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.

We went to Bergen Belsen on the outskirts of Berlin on our school tour. It was very moving. And DH went to another on his school tour back in the day.

We don't tend to go to Germany on holidays ourselves, but I hope to go for walking holidays in a few years when DD is older, and I have every intention of going to see some more as part of our travels, along with other, less poignant, sights and sites. It is part of our history.

We have been to various war memorials and other historic sites around the world on our travels. They can be sad visits, they are normally quiet visits, but they are always worthwhile visits - and generally nothing to do with the race or creed of the people involved but part of us trying to better understand the world we live in and appreciate the different perspectives of everyone involved.

I think the point about education in schools is that it is done by trained professionals and the curriculum - the materials used etc- will be geared to the maturity of the age group. Also by making it clear that what is studied is a part of European history, gives a clear context and a purpose.

Visits by young people to Auschwitz run by the Holocaust Educational Trust are for 16-18 year olds. www.het.org.uk/lessons-from-auschwitz-programme/how-the-lfa-project-works/who-is-the-lfa-project-open-to

Me and my friend went last year when we were visiting Krakow. We felt that it would be a missed opportunity if we didn't.

I've see pretty much all the films before, read books, etc but visiting Auschwitz was something else. The room with the hair and belongings in hit me like a punch in the stomach.

Our guide was a wonderful young Polish woman and gave a heartfelt, thoughtful, informative tour.

It's a tough visit but one definitely worth doing.

Dilkington

I regret not going. But having said that, I think I would be frightened if the chance came again in similar circumstances. (I know - ditherer!). Had Mr Happy been able to come with me, I would have gone and been able to cope, but I don't know if I would manage amongst strangers, no matter how pleasant and friendly they were.

I know that most people get very upset by cruelty and suffering, especially when it involves vulnerable people - children, the elderly, the sick, or animals,

but I find it very difficult to put out of my mind. I think you may be the same - it is a common symptom of depression.

I read a lot of books about the Holocaust and similar horrors, but I know that being where these atrocities were perpetrated will be like running not a wall at full pelt.

They shot the men and gassed the people in the church

Cherry

The villagers in the church were burned alive - not gassed. Machine guns were used on the ones who tried to escape. I read a heartbreaking book (Oradour - Village of the Dead) about this some time ago, after having seen the account on The World at War.

I don't think I could go to a camp myself, but I read and saw so much about them when younger I think I've got the messages that a visit could give, to the extent I could cope with.

I would recommend the film Paragraph 175
, which documents the experience of gay people under the Nazis and in the camps and afterwards - fewer than 10 survivors were alive in 2000, and unlike Jewish and other survivors, they were excluded from any reparations and often re-imprisoned.

The play Bent by Martin Sherman is also extremely moving - the first time I saw it was as a student with two of my friends in the main roles, which enhanced the effect.

While it is important to remember the dead, I think there's a lot to be said for looking at the small details - even the trivia of how anti-Semitism for worked. For example this image. It's just an ordinary picture. But think about the way it has been stamped. The way the names have been altered. The danger is in overlooking the small stuff. (It prepares the way for the larger acts.)

AnnaMagdalene

Can you explain the picture a bit more please?

The big pink 'J' for Jew is the point I think. Apologies if I'm wrong.

Can't see it in enough detail to read the names.

On the first one though, a line is crossed out. On the other, it isn't. I was wondering what that part meant? I can't see it clearly enough.

They are German passports for German Jews. As batteries has said they have been stamped with the letter J (Judische). The magnification isn't great but it is possible to see that someone has inserted 'Israel' into the man's name, on the left. In a similar way 'Sara' has been inserted into the woman's name.

These were not the real given names of the individual concerned. But Jewish men were all called 'Israel' and Jewish women were all called 'Sara' by the authorities.

I think the names have had "Israel" and "Sara" added, presumably to make it really clear that the bearers are Jewish - is that what you mean, Anna? I can't enlarge it properly on my phone.

X post

Thanks for explaining.

Thank you for your interesting and thought provoking posts, Anna.

I would never want to visit - I walked out of Schindlers List. Fully appreciate the horror and don't feel the need to see places like this to appreciate the full unspeakable events - frankly I cannot bear it.

We visited the Jewish museum in Berlin which was upsetting enough. There was an amazing art installation which the DDs and I were looking at. DD2 put her foot on it tentatively and one of the curators, an elderly Jewish man, came over and encouraged her to walk on the memorial with him because it was meant to be experienced and touched by the public. None of us will ever forget that.

I don't personally understand why people want to go, or feel like it's 'something they need to do' but if you do want to, then you should.

We went went last year. It was a beautifully warm summer day but the place was still incredibly bleak. I found it a very moving visit.

Anna

Your "small stuff" comment is a very good point. Had the Nazis tried to round up the Jews as a first course of action, and murder them, there would have been an outcry. But by starting off with "minor" restrictions (e.g. not allowing Jewish children to use the swimming baths or public parks etc), they gradually built up the idea that Jews were "lesser" and were able to increase measures until - well, weknowwhat "until".

And the identity papers is a very good example. I once read an online comment that someone had seen a list on a website naming Jews to be taken away. This person wrote something like "Really? They expect us to believe that every Jewish man had "Israel" for a middle name, and every Jewish woman had "Sarah"? What a load of rubbish!"

But they did - one of the Nazi decrees, which your photo shows, was that every Jewish male had to add "Israel" to his names, and every Jewish female had to add"Sarah".

Tiny things, but they add up to huge oppressions.

Sorry Anna.

I've just read a little further down and see that you have clarified the matter.

Apologies.

A point I don't think has not been made yet is the depersonalising of people's Jewish identity by the addition of Sara and Israel on German documents during the Hitler regime. It was a way of further dehumanising/othering individuals. Not unlike the current US government's lumping together of all Muslims from certain countries.

On a related theme, I'd like to recommend a film. It's called My Nazi Legacy. It features 3 men, the human rights lawyer Philippe Sands who is Jewish and descended from Holocaust victims, and 2 other men, sons of SS generals. It covers mostly the (extreme contrasting) responses of both sons to their fathers' activities during the Third Reich, but also has some detail of PS's family history.

PS has written a very good book on related themes, called East West Street. It covers his family hx but also the lives of 2 lawyers who after 1945 formulated the laws of crimes against humanity and genocide respectively. Well worth a read.

It will be depressing to go, but if you feel you should, do go - you will learn a lot, and I think it is important to know how governments do this kind of thing, to better be able to spot the beginnings of it in the future.

Besides, as presumably you are from the UK, you can go see the nicer sides of Germany while you are at it, so it won't be overall depressing.

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.

That guy is weird. I'd be careful not to trust him too much. He seems to subscribe to the school of thought that focuses on the victims of a crime, not the perpetrators, and that's ... worrying. (To me, going to see Auschwitz is what German schoolchildren do. Those are the people who need to learn about it.)

Also, I'd bet he hasn't educated himself on the genocides that his ancestors were responsible for, either.

Besides, as presumably you are from the UK, you can go see the nicer sides of Germany while you are at it, so it won't be overall depressing.

Auschwitz is in Poland, isn't it?

Auschwitz is in Poland, isn't it?

Yes, but Dachau for example, is a short distance from Munich.

It was a way of further dehumanising/othering individuals. Not unlike the current US government's lumping together of all Muslims from certain countries.

I don't think that is anything like it.

Not to defend Trump, but he lumps together people who share a religion and have a different culture from the US, and who are also connected by way of sharing that religion, to terrorist attacks.

One very horrible thing about the Holocaust was that the victims were Germans, whose ancestors had lived in Germany for generations. Hitler didn't play on German citizens' fear of strangers; the Jews were not strangers, they were neighbours.

This was not about culture, it was about race.
And it also was not about feeling threatened for legitimate reasons; the nazi regime did not even have any trumped up accusations to make, they had to rely on the traditional antisemitism that had never quite gone away.

I fear it will soon be possible to make a comparison with what the American government does, though. After all, the US, too, has oppressed groups that have lived there for longer than the ancestors of the current president ...