Auschwitz Jewish Center and Chevra Lomdei Mishnayot Synagogue

The Auschwitz Jewish Center in Oświęcim (osh-VYEN-cheem), with the Chevra Lomdei Mishnayot Synagogue, tells the story of the town before 1940 – the town its Jewish residents called Oshpitzin. The center brings together the Jewish Museum, the only surviving synagogue in Oświęcim and Café Bergson. It is the place to understand whose lives were cut short before the name Auschwitz came to stand for genocide, and it sits about 3 km from the Auschwitz Memorial.

History of the synagogue and the center

Before World War II, Jews made up the majority of Oświęcim's population. The Chevra Lomdei Mishnayot ("Society of Mishnah Students") was registered in 1893, bought its plot in 1912, and its synagogue – a beit midrash for prayer and study – was operating by 1918. During the German occupation the interior was wrecked and the building used as an ammunition store. After the war a handful of survivors prayed here again, but by the mid-1950s almost all had left. The state later took over the building, and from 1992 to 1997 it served as a carpet warehouse.

In 1998 it became the first Jewish house of worship in Poland returned to a Jewish community under the 1997 restitution law, and it was handed to the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation, founded in New York in 1995. After restoration the synagogue reopened on September 12, 2000, when the center itself opened.

What you will see

• The synagogue – a rectangular prayer hall with a carved wooden Torah ark, bimah and benches; a 1928 plaque honoring the synagogue's administrators survives. Groups from around the world still come here to pray.
• The Jewish Museum – a permanent exhibition on more than 400 years of Jewish life in Oświęcim, with photographs, documents and objects, including finds from excavations at the site of the Great Synagogue.
• Café Bergson, in the former home of the Kluger family; you enter the museum and synagogue through the café. Shimson (Szymon) Kluger, who died in 2000, was the town's last Jewish resident.

Your ticket also covers the Jewish cemetery, where about 1,000 tombstones survive; visits must be booked in advance and staff hand out the key. A few minutes' walk away, the Great Synagogue Memorial Park (Berka Joselewicza 5), opened in 2019 on the 80th anniversary of the synagogue's destruction by the Germans, is open daily.

How to visit

Allow about an hour for the museum and synagogue, two to three hours with the cemetery and a walk through town. The free Oshpitzin app (in English, German, Hebrew and Polish) guides you to the sites of former synagogues, schools and homes. Groups can book guided tours in English, German, Hebrew or Polish via the museum's online form, and the website itself has an English version.

Opening hours and tickets

As of October 2026:

• Hours: daily 10 a.m.–6 p.m.; closed on Jewish holidays – check the calendar at oshpitzin.pl before you go, including for winter 2026/27.
• Tickets (museum, synagogue and cemetery): PLN 25 regular, PLN 20 for students up to 26, PLN 50 family (2+1 or 2+2), free for children under six.
• Guides: small groups of up to five PLN 200 plus tickets; town and cemetery tour for up to 25 people PLN 300.
• Contact: pl. ks. Jana Skarbka 5, Oświęcim; +48 510 781 199, info@ajcf.pl.

Getting there and nearby

The center is on Skarbka Square in the old town, at the foot of the castle hill, roughly 60 km (40 miles) west of Kraków; buses and trains link Kraków with Oświęcim. Next door stands Oświęcim Castle with its Gothic tower, and the Market Square is a few minutes away. Combining this visit with the Auschwitz Memorial lets you see not only the crime but also the world it destroyed.