I only have 3 days to spend in Poland, and I plan to visit Auschwitz as a day trip from Krakow. Would half a day be enough?

Earlier this year I visited Phnom Penh's Genocide Museum. I thought that me, being a 5th year medical student, might have been able to stomach whatever there is to stomach.
But leaving the place, I can't describe this sensation I have, like a sickness down to my bones. Horror over the atrocious monstrocity that one human being can perform on another.
Is that what to expect in Aushcwitz too?

A minute is far more than enough. Why would you go there? Or are you looking for more creative ways to kill people ? (There are many!) If you've grown up and know how people can be, you know how it is, there's no need to watch it over and over again. It won't be any different from what you've already seen. In the end they're dead!
You're studying to become a doctor and help people, that's a good thing to focus on...

Hi, Aleckii -

I think that really depends on you. Personally, I don't think its a place that is optimally seen on a time-table - I certainly can't imagine trying to see it with one eye on the clock. I visited Auschwitz/Birkenau as a day trip from Krakow, and I am VERY glad that I did - it is an incredibly moving place. That pace felt about right to me - I never felt rushed, nor did I feel that I had time on my hands.

Hope that helps!

I also spent most of a day visiting Auschwitz from Krakow. If you go to Birkenau as well as Auschwitz (and you should, they're quite different), half a day isn't really long enough.

Do you mean the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum? I've visited that too, and Auschwitz hit me even harder. It took me some time to recover - the sense of evil and pain there is almost visible.

logos - even though it was upsetting, I'm glad I visited - as a mourner and as a witness. They count the people who visit.

I think many physicians are sort of innocent of the ways of the world. Many (especially in the past) concentrated on the science of being a Dr. They neglected the finer points of a liberal arts education. I understand that now Med Schools are concentrating on helping Drs. become more sensitive to their patients feelings, plus making sure they are more rounded out in their education, instead of being walking & talking medical texts. I think there is no reason to assume that a Med Student would just know about death camps, and being young and having no ties to a concentration camp, I admire his desire to learn what happened there. Logos, why is that wrong? And there is a saying Holocaust victims have, "Never Forget". The saying is not for only them. It's for the world.

This is to logos. Auschwitz was the home of the infamous Dr. Mengele. I'll agree that dead is dead, and as a Med Student I know he's seen dead. But has he seen mountains of eye glasses that once belonged to people who were tortured and murdered for having the wrong religion? Shower heads that delivered poison instead of water to those same innocents? Bet not! Auschwitz was no medical facility, and today its more then a graveyard. It is a tangible example of what can happen when society completely breaks down. I personally think everyone should see it.

Your passion has to be admired, it just won't help.

Have to disagree, logos. The profound impression that visiting an actual concentration camp made on me has been indelible. Of course it can be an incredibly overwhelming experience, but that is no reason to avoid it. If anything, it may make it more important to experience. Choosing to ignore something because it seems simply too incredibly lurid to be true is what got us the present US administration.
Also, the further away we get in time from those horrid events, the easier it will be for revisionists to promulgate denial that it ever occurred. Visiting the sites is a way to forestall that.

Between travel to and from Krakow and the time needed at the site, it does take most of a day. I agree that you definitely need to go to both Auschwitz and Birkenau (Auschwitz II). Auschwitz is the earlier barracks first used as the camp, now with exhibits as a museum, and Birkenau is the massive concentration camp built later and is left as it was, and it is horrific to see the conditions and begin to imagine (if anyone really can) what it would have been like to have been a prisoner there.

Yes, a half day is "enough." I think that people feel guilty for not staying longer, but I found really depressing, obviously, and didn't even have a desire to stay longer than that. You don't have an obligation to spend an entire day in a concentration camp- there, I said it. No be free of the guilt.

If I recall, I did 1/2 day in Auschwitz and then 1/2 day in the INCREDIBLE not-to-be-missed-under-any-circumstances salt mines.