Extension to Full day trip to Cracow - Auschwitz Birkenau - Private Tour

Photo gallery

THIS TRIP IS AVAILABLE ONLY FROM CRACOW.



Oswiecim (Auschwitz in German) is a large centre of the chemical and machine industry. Since II World War the name of the town has become a symbol all over the world of the martyrdom of victims of Nazism. Built there in 1940 was the largest concentration camp - Oswiecim - Brzezinka (Auschwitz - Birkenau).


Here more that 4 millions risons of 28 nationalities lost their lives, among them Polish social and political activists, Soviet prisoners and the largest number - Jewish who were brought here from all over the Europe. The prisoners lived here in inhuman conditions, died in masses as a result of slave labour, hunger, illnesses, torture and executions. From 1942 the genocide in this camp reached its greatest dimensions: at times as many as 24 000 persons daily died in the gas chambers. The corpses of the victims were burned in crematoria or on pyres and then buried in mass graves.


On the turn of 1944 to cover up the traces of their crimes the German blew up crematoria and part of the camp buildings. The camp area hass been designated as a Monument to the Martyrdrom of the Polish and Other Nations. Since 1947 there is National Museum of Martyrology here. An impressive Monument to Victims of Oświęcim has been built on the ground of camp in Brzezinka.