Postcards from Auschwitz

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.

Agraphic journey of discovery that reveals . . . many troubling questions: Do Holocaust tourists come as casual sightseers or as pilgrims? Where is evidence, in those dedicated places, of redemption? Soon there will be no survivors of the Holocaust; what will the places, monuments, and museums tell future generations?, Incisively scrutinizes the intersection of tourism and Holocaust remembrance . . . raises important questions about history, tourism, and genocide., 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., Postcards from Auschwitz is an important intervention into the vexed topic of Holocaust 'tourism.' Reynolds deftly challenges the various criticisms of the 'Shoah business'its presumed commercialization of suffering, conversion of horror into kitsch, and its putative role in evacuating Holocaust memory of substance. He addresses such received wisdom not by denying its power, but by way of a compelling exploration of the experience of Holocaust memorialization in Warsaw, Berlin, Jerusalem, and Washington, D.C that does not only analyze various national narratives of the event, but also defines the tourist's experience in surprisingly textured and nuanced terms. The book is a real eye-opener and should be read by anyone with an interest in contemporary Holocaust memory., Reynolds lays bare the faulty assumptions about tourism and tourists that undergird the criticisms leveled at sites of Holocaust commemoration. His own scholarship, by contrast, takes seriously the abilities of tourists to reflect just as critically as any of the scholars who write about the topic, and shows how their presence (including their own discomfort with the idea of tourism) helps Holocaust tourism remain an open-ended process of meaning-making. This is tourism studies at its finest. Reynolds' authorial voice is pitch perfect - sophisticated without being pedantic, readable without being simplistic.

Daniel P. Reynolds is Seth Richards Professor in Modern Languages in the German Department at Grinnell College, Iowa.