I've booked flights to Warsaw...anyone give me directions to Austwitz. Costs of train/bus/taxi and travel times. Is one day enough? Can I organise a guide before I go?
Check out the visitor centre website for more details - http://www.auschwitz.org.pl/html/eng/zwiedzanie/ They will be able to advise on all your requests including a guide Cheers Ryan
I have visited Austwitz, one day is enough to visit the two camps, but if you include Cracow in your visit as well (and this is a city well worth visiting) I would add another day to your visit. I would recomend a visit to Austwitz to anybody, but be warned this place touches a cord in even the most cold hearted people, I would recomend a second day in Cracow to re-ajust afterwards. Brum
markinbelfast, how much did you get your flights for ? You'll have to report back tell us what your visit was like, as Ive always wanted to visit Austwits. Regars Mark noe
Hi Mark, From Warsaw you should take a train to Cracow ( a beautiful city) from there you can get bus service to Auschwitz. Take care, Neil
I support the Northen Ireland football team (and we drew Poland!) and we're flying to Warsaw and back from Cracow...so ofcourse I'll report back with all the info and a disc full of photos! again thanks all for the help! Mark
I was at Auschwitz-Birkenau + Warsaw/ Cracow this past September. Anyone still looking for info, post your questions.... Cheers.
A visit to Austwitz is something is that I have felt that I must do, for some time now. It's something that I would like to do alone, interesting to see though,on the website that it states you must engage the services of a guide. Have any members done this and how did you get on?? Stephen
They can be a bit pushy with guides, I passed for the opportunity of simply wandering and comtemplating. I do recomend passing up on the guide if you know where everything is and what went on where.
I also want to go there how do I go about getting there? where's the best place to get a flight to and then buses etc
Mark my advice would be to read up on the camp before you go and identify the places you want to see. Guided tours as offerred by some tour companies will get you there but they are very costly and - well my brother in laws experience was that he saw Auschwitz 1 in some detail but almost nothing of Birkenau - and Birkenau was really the reall killing machine - he never got any further than the main gate and the few hurts which still exist close to it. To see and understand the genocide you need to get to the far end of the Birkenau compex were the railway track ends and have an idea what the place was like durring its existance - without this you will find it hard to orientate yourself and to interprete what remains there today. One day should be enough to see both sites - they are approx. two miles apart. If you do not have get the BBC documentery - "Auschwitz -The Nazis and The Final Soluition" it will explain what was there and the computer graffics will provide a meaningful presentation which knowing it will make the place "come alive " when you see it. If you can get a book called "The Auschwitz Album" which can ( by mail ) be had from Yad Vashem or the Ann Frank Huis. ( If you have the time to do this - some of the book is on site if you google the Auschwitz Album it will come up ). You should be able to get there by train from Cracow but it will pay you to do some reading on the history and function of the camp before you go there - the BBC documentery will explain the development of the twin sites and make this easy. I will add a map of the place in a short time when I look it out. Martin the site to the right of the railay track is the "men's camp" largely hutted accomadatyion it is now gone and only the bases remain. On the left the brick built " womens camp" the original birkenau - the mens camp came later as the role of the camp changed. What I would suggest you try and do is make time for a walk in both camps and to see the Krema/ Gas cha,bers which existed at the top end of Birkenau. 2 and 3 to the right and left of the tracks had all the gassing and undressing rooms underground , the cremation units existed above ground. 4 and 5 further to the right were build aboive ground and between 2/3 and 4/5 was the sorting and storage section for property rought to the camp known as "Kanada" - now destroyed. All these genocidal structures were destroyed by the Germans before they left - dismantling the gas chambers began in November 44 , the camp being left at the end of January 45. This top end of the camp isolated and screened by electrified barbed wire fencing was were much of the killing took palce the sick , the young and elderly those unfit for slave labour. The unwanted from the "selection process which had taken place "on the ramp - approx. half way up the track at the entrance to the male / female camps. The ashes were dumped into ponds , the nearby river systems or scattered on the fields. ( Some of these ponds are adjacent to Gas Chambers 4 and 5 on the map , the pits in which the dead were burnt here in summer of 44 and the scenes of the covertly taken phoptos all in this area - between the ga4 and 5 and the fence, also close by the "little red and little white houses used as temp. gas chambers.|) Boney "waste" was crushed , Kanada sorted and graded the property for return to Germany, valuables went to the Reichsbank and jewlery /watches to Buchenwald for sorting , repair and valuation. Nothing was wasted as the BBC documentery will explain. Auschwitz /Birkenau was not built to exterminate people it evolved into that role and its fucntion in this becme more pronounced as the war progressed and as the initial extermination camps of the Reinhard era closed and were dismanted/ destroyed by the SS. The initial "ramp" prior to the summer of 1944 was outside the main gates of Birkenau approx 3/4's of a mile from the main camp - when you get there look back along the disused line from the gate and you wil see in the distance were "selections" were once made. The line into the camp was not made until the spring of 1944 when an intense effort was made to destroy the Jewish population of Hungary.
Going to Aushwitz would be an amazing experience and I woulkd learn a lot. Also , because I love to keep history alive in my mind and realize the importance of what happened there.
Easist place to get to Aushwitz from is Krakow. The bus takes about 1.5 hours and leaves every hour from Krakow Bust Station which is at the back of the train station. When I visited we got the 09:10 bus and didnt get back until 16:00. Bus drops you at Aushwitzh 1, which is the museum. I suggest paying to watch the film before going in and then walk from block to block. Each open block houses a different theme, but leave the Crem till last. There is then a shuttle bus that takes you tp Birkenau, which is far larger, but with less to see. Shuttle bus back to Auswitzh, then bus back to Krakow. It's a full day. Phil
I was teaching some Polish people English today and was attempting to talk to them as best I could about the camps and Polands history during WW2. One chap is from Krakow and he was telling me there is a larger camp to the north (I think) of his home town that is bigger than the Auschwitz today. He was telling me his father was in this particular camp but the name escapes me. Hopefully I'll see him next Tuesday and get him to write the name down.
North of Auschwitz Birkenau - Majdanek or Treblinka - Treblinka was tiny - A/B was the largest in Poland.
North of Auschwitz Birkenau - Majdanek or Treblinka - Treblinka was tiny - A/B was the largest in Poland. James, None of the names ring a bell from what he was telling me today, I think he was refering to it being the largest camp today as in whats left rather than during the 40's.
Can only be Birkenau Andy , often the complex is referred to as just Auschwitz when in fcat it is the larger Birkenau or "Auschwitz -2". Monowitz -"Auschwitz -3"