Visiting concentration camps

[Helendee]

Am I unreasonable in feeling it is ghoulish at the least to want to visit Auschwitz, Belsen and othersvif their kind?
I was on another site reading how people were booking tours to the above and stating they were “looking forward” to it.
I totally understand the importance of ensuring these monstrosities never happen again but can’t help thinking that some people seem to get some kind of kick from misery.
Please help me to see another side.

@BlooperReel

How do you vision "preventing it happening again"? It has happened multiple times already (yugoslavia, isis), why do those deaths not register?

I also went to Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen. It is important to keep the memory alive. I'd also say that when I went, it wasn't a cosy, touristy experience at all - as it shouldn't be. But there is a problem with people not showing respect, larking about and giggling. We were told not to take photos of the oven, but one woman did, and other people in the group hissed at her.

Although I can understand why people want to visit the camps, I can equally understand people wanting them to be destroyed. I can understand wanting to honor the dead with a graveyard full of flowers and a statue with a poem instead of a gas chamber. However, I think that the camps are here to stay, since so many feel that they didn't understand the holocaust till they saw a death camp.

No one said those deaths don't register, there has not been anything like the Nazi death machine in western society since, not to that sheer scale. I hope that as many people visiting such places, would open people's eyes wider to propaganda, to hate speech, to the insidious divisiveness that can accompany politics. We have a long way to go, as more recent genocides show, but that doesnt mean we should not try, or should not remember.

Also there are people out there who deny the Holocaust. The camps are proof.

Also there are people out there who deny the Holocaust. The camps are proof.

This is a good point I think. There are some total nuts out there who deny it happened.

I went to Auschwitz as part of a school trip when I was a teenager. Sounds awful now, but we were studying it as part of GCSE history and we were in Poland for another reason, so the teachers took us. I can remember a lot of it. It is haunting, but I found it an important thing to see. A bit like people going to the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam I suppose, though I've never been there.

Of course having the camps open to visitors wont by themselves prevent genocides.
Genocides are caused by individuals acting together in hate.
Having the camps open to visitors is hopefully to influence individuals away from acts of hate.

And it works. Many people, even on this thread,who have been are affected and its changed their thinking. It's not about single handedly kicking in the gates of North Korean to global acclaim
It's about you as an individual and the ripples you make in your daily life.

North Korean camps. Missed a word.

This is a good point I think. There are some total nuts out there who deny it happened.

These nutjobs believe that the concentration camps were put up there as a hoax and its all fake.

No one said those deaths don't register, there has not been anything like the Nazi death machine in western society since, not to that sheer scale.

But there are multiile people on this tgread saying "it should never happen again", but it does. Surely it isn't just about the scale of things? Why should 10.000 horrible deaths be tolerable just because it's less than the millions of the holocaust? And doesn't the fact that genocide still happens teach us that we aren't doing enough?

I think that that way of thinking is also a form of denial.

I don't think anyone could think that, if they'd been there. But then, anyone who can deny the holocaust can't be firing on all cylinders, so you may be right...

I’ve been to a couple and I go because it was an important part of history and I find it interesting .
Am I ghoulish? Probably

I have been to Auschwitz. We must never allow it to happen again and I think everyone should go to fully understand the magnitude of the horrors that took place at them.

@jakinaboxx

This must be an option the school can choose, it wasn't one offered to her.
Why on earth is the such a piecemeal approach to history?
Nothing much seems to have changed when i did history back in the 70s, we learn't nothing of 20thC, little wonder then we have chosen to turn our backs on europe.

We went to krakow in December for the Christmas market, I had no intention of going to the camps . (I went to the killing fields in Cambodia 10 years ago and it still gives me the horrors ). But a friend was there there the week before and said we really should . We went , and although truly terrible I'm pleased we did as the guide said that we were bearing witness . The survivors want it to never be forgotten or brushed in to a corner.

@Cherryontgetop2019

But it is happening again and again and again, only it's the yazidi or hutu or muslim or whatever. Those deaths matter just as much as the jews/gypsy's/disabled/gays of the holocaust.

It’s so we never forget how cruel and inhumane humans can be. So it won’t happen again. Or guards against repeat at least.

I think it's personal choice, but not necessary ghoulish; as visiting places like this, is one way of honouring and memorialising what happen there and who lived through that.

What was ghoulish and quite frankly fucking obscene; on visiting one of the camps in Poland, arriving at the crematoriums, two girls were posing (one was giggling and the other ducking facing) with each other, taking selfies.

I actually think everyone should go with the aim that the scale of the horror of if means the we collectively never allow it to happen again.

It’s so we never forget how cruel and inhumane humans can be. So it won’t happen again. Or guards against repeat at least

Well, its failed 100% on that!

Humans are incapable of learning anything at all from history, we even bury our heads in the sand when it comes to our own survival on planet earth.

I actually think everyone should go with the aim that the scale of the horror of if means the we collectively never allow it to happen again

Pious nonsense. Like world leaders talking about peace and standing at memorials in their Sunday best looking suitably solemn when they've all done their bit to contribute to more human suffering.

My great grandparents died in the Holocaust and I have been to Auschwitz. It made me uncomfortable how many people were happily posing for photos like it was just another snap for the holiday album, but I do think it's important people visit and don't forget what happened.

Not everyone can go, obviously. And if they did the environmental effect would be catastrophic.
Some lessons have been learned. Eg. the setting up of the European Union.
We in the UK are forgetting the lessons, obv.

I went to Auschwitz two years ago on a school trip. I really hadn’t wanted to go. I teach history and have been to a concentration camp when I was17. I’ve also been to the holocaust exhibition numerous times at the Imperial War Museum so my knowledge is good. I was actually worried I would find the tour too over whelming.

Our tour guide was excellent, very matter of fact about the events and not over sentimental which made a huge difference to how I dealt with the awfulness.

Am I glad I went? I definitely learned from the experience and it wasn’t as harrowing as I expected to find it (strangely). I left with an overwhelming disbelief at what one human being can do to another. The death camp has left a lasting impression on me and I am glad I went.

I think If someone says they are looking forward to going they mean they are looking forward to being educated about the death camps and the holocaust. I can’t imagine they see it as a good day out.