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Today marks the 76th anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz by Soviet troops.
http://auschwitz.org/en/home-page-76/
We visited Auschwitz a few years ago, very sobering place. It was in summer which didn't really convey how bad it would be living there in winter, with no heating and bugger all food.
I then read 'If this is a man' by Primo Levi, which recounts his time in the camp, an excellent read, although pretty grim (and he's one of the very few who made it out alive).
[url= https://live.staticflickr.com/7243/7401976172_eb804038d0.jp g" target="_blank">https://live.staticflickr.com/7243/7401976172_eb804038d0.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/ch64CQ ]Zyklon B Cannisters[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/brf/ ]Ben Freeman[/url], on Flickr
I'm torn about places like Auschwitz, on one hand we definitely can't forget the atrocities that took place there and should try to use them to ensure something similar doesn't happen again. But on the other hand I feel sickened that it's seen by some as a tourist attraction. Like a death theme park.
But on the other hand I feel sickened that it’s seen by some as a tourist attraction. Like a death theme park.
I think some people just aren't adult enough to deserve to visit the place.
I was there on the 4th Jan 2020. It was grim. It's a period of history that must never be forgotten or repeated.
Never been although I’ve visited Belsen. Night will fall is a very good documentary though, and Shoah is astonishing and disturbing (if you can manage all 10 hours of it!)..
But on the other hand I feel sickened that it’s seen by some as a tourist attraction. Like a death theme park.
Does anyone?
I remember visiting whilst backpacking round Europe. The sheer scale of the place is sobering. Don't recall anyone treating the place with anything other than sombre respect.
We visited Auschwitz a few years ago, very sobering place. It was in summer which didn’t really convey how bad it would be living there in winter, with no heating and bugger all food.
same, it was around 40 degrees and we thought how awful itd be in that heat. vowed to go again at the other extreme which would be far worse, but havent done so yet.
very sobering as you say.
It's certainly no theme park. I didn't say a word during the 3 hours I spent there with my then girlfriend. It's one of those places that can really change you and I think everyone should visit in their adult life.
I visited Auschwitz in ‘91 and 3 years go. Back in ‘91 it felt like it had just been left when it was liberated. 3 years ago it was much more like a museum. I think it’s appropriate to visit, to remember and not let us forget what humans can do to other humans.
I happened to be in that part of the world in 1997 so made myself go.
I'd hardly call it a tourist attraction. It's a powerful reminder of how society can dissolve into hatred, and I think more people should go and experience the horrors themselves before taking positions of power and spouting nationalistic bullshit to further their personal aims.
Don’t recall anyone treating the place with anything other than sombre respect.
This. Really can't imagine people pulling duck-face selfies for instagram in front of the zyklon b cannisters.
I take pupils every 2 years,While there were a couple of instances of little scrotes doing nazi salutes a year or 2 back which was publicised at the time, I have never seen anything but absolute respect from the huge numbers I see while there myself. I would make a trip there compulsory for every 15yo.
I visited a few years ago, and agree it was a very sobering experience.
However there are definitely some who visit and do not understand the magnitude of what occured.
I saw a number of people pose for photos in some of the block 11 dark cells and the same in front of the 'death wall' at the same block.
But on the other hand I feel sickened that it’s seen by some as a tourist attraction. Like a death theme park.
I've never been to Auschwitz but sachenhause wasn't like that at all. Two standout things there were "there is still problems now" with the last remaining building torched by nazi thugs the year before and "don't forget the Nazi use of the camp was almost immediately replaced with communist attrocities"
They are sombre places.
Jeez. Well I obviously had a higher estimation of my fellow humans. I take it back. People are just vacuous narcissistic morons.
A few years go went to The Holocaust Museum at Jerusalem, seemed strange at Telaviv asking for a day return ticket to Jerusalem and then a return ticket on the bus to the museum.
But a really interesting lovely well designed place in memory of those who got killed.
Lots of tears and upset in those walls from us and other visitors.
But on the other hand I feel sickened that it’s seen by some as a tourist attraction. Like a death theme park.
Anyone who sees it (& the other camps) as a tourist attraction need some serious education.
I went to Auschwitz with pupils in 2019. The problem with it for me was the same as every other historical site I've visited. It's just a bunch of buildings. Looking at the buildings didn't make me feel connected to the people who were there or the atrocities that happened to them. Reading Primo Levi on the other hand did make me feel that connection. It's the stories not the buildings that matter.
Anyone who sees it (& the other camps) as a tourist attraction need some serious education.
And yet it is a tourist attraction. It's a massive revenue generator.
It is a place where despicable acts were perpetrated.
Acts that some still deny.
It must remain so no one can forget.
I have done tours in Mauthausen, Austria. It is a very sombre but important place.
The camps are left to educate as to why it happened, what happened there and a way to discuss what we should do to make sure it never happens again.
I'm equally as torn by remembrance Sunday. On one hand we should remember the people that fought and lost their lives against terrible regimes like the Nazi's. But not so sure that I feel the same for someone who has a load of medals for fighting and killing in illegal unjust wars in the middle east over oil.
War should be taught to be a bad thing irrespective of whom involved but that doesn't seem to be the case in western (ie American) culture but I digress.
I’ve visited Belsen
My grandfather was an army medic amongst the first in there. He died when Ivwas pretty young and never spoke about it to me but told my uncle some things. Harrowing doesnt even come close.
Yet Nazi's responsible for war crimes went on to be in charge of big pharmaceutical companies and space agencies.
Werner von Braun’s Hollywood biopic was called ‘I aim at the Stars’...the quip in riposte was ‘but sometimes I hit London’..!!
Bayer and Fritz ter Meer
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/bayer
NASA and Wernher Von Braun
https://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/history/vonbraun/bio.html
God knows how many more responsible for the horrors of the second world war went unpunished.
We were in Munich around 45 years ago and went to Dachau. My wife and I never spoke to each other the whole time we were there. The place was very silent and very few people were speaking and there was certainly no feeling of anything other than respect and sadness. To be standing at various spots in the camp that had photographs of the atrocities being commited at the same place was humbling. I confess to shedding a few tears.
On the drive back to Munich we still never spoke to each other...what was there to say?
So,45 years plus and the memory still stays with me. And it needs to.
On Holocaust Memorial Day this is a poignant image, a survivor being vaccinated today.
https://www.history.com/news/what-was-operation-paperclip
Openly condemn what the Nazi's did whilst actively recruiting the same people.
British and American banks bankrolled the Nazi's
Nazi gold is apparently still about. Horrible to think where some of it came from.
I digress
Understatement.
interesting article in the Guardian today, regarding the reopening of the Holocaust gallery at the IWM- seems to be a trend towards opening up the narrative that these acts were perpetrated by otherwise fairly ordinary people. I'm sure that time and distance is making this easier to do, but I think it's important to remind ourselves that we're probably not the people we'd like to think we are..
But not so sure that I feel the same for someone who has a load of medals for fighting and killing in illegal unjust wars in the middle east over oil.
You want to blame someone? Blame the politicians not the boots on the ground.
I went to Auschwitz with pupils in 2019. The problem with it for me was the same as every other historical site I’ve visited. It’s just a bunch of buildings. Looking at the buildings didn’t make me feel connected to the people who were there or the atrocities that happened to them. Reading Primo Levi on the other hand did make me feel that connection. It’s the stories not the buildings that matter.
We had the tour experience where a guide takes you around and explains what happened to their relatives and why / how etc. I think if you just wandered around you'd miss a lot of it. Eg the Germans started off shooting the Jews to get rid of them but it was too slow and upset the soldiers, so they looked for a more efficient way of doing it. There is a wall there where they used to execute them before they added the gas chambers and ovens etc. The whole thing is almost beyond comprehension, like the layout of Bergau Birkenau - the gas chamber was located at the end of the railway platform so anyone who wasn't fit to work in the camps could be disposed off most efficiently etc - shortest possible walk to their death. The passengers were sorted on the platform my Nazi doctors, those fit were sent one way to a long slow death from disease and starvation and the rest walked 200 yards to be gassed. Wandering round the place realising that 100s of 1000s died where you are standing is quite sobering.
I’m equally as torn by remembrance Sunday. On one hand we should remember the people that fought and lost their lives against terrible regimes like the Nazi’s. But not so sure that I feel the same for someone who has a load of medals for fighting and killing in illegal unjust wars in the middle east over oil.
If doing rememberance Sunday it's long been my view that we should be remembering the combatants and fallen on all sides in a conflict. I exclude from that those in very senior ranks who perpetuated and facilitated atrocities and those who committed war crimes (on both "sides") but the rank and file members of the armed forces do not get choices in what wars they fight, the objectives they are given or even in their conscription. We should not hate or revile those who followed their orders in the lower ranks whatever regime they served (willingly or not).
The Stanford Prison Experiment and / or Milgram's experiment on the power of authority figures would be a good reference point on good people doing bad things.
On the concentration camps I had heard bad things about the conduct of a minority of morons visiting. I'm not sure I feel a desire to visit - I don't think I could take it in and process it in a meaningful way - I'd be more inclined to read accounts of life and death there or watch a well put together documentary.
– I’d be more inclined to read accounts of life and death there
If this is a man by Primo Levi - quite short but it describes in great detail what life was like there and the liberation.
Nazi gold is apparently still about. Horrible to think where some of it came from.
The most disturbing things I saw in Auschwitz are the pile of glasses, shoes, hair (cut from women's heads), suitcases etc. All piled up and sorted in their 1000s to be re-used in Germany supplying the troops etc. Anything of value (gold fillings, false teeth etc) was removed before the bodies went in the furnaces. They specifically request you don't photograph any of these when you're there.
A terrible lesson from history probably more relevant now than at any point in recent times.
Let's not forget that there are still people out there that dont even believe the holocaust happened.
Staggering.
I’m torn about places like Auschwitz, on one hand we definitely can’t forget the atrocities that took place there and should try to use them to ensure something similar doesn’t happen again. But on the other hand I feel sickened that it’s seen by some as a tourist attraction. Like a death theme park.
I was there in February a few years ago. It's harrowing and hard to comprehend that the atrocities took place less than a century ago. There were a few people taking selfies in front of the entrance but they appeared to be have sobered up very quickly after a walk through the place in the February drizzle.
This. Really can’t imagine people pulling duck-face selfies for instagram in front of the zyklon b cannisters.
It happens - I visited in 2007 and several parties were taking pictures in front of the crematoria despite all the signs asking people to respect what happened there and not take photographs. But that’s the difference- I went as I have in interest in our history and especially the two world wars. Many other people just treat it as a tourist attraction.
It’s harrowing and hard to comprehend that the atrocities took place less than a century ago.
Cambodia was 45 years ago, Rwanda and Srebrenica were both less than 30 years ago. Right now China are committing cultural genocide on a similar scale. In all cases the perpetrators are allowed to commit these crimes with little more than a disapproving tut (or a hastily placed road block) in response.