Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
Oświęcim · Poland · Founded 1947
The most important Holocaust memorial site in the world — a UNESCO World Heritage Site preserving the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp where 1.1 million people, mostly Jewish, were murdered.
About Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum
The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum was established in 1947 on the site of the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp complex, located in occupied Poland near the town of Oświęcim (Auschwitz in German). The complex — comprising Auschwitz I and the larger Auschwitz II-Birkenau — was the site of the murder of at least 1.1 million people between 1940 and 1945, the majority of them Jewish. It is the largest site of mass murder in human history.
The museum was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1979 as a monument to the crimes of the Holocaust and a place of reflection and education. Visitors walk the grounds of both camps, see the preserved barracks, gas chambers, crematoria, and the infamous 'Arbeit Macht Frei' gate of Auschwitz I. The exhibitions in the brick barracks include overwhelming physical evidence of the crimes committed: tonnes of human hair, hundreds of thousands of personal belongings, and testimonies of survivors.
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A small ask before you go
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