Pay your respects to the victims of Nazi persecution as you visit World War Two’s largest concentration camps on the Auschwitz-Birkenau Guided Tour. After arriving at the museum, you’ll step through the original entrance gate before finding out more about the terrible events that unfolded from 1940 to 1945.
Having opened to the public in 1955, the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum is now dedicated to more than one million people who died at this site during the Holocaust.
To go on a tour of the site, you’ll need to book online at visit.auschwitz.org. Make sure you plan ahead as tours can book up months in advance, especially on weekends. To see Auschwitz-Birkenau, you can choose between four different tours, the general tour, a one or two day study tour, or the individual tour. The general tour lasts for three and a half hours as you explore the permanent exhibitions and main camp buildings along with the prisoner barracks, ruined gas chambers and crematoria at Auschwitz II-Birkenau. To travel between the two camps, there’s a free shuttle bus.
At the main Auschwitz site, you’ll browse artefacts including photographs, seized possessions, prisoner clothes and bunk-beds. The museum is very solemn and moving as it takes you through original and reconstructed rooms, remembering the people who were captured during the war.
Before visiting it’s worth knowing there’s a strict policy on backpacks and handbags, so make sure your bag measures no more than 30 x 20 x 10cm. Although photography’s allowed, don’t use your flash and be respectful around sensitive displays. Some areas of the museum ban photos altogether, so keep an eye out for signs.
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