Take time to learn the history of the places you visit on holiday. Photo / Getty
Take time to learn the history of the places you visit on holiday. Photo / Getty
Yes, they sell icecreams at Auschwitz. It’s not a sentence that would sit comfortably with anyone. It’s not as uncomfortable however as the tourists taking selfies standing under those odious gates, the words “Arbeit Macht Frei” above their heads, smiling gormlessly for the camera at the entry to a death camp.
Does it sound like I recommend you stay away? Actually, the very opposite. Auschwitz is a place everyone should visit. I’d say the same for Cambodia’s Killing Fields, Israel’s Yad Vashem, the House of Terror in Budapest, the COPE museum in Vientiene, Laos, and any number of museums around the world that teach the dark history of humankind.
When my husband and I visited Auschwitz in 2017, a number of people commented that they could never do such a thing. Visit a Nazi death camp on your holiday? It’s just too sad, they said, or too inappropriate. These comments seemed to come from a misguided idea that a visit to Auschwitz is “dark tourism”; that the cafe and the brochures and the coach rides out there are creating the “Disneyfication of the Holocaust”. Let me tell you, Auschwitz is no Disneyland.
At Auschwitz, no one can enter without being on a tour, and tours are conducted with solemnity by informed, educated guides who invite you to ask them anything – even about their own family’s involvement with the Holocaust. The tours are respectful to those who were murdered here - there are exhibits where no photography is allowed, to preserve the dignity of the dead. These exhibits are terrible to see – hair that was shaved off inmate’s heads, tiny leather shoes worn by the children who were sent here, gold fillings torn from teeth. We walked by in silence and shock. It was harrowing, but never gratuitous. Everyone should have the opportunity to experience it.
The rules and guides differ site to site of course. At Cambodia’s Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh, tourists – mainly backpackers – make their own way through the museum independently, with just some information boards on the walls to guide them. The site is an old school that was converted into a torture and execution centre where 20,000 adults and children were imprisoned – and just 12 survived. Without guides, it is up to the visitor to get what they want from the experience – to research, to bring a guide book, to hire a private guide, or just to walk and absorb the harrowing atmosphere.
A view over central Riga, Latvia. Photo / Getty Images
Recently I visited Riga in Latvia. I was cruising aboard Regent’s Seven Seas Splendor, the most well-appointed ship in its fleet. Onboard, passengers enjoy steak dinners and dirty martinis, room attendants and seamless service. But as well as the luxury and comfort, the itinerary offered a way to get out of our comfort zones.
In each port, different activities and tours were on offer. These ranged from foraging trips, visiting local markets, exploring art and museums, to history tours. In Riga, the highlights included a day tasting local food, and seeing some of the city’s incredible collection of Art Nouveau buildings. Instead, a coach-load of passengers, including myself, chose to join a local guide on a much more sombre tour to learn about the history of Latvia’s Jews during World War II.
We visited the site of Riga’s great synagogue where, in July 1941, local police locked 400 Jewish people inside, doused the curtains and furniture with petrol, and burnt them to death. We visited the forest of Rumbula just outside Riga, where 25,000 people, including children, were made to march and then shot dead over two days and buried in mass graves. There were 93,000 Jews living in Latvia before the war; by the end there were just 1500 alive. At the end of the tour, possibly the most shocking fact of all was revealed – that in Latvia, as well as other countries in this region, children are not taught about the Holocaust in school.
One of the many fascinating things I have learned from visiting these sites is that concentration camps and torture centres were never supposed to survive. They were not built to last, but to disappear, to erase the crimes of the regimes that constructed them. Auschwitz and Tuol Sleng are preservation projects. Those who work at these sites, often descendants of the people who suffered there, are working to maintain the crumbling ruins so that they never disappear, so that we can always visit, and never forget what happened.
Not everyone knows how to behave in these situations. The selfies, the posing, the snacks. But they’re there – they took the time during their holiday to pay attention to the lessons of history. I have full respect for the teenagers who sign up to school trips, even if they do take selfies; for the old people who take the uncomfortable coach trip to the outskirts of Krakow; for the backpackers who navigate bus depots and tuktuks, ear-marked Lonely Planets in hand.
It is up to us to visit, to pay respect, to remember what happened to ensure it never happens again. At these sites, you see and learn about the worst that humans are capable of. It is difficult, it is challenging and it is important. Yes, they sell icecreams at Auschwitz. But the only behaviour that would be unforgivable is not to go at all.
CHECKLIST: RIGA
DETAILS
Regent Seven Seas Cruises’ Northern Europe itineraries on Splendor sail from April to September, with some itineraries offering the opportunity to visit Riga in Latvia. For more information, go to rssc.com
