AUSCHWITZ AN AMUSEMENT PARK ?

When I saw that our tour also included a visit to Auschwitz my heart sank ! Long forgotten memories suddenly came up again. As a child and adolescent, I had seen and heard so much of it and attended an exhibition with the school, as there was no Auschwitz Museum back then. I remembered people coming back from there as skeletons,  but as a kid I did not understand anything, that came later when we visited this exhibition. It was terrible. I was in such a shock that I got a high fever and had nightmares, I saw skeletons with huge eyes standing in each corner of my room. So I told our guide that I would wait in the bus or next to the bus along with others who did not want to go either.

To my surprise our guide told me that there was a nice restaurant where I could eat something and wait or walk around in the park ! A restaurant and a park ??  I had imagined an ugly dark place only with these barracks around and nothing else. I didn't know that 70 years later it had been transformed completely and was now a "Museum" which should teach the world that "such an horror should never happen again".

I think that all over the world, it's known that Auschwitz has become a symbol of terror, genocide, and the Shoah. Over 1.1 million men, women and children were killed here under atrocious circumstances.

And now ???

Auschwitz is the biggest tourist attraction in Poland, with over a million visitors each year, but whereas a typical museum pays tribute to beauty or knowledge, this one is all about hatred and intolerance and what it can lead to. And still a lot of people didn't get it.

Auschwitz has also become a big business. The entrance fee is around 30 Euros. More expensive with a guide. Imagine a family of only 4 persons, not everybody can afford this horror show.

When we arrived, I was surprised to see a nice parking place with huge trees around, and I wondered if the trees had seen what happened here over 74 years ago, when the allies finally discovered this place.




A parking like for every attraction park





a lot of buses from everywhere



I saw a barack from far and felt cold



People chatting and laughing, sitting on benches. Children ran around, it was amazing that there was not a playground !



Memorials of all countries in the world stood there, nobody was very interested.



Some people were interested in the commemorative plaques



I watched the entrance. People of all ages were there, old and young couples, even little children !



Outside a map of the concentration camp



and this nice restaurant, where I had a coffee, I couldn't eat. Here it was rather empty but then it filled up with people coming out of the camp. Most of them where smiling or even laughing I only saw one old lady who cried.



That's all I could see from outside and honestly for me it was enough !

I talked to a lady who was probably as old as me and she told me that her mother had been here and survived by miracle. She was so sad of what she saw here ! Even showers to refresh the tourists.



At least one Israeli tourist complained about the mist-spraying showers,  that “they looked like the showers that the Jews were forced to take before entering the gas chambers.”

The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum said it has installed sets of “showers” at the entrance  which are meant to cool off tourists from the summer heat !! Business is business !

One of my group told me what she has seen inside. People taking selfies in front of the gas chambers ! Laughing at the hairs which lay there and found that they were good to make wiggs !



Having fun out of the windows, riding on a cross, balancing on the rails of the train who took the victims to the camp, having fun with the shower or make the "Heil Hitler" sign ! The worst was the mini skirt ! Although I haven't seen a "souvenir shop" it must have been outside.

As I had no pictures of what the lady had told me I just googled "Tourist behaviour in Auschwitz" and this was the result.

I was disgusted, I was shocked, no wonder that there are still the same attrocities going on ! Nobody has learned anything ! The only thing perhaps, how to make money ! I wonder where all this money goes ??  



Linking to SOCS Linda.G.Hill