More memorial, less fun

During the summer of 2006 I visited the Auschwitz I site in Oswiecim, Poland--the one where the Final Solution was invented and pioneered. The experience was terribly disturbing for me--not because of the camp itself (although it was quite depressing), but rather with the behavior of the other tourists.

There were people posing, full of smiles and laughter, with the ovens in the crematoria. People were joking around about the wall where firing squads killed inmates. There was laughter and smiling everywhere we went.

Now, I'm all for making light of a bad situation. But the Shoah? Come on.

I'm not saying everyone who visits a death camp must be dreary and depressive for the entirety of the experience. But people should be more contemplative while they are there. The point of keeping these camps intact and showing them in the public is so that people will remember what happened and learn from past mistakes so we never repeat them.

That in mind, my mom sent me an article about a group of young Jews and survivors who marched at Auschwitz II, the massive camp next door to Auschwitz I (the facade of which we always see in the movies), to remember the Shoah and terrible things that happened in camps like Auschwitz I and II.

I'm not saying we need to have marches and memorial processions in these camps every day. The concept of memory needs to be on people's minds as they visit the camps.

I mean, it's totally insulting that anyone would go to the camps and joke around, practically getting inside the ovens to take a picture. It's sickening, and I hope that next time I tour a camp, I never see any such spectacle.