AIBU to think I'm not 'goulish' for visiting Auschwitz?

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DH and I are going to Krakow early next year, with the intention of visiting Auschwitz and Birkenau. My Granddad's best friend was briefly imprisoned there during the war and he often spoke to us about it when we were children.

Mentioned it to a friend and she called me a Ghoul so I mentioned it to some other people and I get the impression that people think we're a bit odd.

Just wondering if it's in some way insensitive to visit?

The Frankl book is interesting because his experience in the camps is not the main focus of the (very short) book, but more an account of how he arrived at his psychological practice. He examines his own attempts to be detached and objective. I recommend it highly.

That actually sounds like a really appropriate book to read in contrast to the Perec one. In some of Perec's other writing, he talks about the experience of being treated by a psychoanalysis. The Perec book is about his childhood, but one of the first lines of the book is that he has no memory of it; what he created during his childhood in place of memories he didn't want to have (and wasn't allowed to have) is the content of the book, and somehow that allows the reader to understand.

Sorry - that should have read, treated by a psychotherapist, in later life.

That sounds very interesting. I like the way Perec writes.

Pauline, can you just hold back a bit? Some of us lost family members in death camps, and your point-scoring about needing to piss is really misplaced here.

And yes, I would find it incredibly offensive to have a McDonalds at Auschwitz. Tourists may go there, but their needs/preferences are not the priority. It's sticking a burger bar up at the burial ground of over a million people, FFS.

Yes I do. But clearly it's what you want that's more important here, so fair enough.

Save your fingers, Pauline; I'm not biting.

have a heart, Pauline.

At what point did your opinion become the only correct one Pauline?

I've visited lots of places like beaches that don't have loos or McDonalds. Does this mean by your definition that they are not tourist destinations?

Tourists may visit somewhere without it becoming a tourist destination.

My feeling is that (despite my distaste at the idea) the gift shop is there to provide money to maintain the camp.

So far you have shouted down Hester (who asked you most respectfully), issey6cats, simpson, mathanxiety and Lovecat.

Who is it that is showing the sense of entitlement here?

And as for the second point - churches, as someone earlier pointed out, have a purpose and yet tourists visit them.

The purpose of these camps is as a memorial and whilst they may be visited by tourists this does not mean that they are tourist destinations. I would have thought this would be obvious.

Just for you.

Dear OP, I'm sorry that I have fed the above poster. I will now ignore.

"I went in 2007. Really enjoyed trip, which was organised. However, I thought the facilities were crap given that it is a tourist destination. I was starving hungry and couldn't believe there was nowhere to buy a burger. There is a souveneir shop, but eating facilities were crap. There's no way I would want my children to visit, though"

Pauline - This was your original post I see. Not understanding why since then you keep butting all the time with sarcastic comments about the facilities.

Why are you doing that? Is it intentional?

I don't think it's ghoulish.

However it frustrates me when people visit and see what happened at Auschwitz as something that never will and can happen again. It does happen, in Africa - look at the genocides in Rwanda, and Darfur. The media don't care as much though - as the journalist in Hotel Rwanda said, "It's just Africans killing Africans".

Auschwitz was a stain on the history of humankind. But it has happened since, and we must not forget that either.

I think people who try to get their kicks starting poorly constructed arguments on a thread about concentration camps are best ignored.

This has been a really interesting thread until Pauline rocked up both sides have been really helpful.

I am going to go, whilst my connection isn't really proper IYSWIM? I'd still like to pay my repects.

MrsDistinctly it's not a gift shop in the usual sense of the word, it's a shop selling literature about Auschwitz and the Holocaust. Unless it's recently changed.

DW and I went; as two of my grandparents died there or in some similar place (others died before the war) it seemed like a duty. Grim. But you must do it.