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Bringing Nazi Camp Tourism To The British Isles

Discussion in 'Concentration, Death Camps and Crimes Against Huma' started by GRW, Oct 19, 2017.

  1. GRW

    GRW Pillboxologist WW2|ORG Editor

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    Tricky, but think it would be a good thing from the remembrance viewpoint.
    "The western-most concentration camp in the Third Reich, Lager Sylt, was located on British soil - only about 70 miles south of Bournemouth on the island of Alderney. Should this camp and other relics of the Channel Islands' occupation by Nazi Germany be developed into tourist attractions?
    Arrive in Alderney at its small and ageing airport and you will see an island map, pointing out Victorian forts, a Roman nunnery and World War Two coastal defences.
    There is, however, no mention of the four wartime camps that housed thousands of slave labourers, many of whom died as part of Nazi Germany's attempts to turn Alderney into a fortress island.
    It is these locations that Marcus Roberts, director of the National Anglo-Jewish Heritage Trail, believes should be developed as "sites of memory", in part to boost the island's flagging tourism industry.
    "Alderney is perhaps the best place to go to understand the realities of the Nazi slave labour system," he said.
    "People could go and understand what the consequences of tyranny are and the mistreatment of other people.
    "I think there's a role for respectable tourism, which would be part of the overall tourism strategy for the island."
    Bringing Nazi camp tourism to the British Isles
     
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  2. TIRDAD

    TIRDAD Active Member

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    Very Intersting.

    As i Am Studying Tourism,

    I should say it is Called "Dark Tourism".

    visiting Battlefields, War Memorials, Wartime Structures, Mine Fields, and ...

    I had some Experience with this kind of Tourism.

    Mostly Germans.

    If you have come to Kurdistan, There are Hundreds of Dark Tourism Attractions to see.

    Minefields, Mountain Camp, Artillery Spoting Towers, Underground Tunnels, and so many other things...
     
  3. gtblackwell

    gtblackwell Member Emeritus

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    I use to take students on semester abroad programs to study European architecture, ancient to modern. . Most of us who did so stressed leaning about the customs, habits, behavior and simply how people of other countries lived in order to understand better how and why and what they designed as buildings .. I always took them to Theresienstadt ( It has more than a few spellings ) or Dachau.. Most thanked me , said normally they would not have gone there , some were upset, fine by me if they leaned, surprisingly a few parents told me they did not want their children, all were 20 or older, exposed to such. . Looking into the ovens of Dachau or picture of children and their art work in their "camp" just before they were killed is as close as most of us will come to even trying to begin to understand the Holocaust and that is not even 1/billionth of what is must have been like..

    That such a thing as a slave labor camp would come to the peaceful Channel Islands stretches my imagination but in my fairly long life every exposure to such has made me a better, more caring and thoughtful person and helps me to appreciate all the lives lost defeating the mentality that produced it. Those soldiers did not die or suffer in vain. I dislike the thought it is called a tourist attraction, gives it demeaning connotation, I saw it as a pilgrimage.

    I would fully support this endeavor. The contrast between looking at the world from Aldernay and seeing the remnants of a slave labor camp stretches one's soul, a healthy exercise for the mind.

    Gaines

    PS, and , Otto, I am glad to be able to post again.
     
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  4. gtblackwell

    gtblackwell Member Emeritus

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    Tirdad. I greatly appreciate your being here to give us insights into the current world, "Dark tourism" is a wonderful addition to one's vocabulary and supports the idea of saving such places as the camps on Aldernay.

    Gaines
     
    Last edited: Oct 20, 2017

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