Auschwitz memorial and museum will reopen to visitors on July 1

The Auschwitz Memorial and the site of the former Nazi camp will reopen to visitors on July 1.

The museum says it will open for guided tours and individual entry beginning on that date. Reservations must be made online.

It closed to visitors in mid-March because of the coronavirus pandemic, including canceling the annual March of the Living onsite.

The museum has reorganized exhibitions to minimize the risk of spreading the coronavirus and the number of visitors will be limited to allow for appropriate social distancing.

Last year, the site of the former Nazi death camp had more than 2.3 million visitors. This year, it drew some 300,000 visitors before it was shut on March 12, its first closure since its first exhibit opened in 1947.

Earlier this month, the memorial called on the public for donations due to its loss of income during the pandemic.

“The period of the pandemic shows that in every difficult and crisis situation, fears, tensions, reluctance and ghosts of the past awaken,” the museum’s director, Piotr Cywinski, said in a statement. “Right now, we all need to listen wisely to the warnings from the past so that the economic difficulties we are experiencing and forecasting will not lead to a moral crisis, a crisis of humanity.”

— JTA