some thoughts on internment

while i was in poland i visited Auschwitz, something i couldn't decide if i wanted to do or not since i decided on the trip. i was tormented with thoughts on whether is was 'responsible' to go - should nazi sites become tourist meccas? or are they ultimately about educating people and remembrance?

well, i decided to go anyway, not really knowing what to expect but thinking that i might be able to use the experience in my teaching somehow. also i wanted to compare it to Sachsenhausen, the german concentration camp i went to a week earlier. they certainly were different, the most obvious difference in how they were 'presented'. the german one had modern, slick entrances and an audio tour and relics in glass boxes lit from the inside. in contrast, the entrance to Auschwitz is confusing with no instructions for the visitor telling them where to go or how to move around or where to obtain a map, and the english explanations on exhibits are full of proofreading errors. this is more of an observation than a complaint though, and i thought that the way they had rooms full of confiscated glasses and shoes and suitcases and rows and rows of inmate photographs was very effective. it reminded me a lot of the S21 museum in phnom penh.

i'm not sure why but the visit didn't move me as much as i thought that it might. being the serial over analyser that i am, this worried me a bit. was it because i've been fascinated by the holocaust since i was 12 when i read the diary of anne frank and since then have read so much and seen so many pictures and had read/seen even more in the last week in berlin, so that when actually confronted with the location of this calculated death machine i was beyond being horrified by it all? i am perfectly aware of how capable the nazis were of committing these atrocities and on what scale they did so, so am i now incapable of being shocked? maybe it was because it was a beautiful day and as i walked down the railway that runs between that infamous building i was feeling the sun on my face and couldn't help but feel positive?

i don't know.. i thought i would feel more haunted maybe... to be able to feel the presence of millions of dead. maybe i'm an insensitive freak but the most shocking thing i found was the fact that if you signed up for a tour of the camp they gave people a little square to wear on your shirt, the colour depending on which language you took the tour in. it seemed a little to close to the way the nazis would classify prisoners with coloured triangles on their uniforms (yellow for jew, black for gypsies, purple for jehovah's etc...) i wondered if they were doing it for effect or if i was just a massively inappropriate system.. it made me laugh anyway and i didn't really feel bad about doing so. like i said, it was a confusing day.