Motivation Factors in Dark Tourism

In “The Ugly Tourist” by Jamaica Kincaid, tourism is thought as a disgusting and an extremely harmful industry. In her perspective, it allows first world citizens to escape and marvel at the simplest and most ordinary things. Although there is some truth in what Jamaica Kincaid describes to the reader, I believe there is a prejudiced view towards the tourist themselves. Kincaid’s essay about the ugliness and affects of being a tourist contrasts everything I’ve experienced being a tourist in Italy and Greece.

In this book, the author describes the long process it takes to create a national museum that will commemorate the Holocaust. He covers issues such as, the location of it, the design and construction aspects of the museum building. He informs readers about how they’ve tried to represent the Holocaust through the museum with sensitivity. I will use specific facts from this book to show that this museum was built with the help of many and required a lot of thought into it. I will show that this museum does in fact show sensitivity to an individual.

“‘Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions’” (Quotes About Holocaust, 1). The Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz was the brutal murder site of millions of innocent Jews and other perceived enemies of Germany. Here, death and suffering was the norm and there was no escape from the wicked acts of the Nazis until the prisoners’ long awaited liberation. However, Auschwitz changed the victims’ lives forever.

The Dallas Holocaust Museum is the the heart of downtown Dallas and is tucked away on a busy downtown street. This was my first time visiting the museum and it was an amazing experience. The tour started off with a pillar representation of the number of Jews killed during the twelve-year time period known as the Holocaust. I was unaware of the fact that eighty-percent of the Jews killed during the Holocaust happened in the year 1942. The tour opened my eyes to more of the personal accounts instead of just the vast number of deaths during this genocide.

The u.s. Holocaust memorial museum was dedicated in 1993. The museum’s permanent exhibit titled the holocaust is divided into three parts. “Nazi Assault,Final Solution, Last Chapter”. Upon entrance,visitors are given a card with the name of a real person who was persecuted by Nazis or their collaborators. They are guided on a path through a three level exhibit, which contains photos, artifacts, and audio and video footage as well as large scale installations, including a polish railcar that was used to transport jews to concentration camps and visitors are allowed to board. Throughout the exhibit visitors are given a chance to learn about the fate of the individual on their assigned identity card.

The Holocaust Memorial Center Zekelman Family Campus is about the horrendous events such as hate crimes that were happening during World War II. The definition of Holocaust from the museum website perspective is “The Holocaust was the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews and five million other persons by the Nazi regime and its collaborators” (Holocaust and Survivor Defined.). “The term Holocaust comes from the Greek words of “holos” (whole) and “kaustos” (burn) which was used to describe a sacrificial offering burned on an alter” (History.com). The museum has been around for more than 25 years, in Farmington Hills and has been acknowledged by the Wall Street Journal. The museum does not only reflect on the evil, but also the strength and the courage of the victims affected in this genocide. The purpose of the Holocaust museum is to remember those who have passed away and survived, as well as, to teach and inform others about the events. There were many exhibits to choose from such as, the Jewish heritage, the descent into Nazism and the postwar period. The exhibit I will be focusing on is called, The Camp System.

In the Anne Frank exhibit they show you different artifacts collected after the end of the Holocaust. Such as a copy of her diary, letters to and from her pen pal, baby pictures, etc. Besides the information and artifacts in front of you, there's a wall that catches your eye. It's a wall covered with bright articles of clothing, but as you continue walking the clothing gradually becomes darker. You can even see a few uniforms that prisoners wore in concentration camps. These articles of clothing represent the children murdered during World War 2. Topics like these, victims of genocide, are better learned about in person. Seeing a video or things that a child owned during a horrific time is more personal and powerful than reading about it in a

There are multiple reasons on why people visit these tourist destinations, but the author feel that the main reason that people go to dark tourism is because of the emotional feeling. Stones states “a dark experience requires empathy/emotion” (579 Stone). The main idea is that it create emotions of the people who are experiencing dark tourism. Dark tourism bring an entire new perspectives that which most people have forgotten about death. People don’t have a strong relationship towards death because it almost hidden away in modern society. People are focusing on other things around them. For example the authors says “ Consequently modern ideology espouses a celebration of life and living, amplified by a post-modern focus on youth… thoughts of death…are repressed” (Stone 582). The ways in modern society cover death is by “absent death privatization of meaning, the medicalization of dying and the professionalization of the death”. (Stone 585). When people think of death towards medical they don’t really think about because they think it’s for science department. While for the funeral department people don’t really think about death because in the modern world people are becoming less religious. Yet the world is still interested towards death. Stones points out that “pervasive feature in the popular cultural landscape … it may be considered fascinating, educational or even humorous” (Stone 585). It shows that dark tourism combines all of these factors that would want for the general public to be involve which causes dark tourism to

The Holocaust is one of the most gruesome and horrific expressions of human intolerance. The Nazi’s considered Jews, Roma, homosexuals, Christians who tried to help hide the Jews, and any person with a physical or developmental disability to be a inferior, they were referred to as ‘the other.’ Holocaust Museums serve not only as educational institutions, but also a source for research, that have dedicated their facilities to preserving the experiences of people who were victimized by the Nazi’s and their followers during the Holocaust. Holocaust Museums can be a way to learn about what the victims went through, prove Holocaust denial wrong, and learn about the history of the intolerance of the Jewish population. Besides the exhibits, the Museum’s

The one thing that I wish they would implement to their museum to make it more interesting is to add more Holocaustic casted models. I got this idea by visiting the African American museum. And what set them apart was that they had a whole set of statue models on display to place a person in that mindset of being there. If the Holocaust museum would issue more life-like cast, then I think people will feel more engaged in the tour. In the African American museum, I remember the faces on the life-like models. The faces with looks of confusions, fear, and sometimes happiness. I think by adding this would bring a whole new element to the Holocaust museum. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the opportunity. I do plan on returning in the near future. Maybe not to that museum in particular, but a more official museum like the ones in Germany. I plan on traveling across the world one day, and visiting the Holocaust museum in Aw>>> is defiantly on my

Imagine walking through a hallway of pictures and artifacts, feeling so much emotion, reliving the past of the Holocaust. Once a person walks through those doors to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum he or she immediately feel those emotions pouring from the walls and flooding from the visitors all around feeling what it once felt like to be apart of the Holocaust and witness such a horrendous tragedy. Because the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum provides many exhibitions and visuals for visitors, it really gives a person a vivid view into what the Holocaust was truly like.

On the fourth of April, our senior class went to the holocaust museum as part of our senior class trip. There, we learned and experienced the holocaust through first-hand accounts and testimonies from the survivors of this atrocity. We had several hours to explore the four floors of this museum, but there is so many artifacts and information, you would need days to absorb it all. The entire museum is an impactful experience that makes you reflect on everything you have in your life. The most impactful thing in the museum, for me, did not come in the form of an artifact or picture, but from the people there at the museum.

“You just can’t understand it, even when you’ve seen it”, Percy Knauth an American reporter claimed. (Abzug 45). The Holocaust is without a doubt the epitome of all trajectories.On the topic of the Holocaust, the focus points are the functions of the concentration camps and its survivors.The liberation of these Nazi camps is somewhat overlooked. The photos and the testimonies of the camp liberations allowed for the American people to comprehend the depths of the atrocities that had occurred. Without the witnesses, photos and testimonies the concentration camps wouldn’t have been liberated, if not for the supported evidence from the liberations the American people wouldn’t have face the true depth of the ghastly crime that is the Holocaust. In “Inside The Vicious Heart Americans And The Liberation Of Nazi Concentration Camps” Robert H.

Museums related to the Holocaust are seen by some to be a “necessary evil.” How can we comprehend the catastrophe that is the death of eleven million? However, even if we might not be able to understand their suffering, we need to understand the history of the Holocaust. For years, Holocaust museums have relied on art, exhibits, and testimony to convey the story of the Holocaust. Yet as we progress further into the twenty-first century, all the survivors will pass, and the means of conveying must change. For instance, the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center have plans to put in place a VR (virtual reality) exhibit that lets you ask questions to a “virtual” survivor of the Holocaust. While this innovational use of VR is impressive,

Planning and development are both extremely important factors within the tourism industry and can have both positive and negative effects on the environment, local communities and tourist destinations. “Destination planning aims to limit the negative impacts of cultural tourism upon the history and lifestyles of the local community. An understanding of sustainable tourist development allows for the development of culture without loss of its authentic identity” (Maidment. T. 2012). This statement discusses the importance of planning to avoid having any negative impacts on environments and communities. Because the effects of tourism are so severe to destinations, many natural and cultural resources have been destroyed, therefore tourism planning is vital to preserve and maintain these places for future generations.