Visiting Auschwitz

I intend for this post to be informative in terms of the logistics of visiting Auschwitz but also, meditative on the ethics and experience of visiting Auschwitz. I should say now that I have no familial link to Auschwitz to my knowledge but I have a long history of interest in the holocaust and the camps. This is something that I have struggled sometimes because it can be very traumatic learning about the holocaust and sometimes because I have worried that my interest in the Shoah might be inappropriate or distasteful. However, I know it isn’t. I am nothing but respectful of the victims lives lost and altered by the evils of the Nazi party and my interest is multi layered but it encompasses great sadness and heartbreak at the atrocities committed during the holocaust, interest into the psychology of people who are evil and behave in an evil way, anger at the racism and antisemitism and intolerance and lack of love that still exists in the world today. I have wanted to visit Auschwitz for a long time in order to learn and to pay my respects to the victims who died there, but the more I have thought about his, the more it has seemed wrong. After some careful meditation, I decided that it was okay to visit the memorial site as I knew that my intentions were pure and honourable. It was truly a privilege to be able to visit and pay my respects.

The logistical elements of the trip are as follows: we booked a trip through our hotel which meant we would be picked up from a location very close to where we were staying and we would be dropped off again in the same spot. It cost just under £40 per person and it was well worth it in my opinion. There are lots of companies that offer the same service all for a similar price and so I would recommend going with one that will pick you up from where you’re staying if possible as you’ll be leaving quite early and it just made the whole thing simpler. The company we used was Visit Krakow (and we used them again to visit the salt mines too) and they were very good, the guide who came with us to Auschwitz (but not in to Auschwitz) was very nice and earnest and communicative which was very helpful. The drive was about 90 minutes if I remember rightly and on the way there they played a documentary about the camps. Once we arrived, we pulled up in a car park outside a sort of service station building which is where you could get a drink or something to eat and where you could use the bathroom which- be warned; you had to pay to use. It cost 2 Zloty which is about 40p at time of writing. I overheard several people on our tour complain about having to pay to use the toilet which I thought was unbelievably insensitive and rude considering 1) where we were and 2) if you didn’t have to pay, this man would have hundreds of people traipsing through his toilets all day and his actual customers wouldn’t be able to use them. So, don’t complain about it. Just bring some change with you and if you have a problem paying to use the toilet then don’t go to be honest.

Then, we went to the first memorial site, Auschwitz 1, which is where all the brick buildings are which used to be Polish barracks, to wait for our tour guide. I won’t mention anything too much about the tour itself because I think it ought to be experienced first-hand other than to say that 1) it’s worth doing. It was helpful to have a guide because she told us a couple of things that I had previously no idea about and also I think in a place like Auschwitz it is important to have guides to ensure that everyone remains respectful and under supervision. I know that sounds a bit patronising on my part but honestly, even with a guide there was some behaviour that was not appropriate in my opinion so I can only imagine it would have been worse without. 2) The guide did go round quite quickly. The tour still took a good hour and a half in the first part and then another hour in the second part but I’d have liked longer to truly see everything and hear the testimonies and look at the photographs. I don’t really know how this could be avoided though as they covered everything and we were there for a long time. 3) Take your own headphones. The ones provided with the audio tour (the guide spoke into a mic but you listen through headphones in case you’re at the back of the group) are uncomfortable and distracting. You need in-ear ones that will fit under a hat if it’s cold and stay put as you walk around.

The second part of the tour is at Birkenau and you go back on your mini bus to get there and then the guide meets you. Here I would have appreciated a bit more time too. At the end of the tour, you can visit a bookshop and then you have a few minutes to go to the bathroom etc before travelling back to Krakow. Whilst it was the most moving place I have ever visited and I really have struggled to put into words my true feelings about being there. There was numbness but also immense sadness and something else that I am not sure how to describe. Huge amounts of respect for the victims of the camps and for those who are still living with the reverberations of the evil regime.  

Now then, just to briefly expand upon what I mentioned before. The ethics of visiting the memorial site is something that had played up my mind before we went and I’ve thought about it a lot since too. What follows is only my own mediation on the subject and as I say, I am open to hearing other people’s points of view so do share your thoughts if you feel inclined to. The night before we went, A and I were discussing the trip. A is not as informed about the holocaust as I am but he is always willing to join me for things that he otherwise might not have engaged with. A is also an enthusiastic photographer but in this instance we were talking about whether or not he ought to bring his camera; he wasn’t sure and I said that it was his decision but that I wouldn’t be taking any photographs myself either on a camera or on my phone. This is not to say that no one should (other than in the areas you are specifically asked to not take photographs or use your mobile phone. The regulations are available here.) But for what would I use the images? I don’t think that visiting Auschwitz is a tourist experience- it is a site of unspeakable atrocity and incredible sadness and whilst I think reproduced images of this are useful or even essential for educational purposes, I didn’t feel like I wanted or needed to take photographs of anything whilst I was there and most of all, I didn’t want to view the camps and the history and the narratives though a lens or a screen- I wanted to be as present and mindful as possible. Anyway, in the end, he didn’t take a camera and neither of us took and photographs. None the less, there are images seared into my memory from that day. This is only one facet of the question as to how ethical it might be to visit the camps and I actually don’t feel like I am articulate or knowledgeable enough to expand on this further at the moment, perhaps I should have given myself more time to think before writing this.