EXCLUSIVE How hard is it to visit the former Nazi extermination camp at Auschwitz / Adventures of a Romanian tourist

A Romanian tourist told G4Media about his trip to visit the former Nazi camp at Auschwitz, in Poland. After purchasing tickets about a month before the trip, on a specialized website, for a specific day, at 11:00 a.m., he was contacted 48 hours before the visit to inform him that he can still do the tour only if leave the city of accommodation either at 6:00 a.m. for the morning tour or leave the accommodation at 7:00 a.m. but wait at Auschwitz until the afternoon. There was also the option to cancel and have the money returned. After accepting the morning tour, he was told the night before that they would be leaving at 4am. When he arrived at Auschwitz, he also learned the reason.

The story told by the tourist:

A month before going on vacation to Slovakia and Poland, I booked tickets to visit the former Auschwitz camp on the cross-country tour booking platform getyourguide.com. The price of the tickets was to be paid 2 days before the scheduled tour. The chosen package also included transport by coach from Krakow (about 1 hour and 30 minutes), English language guide and entrance tickets to the former camp, now a museum. I booked this package for 11:00 a.m., departure time from Krakow.

Two days before, the money to pay for the tour was collected by the tour operator. After a few hours, I received a Whatsapp message in which the operator informed me that there were only two options: 1. departure from Krakow around 6.00 am, for a tour of Auschwitz in the morning; 2. departure at 7.30, but with entry only in the afternoon. After I told him that the two options were not what I booked, he told me that I could cancel and get my money back.

At that time, I was in Slovakia and was about to leave for Poland. I tried to make reservations with other operators, but the first available seats were more than a month away. Consequently, I decided to opt for the first option – departure at 6:00 a.m. from Krakow. The operator also informed me that he would only tell me the meeting place and the exact time the next day (when I no longer had the right to cancel and get the money back anyway).

The night before the scheduled tour of Auschwitz, the operator indicated to me the meeting place, but at 4:25. At that point, I had no other options anyway, but to give up both the visit and the money.

On that day, we woke up early in the morning and went to the appointed place, a little after 4.00 am. Like dozens of other tourists, split between several tour operators.

I arrived at Auschwitz close to 6:00 am. To my surprise, we were not the first tourists to arrive. There were already dozens of other people there, coming by minibuses or coaches, each with a Polish companion from a tour operator.

There we also learned the reason for our dawn excursion. The ticket offices open at 7.30, when there are already several tour operators in line, because there is actually no possibility to purchase tickets online. They can only be bought at the ticket offices, based on the identity card/passport of each visitor. In addition, museum employees have the right to randomly check the physical presence of anyone for whom tickets are purchased.

We were lucky, because our operator got tickets for the entrance at 9.00. Those who arrived a little later were not so lucky. They had to wait several hours until the tour for which they found tickets, given that outside the former camp, now a museum, there are no waiting areas or other sights to visit.

I would have expected to have been informed since I purchased the package about all these details, which the operator actually knew from the start.

However, I do not regret the decision to visit the former camp at all. After you see the places where hundreds of thousands of innocent people have gone through terrible torments and died there, you forget about the small organizational impediments for visitors.