Auschwitz may be forced to cap tourist numbers visiting camp

A former notorious Nazi death camp is attracting tourists in such numbers that a cap may have to put on how many can attend each day.

Auschwitz has experienced a 40% spike in numbers attending this year Image by Tulio Bertorini / CC BY 2.0

The Auschwitz-Birenkau State Museum in Poland has admitted that the size of crowds has become so large – they have recently recorded a 40% increase in interest – that they may have no option but to limit entry.

In an effort to obviate this situation arising, officials have urged people to book online before arriving at the site.

Already a quarter of a million visitors have paid in to Auschwitz this year, following on a record-breaking number of 1.5 million visitors to the museum last year, the London Independent reports.

Andrzej Kacorzyk, a deputy director of the museum, said long queues had become the order of the day recently due to an upshot in interest about the atrocities which occurred in the place. Earlier this year almost 300 Auschwitz survivors gathered there as part of a 70th commemoration of the camp’s liberation.

It was one the deadliest Nazi extermination camps where millions of Jews were incarcerated and murdered under the most gruesome of circumstances.