Auschwitz complex and the sheer massive scale of Birkenau. The site achieves the utmost respect from every visitor. It is worth getting a guided tour as this gives much more information. Visits at different times of the year will give you a view of the different features of life in the camps from the bitter winter conditions to the blistering heat of summer. the station is Oswiecim and is on the line from Krakow, the main camp is a short walk/bus ride from the station and the birkenau complex is further out, best to have a short taxi ride. This is not a tourist destination and is geniunly the most Harrowing place imaginable.
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Site Info
Site History
2007 Name change
From "Auschwitz Concentration Camp" to "Auschwitz Birkenau. German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp (1940-1945)"
1979 Inscribed
1978 Deferred
Maximum of 2 sites reached (Poland)
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The site has 2 locations
Modern Oswiecim has a train station with easy connections to Cracow. Auschwitz I is walkable from the station in about 20 minutes. There are shuttle buses to Auschwitz II from there.
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