Auschwitz-Birkenau
The concentration and extermination camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau lie about 80km (50 miles) to the west of Kraków, and can be seen visited in a day trip from the city. Getting to the camps is relatively easy. Both trains and minibuses cover the journey in 90 minutes and cost about 18zl ($7.85/£4.85) for a round-trip ticket. Trains leave from Kraków's main station and buses from the main bus station just behind the train station. Bus departures are more frequent and have the added advantage of dropping you at the entrance to the Auschwitz museum. Several tourist agencies run guided coach tours; these usually include transportation from Kraków's main square and an English-language guide once you've arrived at the camps. Ask at the tourist information office for details. By car it's an easy 90-minute drive along the main highway to Katowice, turning south at the Czarnów exit and following the signs first to Oswiecim and once in town to the "Auschwitz Museum."
Whatever you've heard or read about the death camps, nothing is likely to prepare you for the shock of seeing them in person. Auschwitz is the best known of the two, though it's at Birkenau, south of Auschwitz, where you really see and feel the sheer scale of the atrocities. The precise number of deaths at the camps is unclear, but well over a million people died in the gas chambers, or were hanged or shot, or died of disease or exhaustion. Most of the victims were Jews, brought here from 1941 to 1944 from all around Europe stuffed in rail cattle cars. In addition, thousands of POWs, including many Poles, Russians, and Gypsies (Roma), were exterminated here, too.
Most visitors start their exploration of the camps at Auschwitz, the first of three concentration/extermination camps built in the area (the third, Monowitz, is in a suburb of Oswiecim and not included on most itineraries).
Auschwitz got its start in 1940, when the Germans requisitioned a former Polish garrison town, Oswiecim, for the purpose of establishing a prisoner-of-war camp. The first groups of detainees included Polish political prisoners and Russian POWs. Conditions 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. (If you're not employing a guide, pick up a copy of the Auschwitz-Birkenau guidebook available from the museum bookstore.) 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 temporary 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 four gas chambers 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's free shuttle buses that run hourly on the half-hour (less frequently in winter) from the front of the museum. A cab ride between the two camps will cost you about 15zl ($6.50/£4.05).
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 trains ran through this entryway. The passengers were unloaded onto the platforms, where they were examined by SS doctors and their belongings confiscated. About 30 percent were chosen to work in the camp; the rest -- mainly women and children -- were sent directly to the gas chambers, just a short walk away. The scale is overwhelming -- 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 walk around 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 attempted to destroy 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 remains. You can return to the main Auschwitz museum by foot, shuttle bus, or taxi, and from Auschwitz back to Kraków by bus or train.
