When I visited Auschwitz, I was in a sombre mood. Walking around the former death camp, surrounded by the ghosts of those who perished there, I barely even spoke to the friend that I was with. The two of us walked around Auschwitz and Birkenau in near silence, partly because we weren’t really in the mood for conversation, and partly out of respect for those who lost their lives in this godforsaken place.
However, while most people abided by the unwritten rule that one should be respectful and sensitive when visiting Auschwitz, there were exceptions, and their number wasn’t insignificant.
While I was visiting Auschwitz, I witnessed people laughing and joking, taking selfies, play-fighting and posing for photographs in front of the ovens where countless people’s bodies were incinerated. One man walked out of the crematorium crying as his wife comforted him, all the while surrounded by groups of oblivious teenagers who continued to crack jokes.
Unfortunately, for some, the need to visit Auschwitz and pay one’s respects has become overshadowed by the feeling that Auschwitz is some sort of tourist attraction. Tour companies in Kraków bring busloads of young tourists to Auschwitz and Birkenau each day and now, rather than going to Kraków with the purpose of visiting Auschwitz and educating oneself about the horrors that occurred there, visiting Auschwitz has now become just another ‘thing to do’ in Kraków.
Young lads that have flocked to Kraków for the cheap booze and beautiful women find themselves heading to Auschwitz to “get a bit of culture” before the drinking commences.
I personally had the misfortune of talking to a group of young Canadian men who had been kicked off the bus on the way to visit Auschwitz because they were drinking.
Yes. You read that right. They were pre-gaming on their way to a concentration camp.
Unfortunately, Auschwitz and Birkenau are not unique when it comes to this type of behaviour. I’ve witnessed the same at the Berlin Holocaust Memorial (where for some reason, people simply cannot resist taking selfies), the Sachsenhausen concentration camp and the Killing Fields in Cambodia.
Friends have told me about similar behaviour at the 9/11 Memorial. It boggles my mind that people would visit Auschwitz for some kind of fun day out, and I cannot comprehend the mentality of people who think that taking a f*cking SELFIE at a concentration camp is okay, but apparently these things need to be spelt out to people, and so here I am to do just that.
There are not many official ‘rules’ for visiting Auschwitz – no food and drink, no smoking, no bicycles, no dogs, large items of luggage, music etc. However, there is definitely an etiquette to visiting Auschwitz, and so if you are planning on visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau, then carry on reading for my tips on visiting Auschwitz without being an asshole.
Visiting Auschwitz – How to Not be a Dick
1. Don’t Complain
Visiting Auschwitz and Birkenau takes a full day. Your feet will hurt. You might get cold. Maybe you’re hungry and can’t wait to get back to your hostel for a hot meal.
Well guess what?
The prisoners of Auschwitz were also cold, hungry and in pain, and I’m willing to bet that they felt it a lot more acutely than you! Don’t whine about your minor discomforts when walking on the very soil that so many people really suffered on.
If anything, you should be counting your goddamn blessings while walking around Auschwitz, not bitching and moaning about minor aches and pains.
2. Don’t see Auschwitz-Birkenau as a tourist attraction
Yes, you are a tourist. Yes, you are visiting Auschwitz. But no, Auschwitz is not a tourist destination.
It is important to visit Auschwitz for the right reasons. I genuinely believe that we have a duty to visit sites such as Auschwitz (I wrote about this in more detail in my post about the Killing Fields and S-21 in Cambodia) in order to educate ourselves about what we, as humans, have done to our fellow humans. However, there are also some very wrong reasons to visit Auschwitz, and we should be mindful of why we are choosing to visit a sight of mass suffering.
Unsure what the right and wrong reasons are?
Here’s a guide:
Are you visiting because you want to educate yourself and pay your respects to the people who perished at Auschwitz? If so, you’re visiting for the right reasons!
Are you visiting because you heard it was a “must-see,” you want to take some Insta-worthy shots with deep and meaningful captions, and you feel like you need to tick it off your Krakow bucket list along with the salt mines and pierogi? Yeah, don’t bother.
3. Taking Pictures at Auschwitz
Are you allowed to take photos at Auschwitz? Yes, for the most part. There are a couple of places where flash photography is not permitted as it damages the exhibition (but yet still people choose to flout this rule and destroy history at the same time), but on the whole, photography is okay.
HOWEVER. Although you can take all the photographs you want at Auschwitz, etiquette dictates that just because you could, doesn’t always mean you should. I personally took some photographs at Sachsenhausen and the Killing Fields. I didn’t want them for social media, and the pictures didn’t have me in them. They were just pictures of the things that personally affected me on my visits. Some people choose not to take any photographs at all because they don’t feel comfortable. And that’s okay too.
Sometimes, you have to judge for yourself what is appropriate and what is not, and some things are just objectively in bad taste. For example, it is never appropriate to take a selfie at Auschwitz, and honestly the concept of wanting to be IN the photograph at all is very odd to me.
I understand that people may want to take photographs of things such as the Arbeit macht frei sign, but to actually pose in front of the train tracks or the barracks? That is very odd to me. Where will you put the picture? Instagram? Tinder?!
On my visit to Sachsenhausen, I actually saw a couple (who were definitely old enough to know better) posing in front of the ovens that were used to burn the bodies of countless innocent people. Why? Will they frame the picture and hang it on their bedroom wall? That type of behaviour is incomprehensible to me.
4. Dress Appropriately
What do you wear to Auschwitz? Not a question you probably ever thought you’d be asking, right?
Would you believe me if I told you that some people walk boldly around concentration camps wearing t-shirts sporting band names such as Megadeth or Slayer? Megadeth might be your favourite band in the world (I own both Megadeth and Slayer t-shirts myself), but maybe, just maybe it isn’t appropriate to be branding yourself with words like that when you are walking around a literal death camp. I’m not saying that you have to dress the same way you would for a funeral, but just use your brain and realise that your neon yellow Full Moon Party singlet may not be the best choice of attire for visiting Auschwitz.
5. Don’t Laugh and Joke
Who are you Dani, the fun police?
Well, actually yes.
I don’t care if your friend just made the funniest joke in the world about something completely unrelated to Auschwitz: it isn’t appropriate to laugh. Auschwitz is a place for quiet reflection, not for comedy. Even if you personally don’t feel affected by the things that you see when you visit Auschwitz, just remember that other people are affected, and if somebody who has lost family members in the gas chambers sees you and your mates cracking jokes, they may feel very upset.
And there you have it.
I strongly believe that visitors to Poland owe it to themselves and to the victims of Hitler’s regime to visit Auschwitz and Birkenau. If you can follow my guidelines on how to behave while you are walking around Auschwitz, Birkenau and other sights of mass tragedy, I implore you to go and visit them and learn about the atrocities committed not that long ago by our fellow humans.
However, if you want to walk around in a Megadeth t-shirt laughing, joking and taking selfies then perhaps skip the day trip to Auschwitz and visit a beer garden instead.
Do you agree with me? How do you feel about taking photographs at Auschwitz? Can it be done tastefully or is it never appropriate? What is the worst type of behaviour that you have witnessed at Auschwitz/Birkenau? Please let me know in the comments section so that other readers can know what else not to do at sights like this.
It blows my mind that this has to be spelled out. I’ve never been to Poland but I have been looking into it and I think I would visit Auschwitz. I cannot imagine how unimaginably insensitive you would have to be to think this is ok, or even to be in that “lets take a selfie” frame of mind. Every time I’ve thought about going I’ve really thought about it hard because I’m really sensitive and just the thought of being in a place where so many were murdered makes me feel sick. In Barcelona, there’s the Montjuic Cemetery which you can take a guided tour of at night… There are several famous writers, artists and other well-known people buried there. I feel very … uneasy about the thought of taking a guided tour of a cemetery. I have been to the cemetery because they did a ceremony there for the last person executed in Catalonia by the Franco regime in 1974, Salvador Puig i Antich. I find cemeteries deeply moving even though a lot of people there probably passed away in relatively peaceful conditions, so I cant imagine being like “yayy Auschwitz selfie!”.
I know some Spanish people who were living in Manchester who went to see a cemetery in Salford because our cemeteries are very different to theirs and they marked the occasion by taking selfies with the peace sign and tongues out around a few different graves. It’s not exactly the same because millions weren’t murdered there but the level of disrespect was insane.
The crass insensitivity of certain types of people is beyond belief. Thank god the majority of us are decent respectful human beings. As you rightly point out these places are open to the public for a very good reason – unfortunately some folks are too stupid to understand.
I can’t even believe people actually do this sort of thing! It really shouldn’t be that difficult for people to just be respectful in a place like this. It’s not as if they don’t know what happened there before they visit. I visited a gaol in Melbourne and when it came to the place they used to hang people it made me very uneasy. I don’t know if I could bring myself to visit the concentration camps because of this but at the same time i feel like visiting somewhere like this gives a much greater perspective on life and history.
It really is ridiculous, the number of people who are unaware of proper etiquette at travel destinations! So appalled at some of the photos people have captured at these places. Like what is running through their minds?! Thanks for sharing this post! Hopefully, this stops more people from behaving this way.
For me, Auschwitz is a must-see, not because it is, but I am WWII nerd and I personally want to see where all horrors happened at a point. I want to see the extent those people went to torture humanity and never felt a thing. I find it really to understand why people can’t simply respect the place they’re in and behave as if they’re in a park or pub. I hope this post spreads the word and people visit Auschwitz paying more respect.
I spend a lot of time in Mostar and Sarajevo. I am studying all I can about the domestic war. I’ve witnessed young backpackers regard places like the “sniper tower” in Mostar as nothing but a tourist attraction.. and have seen some rather inappropriate videos.. (hip hop music and glamor shots of the bullet casings they found) People show up drunk and laughing. It’s just weird.. this is a place where people killed innocent civilians.
The whole IG thing too is just getting too weird and fake, and too many backpackers pretend to have a clue about the places they travel to.. but actually haven’t the faintest idea about, or any desire to know more about these places.