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.

It's almost as if people visit these places longing for a visceral reaction because their lives are too comfortable.

Odd that it's being presented as a bucket list trip: you must go, everyone should go. No thanks!

I have always been interested in history and have read a lot about the effects of the Treaty of Versailles on paving the way for WW2 and how fascism gained ground in Germany. As a teenager I read a lot of books about the camps, some written by survivors and the stories are horrific but I always wanted to go, maybe that was teenage morbid curiosity or I just didn’t get the full weight of it at that age. Recently we were looking to book a trip to krakow and my DH asked if I wanted to go and visit Auschwitz as he knows how much I have read and watched about it, I looked into the tours and just knew I couldn’t go, I can’t explain why, I felt off for days afterwards thinking about going, I know that I will never go now. I don’t need to see it with my own eyes, maybe I am being cowardly but it is not something that appeals to me anymore. I don’t have an opinion on other people going but I know for me it isn’t something I will be doing, I wouldn’t tell someone they have to go or must see it, nor would I tell someone not to go - like viewing the body of a dead loved one, it is an entirely personal thing and nobody should make you feel bad for either choice.

Same

We have been to Dachau and Auschwitz. I do think it is worth going to keep in mind what people can do to each other when they see themselves as "better" humans. It still happens so obviously not enough people have learned this lesson. As others have said, the Holocaust deniers in this age of misinformation are a threat and you can see how easy it is for people to deny what has happened or what they do in the name of religion in the present day.

We were traveling close by and my husband wanted to go and I didn’t. He was glad he went and I’m glad I didn’t. I just didn’t want to. Neither of us regretted our decision.

“You need to expose yourself to upsetting things”?? Who are you to decide that for someone else? Are you quite young? Because believe me, when you’re old enough to have nursed both late parents through long horrendous illnesses and you have experienced other hard things at the same time like marital breakdown abroad, your own can life feel upsetting enough without adding Auschwitz to it! I can only think you haven’t lived much to say such a stupid thing. After the last few years I’m on two antidepressants and hanging on by a thread some days, and I would hate to feel judged for being in Krakow and not going to Auschwitz. You have NO idea why someone else might not be able to cope with it. If your mental health is so good that you can merrily expose yourself to horrors without a second thought, then good for you, but don’t prescribe that for everyone else.

Not a delicate flower who needs smelling salts, indeed. How can you be so blind and arrogant?

It's almost as if people visit these places longing for a visceral reaction because their lives are too comfortable.

This sums up how I feel as well, and it sits uneasily with me. I'm sure there are many well-intended reasons to visit even if you have no personal connection - wanting to acknowledge the dead, for instance - but it's a little strange, also. It's almost as though people want to use this historical trauma in order to experience some kind of secondhand pain? It reminds me of how people watch a horror movie to trigger feelings of fear. I don't know.

I remember being in Ypres on a school trip for this (and trips round battlefields and other things) when I was about 14. The last post being played will stay with me forever. Not to say that I think about it every day but it’s a very evocative memory.

I don’t ever want to go to auschwitz. I’m not afraid to say I just don’t want to go there. I’m not a cruel or evil person, I’m quite well educated and have visited other historical war sites, it’s not mandatory to go to Auschwitz from a validation point of view that ‘only now that you’ve been can you understand’. A few people have commented that you ‘can’t imagine until you’ve been’, I disagree. Your imagination is not right or wrong, it might not be anything like the reality but visiting still isn’t the reality of what people living at these camps experienced, you would still be ‘imagining’ because those camp prisoners are no longer there.

anyway, all that to say, I wouldn’t go because I don’t want to. You don’t have to go and join grief tourism if you don’t want to. If you’re curious enough then do go. I can imagine how bleak and sad it is based on what I’ve read and that’s enough for me.

I went 3 weeks ago. I am going to Krakow again next year for a celebration and felt that I needed to go on this visit so as not to overshadow the event next year. As many have said here I was not unaware of the horror of what happened and did wonder if I ‘needed’ to see Auschwitz and Birkenau but felt that I owed the respect to those millions of innocent victims whose lives were taken. My reservations were also rooted in my absolute condemnation of what has happened in Gaza and I worried that this would colour how I felt. We booked directly. Our guide was compassionate and informed. I am so glad I went. For me it was the scale of what could happen in such a short period of time, how minds and hearts could be corrupted to do the unthinkable that really hit home. There were groups there who felt performative for many reasons which I found distasteful. This was a crime against humanity and it seems that the lessons have not been learned - that sadly is the trauma that stays with you.

🙄

I've not been there, but have been to Belsen. Boxing day 1981, before phones and selfies.
I'm glad I went, it was a sombre, eerie, thought provoking experience, and it did shake me, the thought that human beings could be so cruel to their fellow beings. I was young then, and of course, over the years I've realised there can be cruelty everywhere to a certain extent.
Would I go again/to another camp? Yes, although disability will probably make it difficult. It makes you appreciate the good that's still in the world, whilst still paying respect to all those poor souls who perished.
Would I recommend going? Yes. It's not a pleasant day out, but a time to pause and reflect and pay respect to all those innocents (and try and ignore the rude selfie taking idiots)

No, you're absolutely right, you must have a personal connection to want to care about the history. You should have let the people who set the museum up/preserved the whole site know - yknow, the survivors who WANTED the public to attend in masses so they could keep their stories alive.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but if you're going to make one, I'd probably think about why the place was opened to the public first.

I’ve never been and like you I’d have some reticence about doing so.

I know my history, I know what fascism is and how it starts. If I watch anything about the Final Solution it stays with me for days. Personally I think it’d be too much for me, especially with the current rise of fascism and just how wilfully ignorant other people are about it. I’d love them all to go. But they won’t.

Very mature.

I didn't say anything about caring about history. I don't think you need to visit a place in order to care, though, or to understand the scope of the horror, and the idea of needing to visit in order to experience the atmosphere is a strange one to me.

As I said in another comment, I personally would feel as though I was intruding on someone else's pain and trauma, which I don't have a right to. But that's just my personal feelings – as I said, I'm sure there are many well-intended reasons to visit, they just don't resonate with me.

Went last year. Was glad I went. Would like to go again and take more time.

My mother declined similarly as feeling it would be too upsetting. This however was before discovering that an uncle and aunt of hers had died there. I don't know if with that knowledge her view would have been different.

Yeah. I used to know some of the local teenagers in Osweicim (the Polish town surrounding Auschwitz - a German corruption of the name) who worked as parking attendants in one of the many of coach parks, where I used to park my bus. They took a lot of drugs and had an evitable kind of gallows humor about the whole thing. They grew up surrounded by genocidal Disneyland (their words).

i went. 2 years ago. Did a few tours of the area too. I went to krakow specifically to go to auchwitz.

I am very privileged to have gone. We did a small group private tour of the two near by camps and the knowledge and experience were extremely valuable.

My mum who is interested in history slightly but not so much in this particular area really enjoyed learning about the history. She came with me because no one else from our family or friend group wanted to experience it. It also fell on my birthday and it was a gift to myself to go as something I’ve wanted to experience for a very long time. she was more interested in Kraków’s spas etc.
after she said she was so happy to have gone and if it wasn’t something I wanted to do she probably wouldn’t have.
Was very surreal though and the feeling lingered with us for a long time.
the preservation started from those who stayed behind after liberation to educate those of what occurred there. This has continued and they have fought hard to do so. I think if you have the opportunity to go then do.
this is exactly why they have kept the camp open for educational purposes.

extremely sombre but poignant

IMO what a fantastic way to remember this piece of history and educate the future generations of what not to repeat.

I haven’t been - yet. My DD went with school in year 12 and it was a very moving experience for her (we’re Jewish). I think it’s almost more important for non-Jews to go to get a sense of what happened to Jewish people in the Holocaust (and prior too, Ktistallnacht, pogroms, ghettoes), and how that affected the Jewish people afterwards too.

Holocaust museums are also very good if you want to be further educated- the one in Berlin is particularly good.

I can understand that people may not what to directly confront what happened, but the amount of Holocaust denial out there means it’s more important than ever to be properly educated.

People describing this as 'grief tourism' really have no idea what they're talking about.

It's important to remember.

When we visited the Killing Fields in Cambodia , a fellow traveller said that you just had to go, to honour the people who had suffered there.

I went because I was so sick of the people who said the holocaust never happened.
When you go it's clear it happened and must never happen again.

this we where exactly the same. And the sound kept cutting out so couldnt actually hear what it everything was so it didnt totally hit home how horrifying it was. I would go again but on my own so can read more and take it all in