Questioning tourism at Auschwitz

Is it okay for Auschwitz to be a tourism attraction? It doesn't matter how you spin it, that's what the former concentration camp is now.

The lines of tour buses outside its gates show it, as do the people queued up with cameras dangling around their necks and holding audio guide headsets.

It is also a memorial to the people who were murdered, and has a good museum that illustrates the brutal scale of the Holocaust. But it's the tourism aspect that troubles me.

From the outset of our European trip planning, Nathan was certain he wanted to visit the camp. He thought seeing it would give him a greater understanding of what happened there, and that it was an important place for people to visit if they could.

Certainly that is the message at Auschwitz now, that people should learn about the horror so the same sort of thing won't happen again. One of the first things you see when entering the buildings is a plaque with the words: "The one who does not remember history is bound to live through it again."

I was less keen to visit: part of me had always seen visiting those places as a bit like invading a tomb. I agree the Holocaust has to be remembered, but felt I could do that without visiting Auschwitz.

However, we're doing a nine-day Busabout tour through eastern Europe at the moment, our first stop in Poland was Auschwitz and I decided to do the guided walk.

There were devastating exhibitions showing the magnitude of killing and suffering - a glass room with more than 2000kg of hair shaved off murdered Jews, and rooms with piles of suitcases, of clothes, of spectacles, and of children's shoes.

The visit did change my opinion, because seeing the camps, and stepping on that ground, was vastly different from seeing footage of the camps in books and in films. As with other historic sites we've visited, such as Omaha Beach in Normandy, being there was everything. Seeing the place where it actually happened was terribly sad and chilling.

There are several signs around the camp that ask people to act respectfully, but the line for "respectfully" obviously differs between people. I'm pretty sure the group we saw on the way back to our bus, chatting and laughing while draining cans of beer just outside the main gates, crossed that line for most people. Why would anyone do that?

As we were walking around, a neighbouring property was obviously preparing for some sort of concert or festival, and the sounds of No Doubt blared out over the camp. That didn't seem right either.

One friend told me she would want to visit a camp, but hated the idea of people taking photos. I personally take issue with people posing for photos there, and I do question the purpose of the pictures. I mean, what are they for? Do you post them on Facebook? Do you go back and look at them? Why do you want those photos?

There were signs asking people not to use a flash, and when people just blatantly disregarded the instruction I wanted to gently nudge them down the stairs.

I also didn't like some of the shops at and around the camp. Just metres from an exhibition showing the effects of starvation at the camp, there was a little window shop where you could buy bottles of Coke and Fanta. Outside the main gates there was a fast food shop, and across the road there was a hotel. To me, those things emphasised a touristic aspect to the camp that I really didn't want to consider.

Other people thought the shops were fine, simply facilities for the huge number of people who visit.

Sourced: stuff