The museum is located within the town of Oświęcim and is easily accessible by public transport. Independent travellers benefit from good bus connections between Krakow and Oświęcim, with more than a dozen services each day. Buses depart from Krakow’s central bus station and stop close to the museum. The driver can advise you where to leave the bus, making the journey straightforward. Buses cover the approximately 70-kilometre route in around one and a half hours.
Regional trains are another option. The journey from Krakow to Oświęcim also takes approximately one and a half hours, with numerous services each day. From Oświęcim railway station, the museum can be reached on foot in around 30 minutes, by taxi or by city buses 2, 3, 4, 5, 9 and 10, which depart directly outside the station. Leave the bus at the third stop, called “Museum”.
The site is also easily accessible from Katowice. The distance is approximately 40 kilometres and the regional train journey takes around one hour.
Passengers arriving at Katowice-Pyrzowice or Krakow-Balice airport are advised to take the airport shuttle to the relevant railway or bus station and continue by bus or train to Oświęcim. Allow approximately three and a half hours for the complete journey to Oświęcim, including transfers.
The museum welcomes visitors every day except 1 January, 25 December and Easter Sunday. Visiting may be restricted on 27 January, the anniversary of the camp’s liberation, and during the March of the Living in late April.
Last admission times vary by month:
After admission, visitors have up to one and a half additional hours to explore the site, depending on the month, for example until 5:30 p.m. in February or 8:30 p.m. in June.
Around 1.5 million people visit the museum each year, and the site can become particularly busy during the high season. Queues frequently form in the camp blocks and exhibition rooms during peak periods between 10:00 a.m. and noon and between 3:00 and 5:00 p.m. For a quieter experience during the season from 1 April to 31 October, it is advisable to begin before 10:00 a.m. or after 2:00 p.m. Groups must visit the museum with a licensed guide.
During the high season from 1 April to 31 October, individual visitors entering between 10:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. must join one of the guided groups formed regularly. Tours cover the exhibition at Auschwitz I and the site of Auschwitz II-Birkenau and are offered in several languages, including Polish, English, German, French, Italian, Spanish and Czech.
After 3:00 p.m., individual visitors may explore Auschwitz I independently. Auschwitz II-Birkenau is accessible to visitors independently throughout the day.
A visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum is not recommended for children and young people under the age of 14. Ideally, visitors should be at least 17 to 19 years old to engage appropriately with the exhibition.
Admission to the museum is free. A fee is charged for the headset system, which helps maintain a quiet atmosphere and enables visitors to hear the guide’s explanations clearly and without interruption. Headsets are compulsory for groups of ten or more. Guided services are also subject to a fee.
Groups must visit the museum with a qualified, licensed guide. Because demand is high during the main season, early booking is strongly recommended, ideally several months in advance.
The museum offers several types of tour, differing in duration, thematic scope and the areas visited. Each tour has its own price, listed in the museum’s current price schedule.
This approximately three-and-a-half-hour tour includes Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Important locations include the entrance gate, quarantine barracks, women’s camp, ruins of gas chambers and crematoria II and III and the monument to the victims. This tour is suitable for visitors and groups with limited time.
Lasting approximately six hours, this tour provides a more detailed exploration of Auschwitz I and II, including the exhibition in the Central Sauna and the ruins of gas chambers and crematoria IV and V. A longer lunch break offers time to rest between sections of the visit. This programme is particularly suitable for study groups or school trips where Auschwitz is one of several destinations.
This comprehensive visit takes place over two days, with a four-hour programme on each day. It includes an in-depth tour of Auschwitz I and either the “Shoah” exhibition prepared by the Yad Vashem Institute or one of the national exhibitions. The visit to Auschwitz II is extended to include the Roma camp and the so-called “Mexico” section, a camp area for Jewish women deported from Hungary. This programme is ideal for groups whose main objective is a thorough engagement with the history of Auschwitz.
Tours are conducted exclusively by experienced, licensed museum guides who communicate the history with commitment and expert knowledge. A group may contain no more than 30 people; larger groups are divided accordingly. Guides are available in numerous European languages.
