Abstract
This chapter examines two sites of historical trauma to consider the role of absence and intangibility as key factors in the power of a place to unsettle. It argues that there is significant value in sites that were destroyed by perpetrators, leaving nothing but ruins and now memorials. This creates a different experience for visitors than sites that hold remains of the event and remnants of the period. This paper considers Pierre Nora’s ‘realms of memory ’ and James Young’s critical examination of the power of ruins and the key role of the visitor interaction with historical sites for memory to persist, arguing that it is sites of trauma that are marked by voids and absence that offer a unique experience that is more dependent on visitors thinking rather than simply ‘seeing’, and it is through this that such sites can unsettle. Drawing on Maria Tumurkin’s theory of ‘traumascapes’, along with the ‘dark tourism’ phenomenon, this paper argues that the constructed memory developed through the creation of museums at sites of trauma detracts from the unsettling nature of such place and space.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Aderet, O. (2016). Samuel Willenberg, Last survivor of Treblinka Revolt, dies at 93. Haaretz. Retrieved from http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/news/.premium-1.704370.
Arad, Y. (1987). Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The operation Reinhard death camps. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum. (2018). Attendance. Retrieved from http://auschwitz.org/en/visiting/attendance/.
Cole, T. (1999). Selling the Holocaust: From Auschwitz to Schindler, how history is bought, packaged and sold. New York: Routledge.
Engelhardt, I. (2002). A topography of memory: Representations of the Holocaust at Dachau and Buchenwald in comparison with Auschwitz, Yad Vashem and Washington, DC. Brussels: Peter Lang.
Feig, K. L. (1979). Hitler’s death camps: The sanity of madness. London: Holmes and Meier Publishers.
Hell, J., & Schönle, A. (2010). Introduction. In J. Hell & A. Schönle (Eds.), Ruins of modernity (pp. 1–16). Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press.
Huener, J. (2003). Auschwitz, Poland, and the politics of commemoration, 1945–1979. Ohio: Ohio University Press.
Keil, C. (2005). Sightseeing in the mansions of the dead. Social and Cultural Geography, 6(4), 479–494.
Legg, S. (2005). Contesting and surviving memory: Space, nation and nostalgia in Les lieux de mémoire. Environment and Planning B: Society and Space, 23, 481–504.
Lennon, J. J., & Foley, M. (2004). Dark tourism: The attraction of death and disaster. London: Thomson Learning.
Lennon, J. J., & Mitchell, M. (2007). Dark tourism: The role of sites of death in tourism. In M. Mitchell (Ed.), Remember Me: Constructing immortality, beliefs on immortality, life and death (pp. 167–78). New York: Routledge.
Mason, B. (2016). Rare glimpse of unprecedented Auschwitz restoration. SBS News. Retrieved from http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2016/12/02/rare-glimpse-unprecedented-auschwitz-restoration.
Muzeum Treblinka. (2018). Muzeum Treblinka będzie współprowadzone przez Ministerstwo Kultury i Dziedzictwa Narodowego oraz Samorząd Województwa Mazowieckiego. (C. Thorn, Trans.). Muzeum Treblinka. Retrieved from https://muzeumtreblinka.eu/2018/12/21/muzeum-treblinka-bedziewspolprowadzone-przez-ministerstwo-kultury-i-dziedzictwa-narodowego-oraz-samorzad-wojewodztwa-mazowieckiego/.
Nora, P. (1989). Between memory and history: Les lieux de mémoire. Representations, 26, 7–25.
Rafferty, C. (2015). Hallow this ground. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Rapson, J. (2012). Emotional memory formation at former Nazi concentration extermination camps. In D. Picard & M. Robinson (Eds.), Emotion in motion: Tourism, affect and transformation (pp. 161–78). Farnham, United Kingdom: Ashgate.
Rapson, J. (2015). Topographies of suffering: Buchenwald, Babi Yar, Lidice. New York: Berghahn Books.
Rubenstein, R. L., & Roth, J. K. (1987). Approaches to Auschwitz: The Holocaust and its legacy. Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press.
Stone, P. R., & Sharpley, R. (Eds.). (2009). The darker side of travel: The theory and practice of dark tourism. Bristol, UK: Channel View Publications.
Sturdy Colls, C. (2012). Holocaust archaeology: Archaeological approaches to landscapes of Nazi genocide and persecution. Journal of Conflict Archaeology, 7(2), 71–105.
Sturdy Colls, C. (2015). Uncovering a painful past: Archaeology and the Holocaust. Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites, 17(1), 38–55.
The Wiener Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide. (2016). Finding Treblinka. Retrieved from http://wienerlibrary.co.uk/Finding_Treblinka.
Trip Advisor. (2016a). Krakow Auschwitz and salt mine—private tour. Retrieved from http://www.tripadvisor.com.au/Attraction_Review-g274772-d2433066-Reviews-Krakow_Auschwitz_and_Salt_Mine_Private_Tours-Krakow_Lesser_Poland_Province_Southe.html.
Trip Advisor. (2016b). Treblinka memorial park. Retrieved from http://www.tripadvisor.com.au/Attraction_Review-g274820-d284154-Reviews-Treblinka_Memorial_Park-Central_Poland.html.
Trip Advisor. (2018). Auschwitz salt mine tours. Retrieved from https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/Attraction_Review-g274772-d10209840-Reviews-Auschwitz_Salt_Mine_Tours-Krakow_Lesser_Poland_Province_Southern_Poland.html.
Tumarkin, M. (2005). Traumascapes. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. (2016). Treblinka. Retrieved from https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005193.
van der Laase, R. (2013). Beyond Auschwitz? Europe’s terrorscapes in the age of postmemory. In M. Silberman & F. Vatan (Eds.), Memory and postwar memorials: Confronting the violence of the past (pp. 71–92). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
van Vree, F. (2006). The stones of Treblinka. Centropa, 5(3), 237–245.
Vatan, F., & Silberman, M. (2013). Introduction, after the violence: Memory. In M. Silberman & F. Vatan (Eds.), Memory and postwar memorials: Confronting the violence of the past (pp. 1–11). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Winskowski, P. (2007). Ethical factors in spatial environment. Town Planning and Architecture, 31(1), 3–11.
Winstone, M. (2010). The Holocaust sites of Europe: An historical guide. New York: I.B. Tauris.
Wóycicka, Z. (2013). Arrested mourning: Memory of the Nazi camps in Poland, 1944–1950 (J. Tilbury, Trans.). Frankfurt: Peter Lang GmbH.
Wylie, J. (2007). Landscape. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
Young, J. E. (1993). The texture of memory: Holocaust memorials and meaning. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Young, K. (2009). Auschwitz-Birkenau: The challenges of heritage management following the cold war. In W. Logan & K. Reeves (Eds.), Places of pain and shame: Dealing with difficult heritage (pp. 50–67). Oxon, UK: Routledge.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Deakin University and the Menzies Centre, Kings College London for their generous support and funding for field research in the United Kingdom and Poland. Thank you to the editors for their valuable feedback and advice throughout the development of this chapter.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Thorn, C. (2019). Haunting Absence. In: Pinto, S., Hannigan, S., Walker-Gibbs, B., Charlton, E. (eds) Interdisciplinary Unsettlings of Place and Space. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6729-8_17
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6729-8_17
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-13-6728-1
Online ISBN: 978-981-13-6729-8
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)