rellie2

Hubby and I are doing a day trip from Berlin to Krakow next year as we really want to see Auschwitz.

Ideally we wanted a private tour which includes transfers from the airport. We have contacted http://www.krakowauschwitztours.com/ but I'm still a little confused about the tour inside Auschwitz as they mentioned we have to join a guided a tour.

I then had a look at the Auschwitz website and they mention tours with an educator or without - does anyone know what this means? It seems we can book a tour online, but I'm just not sure which one.

Any assistance would be appreciated.

Thanks.
Rellie.

kja

Do you have to book your tour of Auschwitz separately, or was the tour company you contacted simply providing you with the information that you will be joining a tour led by authorized guides once you get there? You might want to ask them to clarify, and while doing so, ask about the difference you found between tours offered on the Auschwitz website.

PatrickLondon

IIRC, the tour company in Krakow will take parties to the visitor centre, from where a guide employed at the site will take them round.

Christina

That is very common at many tourist sites throughout Europe, they regulate so only their own guides can give the tour through the site so many day bus tours or whatever hand you over to the official guide. they are experts, so it works out well. I believe at this site, you MUST do one of their tours if you are in a group of 10 or more. Since you want a private tour, that wouldn't apply to you. You are allowed to enter with your own "educator" or guide if not a group of that size, if they are registered and authorized by the site.

So if you want your own personal private guide, you'd have to ask them questions as to whether they are licensed to take you in or not. Otherwise, the group tours anyone can book on site can have up to 30 persons, it says. They do have individual tours you can book with them where they provide the educator, also. You can also book entry without an educator, which means you have no guide at all for the visit, it's DIY.

I did not see any mention of a tour without an educator, that's contradictory. You can book visits without an educator, though.

this is the website I was viewing http://visit.auschwitz.org/

HappyTrvlr

Make sure you take a tour with one of Auschwitz' own guides.
The company will provide transportation and arrange for the guide inside the site. Bring a bag lunch along on the bus.

isabel

When I was there two years ago the rule was that only their own official guides took people through, regardless of whether you came on a tour bus, in a car, on public transportation, by your self, in a group of 20, etc. Didn't matter. Had to go with the official guide. I took a day tour from Krakow and they 'handed' us over to the official guide when we got there.

That was in July. They said the previous winter they had allowed people to go without one of their guides and they were debating the policy for the following winter. But in 'high season' you had to go with their guide.

PalenQ

wow - can't wander and ponder around by yourself as I did at Auschwitz and Birkenau - two separate camps - Birkenau the muchmore macabre where the train siding is still there where folks were unloaded like cattle with fit ones going to the work camp and not so fit right to the 'showers' - the remains of the gas chambers still to be seen.

Auschwitz was mainly a work camp - but the name Auschwitz is often collectively applied to the two camps - make sure your tour includes Birkenau.

Several years ago one could wander around by yourself and that was my preference - did not want to be with a group or guide but just stop wherever I wanted and ponder this museum of horrors and inhumanity to man.

Maybe they are afraid of vandalism - but when I went there were no special security guards or anything that I saw. Too bad you must go with a guide in this place where one should also be alone and ponder things as long as you want.

Alec

At the moment, in low season, you are allowed in as individual visitors without a guide, but there is a strict limit on overall number of visitors to be admitted. You can just turn up and hope for the best, or you can make a free reservation at visit.auschwitz.org up to 3 months ahead for a specific slot. I don't know what the arrangement will be for the next high season in 2016. Remember the whole complex will be closed to visitors during World Youth Day at the end of July and beginning of August, except groups specially reserved through the WYD organisers.

rellie2

Thanks everyone for the info. I've contacted another company and they are able to organise a private tour (which they book 3 months out with Auschwitz direct) for us which includes transfers from and to the airport.

They have also confirmed the tour will only be for me and my husband as I didn't want to join a big group.

Appreciate all the input.

isabel

At first I was very put off by the fact that I'd have to go on a tour, and by the incredible crowds - I have rarely been in a place that crowded. We were literally shuffled from room to room, building to building like cattle. Add to this that it was raining heavily, just pouring down. Many people were wearing the cheap plastic ponchos they were selling at the entrance, even over rain jackets since regular rain jackets weren't enough to keep you dry. You got wet whatever you did.

Not at all a 'pleasant' experience. But it shouldn't be. The people who were forced to be there faced far worse conditions and eventually I realized that this was perhaps a better environment for experiencing the place than had I gone on a nice sunny day with birds singing and few other 'tourists' around.

And the official guide was very good - extremely knowledgeable and sensitive.

PalenQ

Have you considered staying the night in Krakow - one of Europe's most wondrous cities? Tis a shame to go that far and not see the gem of Poland.

rellie2

PalenQ unfortunately time won't allow for a night in Krakow. I do hope we will return to that region one day but a day trip from Berlin is all that we could fit it.

Visiting Auschwitz is something we both wanted to do and just in case we don't get back we wanted to ensure we did it on this trip.

So many places to see and so little time to do it

Ozarksbill

It is my opinion that travelers should make a special effort to tour Auschwitz as you intend to do. Especially if in Krakow or Poland. You will shudder at piles of shoes, spectacles, suitcases, etc. in display cabinets taken from the prisoners. Likewise the execution wall. Yes, you may have a guided tour of the barracks and just wander around by yourself. As for Birkenau (built for the overflow of "late comers" such as Hungarian Jews) you don't need to tour it...just do what I did and stand on the tracks at the gates where trainloads brought the prisoners. I will never forget being in the "shower" and then the furnace room.

isabel: I shuddered when I read you saying visitors shuffled like "cattle."
PalenQ brings to mind the somber fate of those disembarking cattle cars in Birkenau.

I was at this place on my birthday a few years ago

Cowboy1968

Since you will be in Berlin, you can visit the "Track 17" Memorial at Grunewald station before you go to Krakow.
http://www.memorialmuseums.org/eng/s...rlin-Grunewald

It's where most of the trains from Berlin to Auschwitz-Birkenau (and other concentration camps) departed from.

kja

Visiting Auschwitz / Birkenau is, IMO, something about which very personal choices must be made, so I'm not offering advice here, just my personal observation: I was VERY glad that I saw both camps as part of a tour. I'm not sure I would have believed what I was seeing, or believed that I understood what I saw, without the benefit of a guide. It would, I think, have been all too easy for me to say, "This can't really be [whatever], can it?" Even with a guide, there were a few places where I had to ask, "Did you just say...?" because even with a lot of advance knowledge, some things were just too hard to process. (The prison cells at Auschwitz weren't really THAT small, were they? They were. Things like that.) And the guides I had were extraordinarily sensitive, as were the other people on the tour I joined. Just one person's perspective.

Ozarksbill

kja, yes one does tend to somberly wonder about things...like those cases with cast off personal items...like the furnaces...like the fanatic retreating Nazis even moving prisoners westward instead of opening up the gates.

By the way, as a Christian pastor I wonder how familiar to anyone is the name Dietrich Bonhoeffer. And anyone comment on movie Schindler's List or other such film? Many years ago I read Wm. Shirer's "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" and remember my shock.