 |
|
Daylife/Getty Images
|
|
|
On the eve of Holocaust Memorial Day, two experts on Auschwitz argue for and against the idea that the former Nazi death camp should be allowed to crumble away.
ROBERT JAN VAN PELT, HISTORIAN AND AUTHOR
Many Auschwitz survivors have told me that a visit to the camp can teach little to those who were not imprisoned there.
Their view is best summarised in the text of Alain Resnais’ celebrated movie Night and Fog (1955), written by the camp survivor Jean Cayrol. As the camera pans across the empty barracks, the narrator warns the viewer that these remains do not reveal the wartime reality of “endless, uninterrupted fear”. The barracks offer no more than “the shell, the shadow”.
Should the world marshal enormous resources to preserve empty shells and faint shadows?
WLADYSLAW BARTOSZEWSKI, CHAIRMAN OF THE INTERNATIONAL AUSCHWITZ COUNCIL
The only people with a full and undeniable right to decide the future of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial are the hundreds of thousands murdered in this concentration camp. The prisoners whom I met as prisoner number 4427, when I was detained in Auschwitz between September 1940 and April 1941, are among them.
To some I owe my survival. They saved me, guided not only by the impulse of the heart, which was heroic at the time. They also believed that the survivors will bear witness to the tragedy which in Auschwitz-Birkenau became the fate of so many Europeans.
But the moment when there will be no more eyewitnesses left is inexorably approaching. What remains is the belief that when the people are gone, “the stones will cry out”.
Because we preserve an archive of evil we remind and remember what that evil was and did to the world. There is no less reason to preserve Auschwitz than to polish and paint the Statue of Liberty or temper the air in the Louvre.
Quite the opposite. It should be preserved until the end of days.
I’d rather see money go into this rather than bail out banks.
Those that forget history are doomed to repeat it. I can’t state who authored that sentiment, because wise men has been saying since the dawn of civilization. I will make this suggestion, unless you’re been there, withhold your judgment.
Maybe those barracks won’t give you the sense of fear and horror of the time, but you sure won’t forget them either.
Over the past year, I have read two short books written by concentration camp survivors. They were both very short and written from the memories the authors had as children told to ghost writers long afterwards.
Even as I write this, I still have visual flash backs to pictures of concentration camp survivors, taken by the Allies. I remember a short film clip by Alfred Hitchcock of a bulldozer pushing mounds of naked bodies into a large hole.
Lest we forget.
It doesn’t take much to bring up the images of the Allies standing beside the ovens while survivors thank them for their freedom.
I agree, lest we forget.
My initial reaction to those who’d rather see the physical structures of the holocaust vanish are that they want to forget about it.
I think Auschwitz should be preserved, at least many of the important parts.
Next time any of you travel to Florida, make a point to stop by Andersonville, GA and the POW museum. You can walk around on the grounds, and with the photos of the Civil War POW camp in your head try to imagine, somewhat, what happened there. Brutal, ugly, nasty, deadly. Standing on that ground created a feeling I can’t exactly describe. Same with Auschwitz, I imagine.
Those of us who were born with lucky timing and lead cushy/comfortable lives need these experiences to get a sense of what others have gone through to preserve our freedom.
It’s been thirty years since I stepped through the entrance to Auschwitz. Our guide was a friend who survived the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.
I can’t describe what I felt; but, tears return even now as I recall that snowy winter morning.
I will never forget.
Preserve Auschwitz in all of its ugly, brutal entirety since future generations will be prone to forget it and, worse, if it would be erased, will join the present-day whackos in denying it ever happened. God Bless the Jews and Preserve Israel. Nazis bastards, continue to burn.
The only reason I see for keeping it open is a reminder so it never happens again. Of course they will need tour guides to tell what happened there.
The world is running out of holocaust survivors. If you have an opportunity to hear someone who experienced the holocaust give a talk, take it. Most are in their seventies or older and future generations will not be able to hear them speak.
I say let the private sector handle this. If people want to set up a preservation trust then let them do what they want with their own money then no one has reason to complain.
# 10 Benjamin said, “If you have an opportunity to hear someone who experienced the holocaust give a talk, take it.”
My mother had a roommate who was a child in one of the concentration camps. The children would sometimes sneak out at night and dig for tubers to eat. Her entire family perished. She survived to be liberated and was sent to the states to be adopted.
It was already “rebuilt” after the war “David Cole Interviews Dr. Franciszek Piper, Director, Auschwitz State Museum”
http://www.vho.org/GB/c/DC/gcgvcole.html
http://books.google.com/books?id=83dvJxPm–EC&pg=PA387&lpg=PA387&dq=AUSCHWITZ+WAS+REBUILT+AFTER+THE+WAR&source=web&ots=vaagwrXYAw&sig=vkFqOT3VI4Gm5RtGfnvleWyf4gQ&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result
For some reason links do not work. You have to type it in google and you can find it.
I haven’t been to that concentration camp. I have been to Dachau. The place smelled funny and not in a good way. It was a museum of horrors of course. The gate was still there proclaiming “Work will make you free.” Of course, one good place of these should be kept as a reminder, not only of what the Nazis did but of places like Gitmo (yes, I realize that torture isn’t quite the same as mass extermination) and the like. I’d say, one in every country or region where this has happened would be good.
Of all the rest, I see no reason why they shouldn’t be scrapped, cleaned, plowed under and reseeded with crops or something otherwise useful built in their place.
#11, stopher,
I say let the private sector handle this.
And I say you are an immature asshole.
(sorry to all the assholes of the world for lumping you in with this asshole)
You do not understand the tragedy this caused. You have no feeling for the people except as numbers. Instead, you want someone to profit off of what the Nazis did. You want to reward murder.
Effen sick.
*
My first wife’s mother was Ukrainian. She lived through Stalin’s starvation during the ’30 as a child. She then was sent to a work camp to make weapons for the Nazis. She still had a number tattooed on the inside of her forearm.
Several times she talked about how hungry she was during the Great Stalin Famine. Things like how an orange peel found on the ground was such a treat. She never would talk about the tattoo. I asked once and only once. She said nothing but the tears that slowly ran down her cheeks spoke more than her words could have.
# 15 gmknobl said, “Of course, one good place of these should be kept as a reminder, not only of what the Nazis did but of places like Gitmo ”
I don’t know if they still exist but, here’s a picture of a concentration camp set up by FDR in the CA desert for imprisoning American citizens.
http://www.discovernikkei.org/nikkeialbum/en/node/4343
Let it go… History will not forget, there is video, text, photos. Let the ghosts of the poor souls who lost their lives there rest in peace. Progress away from this abortionwould be the best monument to those murdered by the Nazis…
#17–Paddy==do you think calling Manzanar a concentration camp does a disservice to Auschwitz and the horror it represents. I think the more accurate and respectful term is “internment camp.”
We Germans have all this in our collective conciousness. (The Guilt, the responsibility to preserve this heritage and to never letting something like this happen again)
We need no fucking theme park for that! It just fails to do it justice.
And if you look, Auschwitz is a tourist attraction.
# 18 bobbo said, “I think the more accurate and respectful term is “internment camp.””
I think the Merriam-Webster dictionary is more accurate than when defining the definition of words.
No offense.
Main Entry: concentration camp
Function: noun
:a camp where persons (as prisoners of war, political prisoners, or refugees) are detained or confined
#21–Paddy==congrats. Yes Manzanar comes close but the people interned there were not prisoners of war, political prisoners, or refugees so how does the word fit “exactly?” The connotation of concentration camp should include the notion of punishment as the categories of the detained indicate but does not expressly spell out.
Also from Merriam Websters:
Intern : to confine or impound especially during a war
— in·tern·ee Listen to the pronunciation of internee \(ˌ)in-ˌtər-ˈnē\ noun
— in·tern·ment Listen to the pronunciation of internment \in-ˈtərn-mənt, ˈin-ˌ\ noun
concentration camp
1. A camp where civilians, enemy aliens, political prisoners, and sometimes prisoners of war are detained and confined, typically under harsh conditions.
2. A place or situation characterized by extremely harsh conditions.
Auschwitz was usually referred to as a Death Camp.
#23–Fusion==excellent addition. Yes, I think calling Auschwitz a concentration camp is almost too kind. Death Camp certainly is more accurate.
You know, Auschwitz as an historical fact is bad enough. Its memory really is soiled when we allow the same attitudes to be expressed in current times ===a la Darfur and the Death Camps run there under observation by the UN. Over and over again, we come face to face with the evil that is the human condition.
# 23 Mr. Fusion said, “concentration camp
1. A camp where civilians, enemy aliens, political prisoners, and sometimes prisoners of war are detained and confined, typically under harsh conditions.”
Yep, that’s how my friend, Gene Kaita, described the camps in CA where he was placed as a teenager.
In Germany we tend to use the Word ‘Vernichtungslager’ instead of Konzentrationslager.
Which translates to Extermination Camp.
Note, we do not need to change the meaning of the work concentration camp. But is does not hurt to differentiate the extreme versions by giving them another name.
Lets not waste time in re-defining the word concentration camp.
s/work/word/
#25–Paddy==isn’t it great now that as a reader of DU you can now correct your friends mischaracterization?
I’ve always thought the US Govt “should have” put all the internees property into trust and given it back on closing of the camps.
Makes me think there was a germ of racism in that decision==especially given the number of German Americans running around, but who was going to put Ike into a camp?
Thank you for the German input. I was thinking while reading, How many generations of Germans need to be reminded of their ancestors shame?. I’m not saying what happend there should be forgotten, by no means. But I do think it’s time to let it go. I can’t help but feel that maintaining this monument to true horror is detrimental to the people who live there, most of whom are too young to have any responibility in what happend there.