When I decided to tag along with Steve on his business trip to Krakow, Poland, I assumed we would visit Auschwitz. But as our trip drew closer and I began researching the details, I didn’t want to go. I struggled with this feeling. No one wants to visit Auschwitz. Many people, though, feel they have a moral obligation to go. Should I have gone? I still feel conflicted.
Why I went to Krakow and didn’t visit Auschwitz-Birkenau
Logistics of Visiting
Auschwitz-Birkenau is about an hour’s drive from Krakow. Most people engage a tour guide to take them to the site. There are two camps (Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau). Auschwitz I was the first camp that held men and women for criminal experiments and execution by shooting. Auschwitz II-Birkenau was where Nazi Germany built the machinery (gas chambers) for mass extermination of more than 1 million European Jews. There is also a museum on site for interpretation of events and the display of camp artifacts.
There is a lot to take in, and tours are about a 7-8 -hour day. On our trip, Steve had just one full day without work – the day after we would arrive. As I sorted out our itinerary, I wondered what it would be like to experience Auschwitz likely suffering from jet lag. We’d be walking all day and accounts I read online indicated that visits are crowded, and guides move people through at a steady pace. Would I feel exhausted, herded, and overwhelmed? Steve was undeterred and wanted to visit. He viewed it as an important historical site that we shouldn’t miss.
As it turned out, our plane leaving Winnipeg was delayed, and we missed our connecting flight out of Toronto. We had to overnight there and so arrived in Krakow mid-day Sunday. Steve would not have the opportunity to visit Auschwitz, and given my ambivalence, I couldn’t envision going on my own.
Maybe if I knew nothing about the Holocaust
I’m certainly no scholar on World War II or issues of genocide, but I know some things. Perhaps if I knew less, I’d be more open to visiting the site.
I vividly remember learning about the Holocaust in grade 10 at school. We watched a documentary in class that showed countless corpses being bulldozed into mass graves. It was horrific. I remember having nightmares about it. Being of German heritage, I felt an unsettling sense of shame even though I knew that made no rational sense.
Most of what I know about the Holocaust comes from fictionalized works. I haven’t read a lot of historical accounts. It’s the personal stories of World War II that have touched and informed me. The movie Life is Beautiful was heart-wrenching. Books I’ve read such as The Book Thief by Markus Zusah and Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Roseney gave me insight into what it must have been like to live in sheer terror as Europe descended into a world of unspeakable hate and murderous tyranny.
When the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (CMHR) opened in my hometown of Winnipeg, I was one of the first to visit. A large exhibit is dedicated to the Holocaust. I didn’t see it on that first visit; I went back a second time just to see that part on its own. It focuses on learning how to recognize genocide and how to prevent it through the lens of the Holocaust. Surprisingly, the CMHR not a depressing place to visit, but the Holocaust exhibit is obviously sobering. You realize that although we’d all like to think we would never have gone along with the persecution and execution of a group of human beings, many seemingly “decent” people did.
Is there a moral obligation to visit?
I’ve heard the sentiment that there is a moral obligation to visit Auschwitz—that it’s part of ensuring that as a human race we don’t repeat the horrors that took place. I think that makes a good case for learning about genocide and the atrocities that have happened all over the world. I don’t think that means you have to feel guilty about avoiding the gut-wrenching experience of seeing the locations where they took place and the mechanisms for carrying out that pure evil.
During my stay in Krakow, I took an excellent free walking tour of the Jewish Quarter. I learned about life for European Jews before Hitler’s invasion and during the time of their segregation in the Jewish Ghetto before being dispatched to the concentration camps. I learned some of the details of the logistics of genocide and heard stories of those who were exceptional and escaped, survived, and aided others to do so. I’m glad I took the tour. It allowed me to take advantage of being in the location of the events while providing some protection from seeing the specific infrastructure of the mass murders.
I understand why people feel compelled to visit places such as Auschwitz—to bear witness in a way and to deepen the understanding of what happened there. I’m glad that the site has been preserved and serves this purpose. I just couldn’t do it.
Have you toured Auschwitz or another site that is difficult to visit? I’d love to hear what that was like for you in the comments.
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Deb, thanks so much for this. I have always been fascinated about World War 2 and it’s incredibly hard to understand how people who likely started out as ‘decent’ were seemingly brainwashed to believe that what they were doing while heading innocent people and running these death camps was logical. I think there are so many ways to learn and honor those innocents who experienced the worst acts of human kind in a personally comfortable and meaningful way, and to recognize and take action across the world to ensure we are not desensitized and promote action so it doesn’t continue. We all know it very unfortunately happens on a smaller scale in the world we live in today. Thanks again Deb for your insight and well written, thoughtful piece.
Thanks for your comment, Merriah. You’re so right. Apart from being vigilant about large-scale atrocities, we need to pay attention to what happens regularly on a smaller scale. It’s like a frog sitting in a pot of boiling water — before you know it, it’s too late.
I visited Buchenwald as part of a college study abroad trip to Germany. It was a very difficult and emotionally searing experience, but I am grateful to have had the opportunity to reflect and bear witness. However, on a subsequent independent trip to Germany I chose not to visit Dachau, although I spent several hours at the Nazi Documentation Centers in Munich and Nuremberg and the museum at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin; those sites also gave me a deeper understanding. (I’ve also visited the CMHR, the Holocaust exhibit there is quite comprehensive.)
I think that while it is extremely important to have an understanding of genocide and the Holocaust, we should respect others’ decisions regarding how and where that happens.
Thank you for such a thoughtful post.
Thank you, Stacy for weighing in. I think you’re right that everyone has to decide for themselves. I think you also need to be in the right frame of mind to benefit from the experience.
I would have the same conflicted feelings as you. I don’t know if I would visit Auschwitz if I was in Krakow or not. I think it is important we remember what happened in order not to repeat the horrors (although mankind doesn’t seem to learn easily), but I don’t know if that makes visiting Auschwitz a moral obligation. I like the CMHR, but find I can only stay a short while in the Holocaust exhibit before I feel the walls closing in on me. I go over different bits of that exhibit each time I visit.
Thanks, Donna. We’re on the same page. I guess I still feel conflicted because not having gone; I worry I might have missed a learning opportunity. Maybe I missed out on a deeper/different understanding.