The State Museum Of Auschwitz-Birkenau & Remember.Org Present

Return to Auschwitz I Virtual Tour MapAuschwitz Entrance Street

Auschwitz Entrance Street

Today Auschwitz I is a museum. Visitors walk the same gravel paths between the same brick barracks, past the same iron gate, in something close to silence.

This was the original camp, opened in June 1940 in the buildings of a former Polish army garrison, and it operated for nearly five years as a place of systematic starvation, forced labor, torture, and death.

It began with Polish political prisoners and Soviet POWs before becoming a central site of the Nazi genocide of the Jews. The name Auschwitz has come to stand for the whole of the Holocaust in the minds of many people — but Auschwitz I was only the beginning of what was built here.

Enter Auschwitz I and take the tour with videos below - the top 3 are the Original Auschwitz Virtual Tour. Below those are the same 3 videos with captions and art.

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Arrival into the Auschwitz camp

Just behind the prisoner’s backs and to their left is the guard tower at the main entrance to the camp.

Outside the entrance to the First Auschwitz camp and administrative headquarters. The large building with the peaked roof is the Reception, or Admissions Building, partially ready only in late 1943. It received only one or two transports.

Continuing you see a small air raid shelter for the guards just to the right of the large tree, and then the long, low, camp kitchen with its many chimneys. Moving on you see the SS Guardhouse and the famous gate with Arbeit Macht Frei (roughly, “Work Will Make You Free”) over the entrance.

“They brought us into Auschwitz. I could see the chimneys burning, smell the smoke. I did not think about it. They gave us tattoos: 33076. I did not have a name anymore; just a number.” Sara Polonski Zuchowicki, Survivor

Auschwitz Entrance Street Videos - Exterior, Interior, and Main Entrance

Auschwitz Entrance

Directly in front, the tree where prisoners being punished were tied. Sometimes the dogs would be loosed on them. Painting of dog attacking by survivor Tadeusz Siwek Painting of dog attacking by survivor Wladyslaw Siwek Reproduction courtesy of Auschwitz Museum Archive, 1980

The building just behind the tree is the prisoner administration building and just to its right, the camp kitchen. Moving you see the main entrance guardhouse and the main gate.

This is where prisoners marched to and from slave labor, seen in the painting by Wladyslaw Siwek.

 See his art in the exhibition Auschwitz Camp Photos Then and Now.

Auschwitz Entrance
Wladyslaw Siwek – Reproduction courtesy of Auschwitz Museum Archive, 1980
Wladyslaw Siwek Arrival in Auschwitz
Main Entrance to Auschwitz | Photo by Alan Jacobs

Next are the production workshops. Directly in front, the camp kitchen. The camera seems to be placed at the main crossroads in Auschwitz I. Continue down the street where you see a small, narrow, dark structure on the edge of the sidewalk.

This is the Rapportführer’s booth from which he commanded the roll call, or Appel. Follow through numerous barracks and roads. As you scroll past it, the area beyond the guard tower in the distance is Krematorium I.

Scroll right to the main entrance in the background, and to its right, the prisoner administration and reception building. Then back around to the camp kitchen.

All photos and videos are Copyright Alan Jacobs and Remember.org. 

More Virtual Tour of Auschwitz

< Auschwitz  I Camp Video Tour Map | Appleplatz Roll Call Square>