The Sydney Morning Herald had an article in 2015 about Auschwitz and whether it should be a tourist “attraction”. Click here to read – it’s a very good article.
My thoughts on this is that I’m torn between yes, obliterate that place from the face of the earth and let’s keep that place as a memorial. It’s an issue I raise in the sixth book of my Intertwined Souls Series “Into the Light” – should we leave places of murder and barbarity in place as a memorial or do we obliterate them.
My question is…What needs to be done with places like Auschwitz?
On one hand the woman that opened my eyes to the horrors of the Holocaust when I was 15 was a survivor. I doubt very much my next door neighbour (Mrs Elephan passed away when I was 16 years old) would think making that hell on earth place, a tourist attraction.
On the other hand not having Auschwitz can lead to holocaust deniers claiming it never happened, it’s propaganda and their usual insane claims.
There has to be a middle ground. That middle ground is where Auschwitz are as they were in the 1940’s but not be a tourist destination. It should be a place to show respect, to treat it for what it is – a cemetery and a reminder we must never let this happen again.
The article mentions that there are 1.33 million visitors last year. Out of those 1.33 million were there people who didn’t fully realise the horrors of the place? Were they moved to tears at arriving at such a place and seeing what they saw? If one person’s opinion was changed because they walked through the iron gates with the infamous “Arbeit Macht Frei” above it, then it’s worth it.
We must not let Holocaust Deniers have the loudest voices. Once you lose the narrative and the lies, repeated often enough and loud enough, become the ‘real’ story. It’s only giant step towards obliterating history and rewriting it to suit the narrative of the time.
The post Auschwitz: Tourist Attraction Or Memorial? appeared first on Zoe Lambros Journal.
