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've been twice (with DP a few years ago) and last year with DD
I would go out of high season, ignore the guided tours and get there very early before it gets busy
We found it very moving and didn't see anyone eating ice creams or carrying anything other than water - no selfies either
There were a few school parties later in the morning and some weren't as respectful as they could've been on the other hand some were very moved and we stopped to offer some tlc to s young Dutch girl who it had got too much for and had had to leave the tour she was on

If you want to know about the selfie thing google Yolocaust. BBC did a good piece on it

That was it, batteries, yes.

I got a lot out or reading the poems my great-aunt wrote while she was in the Ghetto and working a slave labourer

Are these poems published Anna, or private family memorabilia?

I also want to go. Is not unheard of or weird, I don't think.
I studied German history and Russian history at GCSE and have always found that Stalin / Hitler period and their personalities, fascinating.

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

Exactly.

The Schindler Museum in Krakow is exceptionally effective at telling the story of the War from an unashamedly Polish perspective.

That was in response to Anna's comment about remembering. The first room in the Schindler Museum depicts pre-War Krakow very visually and audibly and then leads the visitor through the story from there.

I have been twice - once is enough but I went a second time with my husband as we were on holiday in Krakow and he had never been.

It was very sobering and upsetting - I remember getting annoyed at the Birkenau camp part and kind of forgot myself complaining to my husband that I had forgotten a sun hat because I was really suffering in the heat and there was no shade and he quietly reminded me to consider what it was like for all the poor people who arrived there in that heat, or in the cold of the winter and I felt like a total p*k for complaining because he was right of course!

I would recommend you take the time to go to the birkanau camp, it's a short 2 minute bus ride from Auschwitz museum, and thought the museum gives insight to the atrocities and people, the camp gives you insight into the actual conditions and scale. Very very humbling.

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...

Well, yes. It's not Disneyland, FFS.

I went last year, it was very moving - it seemed to me more of a memorial than anything, plus a lot of it is museums.

There were idiots taking selfies and laughing and chatting (one English family near me were talking about what they were buying each other for Christmas, right in front of the execution wall, I moved away from them). But most people are quiet because they are wearing the headsets with the tour on (I didn't do that).

It is huge, and the stories are stomach-turning. I only took one photo, of the gate.

Just a note for people who want to go - do your research. They mainly only allow people in on pre-booked tours, but it opens at 3pm for free entry (might be free entry early in the day too). We didn't know this (OH was supposed to do the research) and arrived about midday and had to wait (it was boiling hot, and there is really nothing else there) and then they said they were very busy and would open at 4pm, but in the end we went through just after 3pm. But it's probably better to book on a tour (we couldn't get on one after we arrived as they were all full).

It's a very busy place and this October so not 'peak season' or anything.

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

This is so true. I remember seeing the horribly burnt tricycle of a little boy in Hiroshima. Somehow, that one item really brought home the immensity of what had happened there. I think the big picture can be too much to comprehend. It's the little details that help us to understand.

I went 10 years ago whilst backpacking around Europe and N Africa for 6 months. Of all the places I went and people I met, Auswitch has the greatest impact on me. To say It coloured the rest of my life (I was 18) would not be an understatement- of course I'd studied the holocaust at school, but it felt... Abstract. The numbers of the murdered are too big on paper to understand/ connect with for me.

Seeing the physical, tangible evidence and the scale of the camp - industrial is the right word I think - - brought home For the first time the unfathomable depths humanity can sink to, and the responsibility of later generations not to make the same mistakes again.

I think today I'm considered by some to be "more liberal than thou", but after visiting Auswitch I've never been able to wipe from my mind what happens when hate and fear is allowed to run unchecked. I think that my adult worldview genuinely began to form that day.

If you go, also recommend you go to the Jewish ghetto Kazmirez (sp?) which a decade ago was still quite dilapidated.

DH and I visited many years ago. We also have no Jewish connection but the scale of atrocity and chilling justification are a huge part of all of our history and should not be forgotten.

We were there around 15 years ago and I have no memory of food stalls or inappropriate photo taking. In fact I remember noticing the lack of touristy stuff despite the number of visitors which seemed appropriate.

We visited on a beautiful summers day which seemed at odds with such a grim place. Take the walk up to Birkenau to escape the crowds and have more space to reflect. I will always remember it. Go. We will take our DC when they are old enough.

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.

Well said, Anna.

It's your decision not your acquaintance. If you want to go than go. I have never been but possibly would. As for the remark that it's the sort of thing Jewish people do, my husband is Jewish and would never step foot in the place. In fact he won't even watch Holocaust documentaries.

I haven't been to Auschwitz but I have visited Dachau, which was very moving. I'd definitely visit it if you want to - it's not something only jews should visit!
Dachau is easy to combine with a holiday to Munich - that's what we did.

My dd went with the holocaust memorial trust-she said it was unutterably moving.But has become a huge tourist attraction. I went with a school trip to Westenboek (sp?) which whilst not a death camp, was as holding camp for those being transported. It was quiet, secluded but was still a chilling reminder of the truth.

If you want a symbolic protest- how about nobody goes shopping while Trump is in the country?

I didn't go to Auschwitz when I was in Krakow because I was alone and couldn't face it by myself - I did go to the Schindler museum which was thought provoking - they have a lot of good documentery films there.
Incidentally, Anna Magdalena, Galgenhumour does exist in English - it's called gallows humour.

Went with my husband to Sachsenhausen last year and was glad that I did - had a very good guide who really helped us to understand it all. I think everyone should visit one concentration camp - it's good that schools take their pupils - mine does too, although I've never been with them, but it's really not necessary to visit more than one ..... and it shouldn't be a badge of pride, simply an individual act of recognition.

the idea of these death camps being "tourist attractions" with selfie-takers eating ice-cream is really ghastly - perhaps that's why it is better to visit a less well known camp like Sachsenhausen - which, incidentally, was the first, the "Number One" camp, which was intended to be a model for all the others. It's easily doable on a day trip from Berlin.

*I got a lot out or reading the poems my great-aunt wrote while she was in the Ghetto and working a slave labourer

Are these poems published Anna, or private family memorabilia?*

Some of the poems have been published, though not - as yet - the entire collection.

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.
This a a thought I have been trying to express in the last few weeks. In my lifetime the last survivors of ww2 will die. Then the only memory will be books, films and physical monuments like the camps. It is easier to "forget" the atrocity if there is no living link. People now are distanced from it all, so it has allowed the rhetoric of hate to grow and flourish once again.
(Sorry if I'm not expressing myself well here, I just despair of humanity at the moment.)

I notice a few posters mention the Ann Frank museum, what was it like? It sounds interesting but I couldn't get a very good idea what the museum is like on the website. I just wondered what things they have in there as well as what the tour is like.

I visited the 9/11 Memorial a few years ago and there were people taking grinning selfies there too. Sadly some people are so self-involved that the thought of being respectful just doesn't seem to occur to them.

Personally I found it a very place to visit and was in tears for much of my time there.

cave how did you resist saying something to them? That would make me so angry.