The Krakow Event: Tour to Auschwitz/Birkenau

[Womanfromaroom]

Well, as a German, I am perfectly used to being told "how to feel [about the past] or how to show my respect ", especially in the UK (if you want some of the countless examples, feel free to ask, I will be happy to pm you with them). I just have learned to live with that and shrug it off, the standard reply being "don't mention the war"; that usually does the trick.

[Mabeanie1]

Well, as a German, I am perfectly used to being told "how to feel [about the past] or how to show my respect ", especially in the UK (if you want some of the countless examples, feel free to ask, I will be happy to pm you with them). I just have learned to live with that and shrug it off, the standard reply being "don't mention the war"; that usually does the trick.

Not by me. Two wrongs do not make a right.

W

[Womanfromaroom]

No, I was not saying it was by you, Wendy, sorry if it sounded like that. all I had wanted to indicate was that being held responsible personally for one's national past is something which I have come to learn to live with, especially because I regard myself as very much aware of the abominable crimes committed by Germans throughout the twentieth century. So, as I don't really need anyone else to to remind me of that, I just tend to ignore the collective reproaches directred at me ever so often... Which just seems to be the wisest thing to do, really. Most people will stop having their go at me, "the German", eventually.

[MaryB]

I am proud of my national culture and heritage, yet there have been times that with trepidation I have declared my nationality (Ukrainian and US citizen).

Most of us can attest that there our things that our country or countrymen have done that have made us hang our heads in shame. But we are all individuals and should be judged only on that basis. Look into the heart of the person. Do not presume that because they are of a certain nationality that they embody all the horrible things that nation or individuals of that nation might have done.

I, as yet, have not committed myself to the Krakow event. I thought that if I did, that yes, out of respect (as in visiting the gravesites of one's family and friends) and as a learning tool, not voyeurism, I would go to the concentration camps. After reading this thread, my mind is in turmoil.

Kindest regards,
Mary

[Mabeanie1]

Wise words Mary. Thanks,

W

[Carmen]

To me, from my cultural position, death-camp tourism is the most disgusting and disrespectful form of voyeurism imaginable.

Who said anything about "tourism"?!?!?!?

Apart from Hydriot - who indeed is entitled to have his own opinions and stick to them, as we all do - did anyone here have this word in mind, when planning to go to Auschwitz? I certainly did not.

I myself see it as a pilgrimage. People also go on a pilgrimage to various places where saints were killed in past centuries; some may do it for tourism, of course, but I am sure that most are doing it out of true faith.
I see it as a pilgrimage of solidarity; a peaceful protest against the madness of that moment in the history of mankind. A token of respect for the innocents whose lives were so brutally destroyed. A promise to them that we are not going to let it happen again. A way to reach out and not let history forget about them.

It could have been you. It could have been me. It could have been any of us - or all of us together.

My father died when I was only 18. I still fear going into a cemetery - but when I do I place my hand on his grave and keep alive the link between myself and his heart. The dead from the camps also had a heart, though there were some, in those days, who didn't care - not only the murderers themselves, but also those who turned their heads away, in spite of the evidence, and pretended that "this embarrassment" never existed. They still do so today.

I do care. And, like anyone else who does NOT want to go there as a tourist, I feel I must make a statement. Not for anyone else around me, not for people who know or do not know me. Just for myself.

Carmen

[lizzytysh]

That is so judgmental of you, Hydriot. It's really hard to grasp that you would trivialize this in such a way regarding people who simply feel differently than you do about it. If you have no desire to go, if you're appalled by the thought of it, then just be done with it and don't go.

I hope to hear that you plan to go to Cracow, Mary... and that, if you have the same level of serious interest in going to Auschwitz-Birkenau, you won't be intimidated by the discussions and such that have transpired in this thread.


~ Lizzy

[friscogrl]

I have not been to Auschwitz but have been to Dachau. As anyone can imagine it was a very moving and disturbing experience. That being said I am glad that I went. Being there awakens very intense and emotional feelings and makes the Holocaust much more real and personal; it goes to the core of one's being. I feel these camps should be available for people to visit. They help keep the memory alive of man's inhumanity to man in this period of our history. At the end of the self guided in Dachau there is a sort of museum that is very informative and educational. If we as a people do not provide information and education on this atrocity apathy sets in and something like this could happen again. And as was said earlier if you don't want to go you have the freedom of choice not go but don't judge anyone else for choosing to go.

Marsha

[edlosi]

I and maybe my mother too would like to go to Auschwitz/Birkenau as a part of a group.

I am a German. At school they showed a film documentary about the Holocaust. I was 11 years old and shocked, couldn't get up and go outside or close my eyes or cry. Nevertheless it has changed something. I started asking my family about the Holocaust.

Isolde

[Carmen]

Tomorrow (October 9) is Holocaust Remembrance Day in Romania. Our own Yom HaShoah.

The official decision was taken in 2004, and it was set in memory of the thousands of Jews and gypsies deported in 1941 from the kingdom of Romania (which included the provinces of Moldova, Walachia and the southern part of Transylvania, while Northern Transylvania had been taken by force, by the Hungarian fascist state, in 1940) and relocated in a region called Transnistria (now a predominantly Russian region belonging to the Republic of Moldova). More than 4,400 Jews were deported only from Iasi (the most important city in the Eastern area of Romania), along with thousands of gypsies. A large number of them died due to hunger and terrible life conditions they faced in Transnistria and only some 2,000 of them survived. There were no death camps there, but the fascist leaders of Romania knew that the terrible weather and life conditions would kill them nevertheless.

Today, a Memorial Monument was officially unveiled for the same purpose. It includes five parts: a seven-meter high column, the Star of David, the gypsy symbol of the Wheel, a Via Dolorosa and a Memorial. Elie Wiesel himself, a laureate of the Nobel Prize for Peace (born in Northern Transylvania himself) sent a message on this occasion, and a number of representatives of the Jewish community were also present while a Jewish prayer was said and the Torah was brought inside the Memorial.
You can find a presentation (in detail) of the monument, in its small-scale copy, on the site of our Ministry of Culture and Religious Affairs

http://www.cultura.ro/Documents.aspx?ID=234

There were several photos I found on the Internet, but however hard I tried, I could not load them here.
I am proud that my country has decided to take this step and pay its respect to those who suffered during the fascist leadership of the Second World War. I could not be present there today – I had long courses and seminars all day long. But it is an important moment in the life of my city, and I shall take my pilgrimage there sometime during this weekend.
We also do commemorate the International Yom HaShoah, of course. But this is our own way of showing that at least some Romanians today refuse to ignore or forget this tragic period in recent history – ours and everybody else’s in Europe.
Not too many Jews live in Romania today – and quite a few of them are old. But they are an important part of our cultural heritage and, as I have said here before, I have several Jewish friends myself, and so does my family. They are nice people and wonderful friends.

I did not know where to place this post, so I put it here, because it has so much to do with our talk about Auschwitz. Sad to say, while navigating on various links related to the unveiling of the monument, I saw quite a few stupid (and even racist) comments by people who do not even know what the Holocaust means...

Carmen

[Chubi]

I've been reading this thread with interest, especially as I have recently discovered this brochure on my breakfast table in a hotel in Munich. So yes, it seems that "death camp tourism" exists, for some people. That said, I don't see anyone discussing on this thread close to putting a visit to Dachau and one to a Bavarian beer hall on one and the same level.

[lizzytysh]

Some of those people were on my bus, both going and returning, the attitude was the same, yet even moreso it seemed in returning. Perhaps, the same instinct that makes people giggle at inappropriate times, in embarrassment... perhaps, for what they saw with their own eyes that the human race is capable of? No matter the reason, it felt like 'tourism' and was offensive.

[jeremek]

As for Wieliczka Salt Mine - this is really a lovely place. Defenitely a must to see. But remember to take some warm clothes, as the temperature there is rather low.

Mirek

Mirek, don`t scare our guests away . The temperature below the ground is very nice and constant
all through the year , around 14 degrees centigrade /57 F/.

Kaz,

i visited the salt mine in a shirt with short sleeves. Do not frighten guests
in the hot summer was not even fun cool
This is to prove

wieliczka

Wieliczka Żupy.jpg (47.11 KiB) Viewed 3166 times

Wieliczka Kopalnia Solny Pomnik Jana Pawła II.jpg (52.34 KiB) Viewed 3166 times

[Womanfromaroom]

For those of you who are interested to get a glimpse of the (long lost), but long-standing tradition of Jewish day-to-day life before 1939, especially in mainly Jewish Kazimierz:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QNO-hIe ... re=related

[bridger15]

For those of you who are interested to get a glimpse of the (long lost), but long-standing tradition of Jewish day-to-day life before 1939, especially in mainly Jewish Kazimierz:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QNO-hIe ... re=related

Thank you for posting this mini-documentary. It is an incredibly moving historical record.