Auschwitz and Birkenau tour from Krakow: what you will see

Every Auschwitz and Birkenau tour from Krakow follows the route the Memorial sets. The visit begins at Auschwitz I and then moves on to Auschwitz II-Birkenau, 3.5 km away.^1,6 The Memorial is explicit that both parts must be seen: it calls it essential to visit both to gain a proper sense of the place that became the symbol of the Holocaust.⁷ On a guided day from Krakow, both sites are part of the plan, and your educator links them into a single account of what happened.

On a standard Auschwitz Birkenau Memorial and Museum guided tour from Krakow, the educator leads you through the permanent exhibitions and buildings of the Auschwitz I main camp, then to the most important original buildings at Birkenau: the prisoner barracks, the unloading platform known as the ramp, and what remains of the gas chamber and crematorium II or III.³ Plan on about three-and-a-half hours for this standard format.² Guiding on the grounds is reserved for educators holding a Museum licence.⁸

This page describes what you will see, in the order you will see it, and the history the Memorial tells at each stop. It is not a substitute for the educator's explanations, which carry the testimony and the detail. Read it before the day so that the names and places are familiar, and leave space during the visit simply to look and listen. The rules page of this site covers conduct, photography and age advice in detail.

Block 11 stands among the brick blocks of the main camp. The Memorial describes it as the central jail for prisoners from the whole camp complex, and Auschwitz I as the place where most executions by shooting were carried out.³⁰ The Execution Wall in the courtyard between the blocks is where visitors now stop in silence. The courtyard of Block 11 is a silence zone, and telephone calls there are prohibited.³¹

The Execution Wall is also a place where candles and memorial candles may be lit; the other is the monument between the ruins at Birkenau.⁴ If you wish to leave a candle, bring it with you and place it there quietly, without interrupting the group or the people already standing there. Cameras stay down in Room No. 5 of Block No. 4 and in the cellars of Block No. 11, and no building allows flash or a tripod.³²

Your educator will explain what happened in the cells in the basement of Block 11, which the Memorial describes as the camp's central jail.³⁰ The cells are small, dark and very quiet. If you prefer to wait outside, that is a respectful choice too. Take your time here, and let the group move ahead if you need a moment. This is a place where silence is the only appropriate response, and the Memorial expects quiet, respectful conduct throughout.³³

The Memorial estimates the total number of victims of Auschwitz at some 1.1 million people.⁵ About 400,000 people were registered in the camp during its almost 5 years of operation, and the Memorial estimates some 900,000 further victims, mostly Jewish children and elderly people, who were murdered in the gas chambers immediately after selections and never entered in the camp records.^65,5 Probably about 90% of all the victims of Auschwitz died at Birkenau.⁶⁶

The deportation of Jews to Auschwitz rose year by year. The Memorial counts about 197,000 Jewish deportees for 1942; the figure for 1943 is about 270,000, and for 1944 it is over 600,000.^11,23,12 Over the years of the camp, the total came to almost 1.1 million.¹² More than 9 out of every 10 people who died in Birkenau were Jews.⁶⁶ Behind each of these figures stand individual lives, and the exhibitions at Auschwitz I return again and again to names, faces and family photographs rather than totals. Your educator will do the same.

Other groups were persecuted and murdered here too. A large proportion of the more than 70,000 Poles who died in the Auschwitz complex perished in Birkenau, as did approximately 20,000 Roma and Sinti, along with Soviet prisoners of war and prisoners of other nationalities.^67,68 The figures in this section come from the Memorial's own history pages. They are best read before the visit, so that the places you see carry their weight.

Inside the Memorial, every guided group follows the same core route, and only licensed educators may guide.⁸ What differs between tours from Krakow is the transport, the time of day and the time allowed at each site. When you compare an Auschwitz Birkenau guided tour from Krakow, look at the itinerary: the guided day this site sells gives Birkenau 1 hour after 2 hours in the main camp, while the official tour allows Birkenau 1.5 hours.

If you would like more than the general tour, the Memorial also runs a specialist tour that adds selected national exhibitions, the area called Kanada, and what is left of crematoria IV and V with their gas chambers.²⁶ Study tours of around 6 hours go further still.²⁷ Educators work in a long list of languages, among them Hebrew, Hungarian and Norwegian.⁷⁴ For visitors booking on their own in English, the Memorial runs guided starts from 08.30 through the day.⁷⁵

Whichever you choose, read the rules before you go. Visits are not recommended for children under 14, entry passes are personal and limited, and the educator's lecture may not be recorded.^28,76,77 Audio guides and video guides, including phone apps, are prohibited across the Memorial: the educator is your guide.⁷⁸ Afterwards you may want time to talk or to sit quietly, and a slow evening in Krakow helps the day settle.