Holocaust and tourism are a strange pairing: a road trip to hell. At Auschwitz, I saw a man check his Tinder, and I watched a tour descend into a gas chamber with obvious excitement. But as survivors die—we’re coming up, this month, on the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz—and as antisemitic theories doubting the Holocaust spread again, these places survive as the last connection to the truth.
Why we tour these sites of human depravity is a subject I’ve written about before, and it’s the theme of the new movie A Real Pain. Written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg, the film is about Jewish American cousins Benji, played by Kieran Culkin, and David, played by Eisenberg, visiting Poland on a guided trip alongside a lonely divorcée, a married couple, and a Rwandan genocide survivor who has converted to Judaism. Benji and David see the sites and visit their late grandmother’s childhood home. She escaped the Holocaust, and bequeathed them the money for the trip because she wanted them to understand themselves better. It’s a tender, touching film about how trauma cascades down generations, and it’s interesting to see what is, essentially, a Holocaust film set many years after the fact.
Benji is warm and wild, while David is conventional and shy. Both are flailing. In Lublin’s Old Jewish Cemetery, Benji scolds the tour guide for using too many facts when discussing the Jews who died there. “These are real people,” he rants. “This is making the whole thing feel really cold.”
But that’s Poland. When I went in 2021, and again in 2023, I found there was an ambivalence toward Jews and, as Benji also notices in the film, an awful emotional deadness.
Auschwitz, the infamous Nazi concentration camp where over a million people were systematically murdered during the Holocaust, is a place of unimaginable tragedy and horror. It is a solemn reminder of the darkest chapter in human history, a place where the atrocities committed by the Nazis must never be forgotten or trivialized.
However, in recent years, there has been a disturbing trend of Auschwitz being treated as a tourist attraction or a theme park. Visitors flock to the site, taking selfies and posing for photos in front of the infamous “Arbeit Macht Frei” sign, seemingly more interested in ticking off a box on their travel itinerary than paying their respects to the victims of the Holocaust.
The commercialization of Auschwitz is a deeply troubling development, turning a place of profound sorrow and remembrance into a place of entertainment and consumerism. Tours are marketed as “educational experiences” or “historical adventures,” with little regard for the dignity and solemnity that should be afforded to such a sacred site.
When Auschwitz becomes a theme park, it diminishes the memory of the millions of people who perished there. It cheapens their suffering and devalues the importance of remembering the Holocaust. It is a stark reminder of the dangers of commodifying tragedy and turning it into a spectacle for profit.
We must remember Auschwitz not as a theme park, but as a place of profound sadness and reflection. We must honor the memory of the victims and ensure that their stories are never forgotten. Auschwitz should never be reduced to a mere tourist attraction – it is a somber reminder of the ultimate consequences of hatred and intolerance, and must be treated with the respect and reverence it deserves.
Tags:
- Auschwitz tourism
- Dark tourism
- Holocaust remembrance
- Historical sites
- Controversial attractions
- Ethics of memorial sites
- Auschwitz visitor experience
- Holocaust education
- Impact of commercialization
- Cultural heritage tourism
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