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

[HumperdinkFangboner]

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?

Tee, but if someone has, for example, been a victim of torture or murder, why on earth do their family have to go and look around a concentration camp?

It seems utterly lacking in humanity to say they should have to go, as if their suffering somehow doesn't count because it wasn't part of a genocide.

it was absolutely attempted genocide, yes. and us remembering it has not prevented ethnic cleansing in former yugoslavia, in somalia, also of the kurds. i don't know what that's an argument for, btw... am just saying. it's something dark in the heart of humanity, that urge to destroy. perhaps that's also some of my discomfort, almost by definition the people who go there are not the people who need to go there, iykwim? (apart from maybe teens, who might gain some perspective that will last a lifetime. but again... wealthy, liberal teens.)
gah. i don't know what i think. have had this argument with someone before btw, and was lectured that 'not every holiday has to be fun'. which i do get... but... [conflicted]

No definitely not ghoulish. I agree with Laurie the Holocaust exhibition at the Imperial War Museum is well worth seeing. It is upsetting and harrowing but very interesting and informative. It is shocking how organised and mechanised it all was. The survivor testimony is both hearbreaking and inspiring in equal measures.

I would visit Auschwitz. I know it would be very difficult though. And no, it should never be demolished.

I would go if I was in the area but wouldn't make a special trip. I have read a lot about it and I would like to honour those who lost their lives there, but I do sort of feel uncomfortable about the touristy aspect, hence not making a special visit. However, I've been to a village in France (Oradour-sur-Glane) where all the inhabitants (190 men, 247 women and 205 children) were killed by the SS (mistakenly believing them all to be involved in the resistance), and it has been left as it was. It was a very disturbing experience, but I am immensely pleased I have seen it. Otherwise, I may have read about it and thought 'how shocking' but actually seeing the place for myself imprinted it on my mind in a new way, and I am one more person to carry the story forwards and hopefully if enough do so, it may never happen again.

yes i don't think i am explaining that teen/adult thing particularly well... weirdacronym. i think it comes down to the people who need to go will not go, and those who don't... well, what are they doing there? but i am not very convinced by anything i say on this subject tbh, just mulling.

I went to Auschwitz a couple years of ago. It was deeply moving. I can't really describe it in words. It shook me to my core. It's a sobering reminder of what happened so very recently in or history. Well worth the visit.

ah, but is 'i would go if i was in the area but wouldnt make a special trip' even less respectful? because i have sometimes thought that i would do that... but then think well maybe it should be a special trip. it is a real minefield i think.

i have been to the battlefields of normandy, btw, as was at a wedding in the locale. if anything, i found the small, far-flung crops of graves more shocking as they seemed so lonely. (not exactlyy the word am looking for). but you know, as shocking as it was, i still went and ate a nice lunch and chatted to my pals afterwards, so while it increased my historical understanding of the scale of events i am not sure i particularly honoured the fallen.

I went a couple of years ago and I felt very moved, it is very very sad. It isn't ghoulish at all

thing is, and i mean this with great kindness, no-one who went there is going to say that they are ghouls, are they?

I went to Oradour-sur-Glane as a young adult with my parents.
It is incredibly humbling and moving, as the layers of understanding gradually build as you walk through this ruined town. I am glad I went, because it truly helped me to understand the horror of the Nazi's objectives.
I remember physically shaking as I walked out of the town.

Absolutely not.

I think that every school child in Europe should participate in a Government-funded visit to Auschwitz - I thought I understood the horror until I visited. It is like nothing else on earth, and that is no bad thing.

That's not to say you can't remember the horrors that occured, because you can, but all the study and research and information you acquire outside cannot impart the feeling that you get standing there in the the huts, standing next to the Gas Chamber foundations or looking at the huge glass cases full of glasses, suitcases, childrens items and human hair.

I am DISGUSTED that anyone would think it appropriate to demolish it.

But then I do have an interest in history with a particular specialised interest in the Holocaust, so perhaps I am biased.

Aitch - I get what you mean.

What is the feeling then?

i hope you aren't offended by my thoughts, hump. it's just something that i have discussed before (seriously, like a decade ago) and i have never come close to reconciling myself to a decision about What I Think.

I am also appalled at the comment that it should be demolished

I see what you mean aitch. I'm sure there are some people who would go for the thrill, I would have thought the same people who might read misery porn memoirs.

OTOH some people will never even try to appreciate what's gone on in the past (or the present for that matter)

Problem with modern life is

Milly I agree that you don't have to go to rememberburrI also think calling the Holocaust 'human rights violations' is like calling the Atlantic Ocean a puddle.

And I am also agreeing with what Aitch just said. We remember. That hasn't helped the Kurds, for example.

There seems to be a human need to destroy, or at least fear, what is different.

I used to believe I knew all I needed to know about the holocaust and was suitably horrified by what happened.

I then read my dp's grandmas memoir and the family tree at the back of the book was the most heart wrenching thing I have ever seen about the holocaust. Almost 3/4 of it was "deceased, auchwitz" or another camp. Seeing it so close to home, in black and white made me realise that I didn't understand the suffering at all, almost all of her family wiped out and here she was, still living with this horror.

Not ghoulish if you want to see it in order to understand it fully.

not offended, I wasn't really offended by my friends either, I really do see where you're coming from, especially with the "people who need to go, don't" bit. I think it was just annoying that my friend who is partial to misery lit, child abuse books thinks Auschwitz needs pulling down because it's "depressing".

I was there with bus loads of tourists from all over the world. All I witnessed wherever I looked was real emotion - people stunned by the horror and the sheer enormity of it all. There was no thrill seeking weirdness, ime.

op i think you should o if you want to.

but i sort of aree with aitch, all this talk about we must o and that there should be funded trips, this is not the only attempted enocide, and many in the uk have closer links with other attempted enocides, to only remember the holocaust and not others is to belittle the sufferin that others have been throuh and more recently, sayin that this deserves to be remembered, and there deserves to be a holocaust memorial day/trip etc but what your connections/relatives/country men/ reliious adherants/ have been throuh is not as bad.

and all this talk of we need to remember so the same mistakes are not committed aain, well imo we remember but it doesnt stop us commitin the same crimes that were perpetrated aainst us (i use us as in mankind/eneral sense)

yes well quite clearly your friend is an idiot. but god it's SO difficult, this stuff. it's walking over a mass grave, really. and i won't even set foot on a single grave, iykwim? i do think it's different if you have a personal connection, though, because it would be like you are laying flowers for his family (she says, extending the graveyard thing perhaps too far).

Humper YANBU. I went to the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC when I was about 19/20. Every visitor was given a booklet of someone who had been through the Holocaust. You turn the pages as you go through the museum and learn about your 'person'. When you leave the museum, you find out whether your 'person' lived or died. The museum itself was a harrowing experience. Walking through a room filled with shoes taken from the Holocaust victims was... so profound and humbling. I don't remember much of that trip to the US but I remember that experience very well. I also remembered walking into the sunshine, thinking how very, very lucky I was...