The quaint medieval town of Dachau, Germany has an array of beautiful sights to entice visitors, yet it has become a popular travel destination due to its ugly past. Dachau is the site of the Nazi regime’s first concentration camp and served as the model for the others that followed.

At least 41,500 people died at Dachau between 1933 and 1945 in increasingly gruesome circumstances as the Second World War progressed. Immediately after the war, the camp’s survivors committed to bringing their harrowing experiences to light through a series of provocative public exhibitions. The graphic nature of these presentations were criticized by both the local populace, who still held onto the widely publicized “clean camp” image, and the Bavarian government in the name of self-preservation. Meanwhile, the continuing evolution of the site into an internment camp and court for Nazi criminals, and eventually into a refugee camp, has resulted in a stripped-down and cleaned-up physical space, deceptively reconstructed over time. With foreign opinions at the forefront of concern, Bavarian authorities have likewise sterilized and manipulated the Dachau survivors' education and memorialization efforts through increasingly inhibitive guidelines. What visitors see today is little more than a highly curated and pristinely manicured shell of the original camp that dangerously obscures the collective memory of the camp's sordid history and the Holocaust in toto. In other words, what contemporary visitors will not see or learn at the former Dachau camp vastly exceeds what they will. Consequently, the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site has unwittingly perpetuated the propagandized "clean camp" image the survivors originally sought to dispel, thus missing the mark as both a testament to Nazi atrocities and a memorial to its victims.

The Nazi regime opened its first concentration camp on March 22, 1933, on the outskirts of Dachau, Germany. What began as a detention camp for political prisoners soon became the template and training ground for others in what would become a vast network. As an internment camp for political prisoners, Dachau initially aimed to detain Communists, Social Democrats, trade unionists, clergymen, and other political dissidents. Eventually, "asocial" groups such as Roma, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, and others were also targets for Dachau. After Kristallnacht, Jews, too, began arriving en masse. In the camp's twelve-year operation, the number of prisoners skyrocketed from the initial maximum capacity of 5,000 to an unmanageable 30,000+ by the time of liberation. During that time, Nazi officers subjected these prisoners to inhumane medical experiments, forced labor, starvation, disease, catastrophic living conditions, and various forms of torture and execution. It was this sheer depravity the camp's survivors sought to expose with the first postwar memorial site exhibitions.

However, this would not be the first time the Dachau concentration camp's inner workings were put on display. Historian Harold Marcuse notes, "Long before [Dachau] became a site memorializing Nazi atrocities, it was a showcase for the implementation of Nazi ideology."
As the model for the Nazi concentration camp system, regular tours occurred during the war to German and foreign officials alike. These visitors encountered nothing less than a scrupulously clean and orderly establishment reportedly designed to educate those with asocial behaviors to become productive members of the German racial collectivity. In reality, these tours were highly choreographed deceptions in which the exact locations visited, the activities witnessed, and the prisoners with which the visitors came into contact were all carefully selected and painstakingly prepped. Accounts of prisoner mistreatment and other incidents inside the camp were either justified as legal or necessary, described in fallacious terms, or discussed using only official euphemisms. Consequently, from the very beginning, Dachau (and thereby the more extensive concentration camp system) was publicized as "clean"—a deception Marcuse notes was "apparently quite successful" even "in spite of evidence to the contrary." He adds that "overwhelming evidence suggests that many Germans knew quite well what was going on in the camps" but that this "clean" vision of the camp "offered a convenient, exoneratory excuse" to claim ignorance after the war. Even upon seeing the evidence of Nazi atrocities with their own eyes following the camp's liberation, the greater population still clung to the "clean" camp image.

At one time, "crowds of Dachau residents along the streets and at the factory gate waited hours to get a glimpse of the camp's first detainees." As described by Marcuse, the crowds upon liberation consisted of army units, photographers, and journalists. During the Dachau trials in the months after liberation, camp survivors, assisted and supported by the U.S. Army, installed a documentary exhibition in the camp's crematorium. This exhibition emphasized the horrific reality of concentration camp life through gruesome photographs, detailed pamphlets, and life-sized mannequins demonstrating some of the camp's most notorious torture methods. The primary German reaction to this exhibition's depravity was a pressing need to extinguish the memory of this brutal past. Henceforth, this exhibition was gradually and quietly toned down; graphic images became fewer and replaced with softer themes or charcoal sketches. Over the years, this exhibition of Nazi crimes at Dachau took on many forms, as did the camp. In 1948, Dachau became a refugee camp, and many original structures and attributes were removed, replaced, or repurposed. Street lamps, flower beds, paved roads, restaurants, shops, and more such features became a part of the landscape.

From the beginning of Dachau's memorialization efforts, Bavarian authorities and locals alike attached a great deal of importance to the opinions of foreign visitors. One local taxi driver, as per Marcuse, opined in the early 1950s that "whether we like it or not, it attracts foreigners, and they would be disappointed if there were nothing to see." The key was figuring out how to give tourists something to see while minimizing the inhumanity of its not-so-distant past. The many slipshod attempts to reinterpret the history, lessen the potency of the exhibitions, and beautify the reimagined physical site make it clear that the impressions of foreign tourists were a priority over the survivors' wishes and the accuracy of historical memory in general.

As Dachau has evolved from a concentration camp to one of Germany's top tourist attractions, its administrators have significantly impeded visitors from grasping the horror of the former camp, thanks in large part to several strict guidelines. The first dictates that there shall be no recreations at the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site, and such edicts discount the fact that there's undeniable power in showing versus telling. In supporting a "staged authenticity" concept, landscape architect Dean MacCannell explains, "sustaining a firm sense of social reality requires some mystification." He goes on to say that while the "reality that is sustained through mystification may be a 'false' reality," such mystification is often "required to create a sense of 'real' reality." Ergo, by abstaining from historical, albeit fabricated, recreations of the camp's history, visitors are prevented from forming valuable impressions of the prisoners' day-to-day experiences, the depth of the Schutzstaffel's (SS) depravity, and the original functions of the few structures that do remain.

Likewise, while some aspects of the former camp are reconstructions, the new versions have been stripped of their most haunting features. For example, the gun emplacements and searchlights are missing from the rebuilt watchtowers that surround the prisoner camp, thus softening the gravity of the towers' significance and the camp's true horror. Similarly, the rebuilt barracks reveal nothing about the struggles of daily camp life. Their airiness and modern materials potentially serve to unravel visitors' preconceived notions of the overcrowded and unsanitary conditions the prisoners endured. Schmidl documents one former inmate referring to the reconstructed barracks as 'mountain cottages' and states: "In [them] does not live the horror of yesterday but the fear of contemporaries to get identified with...the monsters...of yesterday." Another of Dachau's guidelines is the exclusive use of text and pictures in place of artifacts, reproductions, and other sensory experiences. Finally, Dachau's strict guidelines often deny visitors the perspective of the perpetrators. For instance, Marcuse notes that visitors are not allowed to enter the watchtowers for "fear that young Germans, some of whom harbor arrogant attitudes, will identify with the power of the SS." All of these aspects distinguish visiting a site in person from reading about the site in a textbook. In this way, the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site has lost much of its potential to engage, educate, and effect change. Thus, by attempting to manipulate the outcome of one's visit, they deny visitors a well-rounded experience and the chance to learn history from all sides.

In contrast, the visitor experience at Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum differs from that at Dachau. Whereas the Bavarian government wanted to demolish as much of the Dachau camp as possible, postwar Poland took a vastly different approach. Charlesworth notes that the Polish parliament in 1947 declared that Auschwitz "would be 'forever preserved as a memorial to the martyrdom of the Polish nation and other peoples." As an indisputable icon of the Holocaust and the best-known concentration camp museum site, Auschwitz is the one to which all others find a comparison. Visitors encounter over a hundred original buildings at Auschwitz, including ditches, fencing, watchtowers, and railroad tracks with unloading platforms. They can see thousands of the prisoners' personal effects and other artifacts in haunting displays, including those connected to the extermination process.

Auschwitz is a concrete reflection of the general public's expectations and assumptions of the Holocaust and what constitutes a Nazi concentration camp. These expectations are missing when visiting Dachau. In fact, with its lack of discernible Holocaust imagery, deceiving reconstructions, and blatant attention to groundskeeping, Dachau paints the opposite picture. Though Dachau contains some of the relevant stereotypes (barbed wire, crematoria, "Arbeit Macht Frei" gate), Marcuse feels that it has "become a representation of the spotlessly 'clean camp' of Nazi propaganda, complete with a museum and churches," especially when compared to the prototypical concentration camp museum site that is Auschwitz.

As the gap between then and now expands, personal connections to the Holocaust and collective memory diminish and become even more pertinent than ever to give visitors the most accurate interpretation of the Nazi concentration camp system. By relying solely on text and pictures while refusing interpretive recreations and authentic reconstructions, Dachau deprives visitors of diverse perspectives and has inadvertently developed into a reverberation of the "clean camp" image of Nazi propaganda. According to professor James E. Young, visitors will never know Dachau's sordid past, only its well-groomed memorial. These visitors have come to Dachau, he says, "to 'see what it was like' [but] being told that this is not what Dachau was like, but only what its memorial is like, may leave some visitors bewildered as to why they have come at all."

Edited by Brad Poss and Laura Bailey

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Memory is a fragile beast, whether it is the recollections of many or of one. History has shown the world that the greater the event, the greater and more diverse the memory becomes. This is no more evident than with the recollections and influences of the Holocaust and the ruins of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration and Extermination Camp.

Auschwitz is no longer a destination that is solely intriguing to historians and researchers. It has become a place of interest for the average tourist and school groups alike with roughly two million individuals annually entering the infamous gates. What makes a representation of pure evil so popular among tourists? While each individual has their own reason to witness the gravity of such a site, many of the pilgrimages are a direct relation to the battle between collective and individual memory. World War II framed Auschwitz as a symbol for global victimization while various groups have attempted to claim it as their site of suffering alone.

Unlike individual memory, collective memory functions with an anchor to the remembrance. A site of memory is essential for the public to share in communal grief, traditions, beliefs, etc. Auschwitz-Birkenau has evolved into what some call a global symbol for victimized people, likely due to the shared relationship between individuals who have underwent some form of brutality and seek a physical location to attach their pain. Few sites are more capable of holding such atrocious acts as Auschwitz. Regardless of whether all of those individuals who recognize a familiarity in the pain are associated with the original tragedy of the Holocaust, the pain connects them and creates a new communal memory for Auschwitz. Amos Goldberg aptly describes the attachment: “[mnemonics] (museums, memorials, artistic representations, and commemorative practices) are initiated, or carried to fruition, by particular individuals and groups, acting out of various particular motives.” This is especially the case with Auschwitz-Birkenau. The group is no longer strictly Jews or Poles or Catholics; the group now includes anyone who has experienced brutality, and “[in] a world of victims, this is the undisputed capital city.”

At a site where most of the focus and acknowledgement is on the victims, it also allows for recognition of the agents of evil. An Auschwitz survivor, Eva Szepesi (Diamant), was asked what the site meant to her. Her response was telling:

“Auschwitz has two meanings for me: First, the past. It was hell, demons, the devil, fear, anguish, powerlessness! The second is in the present. I actually never wanted to touch the ground of Auschwitz again but, then I had the feeling and the need to return to the place where my mother and younger brother Tamas were murdered. It is now as if I am going to the cemetery, it is good for my soul when I can go there and light a candle and say a prayer for my beloved family. My message for future generations is [that] young people should pay attention and open their eyes as they go throughout the world, self-reflect, do not hate! As I have lived to see what hate can do! Young people should be respectful of one another. When they see injustice, they should fight against them. Don’t look away! Never forget the story!!!!”

For Ms. Szepesi and many other survivors, the site possesses a sacred-like quality. This idea is a foreign concept for those who are not intimately connected with such a location. As Holocaust survivors become fewer, the function of sites, such as Auschwitz-Birkenau, take on a new role. It truly becomes a memorial as the physical connection to this aspect of history is quickly reduced. Not only does it stand in memory, but it takes on the new purpose of standing as a symbol of strength through pain. While it shifts to include all victims globally, it still must maintain the tether to its past. It must remain a reminder, according to Vashem, of those whose only choice was “to [rebuild] new families forever under the shadow of those absent; new life stories, forever warped by the wounds; new communities, forever haunted by the loss.”

A site as powerfully emotional as the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial impresses itself into the memory and heritage of those who do not even have a direct connection. Keith Lowe says that, “Auschwitz has become such a globally recognized symbol that it is now stamped upon our collective memory in a way that no other memorial site can rival…this too brings problems, because, unfortunately, alongside status comes envy.” The Jews were not the sole victims at this site of suffering. However, most associate Auschwitz with the Jewish population, thus eliminating the observance of the remaining factions imprisoned and massacred at the site.

A sense of envy over the Jewish recognition has erupted in the past causing some individuals to petition for cultural ownership of the site. Lowe reminds readers that, “[there] have always been plenty of people who can see the moral power of a place like Auschwitz, and who want to acquire some of that power for themselves.” He goes on to say that “[the] first group who tried to claim ownership of Auschwitz after the war were the Polish Communists.” Under the command of the Polish Communists at the site, the Jewish population was eliminated once again with the obliteration of the physical reminders of their memory. Nowhere on the memorial signage were the Jews mentioned nor did the site’s tour guides speak of the Jews or other ethnic groups who suffered there. Lowe reiterates this point saying that, “[tour] guides at the museum also used to speak only of ‘victims’ and ‘people,’ with no mention of their ethnic or religious origins. From the perspective of the Polish Communists, the Jews and the atrocities visited on their population was inconsequential to Polish suffering at the hands of the Nazis. The Polish Catholic Church also made an attempt to grab that power beginning in the 1970s with the establishment of a convent on the grounds. This tug of war for recognition of suffering continued into the 1990s. After much protest, the convent was removed although the Catholic church still stands at Birkenau.

It begs one to ask how many times a group of people have to be dishonored? Surely, they deserve recognition at the site where so many of them were eliminated. However, history has taught us that the past is not black and white. It is gray with a combination of identities who can and adamantly try to lay claim to prominent sites of memory. With ruins, such as those at Auschwitz, where so many different nationalities perished, it is impossible to establish a single cultural representation. In an effort to satisfy the portrayal of them all, Young states that “the blocks at Auschwitz-I were converted into national pavilions, each with an exposition devoted to the national memory of a different country’s citizens at Auschwitz. Here, Belgians, Hungarians, Austrians, Jews, and others from nineteen countries were invited to remember their own. When this effort was made to include the numerous diverse who had suffered, the Jewish community felt diminished. According to Young, the “Jews came to see in this pluralization of memory a splintering of Jewish suffering into so many national martyrdoms.”

Though not currently readily debated, the question still exists as to who can rightfully claim representation at Auschwitz. One must only look to the history to understand the veritable victim and embodiment of the memorial. Though a brutal reminder of humanity’s capacity for evil, the memorial site of Auschwitz-Birkenau is essential to collective and individual memory. No one population is able to claim sole title to the site. However, most agree that the Jewish community reserves a right to claim it as a personal site of memory. In the end, history has taught us that without heeding prior examples, then society is doomed to repeat the atrocities. Though the past edges closer to repeating itself, embracing Auschwitz-Birkenau as an international symbol for all victims will help ensure that the site will not soon be forgotten.

(Edited by Brad Poss)

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