Auschwitz Covid update 2022
The prevailing pandemic has made traveling significantly more difficult. New visiting restrictions have appeared in many places. Are you wondering what has changed, how does visiting Auschwitz Birkenau look like today? How to Prepare?
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Where is Auschwitz Birkenau?
In fact, these two words Auschwitz and Birkenau, translated into German, are towns located in Poland about 60 km from the city of Krakow, which is popular among tourists. Auschwitz
is the city of Oświęcim and Birkenau is the name of the nearby village of Brzezinka. Why? Oświęcim was the city that hardly anyone heard at that time, and it had a very well-developed railway network, which was an ideal solution for the plans of the Third Reich when it comes to Jewish nationality, but not only. When deciding to visit these places, you need to be prepared to walk a lot and to adapt to the rules prevailing there (due to the nature of the place and the current Covid 19 pandemic). The tour usually starts at the Auschwitz I Museum. It was the first Nazi concentration camp in city Oświęcim. The word museum is often used here, because it now resembles it in the exhibition. The first camp was established in the former Polish army barracks.
Buildings that were located there were adapted for excample as rooms for prisoners, a prison, and a summary court. More blocks were built by prisoners.There was one building in Auschwitz that functioned as a gas chamber. It should be remembered that the first prisoners at Auschwitz were Polish political prisoners. Currently, you can see the remains of an unimaginable crime, such as human hair or everyday objects.
After visiting this place, go to Birkenau (about 3 km from the Auschwitz Museum). There was a second, much larger extermination camp. Four crematoria took a huge amount of human lives. Currently, there are mostly only ruins there, but a lot can be seen in the photos in the first part.
How to get the tickets to the Auschwitz Museum?
This place is very popular for tourists visiting it. The number of tickets sold during the day is limited. The current pandemic has resulted in a significant reduction in this limit. However, we have two options for visiting the memorial site. The first is an individual, self-guided tour, you can see much more than with a guided tour, because you don’t have to follow the standard tour route and you can devote any amount of time to the site. However, it is an option for those who know something about this place or for those who prefer a guided tour in the form of a book. However, we would like to inform you that tickets for visitors without a guide entitle entry to the museum only in the afternoon.
The second option is, of course, a guided tour. Currently, a number of qualified guides who speak different languages guide the museum. Anyway, you need tickets to visit this place. Currently, tickets are personal, so you need to bring your ID / passport / driving license. As already mentioned above, the number of tickets is significantly limited. For example: before the pandemic, the limit of admission to the museum premises was up to 1000 people per hour, currently less than 450. Therefore, it is worth getting a ticket in advance. You can get it on the museum’s website or, for example, if someone intends to visit Krakow, use the services of local tour operators.
What does visiting Auschwitz Birkenau Museum look like during the Covid 19 pandemic?
As you already know, a lot of people want to visit this place. Due to the limitation of the number of people who can stay in the museum, the number of entrances has also been reduced. By comparison, before the pandemic, there were two or three entrances, now there is only one. All this is due to the risk of contamination by Covid 19. Therefore, there is a special sanitation gate installed in front of the entrance to the museum. This is all to limit the development of the virus as much as possible. Of course, apart from passing through a special gate, there is always a. security check (just like at the airport). It is also worth reading the regulations before entering and finding out what is allowed and what is not allowed, such as the size of the luggage or the ban on eating and smoking on the premises. Let us remember that this is actually one large cemetery where respect should be paid to those who lost their lives there.
As you can see Auschwitz Birkenau Museum is not a typical museum. This is a special place, a memory place. Everyone should go there at least once in their life. Due to the pandemic it’s harder to enter there, but if it’s planned in advance everything should work out.