Concentration Camps During The Holocaust

Sachsenhausen's new fee raises questions about concentration camp tours

BERLIN (JTA) -- In the places where Jews were slave laborers and died by the millions, should tour guide certification be required?

The recent decision by the Sachsenhausen concentration camp memorial to levy a fee on commercial tour guides prompted passionate arguments on both sides.

Elan Steinberg, vice president of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants, said Holocaust survivors were "deeply disturbed and disappointed" by the decision. He wrote: "Charging any fees on visitors to the site undermines the present-day German consensus that no barriers should exist for the public to learn and reflect on the meaning and history of these places of persecution."

But a wide variety of other Jewish leaders and survivor representatives expressed support for the new fees, saying they would help ensure that guided tours of the concentration camp are historically accurate.

"Survivors found that some of these guides from the tourism firms were not educated and did not really know their history -- the history of survivors," Sonja Reichert, general secretary of the International Sachsenhausen Committee, told JTA  in a telephone interview from her home in Luxembourg. The Paris-based organization played an advisory role in Sachsenhausen's decision to start charging for tours, she said.

Starting June 1, private guides who visit the site of the camp in eastern Germany, near Berlin, have been required to undergo training and obtain certification that costs about $108 annually. In addition, the guides are now charged a fee of about $1.45 for each tourist they bring to the site, according to Horst Seferens, spokesman for the Brandenburg Memorial Foundation, which administers the Sachsenhausen concentration camp memorial.

The decision, made in January, was based in part on feedback from survivor groups and Jewish leaders, Seferens told JTA.

Stephan Kramer, general secretary of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said his council also supported the memorial's decision to require that private tour guides be trained. The council, too, was represented on the advisory board behind the decision.

"Some outsiders commercialize the tours without really delivering quality education," Kramer said in a text message to JTA. "We need to charge them."

The goal of the fees, Seferens said, is to raise the quality of private tours at the site and to raise funds to support the pedagogical work of the memorial.

On the Holocaust's Footprints « Muhammad Fadli PHOTOblog

Oświęcim; a name that you probably almost never heard of. Located in southern part of Poland, it refers to the very few of the most horrible place on earth you could ever imagine. Here, during the heat of World War II, approximately 1.1 million Nazi Germany prisoners met their death. Most of them are Jews, Poles, Roma, and Soviet soldiers. Auschwitz, that’s the Germans names for Oświęcim. This is more likely will help you to recall the exact tragic event.

(please rollover your mouse on the each photograph to see the full caption)

My recent trip in Poland has brought me to both Auschwitz I and Auschwitz-Birkenau (Auschwitz II) concentration camp (now Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum). Led by my curiosity (I read a lot of stuff about World War II during my university year), I was eagerly enough to start the 50km morning ride from Krakow to Auschwitz with good friends of mine, Anna & Olek. From the very first minute the car was running, I couldn’t help myself stopping to imagine what it would like be in Auschwitz, how horrible it could be, nor how it could shape that day for me entirely. I saw some pictures of it in the books, but paying a visit was felt just million times better.

Right outside Krakow, it was a lazy drive over the beautiful uneven southern Polish landscape. The road was pretty narrow, winding, and there were some serious amount of traffic too, so we didn’t see any possibilities to speed up. By the time we arrived, it was almost 11.am. And still we had to have our early lunch before the camp excursion which could last for the whole day.

After our modest lunch, we walked in the direction of the Auschwitz I. I saw some tour buses and the front office jam-packed by hundreds of visitor before us. There is a rule applied, after 10.am to 3.pm, we have to go with a guide. The entrance fee is actually free, but arriving at those busy time, we have to pay for a guide (40zl per person for 10 people in a group). Going with a guide is actually a good thing (I rarely took a guide); there will be someone who would always like to explain anything to you.

I then stepped slowly into my group. The guide explain this and that things before we entered the camp. But I couldn’t pay attention to her since I was more attracted to the camp entrance. “Arbeit Macht Frei” which mean “Works will set you free”, that’s what is written on it. Ironically enough, since anyone who happened to work in this camp during the war was never freed, or at least they were freed by the other way; death.

Life and Death in the Camps

Daily life during the Holocaust

Life in the ghettos during the Holocaust

Persecution and resistance of Jehovah's Witnesses during the Nazi regime, 1933-1945

The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust: Seredina-Buda-Z