BAIRDS TRAVELS AROUND THE WORLD

 

             Auschwitz


Site of the Nazi notorious Auschwitz death camp is an hour’s drive from Krakow. Between June 1941 and January 1945 about one million men, women and children perished in the three Auschwitz concentration camps–i.e. Auschwitz proper, Birkenau and Monowitz–and their more than forty sub-camps. At its peak the whole complex was a deadly prison to some 150,000 inmates that were being either murdered outright or starved and worked to death.

Visiting the Auschwitz
Every year some 500,000 visitors come to Oswiecim, an industrial town of 45,000, to see the Auschwitz. Half of them are Poles, and the rest mostly from the USA, Germany, the UK, France, Italy, and Israel. Over 25 million people have already visited the place.

  

Admission to the Auschwitz is free. It takes minimum an hour to see the Auschwitz proper, and another to visit the nearby Birkenau site. They are open to visitors (except January 1, December 25, and Easter Sunday) from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. June through August, till 6 p.m. in September, till 5 p.m. in October, till 4 p.m. in November through December 15, till 3 p.m. from December 16 through February, till 4 p.m. in March, till 5 p.m. in April, till 6 p.m. in May. Archives, library, collections, management, etc. work on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.

 

Independent visitors may and groups should employ an authorized guide. Over 150 of them provide tours in Croatian, Czech, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Russian, Serbian, and Spanish.

Oswiecim is easily accessible owing to the region’s extensive railroad and bus networks and the ample road system. When in Krakow, motorists may reach Oswiecim fastest via the paid four-lane highway to Katowice (exit to Chrzanów after some 20 minutes). As to public transport, bus seems more convenient. And numerous Krakow travel agencies offer one-day excursions to the Auschwitz. 

Please take time to visit  

http://www.auschwitz.dk/

 

 

 

  Birkenau

Buses leave Auschwitz I for Birkenau at a half past the hour, every hour. It costs two zloty and takes no more than five minutes. The experience of the camp is very different from Auschwitz I. For one thing it is much larger, covering over four hundred acres. It also retains the air of the place as it was when abandoned to a greater degree than the former camp. Some sixty seven buildings have survived virtually intact, and the interiors, with their stark wooden furnishings, take you right back to the war era. The other buildings remain as they were - some burnt to the ground and others massed up in heaps of rubble.