Interpreting and Representing Dark Tourism

Auschwitz was first established in April 1940, and was in use until its allied liberation in 1945, when WW2 had ended. Located near the Polish city of Oswiecim, concentration and labour camps had been constructed; having Auschwitz 1, Auschwitz 2 Birkenau and Auschwitz 3 Monowitz. Nowadays, the sites are called Auschwitz-Birkenau. Another name for Auschwitz was the Holocaust as it is sometimes more commonly known, and is associated with a term called Holocaust tourism. Somewhere between 2.1 and 4 million people were killed here, and the vast majority of them were Jews. A mass number of prisoners were killed in the gas chambers, although many died from starvation, forced labour, diseases and atrocious medical experiments (www.jewishvirtualibrary.org).  

 

When visiting Auschwitz, it is advised that tourists visit Auschwitz 1 first, as this gives a bigger understanding and illustration of the story behind what happened during WW2. At Auschwitz, tourists are given guided tours around the actual site that was used to harm and kill thousands of innocent people. On the tour, the visitors view various rooms in which they were used during the Holocaust. Some examples of what is seen are: the extermination blocks, rooms that give a better understanding of the deportees to Auschwitz, rooms filled with memorabilia of what was taken from the victims, and these included rooms full of eye glasses, prosthetic limbs, crockery, shoes, human hair and suitcases that the deportees took with them; in other rooms the visitors are able to see pictures of all the campmates and victims that died, visit the camp detention ward, visit the living barracks and arrangements that the victims had to live in for their duration, a room that gives a better understanding towards why the Nazis disliked the Jews, a book of names filled with all the victims that died at Auschwitz, and finally visitors can go inside the crematorium and see where the Nazis burned bodies.

 

Having visited Auschwitz 1, the visitors are then taken to Auschwitz 2 Birkenau, where the tour continues. After visiting the first part of the tour, the visitors should have a better knowledge and understanding of what happened and the second half of the tour shows what else occurred at Auschwitz. The visitors are shown the living bunkers of the victims, evidence of the destruction of more crematoriums and gas chambers that the Nazis tried to destroy, view some memorial stones that are in every language of someone who died during the Holocaust, sights of the bricked chimneys that still stand after destruction of some of the bunkers, and finally visitors get the chance to walk down the famous railway lines at Auschwitz Birkenau that transported all the victims.

 

The memorial sites of Auschwitz Birkenau have tried to be kept untouched so that when guests visit the location they can appreciate what happened there without having a sense of it not being real because it has been messed with. The site managers of Auschwitz have not cheapened the site up, although there are small parts that have English translations which would have not been there originally. The Auschwitz sites do not have souvenir shops for visitors to buy kitsch, however there are book shops there so that visitors can buy literature and read into a further knowledge of what happened nearly 70 years ago in Poland.

 

In the United Kingdom every year on January 27^th, this day is considered Holocaust Memorial Day. This specific day gives people a chance to remember and honour all the lives that were taken at Auschwitz and throughout the Holocaust. This day marks the liberation of the death camps at Auschwitz Birkenau in 1945. January 27^th also remembers the victims and survivors of other genocides from around the world, including Cambodia, Rwanda and Bosnia (www.news.bbc.co.uk).