Perceived "darkness" during the visit of Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial and museum
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| Year of publication | 2024 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | Dark tourism or travelling to sites associated with death, suffering and the seemingly macabre is becoming more popular for tourists as consumers and for the academics for whom it is an object of their studies. There is an ongoing debate about the "shades" of dark tourism sites, ranging from darker (places of death) to lighter (places associated with death). It is quite common to see Auschwitz as an example of the darker tourist site, sometimes it is even considered as the darkest tourist site in the world. On the other hand, there are typologies that consider "darkness" of the tourist. The focus of this paper is to show Auschwitz-Birkenau in a different way, based on the research that consists of participant observation and semi-structured interviews with Auschwitz-Birkenau visitors. The objective is twofold - firstly, there is an effort to look at the "darkness" not as an attribute of the tourist site or tourist, but as a relation between site and tourist, as the sites affects the tourists. Secondly, showing the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial and museum not as just a singular place that possesses certain degree of darkness, but consists of several sites (e.g. different national exhibitions or division to Auschwitz and Birkenau). |