Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Most visitors start their exploration of the camps at Auschwitz, the first of three
concentration/extermination camps built in the area (the third, Monowice, is in a sub-
urb of O 1 wi 7 cim and not included on most itineraries).
Auschwitz got its start in 1940, when the Germans requisitioned a former Polish
garrison town, O 1 wi 7 cim, for the purpose of establishing a prisoner-of-war camp. The
first groups of detainees included Polish political prisoners and Russian POWs. Con-
ditions were appalling and in the first year alone, nearly all of the several thousand
Russian POWs died of exhaustion and malnutrition. It was only later—in 1942 after
the Germans adopted a formal policy of exterminating Europe's Jewish population—
that Auschwitz became primarily a death camp for Europe's Jewry.
Admission to the Auschwitz museum is free, and you're allowed to roam the camp
grounds at will, taking in the atrocities at your own pace. On entering the museum,
you'll first have the chance of seeing a horrific 15-minute film of the liberation of the
camp by the Soviet soldiers in early 1945. The film is offered in several languages, with
English showings once every 90 minutes or so (if you miss a showing, you can always
come back to see it later). After that, you walk through the camp gates passing below
Auschwitz's infamous motto “Arbeit Macht Frei” (Through Work, Freedom). Once
inside, the buildings and barracks are given over to various exhibitions and displays.
Don't miss the exhibition at Block No. 4, “On Extermination.” It's here where you'll
see the whole system of rail transports, the brutal “selection” process to see which of
the new arrivals would go straight to the gas chambers and which would get a tempo-
rary reprieve to work, as well as the mechanics of the gas chambers, the canisters of
the Zyklon-B gas used, and, in one particularly gruesome window display, yards and
yards of human hair used to make rugs and textiles.
Birkenau, also known as Auschwitz II, lies about 2km (1 1 4 miles) to the south. It's
larger, more open, and even (if possible) more ghastly than Auschwitz. It's here where
most of the mass gas-chamber exterminations took place at one of the five gas cham-
bers located at the back of the camp. You can walk the distance between Auschwitz
and Birkenau in about 30 minutes; alternatively take one of the museum shuttle buses
that run on every hour on the half-hour from the front of the museum. A cab ride
between the two camps will cost you about 10 z l ($3.30/£1.90).
Birkenau appears almost untouched from how it looked in 1945. Your first sight of
the camp will be of the main gate, the “Gate of Death.” The orderly process of the
arrival of Jews and other prisoners by train, the confiscation of their belongings, the
“selection” process of internment or immediate death, and finally the gas chambers are
horrific in their efficiency. And the scale is shocking—stark brick prisoner blocks laid
out as far as the eye can see. There are no films here and few resources for the visitor.
Instead set aside an hour or so to stroll the camp to take it in. Don't miss the remains
of the gas chambers situated toward the back, not far from the memorial to Holocaust
victims. The Germans themselves destroyed four of the gas chambers at the end of
1944 and early 1945 to cover up their crimes once it was apparent the war could not
be won. Now, little of the gas chambers remain. You can return to the main Auschwitz
museum by foot, shuttle bus, or taxi, and from Auschwitz back to Kraków by bus or
train.
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