As such there have been a number of articles appear on twitter in recent weeks; some reflective, some thought provoking, but all inspiring discussion. This week however, two have particularly caught my eye for the questions they raise and the differing attitudes of their authors.
The first was titled ‘70th anniversary of Auschwitz liberation: 'Why I had to visit this monstrous memorial' and was written by Simmy Richman who had long been critical of what the article describes as the ‘macabre tourism’ that now surrounds the sites that were once the locations of such horrific acts (1).
‘…. the idea of ever returning to any of the scenes of the Nazis' crimes never particularly appealed. The very thought of visiting the concentration camps themselves felt positively macabre. I have known many Jewish people who have done this as a rite of passage. But, I reasoned, there are also those who jump at the chance to visit any site of historic evil – Ground Zero, the killing fields of war, the trails of serial killers and so on. Why didn't they just tear Auschwitz down after the war, I would ask whenever the subject came up. Who needs to see such monstrousness in person, and why?’
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| 'Arbeit Macht Frei' Authors own Photo |
I then came across a second article that’s title drew me in immediately-
‘Why every child must visit Auschwitz’, which was published on Holocaust Memorial
Day 2014 (2). Having just read an article where an adult had struggled to
reconcile with whether visiting a concentration camp was the right and
appropriate thing to do, with some very convincing and poignant remarks, I was somewhat
conflicted by the ideas this second author was putting across. Yet,
incidentally they are views I happen to share.
Writer of the second article, Tom Walters, made the visit to
Auschwitz and offers a personal yet insightful reflection on his trip, putting
forward the opinion that schools and colleges should run trips to Auschwitz-Birkenau
and that ‘with history’s lesson firmly in mind, it should be a compulsory trip.
Young people need these lessons from history to help shape perspective [and] to
learn lessons that cannot be taught in the classroom’. And, I agree strongly with what Walters
writes here, having myself been one of a group of students to go on such a trip
organised by my school. Having opted to take GCSE history, we were offered the
chance to visit Krakow and to go to Auschwitz-Birkenau back in 2007, and it
was a hugely eye-opening trip for me and an experience I still remember vividly
to this day.
At the time we were asked to write a short piece about why
it was we’d like to be considered to go as there were a limited number of
places, and looking back at what I wrote, it’s very much in keeping with the
ideas Walters encourages, if perhaps a little naïve and idealistic.
‘…by going I hope that I will not only
learn, but to be able to come back and tells others about the experience and do
everything in my power to ensure that it never happens again. I think the way
of being able to do this, is to witness and visit the place where it happened.’
I certainly learnt a lot on that trip and at the time, I did
come back and speak about my experiences, something that I still do today. It
made what is written in books and spoken about become real - it seems so intangible
that the crimes committed actually happened, that I think to see the place where it happened, is oddly, the
only way to believe it. And so if those sites had been torn down as Richman once believed they should have been, you lose part of what makes it a reality for those who did not experience those events at the time. Being told about it is one thing, but to see it is another.
It is Walters’ second paragraph that really captured exactly
how I remember the experience, he writes:
‘Predictably, a visit to Auschwitz was harder than you could have ever imagined, something which just cannot be forgotten. The experience wraps itself around you, changing forever your perspective of the world and the people that reside in it. Emotions are robbed from you leaving you numb, unable to comprehend the magnitude of the systematic terror brought upon so many people. Ten minutes, fifteen minutes, an hour passes but still nothing. You're almost thankful for the numbness it brings for if emotion was to get the better of you, the suffocating pressure of history would leave you unable to breath’.I’ve never felt as cold or as numb as when we stood as a group, lit candles of remembrance and said a prayer on the site. Even now thinking about it I get shivers down my spine and can still see the exact scene before my eyes. It’s a memory I will never forget and an experience that has changed my perspective of the world.
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| "I still live and will live
on/
and will never more keep silent about/
I
have seen I Have Seen |
I was 15 at the time and perhaps not what you’d strictly
call a child, but I do think it’s an appropriate age to make such a trip and to
have that experience. By the time you’re an adult, as Richman discovered, you’ve
had chance to really formulate opinions and almost become cynical about it – I don’t
mean that disrespectfully, but you do get stuck on the fact that a tourism has
formed around these sites, gift shops and cafes can be found there and visitor
experience is taken into consideration. While political motives are also strongly
at play, each invested party trying to impart its own historical narrative. In
many ways you have to try and detach all that from the history and from peoples
experiences; I suppose treat it like any other historical source. You have to
analyse and critique what you see – but there is something about the sense of
place that is evoked by standing there that pushes that all to be a latter
consideration. It’s so inconsequential in that moment.
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| Authors own Photo |
Just to stand there and to experience it is something else.
It’s not enjoyable by any stretch of the imagination. It’s tough, it’s
emotional, it’s infuriating, it’s overwhelming but I am so glad I was given the
opportunity to go as young person. Both articles conclude the same way by
saying that “everybody should go” and I agree. Furthermore, with a more mature
head on my shoulders now, it is something that sometime in the future I’d hope
to do again, for there is more to learn than any 15 year old can comprehend, but it
is a very good place to start.
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