Tourism and The Holocaust

FAIN: FT-60751-13

Daniel P. Reynolds
Grinnell College (Grinnell, IA 50112-2227)

This book project engages with questions about the appropriateness of tourism to Holocaust sites, but does so by moving beyond the skepticism that typically greets it. While misgivings about "Holocaust tourism" are understandable, I take seriously the efforts of millions to comprehend the Nazi genocide through such means. Postcards from Auschwitz is the first book-length study that brings Holocaust studies and tourism studies together, allowing me to demonstrate that the Holocaust's challenges to Western epistemology have a great deal to say about tourism as a way of being in and knowing the world. I argue that Holocaust tourists confront multiple strategies for confronting the very real traces of an event that continues to challenge ideals of humanity. Ultimately, I locate in tourism the possibility of bearing witness to the Holocaust and thereby assuming responsibility for its memory. During the stipend period I will travel to Yad Vashem, and continue writing Chapter 4.

Associated Products

Consumer or Witnesses? Holocaust Tourists and the Problem of Authenticity. (Article)
Title: Consumer or Witnesses? Holocaust Tourists and the Problem of Authenticity.
Author: Daniel Reynolds
Abstract: Each year, millions of people from around the world visit former extermination camps, ghetto memorials, and other museums and monuments dedicated to the remembrance of the Holocaust. Constituting a vast population of so-called “dark tourists,” these travelers are frequently characterized by researchers as consumers of macabre spectacles, susceptible to sensationalized and inauthentic representations of historical events. But does Holocaust tourism automatically position its participants as naïve consumers of a commodified version of history? Based on field research conducted at numerous sites of Holocaust remembrance, this article considers how Holocaust tourists exercise agency, especially through the practice of photography. Through such agency, tourists to Holocaust memorial sites become active producers of historical knowledge as they generate their own representations of historical trauma. Ultimately, Holocaust tourists reflect on the authentic and inauthentic dimensions of their experiences, hold tourist sites accountable for the representations on display, and become stewards of collective memory.
Year: 2016
Primary URL: http://joc.sagepub.com/
Primary URL Description: Web Portal for Journal of Consumer Culture
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Journal of Consumer Culture
Publisher: Journal of Consumer Culture 16 (July 2016) 334-353.

Postcards from Auschwitz: Holocaust Tourism and the Meaning of Remembrance (Book)
Title: Postcards from Auschwitz: Holocaust Tourism and the Meaning of Remembrance
Author: Daniel P. Reynolds
Year: 2018
Primary URL: https://www.worldcat.org/search?q=1479860433
Primary URL Description: WorldCat entry (1479860433)
Publisher: NYU Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 1479860433

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