International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Posted by Janelle Nanos on January 27, 2009
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BBC Auschwitz graphis.gifToday is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and the BBC has put together a fascinating package that explores the role that the atrocious death camps still play in contemporary European culture. Many of the camps were built over 70 years ago, and were not meant to be long-term installations. But now, millions of visitors travel to camps like Auschwitz each year to bear witness to the memory of the atrocities.

Time and heavy traffic has led to the gradual deterioration of these sites, and many of the museums on site are facing a financial shortfall that has preservationists worried about how to ensure that future generations will not forget. In some cases, many of the artifacts are slowly starting to deteriorate, such as the shocking room filled with two tons of victims’ hair that can currently be seen at Auschwitz. At the time, the Nazis had sent the hair to textile factories; today scientists acknowledge that it is only a matter of time until it all turns to dust. (You can see a slideshow of many of the deteriorating parts of the camp here).

Part of the problem with preserving these camps is the fact that only a small amount of income comes in to support the effort. In the case of Auschwitz, entry fees are not charged to get into the camps, and tours and book sales add little revenue. And despite being named a World Heritage site, Auschwitz museum operators say that their funding falls far short of what is needed to keep them solvent. For the past 60 years, Poland has kept its promise to preserve the camp, but now they’re arguing that because its a part of the collective European heritage, all countries should offer to help fund its preservation.

The BBC has an interesting point/counterpoint

on this issue. One historian argues: “It might be that we will agree that the best way to honour those who were murdered in the camp and those who survived is by sealing it from the world, allowing grass, roots and brambles to cover, undermine and finally efface that most unnatural creation of Man.” But another historian, who is also a survivor, contends: “It lies in the nature of man that when no tangible traces remain, events of the past fall into oblivion.”

What do you think? Should government financing be spent to preserve the camps? 

Photo: via the BBC

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Comments

  1. DanielF
    January 27, 2009, 4:45 pm

    I am from the US and visited Dachau in the ’90s. I was born decades after WWII. No class, no book, no movie, not even the Holocaust Memorial Museum in the US (which I have visited), can come close to creating the life-long impression and deep concern for the events that happened during the Holocaust than actually stepping foot on the same soil and within the very buildings where these insanely evil events took place. Let the camps fade away and so too will world-wide awareness. For the world to have any hope of creating a sustaining peace in the future, we need to increase people’s empathy and understanding of history. Letting these concentration camps go would be a very poor choice.

  2. Audrey
    January 27, 2009, 6:13 pm

    I visited Auschwitz about eight years ago. My husband says he’s never been the same since. As DanielF wrote, it’s one thing to read about the holocaust, it’s another to walk through the hallways covered with endless photographs of those killed or enter a room with human hair (used by the Nazis for household products) piled high that you know is only a mere fraction of what was collected.
    At the end of our tour, the old Polish guide quietly told us that the importance of visiting Auschwitz and Birkinau is to remember what happened so that we don’t repeat it again. He then gently reminded us of all the genocides that have occurred since WWII.
    I agree with the historian; Auschwitz should be preserved.

  3. Shailendra
    May 11, 2009, 9:37 pm

    This is biggest problem of the world; no one is worried to save these great world heritage sites. If one day they will be lost then off course tourism will also be lost. Countries should make all possible efforts to save these sites rather then focusing on selected ones.
    Shail : Agra