From Krakow: Auschwitz Complex Alternative Tour｜Poland

Discover a lesser-known but deeply moving part of Auschwitz history on this alternative guided tour. The tour starts and ends in Krakow, with comfortable transportation provided to and from the memorial sites. This experience does not include a visit to Auschwitz I or Auschwitz II-Birkenau, but instead focuses on important surrounding sites connected to the history of the victims and the development of the camp complex.

Visit the memorial to the final victims of Auschwitz and a mass grave of 700 prisoners shot during the camp evacuation in January 1945. Explore the area of the so-called “camp extension,” which housed new SS barracks, the last women’s camp, and the site of the final public execution.

See the first crematorium and gas chamber, the former villa of the camp commandant, and the gravel pits—sites of punishment and execution for clergy and members of the Polish intelligentsia. The tour also includes stops at the pre-war theater later used to store Zyklon B, the Polish Ramp (first prisoner transport platform), and the Old Jewish Ramp, the main selection site for European Jews.

Learn about the “Interest Zone” through maps and aerial photographs from 1944. In Birkenau, see the infamous Death Gate and the main SS barracks. The extermination zone includes Bunker 1 (Red House), Bunker 2 (White House), the remains of dressing rooms for victims, and a cemetery of Soviet POWs.

View the Sauna building used for prisoner disinfection and belongings processing. The tour concludes at the memorial to victims of Auschwitz-Monowitz (Auschwitz III), offering a broader understanding of the camp system and the scale of the atrocities.