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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Visiting concentration camps

418 replies

Helendee · 15/01/2020 18:17

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.

OP posts:
SheSawHorsesHorsesHorses · 15/01/2020 18:48

Some people visit them for closure- if they had relatives who died or were in there. Not necessarily for ghoulish reasons.

OoohTheStatsDontLie · 15/01/2020 18:48

I have been to one (when I was visiting a city, not a special trip).

It really makes it all seem real. It was such a long time ago now and the numbers were so massive, it's almost impossible to imagine that 6 million people died, it sounds like it's made up.

When you see it and there are personal items that people owned, it seems a lot more real and you realise these people had lives just like us and it makes it a million times more sad. It's like when you read about a plane crash and the thing that makes you cry is a picture of a kids teddy or shoe.

I think it's more important for the younger generation as they wont have met anyone who lived through it so have one less tangible link to the past

mbosnz · 15/01/2020 18:49

From this, I'm thinking that I may be having someone mind my youngest (and possibly my eldest) rather than them attending also.

Nancydrawn · 15/01/2020 18:50

I don't remember every day from when I was 17, but I remember nearly every moment from visiting the Holocaust Museum in DC. I'm not sure I could do it again; it still enters my dreams.

I can understand wanting to go to the sites to commemorate, to mourn, or even to try to comprehend. I cannot for a second understand "looking forward to it."

LakieLady · 15/01/2020 18:50

I wouldn't want to go. At school, we watched 3 documentaries about the Holocaust, over 3 weeks. The final one included the liberation of Belsen and the discovery and removal of human remains from Auschwitz.

It was the most horrifying thing I've ever seen and I can still see Belsen victims, barely alive, in my mind's eye to this day, 50 years on.

Making holocaust deniers visit would be good though.

Gizlotsmum · 15/01/2020 18:51

My daughter has just read the boy in the striped pyjamas with her school and wants to go, I want to go, I feel it is important to not hide these things , however our son is still too young and because we cannot be certain how he will behave (he can be come overwhelmed easily and often what enters his head is said without thinking it through) we will wait until he is a bit older.

Thinkingabout1t · 15/01/2020 18:52

I wouldn't goto concentration camp because I would find it too harrowing. Holocaust deniers should go, but I don't suppose they would. I would take part in a ceremony or memorial service to honour the dead and make it clear we haven't forgotten them.

NoCountry · 15/01/2020 18:52

Completely agree OP, it's something i've often thought about and I think you're quite brave to start a thread about it.

I'm of Jewish heritage and I would never want to set foot in such a place and i can't comprehend why you would need to go there to understand the enormity of it.

At ds' school they made a big deal every year about a select group of kids raising money to go there and reporting back afterwards about how affected they were by it - as if they had someone done something good and brave and difficult by going.

I wish they would close them all and raze them to the ground.

mbosnz · 15/01/2020 18:52

DH's grandfather was one of the first to the liberation of Belsen, as a chauffeur.

He never spoke of it.

NoCountry · 15/01/2020 18:53

*somehow

LuckyBitches · 15/01/2020 18:53

I've been to Auschwitz. I was in the area and somehow felt I owed to the people who died there to witness it. It was harrowing but I am glad I went. Apart from anything else I think we need to support these places in the face of holocaust denial, especially as the holocaust will be out of living memory quite soon.

I really hope there aren't people taking selfies there! Wouldn't surprise me though.

Drabarni · 15/01/2020 18:56

The other side.

Irrespective of having family members murdered there, (only recently found out) I always wanted to go to pay my respects, but never got round to it. Although, have visited another one whilst on holiday, not a particular journey, iyswim.
From an education point of view I think anyone who wishes to go, should.

Piggywaspushed · 15/01/2020 18:57

I visited Auschwitz last year. I did not see anyone take a selfie.

It was very crowded but everyone was very respectful in their behaviour. As everyone listens through headsets it is also very quiet.

I think there are things you learn and see and 'compute' if you like that you don't learn elsewhere (actually it was some information signs at the coach park that upset me most)

As for the 'looking forward' , I am not sure English has another phrase for this sentiment? What would you have people say?

Ellybellyboo · 15/01/2020 18:59

I’ve been to Belsen with my mother .

My grandfather was at the liberation of the camp - he came back a pretty broken man and never spoke of it. He was quite a difficult man when my mother was growing up and after he died she wanted to go so I went with her.

I’m not sure why she wanted to go. I think it was about squaring this awful thing that had happened to the man she absolutely adored but never felt like he really loved her. To gain a bit more understanding about events that shaped my grandfather’s future. Does that make sense?

I didn’t look forward to it, but I am glad I went. It’s not like Auschwitz as there is no reconstruction of the site.

It’s haunting

speakout · 15/01/2020 18:59

It's not for me.

I dont underestimate the horrors of what went on in these places, but I tend to absorb and dwell on negative energies.
I can't watch violence, and although I keep up with current affairs can't watch extended footage of suffering or atrocities.
These things affect me in a bad way, make me very upset, nightmares, so although it is very important to know what is going on in the world and be aware of awful events in history I can't allow myself to dwell.

INeedToGetHealthy · 15/01/2020 18:59

I saw this article a while ago and the artist has done a great job on photoshop to shame these people taking selfies etc.

petapixel.com/2017/01/21/artist-shames-disrespectful-holocaust-memorial-tourists-using-photoshop/

Bezalelle · 15/01/2020 19:00

I went because family died there.

But in Krakow it was jarring to see Auschwitz tours advertised alongside trips to the salt mines. Just another day trip.

JamieVardysHavingAParty · 15/01/2020 19:00

I don't really get it as a sightseeing experience. I understand the people who go to pay their respects, but otherwise, not so much.

I don't think I need to tour any of them to appreciate the horror of what happened sufficiently. I read enough about the period as it was, and it had a huge impact on who I became as a person. I don't regret that, because they were positive changes, but I don't want to visit sites of mass murder in person.

Mummyoflittledragon · 15/01/2020 19:01

I would really like to go to Auchwitz or Belsen. I have been to Dachau. That was awful enough but far less brutal than more famous camps as it was a concentration camp rather than a death camp.

cakeisalwaystheanswer · 15/01/2020 19:02

Krakow is popular on the interrailing trips at the moment. DS1 and his group went as do most of the teenagers. They weren't looking forward to it but thought that it would be awful not to visit Auschwitz whilst being so close, almost like ignoring that it had happened. It was awful but they were all pleased that they went. A large Jewish group from Israel were visiting at the same time and they sung prayers etc which was very moving. DS said that part of him felt as if he was encroaching and he shouldn't have been there but then he also thinks that it is important that the Israeli visitors could see that young people were acknowledging the holocaust and seeing for themselves how terrible it was.

FaithInfinity · 15/01/2020 19:02

I went to Dachau, I was visiting a friend who was studying history in Germany at the time, she wanted to go. It was an experience that will live with me forever. It gave me a better insight into what it looked like in reality. I did get upset, it was a foreboding place.
I think my friend took photos but we certainly didn’t do selfies. I’m glad I went, I learned a lot from our visit.

BeTheRabbit · 15/01/2020 19:02

I've been to several. Belsen, Sachsenhausen and Auschwitz. I would say that it's a transformative experience (particularly Auschwitz). You think you "know" until you get there and see it, and realise that you know nothing, and that it could have been you.

AcrossthePond55 · 15/01/2020 19:03

I went to Dachau in the 70s as an (US) Army wife. I've also been to Manzanar (Japanese Internment camp). Both of them reinforced to me how inhumane humans can be to each other. And how important it is to remember that we are all linked together by the human experience and that our differences are surmountable if we really want them to be. And that we all must fight prejudice and cruelty.

If one goes and behaves respectfully and lets the place 'speak to you', then it's quite a learning experience and one that can stay with you for a long, long time.

PepePig · 15/01/2020 19:03

I'm glad I went.

It was harrowing. You genuinely don't comprehend the scale until you're walking around the camps in person (and I'd studied the Nazi regime extensively). But it was good to sit and think about what these people went through, and how lucky we are today. I paid my respects, too.

However, it annoys me that not everyone has my mindset. I went around with a guide and a mixed bag of tourists. Most of them were fuckwits. One man got lost because he kept wandering off so we had to wait for him for an hour. One woman asked when the lunch break was as we walked around (I don't think I've ever given a dirtier look to someone). And another man started up with his pseudo deep poetic bullshit about how birds don't fly overhead because of how sombre Auschwitz is (as birds flew... overhead). I also had a young guy ask when the beds in the huts were cleaned because the guide had just explained how filthy the conditions were.

People are fucking stupid.

Redyellowpink · 15/01/2020 19:05

I agree that it depends on the intention. When I visited Auschwitz people were behaving horrendously, taking selfies, one man said to me 'I've been to much better concentration camps than this'.