We’re writing this one differently from the rest. No funny detours. Auschwitz is a place that doesn’t deserve that tone, and yet we wanted to write a guide that helps you handle the visit both practically and humanly. Because here too, good preparation makes the difference between standing confused at the gate and actually getting to what you came for. Auschwitz is a powerful, authentic experience – let’s get into it.
Tickets to Auschwitz
Entry to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum is both paid and free. A guided tour costs 150 PLN. We cover free entry below.
As of 1 March 2026, though, a major change applies – all tickets, including the free ones, are booked exclusively online through the official portal visit.auschwitz.org, and on-site sales have been scrapped for good. Every ticket is personalised and tied to a specific entry time, so you won’t buy one at the gate even if you turn up early.
The portal has an English version too (switch it in the site header). And don’t be put off by having to log in, because you will. You can’t buy tickets without it. So register, and you’ll then be able to pick your tour date and tour language.
Guided tour, or on your own?
For a better grasp of the history, the museum recommends a guided tour. The basic option takes roughly 3.5 hours and takes you through both Auschwitz I and Birkenau. Groups above a certain size are required to have a guide.
If you don’t want a guided tour, or couldn’t get on one, there’s free independent entry – but it’s time-limited, usually only from the afternoon onwards (in our case from 15:15; in summer, when the museum stays open longer, even after 17:00). Be aware that in that window you realistically won’t get through both camps properly – better to pick one of them.
Personally, I’d warmly recommend the guided tour. Without context you walk through the buildings and don’t know what you’re looking at. I also bought the printed guidebook so I could leaf through it once I got home. There was so much information in under four hours that I wanted the chance to come back to it and let it settle properly.
Auschwitz I and Birkenau – two camps, one tour
Historically the complex consisted of three camps – Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II-Birkenau and Auschwitz III-Monowitz. Today only the first two are open to the public.
A free shuttle bus runs between Auschwitz I and Birkenau, about 3.5 kilometres apart, in season (mid-April to the end of October), every 8 minutes – and it really does run on time! The ride takes a few minutes. Outside the season, count on your own transport or a longer wait.
Parking right by the entrance to Auschwitz I costs 20 PLN for the whole day of your visit; at Birkenau the car park is free.
What to bring and how long to allow
On site you can buy a printed guidebook in several languages for 25 PLN – useful both during the tour and later at home for further reading. Both camps have toilets, and there are books on the subject for sale on site.
The basic guided tour takes 3.5 to 4 hours. It’s demanding both physically and mentally, so factor that into the rest of your day. By the time we left the camp we were completely spent. Now and then I felt like we were genuinely racing through the site and that my head was exhausted by the sheer volume of information.
The atmosphere we experienced
We want to be honest, even if it sounds unexpected: the stronger moments came mainly at Birkenau – in its scale, its silence and the sight of the endless railway tracks. Overall, though, we expected stronger emotions than the ones that actually came. Maybe it was because we were there in summer, and the good weather paradoxically took some of the weight out of the atmosphere.
Four hours also felt short for the whole of Auschwitz. We had the sense that we’d flown through the site rather than letting it truly land. That’s not a complaint aimed at the museum; it’s more a consequence of the huge number of visitors who come here every day and the need to move them through in a reasonable time. If you can, give the visit more room and don’t rush straight on to the next stop of your trip.
Overall, though, the experience opened up my own further reading about what happened in the camp. That part is happening from home, as I write this article.
Three things that give it context
The role of the Red Cross
There’s a myth attached to Auschwitz-Birkenau worth debunking: representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross never inspected extermination camps like Auschwitz. The only visit of that kind took place in June 1944 at the Terezin (Theresienstadt) ghetto, which the Nazis deliberately “improved” before the inspectors arrived.
And it was bizarre – they planted lawns, repaired facades, built a carousel and replaced three-tier bunks with ordinary beds. The inspection then filed a positive report on conditions without suspecting (or wanting to suspect) that the whole thing was staged. That visit has nothing to do with Auschwitz and it’s important not to conflate the two.
The liberation of Auschwitz
The camp was liberated on 27 January 1945 by the Red Army. Around 7,000 prisoners lived to see liberation in the main camp, Birkenau and Monowitz – those who were too weak or ill for the SS to include them in the death marches in mid-January (worth reading more about). Roughly 60,000 people had to take part in those, driven westwards in temperatures below minus twenty; at least nine thousand, and possibly as many as fifteen thousand, prisoners died on the marches.
27 January is now International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The private life of the SS next to the camp
Camp commandant Rudolf Hoss lived with his wife Hedwig and their five children in a house directly behind the wall of Auschwitz I. Only a garden separated them from the camp. Hoss took the children swimming and fishing, Hedwig tended the garden, and all of it a few dozen metres from where the genocide was taking place. That is exactly what the film The Zone of Interest (2023) captures.
At the 2024 Oscars it won for Best International Feature Film and Best Sound. If you’re planning to visit Auschwitz, we’d recommend watching it both before and after your trip. The context lands completely differently.
A short guide to the town of Oswiecim
Oswiecim isn’t just the gateway to the museum – it’s a town with eight hundred years of history that’s worth seeing if you have the time.
Worth a visit is the Chewra Lomdei Misznajot synagogue from 1913, the only surviving synagogue in the town, which the Germans turned into a munitions store during the war. Together with the neighbouring Jewish museum it forms the Jewish Centre and offers a rounded picture of the life and culture of the local Jewish community before the war.
A short walk away you’ll also find the Jewish cemetery with more than a thousand gravestones, the oldest dating from the 18th century.
Near the main square stands the castle with its museum, which pairs well with a walk through the centre. The market square itself still hides the remains of a sixteenth-century town hall and a pre-war well.
It’s also pleasant to sit on the promenade along the river Sola, where the town finally looks like any other small Polish town – with cafes, benches and life going on.
Where to stay when visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau
It was right here in Oswiecim by the river Sola that we spent 2 nights in a lovely place to stay next to the Chewra Lomdei Misznajot synagogue. It had a beautiful view, a private balcony and great places to eat and drink right downstairs in the building.
If you don’t want to do it all in one go from Krakow or elsewhere in the region, stay overnight in Oswiecim itself or in Krakow – you’ll find accommodation in both laid out clearly on Booking.com.
Practical information
How much time to allow: count on 3.5 to 4 hours for the tour itself, plus travel and time to process the experience. Realistically it’s a half-day to full-day programme, especially if you also want to see the town of Oswiecim.
Combining it with the area: Auschwitz sits perfectly on the route between Krakow and the Beskids. If you’re planning a longer Polish trip, it pairs brilliantly with Bielsko-Biala or the turquoise lakes of Grodek near Jaworzno, the so-called Polish Maldives.
