Auschwitz

On-Site Ticket Sales Have Been Permanently Discontinued

As of March 2026, you cannot buy any ticket – guided tour, free timed entry, or anything else – at the gate. All visits to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum must be booked online in advance at visit.auschwitz.org, the only legitimate booking channel. Arriving without a pre-booked pass means you cannot enter. Arriving in summer with an unbooked day and expecting to get in that morning is not a plan – popular time slots in peak season (May through September) sell out four to six weeks in advance.

This administrative change matters because it affects how you plan the visit. For most people visiting from Krakow (50-60 kilometres east), this means booking the day before you travel at the earliest outside peak season, and weeks ahead in summer.

What Auschwitz-Birkenau Is

Auschwitz was established in 1940 in occupied Poland, initially as a concentration and forced labour camp for Polish political prisoners. By 1942, it had expanded to include Auschwitz II-Birkenau, built specifically as an industrial extermination centre. Between 1942 and 1945, approximately 1.1 million people were murdered at Auschwitz – the vast majority of them Jews, transported from across occupied Europe. The scale, methodology, and documentation of what happened here make Auschwitz the best-evidenced and most studied example of industrialised genocide in history. That evidence is what the memorial site preserves.

The Visit

A 3.5-hour guided tour covering both Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau costs approximately 150 PLN per person (around EUR 35) in 2026. The tour is led by a licensed museum educator with a headset for clear audio; shuttle transport between the two sites is included. Individual free timed-entry passes are also available (book at visit.auschwitz.org) but the guided tour is strongly recommended for context – particularly for understanding the physical layout of the Birkenau complex, which requires explanation to comprehend.

Auschwitz I (the main camp) is where the museum’s primary exhibitions are housed – in the former prisoner barracks. The exhibits cover the construction of the camp system, the prisoner classification and registration process, the evidence for the number of victims, and rooms containing physical evidence: glasses, shoes, human hair, suitcases with names and addresses painted on them. The Death Wall between Blocks 10 and 11 where prisoners were shot is here.

Auschwitz II-Birkenau, 3 kilometres from the main camp, covers a vastly larger area – roughly 175 hectares. The rail platform where arriving transports were “selected” (those judged fit to work directed one way; the majority directed immediately to the gas chambers) is here. The ruins of the gas chambers and crematoria, dynamited by the retreating SS in January 1945, are here. The scale of Birkenau – seen from the watchtower at the main gate – communicates something that no single exhibit can: the systematic planning of mass murder on a scale beyond individual comprehension.

Expect to spend 90 minutes at Auschwitz I and 90 minutes at Birkenau.

Krakow as a Base

Krakow is a beautiful city with its own profound history, and the Kazimierz district (the historic Jewish quarter) provides essential context for understanding the communities destroyed in the Holocaust. The Galicia Jewish Museum and the various synagogues in Kazimierz are worth a separate morning or afternoon. The Old Town’s Royal Road from the main square to Wawel Castle is excellent for walking. Hotels range from budget hostels to mid-range rooms in historic buildings; book ahead as Krakow is popular year-round.

Come with sufficient time to process what you have seen before returning to daily travel routine. This is not a site you rush through and then immediately visit a beer hall.