To want to visit Auschwitz?

[lottieandmia]

I feel that it's something we all should do. I've been reading Primo Levi's book and I just can't imagine the level of suffering those people endured.

I mentioned it to an acquaintance and he said 'it's the sort of thing Jewish people do' and basically said I should not go, it would be depressing and there have been lots of other genocides. He has really annoyed me with these sentiments which come across as antisemitic imo.

I went round natzwiller/struthof (Alsace, France) with a former prisoner. It was covered in snow, eerily silent (middle of week outside school holiday) and easily the most chillling/moving afternoon I have ever spent. So you don't have to go to the big, well known camps.

Jewish, and I think that everyone should go. It was only the Jewish community that was affected either.

With recent events, I feel everyone needs to be aware of how one fuckhead can impact huge groups of individuals within the population.

You think the Russian and Chinese leaders are going to open museums commemorating those lost?

Good luck with that.

I have visited the dome and museum at Hiroshima (pop culturised -should be obliterated) qnd places in Vietnam nam. Of course as I did so I was deliberately not remembering any other atrocities...

I visited Sachsenhausen in Germany (sorry if sp isn't right) on a school trip when I was 16. It was horrible, but I do think it's a good thing to understand more what happened, and how we can never let it happen again.

birdybirdy

I saw that about the Berlin memorial. Very disrespectful to do it knowingly, but having been to Berlin loads of times, I didn't know till my third visit when I did a walking tour that it was the memorial. It's massive and not well labelled as to what it is. Maybe I'm being too generous to these people. Either way to do it at Auschwitz is unthinkable.

I've been to both Auschwitz and Birkenau. Personally I found the whole experience very moving and thought provoking. The Holocaust affected so many people, it was far from being just a Jewish issue. Russian, gypsies, Romanies, physically disabled and those with 'mental' issues were also 'culled' and experimented on in huge numbers.
I went in the depths of winter, it was bitterly cold with a biting wind that chilled me to my bones despite a decent coat. I stood in one of the reconstructed huts at Birkenau and for a moment could truly empathise with those forced to live in those draughty shacks with the on communal concrete latrines, wooden sleeping platforms ,barely any food and just a thin cotton pair of pyjamas to cover their bodies.
Yes you may see visitors taking selfies but they will be in the minority and the staff will quickly step in and tell them to stop.
Go, be educated, pay your silent respects then go to some where like Krakow and see that the Polish people have survived and thrived but not forgotten that awful period in history. Those PPs who mention that such atrocities are still occurring today, sadly, you are right.

I want to visit Auschwitz, too. I had the opportunity last year, and was suddenly so afraid that I wouldn't be able to cope with the horror that I didn't take it up.

I wish I had. With every passing year we get further from the atrocity; even under museum conditions the remnants degrade; the survivors are fewer; and with every passing year it is easier for the Holocaust deniers to claim it is all a Jewish lie.

We need people who have seen the evidence, even though, thank God, they have not had to experience the horror.

It's like most things in life: you get out of it what you put into it.
If you are a ice-cream-scoffing, candy-crush-player then maybe it's just a thing to tick off a list. But if you have read up beforehand and think about what you are seeing then it is profound. How can it be anything but.

There are lots of coach tours and school trips (jewish and gentile). You just have to try to find the quietnesses inbetween them.

There are so many books and films on it all op. As well as deeply evocative books like, ten days in the life of Ivan divonowitc sp on phone about life in socialist gulag, wild swans, life under chairman Mao..
Life and death in shanghai, incredible account of life under socialist mao, Amazon is good as I more books in these themes lead to more recommendations. It reminds us how dangerous *all extreme politics are. And the other big crime against humanity that again is very much out of sight out of mind... North Korea. Anthoer so called socialist leader head of one big prison camp. I think the book is called swimming pools of Pyongyang, or along those lines. The people are in total bondage with every move scrutinised and watched at unbelievable levels, ie you and three generations of your family could be thrown into a concentration camp for not displaying a picture of the dear leader The right way. In the concentration camps in North Korea, well I couldn't write about it here, but it's all out there op. Daily north Korea is another good source of information about life in that country.

I think the sites where you "go back in history" the most are the ones that are less touristy. I will never forget the feelings I had when I visited the cemetry in Leningrad (as it was then ), just row upon row upon row of snow covered graves and a lit flame .

I havent been to Auchwitz but given the numbers of visitors there I am not surprised some behave "inappropriately". Hopefully though, everyone who visits will at least be more knowledgeable than they were before they went.

I have also been to Hiroshima. Again, a very sobering experience. I would like our politicians to go there too.

I don't think there is unanimity among Jewish people about how best to remember the Shoah.

I am the descendant of German Jews, so some relatives perished.

I am still deciding whether or not to visit the particular camp where my great-aunt, a survivor, was taken. I personally do not wish to visit Auschwitz were others were killed.

I think what is more important is to work out what our responsibilities are now.

It seems to me that at a time when the UK is- and other countries are - becoming more discriminatory, more racist, that the important thing is to speak out against the far Right, to welcome refugees and not to demonise those of other faiths.

The thing is, because of WWII and the way it ended, because of the location of Germany, because some Jews did manage to escape to other parts of Europe / America... the Holocaust is in a fairly unique position of being both a horrific genocide but also being properly exposed. Not swept under the rug with evidence dismantled and hidden by subsequent leaders, or destroyed in subsequent wars.

There aren't many (any?) genocides where conditions in the country and the existence of survivors makes building memorials, preserving old camps etc possible.

That is one of the reasons why Holocaust sites are so moving, they don't belittle other tragedies, rather they open a window that otherwise would never have been there. They allow you to get some glimpses of the true horror humans can inflict on each other, anywhere in the world.

I have been to more than one camp. I remember the first one I visited looking at a reconstructed sleeping hut. Each tiny bed which looked more like a child's high bunk would have slept probably 3 adults, all ill, cold, suffering. Suddenly the realisation of that - that there was no escape or comfort or privacy, even in 'rest' times - was too much and I broke down in tears.

Sometimes you need to see and think about the little things in order to get a handle on the horror of the big things.

Go.

I've been, a long time ago.

It's definitely changed my life. It's harrowing but certainly an experience.

I'm Jewish with family who died in the Holocaust. I haven't been to Auschwitz but I hope to be able to visit one day...With my children when they are much older. I want them to understand their history.

Just please don't take any selfies or thoughtless photos.

I want to go. It's the one thing I'd like to see more than anything else. It won't be enjoyable but it's something I feel I need to do.

And having been to Anne Frank house, and someone other deeply sad, evocative moving places I know I was too distressed after to monitor other people's reactions. But these places are heavy going emotionally I would suspect most people who acted in your eyes inappropriately weren't perhaps just reacting to the emotional sledge hammer. People often laugh when they feel scared or nervous.

OP I understand how you feel but I had the opportunity to go on my travels and didn't and I always regret it.

It's not about whether it's a Jewish tragedy or not as your colleague seems to be suggesting. It's ridiculous to suggest that we can or should only feel empathy for our own kind. Especially when that is precisely what leads to these genocides in the first place.

Because our lives are so removed from that, it's easy not to feel connected to what happened. I look at my children, who are Jewish, and think of the ones just like them who saw their families murdered before being gassed, and have told them countless times how fortunate they are to be alive now and not then.

I agree about protecting those of faith being persecuted which is why I find it odd no one mentions the yadizi or Christians being killed right now

Selfies? SELFIES??!!!

Dear god, have people no respect left at all??

I'm Jewish.

I've visited Sachsenahusen and was struck by the memorials to other prisoners e.g. JWs. When I got back I was talking to one of my year 7 classes and a JW in the class knew a lot about the holocaust.

I think there's a lot to be said for learning about Jewish culture and history - for going to museums that tell us about the part Jews have played in Europs elsewhere.

Such as visiting the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme in Paris. I think I want us to learn about and value Jewish lives, as well as mourning loss.

One problem is that just a few sites and images have become iconic. While allowing people to remain incurious and ignorant.

I got a lot out or reading the poems my great-aunt wrote while she was in the Ghetto and working a slave labourer. They were full of what was called Galgenhumor. People laughed and joked to support each other. They swapped recipes, fantasising about food constantly.

It's like asking how do we want to remember our relatives. Just at the very end of their lives? Or who they were before that?

So the op plans to visit austchwitz and you genuinely find it odd that no one has mentioned the killing of yazidi?

Why not start a threAd about the yazidi? I'd be happy to join you there.