What to expect when visiting Auschwitz
I’ve always wanted to visit Auschwitz; and have always had a fascination with World War II, and more specifically with The Holocaust. I’ve got an entire shelf on my bookcase of books about WWII and The Holocaust. Any documentary, tv series, or movie about it, I will watch it. It has been #1 on my bucket list for a long, long time. I think it is so important for people to visit concentration camps to truly understand and see firsthand what happened. And when I was finally able to visit, it completely lived up to the image in my head.
My father took me to Berlin in 2007 and I begged him to take me to Auschwitz, but we had a tight schedule and it was longer than a day trip so we weren’t able to make it. I went to Europe a few more times, but never had to opportunity to go. FINALLY, my boyfriend was going to Germany for work and invited me to meet him in Europe for a trip. I let him pick the places since it was his first trip abroad and he chose Poland, Estonia, and Finland… I was thinking London, Italy, maybe Scotland? However, it gave me an opportunity to see some places I would’ve never picked, and gave me an opportunity to finally visit Auschwitz.
He wanted to visit Warsaw in Poland, but if I was going to visit Poland at all, I was going to visit Auschwitz. So I told him I’d take a day trip to Krakow and go to Auschwitz and just meet up with him when I was done. He immediately said “well, let’s go to Krakow instead.” So I bought my plane ticket, and I bought my ticket for Auschwitz the very next day!
If you want to visit Auschwitz, or any concentration camp, I highly recommend booking a tour. I booked this exact tour and it was phenomenal.
We arrived in Krakow on Friday and visited Kazimierz, which is the Jewish Quarter in Krakow. Neal ended up getting so sick that first night, and we didn’t realize it was food poisoning, and my tour was at 7am the next morning. I had to cancel my tour and they told me they were booked the rest of the week. I was heartbroken…. I was tearing up in the lobby of the hotel buying some Gatorade and water for Neal when the concierge asked what was wrong. I told him that we were visiting Krakow just so I could go to Auschwitz, but they were all booked and I had to cancel. He informed me that the hotel books spots for guests who don’t book ahead of time. The only time I could go was at 5:45am on Sunday (the next day). I was so happy and excited and immediately signed up for it. It ended up being the exact same company I had initially booked through!
A van picked me up at my hotel at 5:15am on Sunday morning. We picked up about 6 more people from various hotels on the way in Krakow. It took us about an hour to get to Auschwitz I. Auschwitz is a collective term for 3 different camps - Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II (Auschwitz-Birkenau), and Auschwitz III (Monowitz). We were able to visit Auschwitz I and Auschwitz-Birkenau.
A guard tower. “Prisoners” would frequently throw themselves on the barbed wire so they’d be shot so they wouldn’t have to live another day at Auschwitz.
The tour cost covers the transfer to, between, and from the camps from your hotel and an English-speaking tour guide and is only $35. You can go for free and wander around the camps for yourself and walk between the camps, but, once again, I highly recommend getting a guide. Even with everything I know about Auschwitz, it was so much better having someone to tell me the details and explain to me what I was seeing in person. On a busy day, upwards of 30,000 people visit Auschwitz. So having a guide is very helpful.
When you arrive at Auschwitz I, you go through security and then the first thing you see is the “Arbeit Macht Frei” sign, just like those brought there in 1940. You are surrounded by very uniform and utilitarian red-brick buildings. It is surrounded by trees, but is ultimately a block of single- and double-story brick buildings. Each one serving a different purpose.
You feel EVERYTHING when you’re there. I cannot explain it other than you feel like you are on a separate plane of the universe. You can feel the sorrow and horror and the death on that land. We visited on a misty, foggy, and overcast day, which definitely lent itself to the setting and mood.
You will see and hear some truly horrific things. You’ll see glasses, luggage, pottery, piles of hair, children’s toys, prosthetic legs and arms, prayer shawls, and shoes… You will see photographs of “prisoners,” where your guide will inform you “three weeks after these photos were taken, all of them were dead.” Every room, every brick, every walkway has a story attached to it. Each more worse than the last.
You will walk through barracks, 3 foot by 3 foot cells were four men were made to stand in the dark until they died, the gas chambers, and the crematoria. When I walked through the gas chamber, my breath stopped in my chest. Knowing that I was in a room where literally 1.1 million people died,
After you finish your tour at Auschwitz I, you move to Birkenau. When you get to Birkenau, there is a very strange dichotomy happening. It seems almost tranquil with the wide, open fields full of wildflowers, the birdsongs, the open sky. It is hard to imagine that up to 20,000 people were killed there every day. It is hard to imagine that mothers, children, and grandparents were shepherded into gas chambers, so many being crammed into the waiting area before the “showers”, that they could hear those who went in before them dying.
The eeriest part of the entire tour was seeing the chimneys for acres and acres of what used to be barracks housing close to 1,000 people in each one. Knowing how full these camps were at the height of World War II is sick and seeing these places in person is the difference between reading the music and hearing it played.
Until you are walking through the gas chambers yourself, you really have no true understanding of The Holocaust.
PSA: If you are visiting Auschwitz, you are allowed and encouraged to take photos. PLEASE do not take any photos of yourself there. Do not take a photo of you smiling or looking introspective. This visit is not about you. It is about the millions who were murdered. This is a hill I will die on.
PS. Chicago has cheap flights to Krakow year-round.