23. Today we left for the Mauthausen Concentration Camp. I learned much more in this visit than I did when Frankl came to speak with us. As soon as the tour began, our guide elevated the tour to a college level, and spoke about the fact that history is viewed through different lenses - yes! As soon as he mentioned that and the politics of memory, I knew we were in for a good tour. When I took a tour of Auschwitz, the guide spoke only of what was there. She mentioned nothing of the past versions of the exhibit, or of other memorials, or any existing gaps in coverage. My friend had asked, and she finally mentioned that the houses depicted which Jews and other prisoners slept in had all been torn down, and the existing ones were in fact reconstructed. I am guessing they don’t like giving out that information due to it ruining the experience of picturing how the Jews lived. No matter how it’s reconstructed, it will always be an artist’s representation of the real ordeal.
Our guide, Daniel, gave us everything. He talked about the existence of other, larger camps, but how Mauthausen works because it was a centralized location, which makes it easier to digest for the Austrians who are busy denying their role in WW2. He mentioned the swimming pool that was still used after the war, and how the concentration camp was even used for storage by the people in the surrounding town, that’s now normal the camp had become. That everybody knew there were people being burned inside the walls, a tower of the black smoke of corpses, but had a venue to ignore. Though America doesn’t have anything nearly as bad as the Holocaust happening, it shows just how easy it is to ignore the worst event imaginable, so any transgressions that America makes are even more easily shrugged off. That’s how hard it is to make progress, to stay permanently sensitive to the surrounding events. I know I am nowhere near that sensitive or aware of what is going on around me, and perhaps I should make more of a concerted effort to be so.
Daniel mentioned a book on how IBM supplied and designed the computers that Nazis used, and even sent workers from camp to camp to make sure the computers were working properly. And he led us through a deep discussion on the usefulness of memorials, what is truth in them and what is false. Whether they spread awareness and understanding, or whether people go to one simply to feel like now they’re a better person for having gone. The barracks shown where the Jews were housed, for instance, only contain half the racks, if that, and they do not show how many people slept per rack or what it was like to be completely crammed, 800 to one barrack meant for 60. Without a guide I would have never guessed that. Perhaps Ruth Kluger is right, that it is not necessary to have these memorials, they do not provide much. However, I would argue that with a properly educated guide, as Daniel was, who is willing to engage the visitors and open a discussion, it is a much more intense event that does stick with you. When it is just a place to go to, such as Auschwitz, there winds up being people who take pictures smiling in front of the Arbeit Macht Frei sign, as if that is a great spot for a family picture. And in the standing cellars below, where 4 people would stand in a 4 square foot space, a girl posed in front making “duck lips”, possibly for one great facebook picture. I hope her friends will call her out on it when she posts it.
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