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?

Hey Lovecat - your DH can't have 'Jewish blood' in him, he's either seen as Jewish or not - and as it's from his mum he's Jewish as seen by those of the Jewish faith

I know they showed the red cross but on a docu recently they showed evidence that the airforce took pictures etc in 1944.
But these pictures were lost and not discovered til the 80's.
I'm going by this docu on history channel. So it maybe wrong

I know, Activate, I know, but you tell him that - his grandma on her second marriage married a Jewish man who like her repudiated his faith, moved to England, raised their children as CofE, his mum also married out, raised her children as CofE - he is not culturally or religiously Jewish in the slightest and doesn't consider himself to be. I suppose if the Nazis came back they might take a different view...

However he and his sister are always being asked if they're Jewish (by complete co-incidence we happen to live in a VERY Jewish area) and if their kids go to King Solomon's, so I suppose that's what I mean by "Jewish blood"!

I don't think it is insensitive or ghoulish to visit, though some act insensitive when they go. It is an important monument to the horrors that humans can do in order to prevent it in the future. Sadly, to my knowledge, all the UK internment camps have either been destroyed or redone for other purposes and unvisitedable, a blotting out of our own dark history.

Personally, I would recommend The Holocaust Centre in Nottingham, it has a very good section for and on children of primary age as well as regular speakers. It's part of an anti-genocide charity and also contains information on other 20th century tragedies.

I don't think you're ghoulish, but having just read the first two chapters of a book on Mengele (and crying almost all the way through - seriously horrifying) I don't think I could go.

I went travelling with a girl when we were in our early twenties who had apparently gone on a school trip to Poland when she was fifteen and had visited Auschwitz. She had "never heard" of the Holocaust (which I disbelieve by the way - she had just never listened properly) and found the place a terrible shock.

It is for people like these, that the place should be kept open and people should keep visiting. Never forget.

My DH went to Dachau whilst travelling round Europe. He said it was thought provoking and harrowing to see what mankind was capable of. Having said that, he has never regretted going and said you should go.

That's on my bucket list, yes I would go, one day I will.

I went to 'the killing fields' and prison in Pnhom Phen and whilst it was a horrible and upsetting experience, I'm glad I went. It made it all too real for me, but so it should - that's the point.

It would almost be strange to go to that part of the world and not visit these places which are unfortunately such a major part of (fairly recent lets not forget) history.

that's a little glib, exoticfruits. how is it different? bigger? prettier?

How would I know-that is why I want to see it-to find out!

I think we owe it to all the survivors and people who lost their lives, not just say 'I have a nice comfortable life and I don't want to know-it was all in the past'. You can go and pay your respects if nothing else

You can teach DCs about the trenches and loss of life in WW1, until they see the lines and lines of graves and read the ages it doesn't really hit home.

It is always good to visit rather than read or see films IMO.

I agree, Besom.

An uncle who was an army officer ended up with his unit quite close to Bergen-Belsen after it had been liberated, so he heard first hand accounts of conditions there and actually saw (and smelled) the remains of the camp himself.

He expressed the hope when he returned to Ireland that it wouldn't be razed so that future generations would actually believe what happened there and by extension, what depths humanity is capable of stooping to -- up to the time when his unit had arrived downwind of the camp he himself would never have believed what had gone on there, and he was a seasoned officer/engineer who had seen plenty of action through the Netherlands and into northern Germany. He supported the practice of making German citizens view the camps.

Have only read OP. I studied 'Total War' as part of my history degree and found the Holocaust fascinating - that doesn't a ghoul me make! I think there is nothing wrong with confronting man's inhumanity to man and the capacity for evil that we have - a bit of reflection is a good thing

I would never consider visiting these places myself because it would distress me, however I would consider taking my dcs when they reach an appropriate age. It is part of our history and the more one learns about the horrors of Nazism the less likely this history to be repeated. It is our duty to pass this knowledge.

it is not insensitive or ghoulish to visit Auschwitz. It has been left standing so that people can visit it and see for themselves how dreadful it was and how trapped the prisonners were. I am shocked to hear about the behaviour of some people at the camp as reported on here though, really cannot understand it. How could it be demolished now and to be replaced with what?

AFAIK the allies knew about the camps - including Auschwitz, not just Theresienstadt. They were at least informed in detail by people who knew whether or not they chose to believe those reports

I too went to Aushwitz as part of a school trip and it affected me deeply for many years. Just this week I have been sorting through a whole lot of old photos and there were some in there that I had taken inside the camp during that trip. And it all came flooding back over twenty years later. Be aware that it will stay with you for the rest of your life.

I remember it was so very quiet. No birdsong even despite the trees, just the sound of the wind. You're not goulish at all, and this thread is a wonderful introduction to the many complex feelings surrounding the camps. It's been a great discussion. I wouldn't go again. As a mother now I don't think I could. But I think every school child should, yes.

Weeeeeeelll, I would ask the reason tbh - dom't want to offend anyone, but I wonder why you need to to actually visit the location. There is still genocide going on in the world, and I think a far worthier memorial to those who suffered - if the purpse is to remember them, would to work to eradicate what is happening NOW, rather than vist Auchwitz.

don't see that one precludes the other though necessarily

MrsGuy if the purpse is to remember them, would to work to eradicate what is happening NOW, rather than vist Auchwitz.

One does not exclude the other, in fact visiting "to remember" and "eradicating what is happening NOW" is possible side by side. Not sure why you are trying to make them opposites. Can you give some examples when one would be damaging to the other?

Exoticfruits, you are summarising the sentiments that I have found disturbing on this thread.

Not everybody now does have a nice, comfortable life. Frequently on MN and in life people dismiss the horrendous problems people face by saying, 'it isn't as if you live in a slave colony/Nazi Germany/Rwanda. Going to visit concentration camps does not seem to be giving people any perspective or sympathy about the terrible things that are happening to people right now, including to UK citizens.

And you repeat the idea that going to camps is better than reading a book. Why? What people want to say about their experiences is in books, and those people being heard is just as important, rather than disregarding them as individuals and just using their common experience of being in a camp as some sort of example for the future. It happened to them. Going to visit the camps is best for some people, not others. The fact that other people will perceive things differently to you and we cannot all be put through some same experience just because of one person thinks it is best is something else that hopefully people would learn from the example of the Nazis.

Just catching up with the posts.

belsen became more of a hellhole towards the end of the war because of the evacuation of the other camps on the death marches ie hitler trying to conceal what had gone on and centralise prisoners , the camp was designed to hold something like 2000 inmates and in the last 3 months of the war 32000 people were dumped there by the guards on the death marches and the camp could not feed them, house them or provide any sort of sanitary conditions and sadly most people were near death when they arrived there and despite the allied efforts to save people some 17000 people died after liberation as a result of the long term starvation and typhus

In response to the OP, I went as part of a week long school trip to Berlin in year 11.
I found it very moving.

I have not been, I was not brave enough to go to Dachau when I had the chance... My old flatmate's husband spent a Summer as a volunteer there cleaning the shoes that had been collected up from the victims of the gas ovens, he said that the thought that he could walk out of the gates each evening kept him going, always admired him for doing that.

I don't think anyone is forcing anyone to go Milly. For me, I would go,in addition to reading books. Some people wouldn't want to-but it isn't ghoulish to want to go-that is why they haven't been razed to the ground.