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1 million 184 thousand people visited the Memorial in 2022
In 2022, over 1 million 184 thousand people visited the Memorial. Although a considerable increase compared to the previous two years, it is worth remembering that in the period before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Museum welcomed more than two million visitors a year.
'Visitor numbers are roughly half of what they were before the COVID-19-related lockdowns, but the post-pandemic situation is slowly beginning to normalise. It is particularly important that more than 90 per cent of visitors learned about the history of Auschwitz during their visit with Museum educators,' said Museum Director Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński.
'Thanks to the use of educators, the visit is not just a passage experience through the authentic site. It also offers an opportunity to acquire knowledge, but above all, to reflect personally on the relevance of this contemporary history for all of us. This is particularly important because today we see and better understand how much we need memory, which is the key to designing our future' Director Cywiński underlined.
Currently, 332 guides conduct tours of the Memorial in 20 languages. The largest group of visitors in 2022 was from Poland. Other countries whose residents visit the Museum include: UK, Czechia, Germany, USA, Spain, France, Italy, Slovakia and Ukraine. Two-thirds of the bookings are made via visit.auschwitz.org, where individuals can also make a financial contribution to the Memorial’s mission through the pay-what-you-can system.
Although overall attendance did not return to pre-pandemic levels, the number of participants in study visits - an extended form of visit with additional educational activities - increased by almost 20 per cent compared to 2019. This was heavily influenced by funding programmes for the visit of schoolchildren. In total, the International Center for Education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust organised over 780 educational activities of various kinds during these visits. In addition, a number of conferences and seminars were held at the ICEAH.
'After two years of the pandemic and many online-only projects, education programmes could return to normal mode. The fact that the number of people taking part in extended study stays, conferences and seminars have increased so significantly is very encouraging. It is important because education about Auschwitz and the Holocaust strengthens historical memory and uses it as a foundation to awaken moral concern about our world today,' said ICEAH director Andrzej Kacorzyk.
More than 2.1 million people use the content published on the Memorial's official social media accounts. The number of followers of the museum's English-language Twitter account exceeded 1.5 million, and tweets published by the Museum were viewed more than 1 billion 99 million times throughout 2022. At the end of 2022, the museum created an official account on Mastodon, which already has more than 75,000 followers.
Almost 23 million page views were recorded on the museum's website in 2022. An important part of education during the pandemic are the online lessons available at lesson.auschwitz.org. The main section, dedicated to the overall history of Auschwitz, is already available in twelve languages.
A major way of disseminating knowledge about the history of Auschwitz online is the series of bilingual podcasts “On Auschwitz" available on all major global sites. Topics covered in 2022 included, among others: research on the number of Auschwitz victims, the history of the sub-camps, the SS crew, the Sonderkommando prisoner revolt, and the camp orchestras. So far, 26 episodes of the podcast have been played more than 400,000 times.
