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.

Are you a better person because of it? Yes, I absolutely am.

How?

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’

People always trot that out, as if it hadn't already been repeated

I visited Anne Frank's house in Amsterdam - while it wasn't as overwhelming (I imagine) as a concentration camp it was sobering & the people who visited seemed sombre & respectful. My ds visited Hiroshima (school visit) the impression is lasting - There are an increasing number of Holocaust deniers & people who belittle the number or just cant see the connections of both these horrific actions & what could develop or happens now - empathy seems to be in decline - reading about a subject puts a distance between you & it & it is easier to deny it

I think people might say they are looking forward to it because human nature seems to enjoy being shocked, or moved. But I highly doubt anyone would get a kick out of it, and if they did they would probably keep that quiet.

I grew up in Poland and visited many times with school and my family etc. It instilled in me an understanding of the importance of peace.

Now I don’t know how I would feel if I was in one of those concentration camps myself, but I think that if I had been I would want everyone to understand and visit and see what I suffered, to acknowledge I existed and what I went through.

I think it’s right to have complex feelings about it. I feel I should visit, particularly as a Jew who had family members live and in some cases die there, but the idea overwhelms me.

Ground zero actually made me not able to breathe. When it happened I was working in the city and everyone knew people in there - we had an office there and other places I’d worked had offices these too. I have first responders in the family too and knew some were killed on the day (and later died of related illnesses). It’s just gobsmacking and the site it very dignified.

Lord alone knows what the current president would have signed off on if he was in office - probably a large statue of himself standing astride Wall Street like the colossus or Rhodes, holding a little plane in each hand like King Kong.

I admit I get a bit obsessed about things, light things or dark things and I remember after reading Sarah's Key I became a bit obsessed in researching the holocaust online. Well I watched a youtube video tour of auchswitz...I held it together for most of it but then the man doing the "tour" showed the gas ovens and I saw scratch marks on the walls where the prisoners had clawed at the walls trying to escape. That undid me. Heartbreaking and the most harrowing thing I ever saw anywhere.

I haven't been but last year, I was privileged to hear a holocaust survivor speak at the Holocaust Centre. She escaped on the Kindertransport to London. One of her storied really upset me:
As the only Jewish child in school, father Christmas came and gave all the other children a gift. She was made to stand at the front and be humiliated for being Jewish. It nearly bought me to tears. She was treated horrifically in her home town. Hearing her speak made me feel so sad for days after. After the visit, I was talking to a lady who worked there and she commented: really, it could happen again. It's all about who we vote for. I agree with her!
I don't think I could go to a concentration camp. However I do feel it's important to be educated on the Holocaust so that people don't forget.

I haven't been but my teenagers are interested in going. As a professional photographer I would want to record the visit, not with pictures of my teens posing there of course as that would be grossly inappropriate but the atmosphere and meaning of the place but I'm not sure how I would do that.

I visited the German Underground Hospital in Jersey when I was 12, I can still remember how cold I felt, even in my bones. I don’t want to ever feel like that again, I can watch films and read book on the holocaust, but that is as far as I can go.

I understand totally what your saying but at the same time I'd love to go as it's ment to be such an overwhelming experience, i love history and I find it so interesting and I'd like to feel how they felt in some sort of way an what they went through as it must of been horrifying

I went to see Anne franks house and that was amazing to see as it's part of history and I'd love to do this in the future
everyone is different I guess x

Visiting Ann Frank’s house had a strong impact on me. That’s how I know I couldn’t cope with visiting the camps.

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

Yes, I feel the same. I just didn’t fully comprehend the magnitude until I was confronted by it.

I went to see the poppies at the Tower of London in 2014. I knew the facts and figures, but until I saw it like that I never really got it - it kind of smacks you in the face the way that reading books, watching films, etc doesn’t

I think we should go in order to honour the people who died or suffered there and to bear witness to the atrocities that occurred there.

I agree op that people shouldn't be treating it as a tourist attraction and to be "looking forward" to it is ghoulish and demeans the souls that list their lives there.

Sometimes it's important to bear witness and as PPs have said, visiting the camps is very different from reading about them. So I do understand people visiting from a sense of duty, to bear witness to the scale of the Holocaust and to pay their respects. With increasing ignorance about the Holocaust, it's probably also important to raise and maintain awareness.

I haven't been to any camps. I have visited other genocide sites and found it sobering and upsetting.

@mummyoflittledragon I would really like to go to Auchwitz or Belsen.

You would really like to go to Auschwitz or Belsen?

They are not theme parks,

I wouldn't go, i feel it has become a bit of a bucket list tick box for some.

Also, what have we really learned? the Chinese are imprisoning around 1m ethnic muslims in "re-education camps" or before that the atrocities in Tibet, but that won't stop us buying the multitude of goods we have offshored to them, we just accept it, whilst moaning on we mustn't let this happen again, its just a sop for our consciences.

I went and lasted twenty minutes before I needed to get out and sit in the minibus. The horror of the place permeated my bones and I felt deeply depressed for days. Truly shattering.

in my opinion YANBU at all. I am of Jewish descent and I find it really really weird and perverse that people "visit" concentration camps and I DESPISE when people discuss it like visiting a tourist attraction. I just don't understand it at all.

There are an increasing number of Holocaust deniers & people who belittle the number or just cant see the connections of both these horrific actions & what could develop or happens now

So there are an increasing number even thought the concentration camps still exist. People who decide to deny these things will deny, no matter what evidence is presented.

People go to remember - those who were imprisoned, those who worked there and those who liberated them.

I was sad to hear recently that some go to heckle and argue with the guides, denying the facts (for gods sake, they kept records of everything).

I would disagree, I lived in Germany very near Bergen Belsen. I visited twice and took my children 10 and 13 once. We explained within their understanding why we were visiting.
I actually thought that the few people who didn’t visit were being disrespectful. One of my friends was that clueless that she thought the paint marking the journey from train line to Belsen (it went past our flats)was accidental.
If we don’t go and visit, teach our children the gravity of what happened. Then in some way I feel we are lessening the impact of what happened for future generations.

Can you appreciate the full enormity without going? Quite possibly not. All the reports from the US suggest a bunch of people there need to go.

Can you maybe appreciate it enough without going? Yes, I think so, depending on various circumstances. Due to books like Schindler's List, being obliged to study the rise of the Third Reich and so on, I'm slightly more informed on it than the average bear.

I have nightmares about the atrocities as it is. I don't think it would make me a better person at this point if I were to go to any of the sites.

You do not understand the true horror until you visit it in the flesh. Sorry Hollywood is a poor substitute.

You dishonour those who died if you think Hollywood gets it right and you understand.

Walk the walk and the tell me the film taught you because it simply does not.

I wouldn't like to visit, although I had an uncle who was in Belson for quite a while. I have read about,seen many pictures,and things on TV about the horrors. I was born in the war years,and when I was about 4 years old, I remember this uncle,coming to visit my Father,his Brother,in 1946. My uncle looked almost like a skeleton, a broken man, but he never spoke about the concentration camp at all.

My uncle died about 14 years ago, but all his life,he lived a very very frugal life, never bought any clothes, just jumble sale stuff.He lived in an old house with no heating. no radio, no TV, and ate the cheapest food he could buy.

He worked after the war,but money to him meant nothing, and when he died.he left a considerable amount of money to some family members.

Yabu. Everyone should be made to go.

Wish they'd ban cameras/videoing though.