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.

I'm Jewish. I've visited Auschwitz many times and I've taken my children too. When they're old enough, I will send them all on the March of the Living - a 6 day trip to Poland in which mainly Jewish high school students march from Auschwitz to Birkenau, re-enacting the death marches on which Jews were forced during the Holocaust.

I go to Auschwitz for the same reason that I visited the Killing Fields when I travelled to Cambodia, and the Kigali Genocide Memorial when I visited Rwanda.

I think it's important to confront head on the hideous things that human beings are capable of doing to each other - the atrocities that have been committed in living memory, and continue to be committed today.

I think people need to see for themselves the endpoint of hatred.

Dark tourism is a thing.
There's probably an element of morbid curiosity for a lot of people but the more awareness we can bring to something unpalatable, I think generally the more unlikely we are to want to repeat the mistakes of the past.

I don't think I need to tour any of them to appreciate the horror of what happened sufficiently.

I used to think the same as you.. Until I went. Knowing what happened.. Looking at photos on the Web of glass cases full of human hair etc is one thing.. But standing in front of one.. Its completely different, believe me. It still takes my breath away when I remember it.

I was in two minds about this when I visited Munich for the first time. Eventually I decided to attempt visiting Dachau and it was pretty harrowing, it has to be said. Having said that, I'm glad that I went. These histories ought to be told. Grinning selfies at these places are beyond the pale but it might be how some people process things. I saw visitors walking sround smoking but thry might've needed it as a comforter or perhaps they were insensitive twats.

I would never go and visit. I know the facts about the camps. I’ve heard survivors’ testimony, read Primo Levi’s If This Is a Man, seen The Eichmann Show and know the history of the rise of Nazism in Germany and the centuries of anti semitism in a Europe. I couldn’t cope with seeing the camps in person.

Obviously it’s upsetting to see people behaving in a way you feel is disrespectful but in a world where some people still deny that the Holocaust happened I’d argue that having people witness the concrete reality of the camps is more important than the fact that they take smiling selfies.

Well I’ve been and whilst I wouldn’t describe as something to ‘look forward to’ in the general sense, I felt it was something I wanted to do.

It was the most harrowing place I’ve ever visited but I’m pleased I done it. I would never wish to go again.

If no one ever visits, then the past could be forgotten. What those poor people went through was so horrific and barbaric that we need to remember forever so it’s never to be repeated.

I know a number of people who are tour guides in Dachau. You need to be certified by the memorial authorities to be able to take people round there and everyone takes great pains to ensure the focus is on educating and informing people about what happened at the camp. Disrespectful behaviour is not tolerated. I haven’t been and don’t want to go, knowing the history in detail is enough for me. You can’t avoid it where we live, you are confronted with it every day.

I've been to several. Belsen, Sachsenhausen and Auschwitz. I would say that it's a transformative experience (particularly Auschwitz)

Are you a better person because of it? Did it inspire you to take direct action against racism and war?

To me it's just grief tourism

I've been to Sachsenhausen and Dachau camps and will visit Auschwitz one day.

There is a display in the Holocaust Museum in Berlin of some of the belongings removed from those who arrived. It's so moving.
I felt trepidation going to visit (one woman in our group passed out and was taken to hospital - and it's not unusual apparently), but as others say it's good to commemorate and learn from what happened.

I didn't see anyone behave in a disrespectful way and people were taking photos but not selfies.

I was surprised by how close the Sachsenhausen camp was to the village. The prisoners were marched from the train station through the village to the gates, so the villagers must have known some of what was happening there. Dachau has houses right on the perimeter with balconies overlooking the site. Many are owned by descendants of the victims and are kept in the family as a memorial.

I like that the German guides are very blunt with the language they use. They don't try to cover it up anymore, they say that their fellow countrymen committed murder, genocide, torture etc....

I know one or two people who have visited, they found the experience sobering and seemed to understand more about the holocaust than before; didn't affect their mental health.

However I know I couldn't go there, I absorb atmospheres. I was in tears when I visited Bodmin Gaol and also Battle in Hastings. I could almost see and smell everything that happened in those places.

Yad Vashem in Jerusalem is hard hitting as well.

I went to ground zero when in New York.i was so upset by it. I knew all along what happen, happened. But seeing the fire engines, the airiel from.the top, the beans. Only then did dawn on me what happened that day. No documentory could sink in like that. I didnt enjoy it but I'm glad I went. I swore I would never go again because it was horrific.

The same is true for concentration camps. You need to see what humans inflict on other humans to get it

Not saying it's right, but there's an entire industry of 'dark tourism' - concentration camps, nuclear disaster sites etc. There was a great documentary about it on Netflix.

The absolute worst are the people that go and take pictures and selfies though - checking themselves in there on social media.

It’s not about getting a kick from misery, (although perhaps the odd person would) Believe me when I say that place leaves you feeling so somber, it’s actually rather surreal. DH and I didn’t speak and we often had tears in our eyes listening to the tour guide.

I really want to go and hoping to do so in the next few years.

My sister visited one - it was the one that my grandfather was at the liberation of and he was there on the first day, so saw the worst of it I suppose.

He said very very little about his time during the war but once when our grandma absent minded my threw some meat fat into the open range he vomited his guts up and later said that it was ‘the burning smell’ (of the camp).

My sister said it was really distressing but was glad she went.

I've been twice between I had a Polish BF when I was younger and I visited while I was staying in Poland. I firmly believe everyone should go. It is a world away from any book or film about the holocaust. It is very difficult to grasp the total horror and the scale of what happened then; seeing it shocks you to the core and the experience will always stay with you forever I think if you have visited there. I didn't want to visit as such, but felt I must. That as many people as possible should know what happened there and at other camps.

Someone I knew once got sniffy with me in passing because I'd visited there and had an opinion on the holocaust even though I didn't have any ancestors who had died there. They made me feel as though that part of history 'wasn't for me' and I didn't have a right to go there or have feelings about what happened there. They are no longer a friend.
(I actually believe in reincarnation and think I died there in a previous life. Not that I was about to tell this person that.)

"Are you a better person because of it?"

Yes, I absolutely am.

I have been to Auschwitz, I don't think there's anything wrong in visiting to reflect on the suffering and appreciate the horror of what happened. It was many years ago that I visited ( mid nineties), there were very few people there and certainly no tour groups.

History is for us all. ‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’

I think it’s important to visit these places for what ever reason. I have a particular interest in the holocaust and was appalled a few months ago I happened to mention to an elderly person how awful the Jews were treated to be told not as bad as the Japanese pow. Although only wound she was alive during the war and seemed to have no concept of what went on.

@user7522689
I think the way the Holocaust was carried out, meticulous planning, cost effectiveness, business like-the fact that people were bought to their death from all over the world-I'm not educated but do most other genocides happen in situ?
That's what made me so completely horrified the face an entire country was able to turn itself to importing, transporting and killing humans on a scale I can't even imagine.

Of course you can appreciate the enormity of it without going

I don’t agree with this. You can read every book and watch every film but there are some things that you just can’t comprehend the magnitude unless you come face to face with it. As a police officer I’ve been in some bad situations ( crime scenes + dead bodies etc) and I can assure you reading true crime books or watching TV programmes in no way prepares you for the reality of these situations. I think each generation has a responsibility to educate themselves about some of the seminal moments in history - and as there are fewer & fewer survivors left to give their accounts it will fall to sites like Auschwitz to keep that aspect of history alive. It remains standing for a reason - it needs to be there to act as a reminder of events which some people seem willing to gloss over or avert their eyes from. Of course I hope that people approach the whole experience in a respectful and thoughtful manner - I’m sure the majority do.

I’ve also been to ground zero as well as Auchwitz, although didn’t do any tours. The difference is that ground zero looks stunning now. It’s more of a reflective place and a peaceful place where people can gather their thoughts and pay their respects so to speak.

There was nothing at all pleasant about auschwitz at all. It’s exactly as it was all those years ago. You’re not sheilded from it at all.

No @HotPenguin I wasn't so you can choke on your fake outrage and reread my post.

If you can't see the correlation between people being systematically exterminated and being systemically left to die then I can't help you.

It is meaningless and idiotic to say to each other on the Internet "oh it must never happen again" without reference to what we might do to prevent "it" from happening again. We have a prime minister openly courting fascists and fascism fgs. The time for meaningless platitudes is over.