Tours

KL Auschwitz-Birkenau (Konzentrationslager Auschwitz-Birkenau) was the largest German Nazi concentration and extermination camp, which was built in the outskirts of Oświęcim (annexed as Auschwitz to the Third Reich). Altogether, over 1.1 million men, women and children, mainly the Jewish population, lost their lives in the camp. One of the few prisoners who managed to survive the imprisonment period was Marian Kołodziej – the author of a series of sketches Frames of Memory. Labyrinths that depict shocking scenes of life in the camp. Apart from sightseeing the biggest part of the camp – Birkenau, participants of the Pictures from Auschwitz tour will see the artist’s shocking works about which Rev. Professor Józef Tischner said: ‘I have been to the Auschwitz camp a couple of times, I have walked around Birkenau. But I have never seen there what I saw at this exhibition. My impression is this: it is here that the real Auschwitz is found. This is actually all I am able to say: the real Auschwitz is here.’

In 1939, after the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany and the loss of the defensive war by the Polish army, all the western regions of Poland, including the town of Oświęcim, were annexed by the Third Reich. The town was renamed as Auschwitz and the same name was given to a complex of concentration and extermination camps that were built there. The history of the Auschwitz concentration camp can be divided into two primary periods: the years 1940-1942, when it functioned as a concentration camp and a place of slow extermination, and the years 1942-1944, when it was transformed into the biggest centre of immediate mass extermination of Jews, who had been transported into the camp under the policy conducted by the Third Reich that assumed the extermination of the entire Jewish population in Europe.

The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum (today called the Memorial) was officially opened thanks to the efforts of former prisoners on 14 June 1947. Its premises include two preserved parts of the KL Auschwitz-Birkenau: Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau. The short sightseeing program prepared by the museum does not include two items (a visit to the “Death Block”, where the camp arrest was located, and a visit to the International Monument to Camp Victims); in all remaining aspects, the route covered by visitors does not differ from the route of the standard tour. For this reason, the Auschwitz-Birkenau: Shortened Tour program is recommended particularly to persons who have arrived in Kraków for a short time and have a limited budget, but, nevertheless, would like to visit the important historic site that was entered in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1979.

Cracow is a city steeped in hundreds of years of history. During the Second World War, it became the scene of many horrifying events, but also witnessed numerous heroic deeds. We invite all of you who would like to get to know about this part of the city’s history to seize the opportunity to go back in time to the years of Nazi occupation.

Oskar Schindler’s Factory Museum was officially opened to the visitors in June 2010, after many years of exhibit script writing and preparations. The Museum housed in the authentic Enamel Factory of Oskar Schindler shows the visitors the wartime events taking place in the city and the tragic fate of its inhabitants.

Tourists arriving in Kraków for a couple of days certainly want to take advantage of the city’s rich offer without having to choose between one of the world’s most recognisable destinations located in the Kraków region: the Wieliczka Salt Mine and the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum. To provide tourists with an opportunity to see both of these places, taking into consideration the limited time of their stay, we decided to combine these two offers into a single one-day trip.

A trip along the route of wooden architecture is an opportunity to go back in time to a place where the landscape, culture and everyday life of the ancient inhabitants of the village upon Vistula is recreated.

The biggest Polish city, the place of fusion of tradition and modernity, the capital of Poland – Warsaw – is, along with Krakow, one of the cities that are most frequently visited by tourists travelling to Poland and Europe. We invite you to take a day trip to the unique capital city upon the Vistula river.

Nowa Huta – a symbol of the culture of Polish socialist realism, with an urban layout created from scratch by communists whose desire was to build an idealistic socialist city. Lavishly financed by Moscow, it was to serve as an exemplary industrial-housing complex.