The Museum’s rules, and what you can bring
These rules are set by the Memorial, not by us. They are enforced at the gate, and visitors arriving on their own are the ones most often stopped. Everything below comes from the Museum’s own published information.
Bag size: the rule people get caught by
Nothing larger than 35 × 25 × 15 cm may be carried in. That is smaller than most daypacks. The Museum asks visitors to leave their bags in their cars or coaches.
If you arrive by public transport you have neither, so anything oversized goes to the left-luggage point — which means queuing to deposit it and queuing again to collect it, at the end of a day that already runs to four hours.
Arrive thirty minutes early
The Memorial asks for this because everyone passes through a security check, similar to an airport. In season it is not a safety margin, it is the actual time it takes. Arriving at your entry time means missing it.
Opening hours
The Museum is open every day except 1 January, 25 December and Easter Sunday. The times below are the hours during which a visit may begin; you may stay on site for ninety minutes after the last entry.
| December | 7:30 – 14:00 |
|---|---|
| January, November | 7:30 – 15:00 |
| February | 7:30 – 16:00 |
| March, October | 7:30 – 17:00 |
| April, May, September | 7:30 – 18:00 |
| June, July, August | 7:30 – 19:00 |
Confirm before you travel. These hours change with the season and occasionally at short notice.
How long to allow
The Museum suggests a minimum of about ninety minutes at Auschwitz I and the same again at Birkenau. A standard guided visit of both parts runs to around three and a half hours. Add travel at either end and it is most of a day.
Guides are in short supply: the Museum advises booking one at least two months ahead. This is why dates show as unavailable long before they arrive, and why operators holding allocated places can still offer them.
On the grounds
- Photo ID. Names on the booking are checked at the entrance against identification. They cannot be changed once the list has been submitted.
- Dress and conduct. This is a cemetery and a place of remembrance. The Museum asks visitors to dress and behave accordingly. Much of the visit is outdoors, Birkenau is exposed, and the ground is uneven.
- Photography. Permitted in most areas without flash. Prohibited in the room holding the hair of victims and in the cellars of Block 11.
- Children. The Museum does not recommend the visit for children under fourteen. That is guidance rather than a prohibition, and it is worth taking seriously.
- Accessibility. A visit using a wheelchair is possible and the Museum can lend one, but the site was not built to be accessible and the exhibitions inside the blocks cannot be visited on wheels.
- Food and drink. There are cafés at the Auschwitz I visitor centre and at the Birkenau car park. Plan to eat before or after rather than on the grounds themselves.
Parts of the site close from time to time
Individual blocks and exhibitions are closed for conservation or for temporary exhibitions, and the list changes several times a year. We deliberately do not copy it here, because a stale list is worse than none. The Museum keeps the current one on its own site.
How we handle this for you
Your bags stay on our bus rather than in a locker. If security finds something you had not realised was prohibited — a penknife in a daypack is the usual one — your host takes it and returns it at the end.
Your host also walks you through the security check and hands you to your Museum guide inside, so the thirty minutes before entry are managed rather than spent wondering whether you are in the right queue.
How the day itself works, hour by hour →