Private Guided Tour to Auschwitz & Birkenau from Krakow

Historic castle complex located on Wawel Hill, overlooking the Vistula River. It is one of the most significant cultural and architectural landmarks in Poland and a symbol of Polish national pride.

Auschwitz was the main and most famous of the six concentration and extermination camps established by Germany to implement the Final Solution policy, which aimed at the mass murder of European Jews. It was built in German-occupied Poland, initially as a concentration camp for Poles, later also for other nationalities. To get to know the place, it is necessary to visit both parts of the former camp - Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau. We have to spend about 2 hours to stay in Auschwitz and about 1 hour to Birkenau.

Located between the Auschwitz I main camp and Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the Judenramp served as the initial point of arrival from 1942 until May 1944. At this location, SS officers conducted the infamous "selections," where arriving prisoners were divided into those deemed fit for forced labor and those sent directly to the gas chambers.

The building that served as the residence of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp commandant Rudolf Höss and his family from 1940 - 1944. Höss was one of the main architects of the Holocaust. He introduced the system of mass murder using gas, initially with shower rooms filled with Zyklon B, and later systematically developing the camp's facilities, such as gas chambers and crematoria. His actions at Auschwitz led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. After the war, Höss was captured by the Allies and tried for his war crimes. In 1947, following a trial in Poland, he was sentenced to death and executed by hanging in Auschwitz, near the camp he had so brutally overseen.

Auschwitz II-Birkenau was the second, much larger camp that was part of the Auschwitz complex. It was established in 1941, about 3 kilometers west of the main Auschwitz I camp, and became one of the most well-known sites associated with the Holocaust. Birkenau was primarily a death camp, where the mass extermination of Jews, Roma, political prisoners, and other groups persecuted by the Nazi regime took place. The Birkenau camp complex consisted of numerous barracks, as well as powerful gas chambers and crematoria, where the Nazis carried out mass murders of prisoners who were transported to the camp from all over Europe. It is estimated that about 1 million people died in Birkenau, mainly Jews, but also Roma, Poles, prisoners of war, and other victims of the Nazi regime.