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Summary
Summary
The uneasy link between tourism and collective memory at Holocaust museums and memorials
Each year, millions of people visit Holocaust memorials and museums, with the number of tourists steadily on the rise. What lies behind the phenomenon of "Holocaust tourism" and what role do its participants play in shaping how we remember and think about the Holocaust?
In Postcards from Auschwitz, Daniel P. Reynolds argues that tourism to former concentration camps, ghettos, and other places associated with the Nazi genocide of European Jewry has become an increasingly vital component in the evolving collective remembrance of the Holocaust. Responding to the tendency to dismiss tourism as commercial, superficial, or voyeuristic, Reynolds insists that we take a closer look at a phenomenon that has global reach, takes many forms, and serves many interests.
The book focuses on some of the most prominent sites of mass murder in Europe, and then expands outward to more recent memorial museums. Reynolds provides a historically-informed account of the different forces that have shaped Holocaust tourism since 1945, including Cold War politics, the sudden emergence of the "memory boom" beginning in the 1980s, and the awareness that eyewitnesses to the Holocaust are passing away. Based on his on-site explorations, the contributions from researchers in Holocaust studies and tourism studies, and the observations of tourists themselves, this book reveals how tourism is an important part of efforts to understand and remember the Holocaust, an event that continues to challenge ideals about humanity and our capacity to learn from the past.
Author Notes
Reynolds Daniel P. :
Daniel P. Reynolds is Seth Richards Professor in Modern Languages in the German Department at Grinnell College, Iowa. Daniel P. Reynolds is Seth Richards Professor in Modern Languages in the German Department at Grinnell College, Iowa.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Reynolds, professor of modern languages at Grinnell College, incisively scrutinizes the intersection of tourism and Holocaust remembrance in this revealing book. He first questions how sites associated with the Holocaust interact with the tourism industry, defending that industry against claims that all disaster tourism is superficial or voyeuristic. He then discusses how representations of the Holocaust at heavily visited locations (such as Auschwitz and Dachau) have evolved over time as knowledge and political agendas have changed, addressing specifically the "memory boom" of the 1990s that helped spur the refashioning of many sites into museums. At lesser-known sites, such as Chelmno and Sobibor, he explores the different approaches to preservation and discusses whether commemoration alters history. Cities central to the Holocaust enter his view, too, as Reynolds outlines the dilemmas in Warsaw posed by the desire to commemorate both Polish Catholic and Jewish victims of Nazi aggression while acknowledging Polish complicity. In Berlin, "counter-memorials" (purposefully inconspicuous memorials that aim to question the idea of memorialization) invite alternative interpretations of history, while Israel's Yad Vashem offers a redemptive narrative for those lost during the Holocaust and Washington, D.C.'s Holocaust Museum reveals, in Reynolds's view, an anxiety about Holocaust memory in a period when eyewitnesses are dying. Reynolds covers a wide range of issues, handling his subject carefully and thoroughly. While he sometimes belabors his points, he raises important questions about history, tourism, and genocide. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Choice Review
Scholars have long been dismissive of the role tourism has played in the remembrance of the Holocaust. Responding to those critics who have professed skepticism regarding travel to sites of death and destruction, Reynolds (Grinnell College) takes seriously the potential value of tourism to the places most intimately linked to the genocide of European Jewry. In his thought-provoking study, Reynolds employs an interdisciplinary approach in order to understand how tourists process their experience and how these encounters contribute to our knowledge of the Holocaust. While Reynolds acknowledges the many moral, ethical, and commercial dilemmas related to Holocaust tourism, he argues persuasively that visits to these physical spaces can generate reflection, empathy, and understanding. Most notably, Reynolds underscores the agency of tourists as critical thinking visitors who actively engage with the sites they explore. His book focuses on two major locations of Holocaust memory: the death camps in Poland, of which Auschwitz features most prominently; and the "urban centers of Holocaust remembrance" in Warsaw, Berlin, Jerusalem, and Washington, D.C. In closing, Reynolds asserts that these places will become even more important to the memorialization of the Holocaust as the last living eyewitnesses perish. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. --Brian Michael Puaca, Christopher Newport University
Library Journal Review
Reynolds (modern languages, Grinnell Coll., IA) argues for the possibilities for tourism to produce ongoing engagement with the past. The author maintains that postcards from Holocaust memorials, are at best merely bragging testimonials to one's trip abroad or simply a money-making enterprise for the continued support of the memorial. The lengthy introduction is a "historiography" or "tourisismography"-discussion of various theories and methods of understanding the industry. Reynolds provides a thorough description of nearly all of the Holocaust memorials throughout the world, including when and how they were built. The result is a helpful addition to tourism literature in general, and specifically beneficial in understanding the popularity of modern-day tourism at sites dedicated to the victims of Nazi terror. VERDICT This should be required reading for anyone contemplating a trip to places of remembrance, such as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum or the Auschwitz and Dachau death camps in Europe. Reynolds effectively tells how history and tourism intersect and provides a starting point for more research on dark tourism.-Harry Willems, Great Bend, KS © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.