A question for anyone who’s been to Auschwitz

[AI41]

Are you pleased you went, or do you regret going?

We’re going to Krakow on Boxing Day for a few days, and inevitably will need to discuss whether to visit Auschwitz. I’m going with two friends and obviously they can make their own decision. One of my friends is very interested in the war so I suspect he will want to go.

I was once told by someone who visited in the 80s that he regretted going because the horror has never left him. I am erring towards not going. But other people who’ve visited said to go and they don’t regret it at all.

I've been to Anne Frank's house. I was obsessed with her story as a child.

Like Auschwitz, you can read everything, and see the films, but it doesn't give the sense of what it's like in real life. It's tiny. You then imagine living there for years. And it hits just how tough life must have been in hiding.

Typically they make pseudo-technical arguments about how the gas chambers and crematoria couldn’t possibly have handled the numbers claimed, or that the existence of kitchens or leisure facilities meant that these were ‘just’ labour camps, not extermination centres, and that many of the death were due to disease, not mass murder. Or in some cases that the gas chambers etc were built by the Soviets (or in the case of Auschwitz, by the Poles) to incriminate Germany.

I suppose one could concede that many people did die of disease/starvation, although of course caused by being in a camp in the first place.The idea of them being built by the Soviets/Poles to incriminate Germany, though… I mean, that would be quite some commitment, wouldn't it?!! And when were they supposed to have built them? Knocked them up mid-war when suspicions started growing?

Who knows? You’d have to read Holocaust denial stuff to be more au fait, and that’s not really something I want to spend my time on — most of this is stuff I remember from when David Irving was in the media when he took a libel case against Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin. I think, yes, he claimed the gas chambers etc were built after the war.

You’d have to read Holocaust denial stuff to be more au fait, and that’s not really something I want to spend my time on No, indeed
God, I'd forgotten about David Irving.

I haven’t been there but went to the camp in Terezin. Harrowing but I don’t regret going. I was really saddened by some young male tourists laughing and joking in several parts of the museum when other people were clearly moved by the place.

My father was a Polish Jew. Some of his family escaped before WWII and unfortunately some of them didn't. I have absolutely no wish to visit a concentration camp and never will. My son has been to Auschwitz several years ago and wishes he hadn't. He can't get the room full of the prisoners' hair out of his mind.

I have been to Anne Frank's house. I can't remember it without crying.

I don't need to stand where millions of people were tortured and killed in order to know what a horrifying time it was, or to know that it should never happen again.

OP, we spent a week in Krakow recently.
We visited the Jewish quarter, saw the chairs, visited former synagogues and Schindler's factory, but we decided in advance that we didn't want to visit Auschwitz. We've previously been on a walking tour of the Jewish quarter in Budapest. We've watched and read enough to understand what went on. It felt wrong to both of us rhat Auschwitz is now treated as a tourist attraction.
We don't regret it.
If you don't go this time, you can always go another time.

I'm from Poland and my grandad was in camps (although not Auschwitz itself).

It is troubling but it won't shock you if you have a full understanding of history and what happened there. It's just barracks, corridors with pictures of the victims (mugshot style taken on arrival), piles of shoes, suitcases and personal belongings. It does make everything you read about the holocaust more real, but it's nothing drastic. I find clips of prisoners (like the one played in last year's Nuremberg) far more upsetting. Make sure you read more about holocaust and the camps beforehand and you will be fine.

I find holocaust denial stuff really aggravating because my grandad was a prisoner in those camps and he was a witness to what happened there. I never scroll past an antisemitic comment claiming Jews made it all up because my grandad was pure blood Polish - many people don't realise that millions of non-Jewish people perished there including ethnic Poles, Roma, gay men, communists, soviet POVs, people with disabilities

It's very personal thing to visit such places.
I haven't been to a death camp but we did visit Mittelwerk underground rocket factory and the camp that served it Mittelbau-Dora. Some 60,000 slave labourers passed through the camp and many many died, were cremated and their ashes discarded. Some of the tunnels and the remains of the camp are a museum. It is a sobering place.
But for me perhaps the most poignant was coming across a Soviet-Russian cemetery in the Eifel Mountains of western Germany. Over 2000 slave labourers and POWs who were worked to death are buried there, few are identified. They are 1000 miles from the very nearest bit of home and it's likely any family that might have visited perished in the same war. Heartbreaking on some many levels.

It’s the shoes that get me the most.

Been twice. People are usually surprised by this and ask why I wanted to return. I’m half Jewish so it felt vital. I was also only 15 the first time too, it was a completely different understanding when I returned in my 30s. I went with my teenage DS the second time too so it had an additional meaning. No, I would never regret going and don’t know anyone who would say such a thing. It’s important.

Im sorry if I worded it wrong.

So many people gp to Krakow with a tic tok list of must do's /sees , they fly by, take a selfie and on to the next "must do"

Seriously Ive met people who did Auschwitz and came across people taking selfies, had absolutely no idea of where they were at

You will love Krakow, I fell in love and went 3 times in 18 months and I have still only scratched the surface

I made a conscience decision not to go , but Im old and its too close in history for me and I chose to to go and enjoy Krakow

You will love Schindlers factory Museum, I could have spent hours more there . Sobbed reading some of the writings . Again though , the amount of people I met who hadn't done their homework and were disappointed that it had nothing to do with Schindler ( there's a wee small display as he was part of the History Of Krakow )

Again, I apologise for my bad wording

Yes a relative of mine died in Auschwitz too for political reasons. He was Polish and Catholic.
Most Poles hate the concept of Auschwiz being in their country, as some people forget that it was built by the Germans whilst Poland was occupied by the Germans!
I hate seeing it even in the same sentence as Krakow, which is such a beautiful city.

Bloody Hell, do people really not realise that it was built by the Germans??

I dont think anyone has forgotten this if I'm honest. Isn't that... the whole point...

https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/oradour-sur-glane-martyred-village

I have not read all the posts, but this village I'm France seems to get overlooked.
The burnt out prams and cars, the church, a whole village massacred .

@pj98 Unfortunately I've met a couple of people who were "confused" and I had to set them straight!!

I mentioned it earlier in the thread. Can't really find the words to describe Oradour, it's both so ordinary and so extraordinary.

Behaviour was impeccable when we visited, everyone - including children - was respectful and quiet. The most poignant moment for me was in the church: seeing the WWI memorial plaque full of bullet holes.

We don't live far away, and will visit again.

It's become the Disneyland of Death. A must-do for tour groups from Krakow. Rammed with people when I went and it somehow sanitised and negated what it should have been. I felt no horror, it did not feel sombre. Go elsewhere, somewhere that feels more respectful and where you can reflect in peace

At 18 I visited Neuengamme, then Bergen-Belsen (a friend was a liberator) I've since been to Auschwitz, Birkenau, Sachsenhausen, Dachau (my Grandfather visited on his way back I seem to recall), Jasenovac. I've been to the killing pits at Paneriai and to the liquidated villages of Lidice, Lezaky and Oradour sur Glane. I'm a historian but history has continued into my lifetime and I've borne witness at Choeung Ek and Tuol Sleng and the more recent Srebrenica (a friend was involved in some of the exhumations). I've stood in the ruins of the Berghof, above the Fuhrerbunker, in the former Gestapo headquarters in Berlin and Hamburg and in a couple of former KGB prisons. There's other places too, some whose name I forget.

A good friend was in Buchenwald. One day I shall stand there in memory of him.

This. Totally.