SABANCI UNIVERSITY

DarkTourism

Between forgetting and remembering atrocities

Sabina TuckovaFall Semester 2014/2015

“Some monuments are joyously toppled at times of socialupheaval, and others preserve memory in its ossified form,

either as myth or as cliché. Yet others stand simply asfigures of forgetting, their meaning and original purpose

eroded by the passage of time” (Huyssen, 1995:250).

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Introduction

Great tragedies, murders, accidents and grief have always

attracted people.1 When there is a car accident, all cars slow

down just to see better what happened. Horror movies don’t have

problem with finding an audience. And since 1990s sites

associated with death are becoming touristic destinations more

and more often. This kind of tourism is called dark tourism and

one of dark tourism experts Philip R. Stone defines it “as the

act of travel to sites associated with death, suffering and the

seemingly macabre. Likewise, Tarlow identifies dark tourism as

visitations to places where tragedies or historically

noteworthy death has occurred and that continue to impact our

lives”.2 So according to these definitions we can say that dark

tourism has a long history because attendance at Roman

gladiatorial games, or spectator events at medieval executions,

or undertaking morgue tours of 19th century Europe, or

touristic visits to battlefields such as to Waterloo or

1 Minić, N. (2012). Development of „dark“ tourism in the contemporary society. J. Geogr. Inst. Cvijic. 62(3), 84.2 Stone, P. (2006). A dark tourism spectrum: Towards a typology of death andmacabre related tourist sites, attractions and exhibitions. Tourism, 54 (2), 146.

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Gettysburg3 in the immediate aftermath of the conflicts can be

considered as early dark tourism.

In the light of the 70th anniversary of Auschwitz liberation I

found interesting to study dark tourism because it has this

‘mysterious veil’ and there are also many unanswered questions

and controversies about it. Why people visit places which

arouse uncomfortable feelings in them or on the other side

places which serve other people sufferings in an entertaining

way and with a completely open business intention?

First of all, I explain what dark tourism spectrum is and give

some examples of dark sites. After that, I concentrate on how

the commercialization of death works and how death can be

interpreted by media, business people and the people in the

power. Then I put my attention on visitors' motivation at dark

tourism sites and finally I will explain if it is good idea to

talk about atrocities or to rather forget it.

Seven Dark Suppliers

3 Institute for Dark Tourism Research (2014). Research. Retrieved December 30,2014, from:http://dark-tourism.org.uk/research.

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Stone is of the opinion that there are so many dark tourism

sites and they differs a lot so for seeing the different

purposes of them he distinguished seven main types of dark

tourism sites according to the level of their darkness. He

calls them ‘Seven Dark Suppliers’.

Dark Fun Factories occupy the lightest edges of the dark tourism

spectrum. They have predominately an entertainment focus and

commercial ethic and they can present either real or fictional

death events. So they are in essence ‘fun-centric’. The most

famous of Dark Fun Factories can be London Dungeon or ‘Dracula

Park’ in Romania.

The second lightest are Dark Exhibitions. They offer products

which revolve around death, suffering or the macabre with an

often commemorative, educational and reflective message. They

are often located away from the actual site of death event and

they are essentially designed to provoke rather than narrate.

Probably the most famous examples are the ‘Body Worlds’

exhibitions and they are also the exhibitions with the most of

the visitors ever. They display real human bodies preserved

through a technique called plastination. Whilst educative

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elements of the exhibition are undoubted, the commercial

machine that now surrounds the show, in addition to the ethical

debate, have perhaps tainted the original exhibit objectives.

Dark Dungeons are further on the dark tourism spectrum and they

refer to those sites and attractions which present bygone penal

and justice codes to the present day consumer, and revolve

around mostly former prisons and courthouses. These sites were

originally non-purposeful for dark tourism and they possess a

relatively high degree of commercialism and tourism

infrastructure. How far can tourist industry go is shown on the

example of Galleries of Justice in Nottingham, UK: “Travel with

us on an atmospheric tour over three centuries of crime and

punishment. Witness a real trial in the original Victorian

Courtroom and put your friends and family in the dock, before

being sentenced and ‘sent down’ to the original cells…

Prisoners and gaolers will act as your guides as you too become

part of the dramatic history of this unique site”. These days

they are also organizing birthday parties, wedding receptions

and many others.

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Cemeteries or grave markers are also potential products for

dark tourism and Stone calls them Dark Resting Places. They are

acting as a romanticised, if not rather macabre, urban

regeneration tool. Tourism planners often use the cemetery as a

mechanism to promote visitation to an area. Père-Lachaise

cemetery in Paris attracts many tourists and being the largest

park in Paris it has evolved into something like open-air

museum. Whilst cemeteries offer serenity and the opportunity to

commemorate and pay respect to the deceased, they are also

increasingly getting more commercial and entertainment based.

For example Hollywood based ‘Dearly Departed’ tours allow

visitors to be taken through a journey of “death, murder and

just plain fun” whilst gazing upon graves of the Hollywood

elite.

Dark Shrines are those sites where people remember and pay respect

for the recently deceased. Most of Dark Shrines are non-

purposeful for tourism and thus possess very little tourism

infrastructure due to their temporal nature. Dark Shrines are

increasingly becoming places for those with a seemingly morbid

curiosity. The best example is the part of an article from 2002

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about tourism potential of Ground Zero: “The proud can buy

twin-tower T-shirts, the angry can buy toilet paper bearing the

face of Osama bin Laden, and the curious can climb up the fence

to take the perfect picture of what is now just a big hole”.

But the major component of tourist market are the sites and

activities associated with warfare and Stone calls these sites

Dark Conflict Sites. They are originally non-purposeful in the dark

tourism context but are potential tourism products.

Increasingly more and more trips to various battlefields are

organized and the First and Second World War battlefields tours

are very well established.

The darkest sites in dark tourism spectrum are Dark Camps of

Genocide. They are of course not that common but they exist in

places such as Rwanda, Cambodia and Kosovo. Their main purpose

is education and commemoration and they have high degree of

political ideology attached to them. There is no more apparent

concentration of death than that committed during the Holocaust

and the most obvious Dark Camp of Genocide is Auschwitz-

Birkenau. Memory of the Holocaust has become institutionalised

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and many museums of Holocaust appeared around the world, for

example Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.4

Commercialization of death

Death has always been a part of our lives but the perceiving of

it has changed throughout the time. In some periods of time it

was bigger taboo than in others but it is not really possible

to say that it is easier to talk about death in these days than

before. Death disappeared from the community into a closed

private world of hospitals, we can call it medicalization of death.

But on the other hand, death is increasingly more present in

popular culture through television, news, movies, music, art

etc. This rendering death into humour and entertainment is

playing an effective role in social neutralization of death and

thus it becomes less threatening.5

Dark tourism can also take the role in social neutralization of

death.6 But more than preparing us for dying, it teaches us to

4 Stone, P. (2006). A dark tourism spectrum. 152-157.5 Minić, N. (2012). Development. 87.6 Ibid.

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understand our lives, how something had happened and to learn

from mistakes, so it is more about living than dead.

Without doubts the phenomenom of dark tourism was here a long

time ago but now there is one big difference –

commercialization of it. This is also the reason why dark

tourism is sometimes seen as something immoral or unethical.

There is not a common view on this, but according to what some

experts say, the events which happened safely in the past can

either be exploited for commercialization7 or are not part of

dark tourism because they are not in memories of those still

alive to validate them.8 In other words, the most of the people

do not see an ethical problem with joining tours of Jack the

Ripper because it happened a long time ago, but they would

probably have a problem with visiting a Dark Fun Factory

talking about Holocaust or genocide in Rwanda. Although there

would be for sure some who would come to see maybe because of

the lack of information about those events or just due to their

morbid curiosity. 7Johanson, M. (2012). Dark Tourism: Understanding The Attraction Of Death And Disaster. IBTimes May 5. Retrieved December 30, 2014, from: http://www.ibtimes.com/dark-tourism-understanding-attraction-death-and-disaster-696604.8 Lennon, J., & Foley, M. (2000). Dark tourism: The attractions of death and disaster. London: Thomson. 12.

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Stone is talking about dark tourism and “its lack of

boundaries” as a main characteristic.9 But if this is true and

dark tourism really does not have any boundaries, we would be

living in completely amoral world without any values and

respect for our difficult past and death of innocent people.

This is not on the agenda yet.

However the tourism is a business and this is especially true

for dark tourism. So business purposes play the main role in

these sites and “to be succesful a dark tourism attraction

needs to offer high emotional experiences which engender

empathy among visitors”.10 This interpretation which goes

beyond simply relaying cold facts is called hot interpretaion. It

“attempts to ensure that visitors do not leave a site, or

experience without being emotionaly involved and aims to engage

the public’s attention and challenge them to examine their

attitudes and actions with respect to specific social,

9 Kamin, D. (2014). The Rise of Dark Tourism. The Atlantic July 15. Retrieved December 30, 2014, from: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/07/the-rise-of-dark-tourism/374432/?single_page=true.10 Kang, E. J. (2010). Experience and benefits derived from a dark tourism site visit: the effect of demographics and enduring involvement. The University of Queensland: The School of Tourism. 28.

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environmental and moral issues”.11 Corpses, personal belongings

or guides who experienced the events they are talking about can

help.

Obviously the museum is no longer just “an elitist bastion of

knowledge and power”12 and to attract masses it has to be

entertaining and afford an unusual experience. In case of dark

tourism sites it sometimes turns into something disrespectful

at all. I am talking about selling disaster souvenirs at Ground

Zero or doing wedding ceremonies at Galleries of Justice as

mentioned before, but there are many others like “$65 per

person ‘Flight 93 Tour’ to the Pennsylvania crash site of

United Airlines 93 – one of the 9/11 hijacked aircraft”–13

organized by a local farmer or selling matryoshka dolls with

the portraits of the most famous terrorists in Iraq.14 And

people will buy it because it is something extraordinaire for

them or it makes it an original souvenir for their friends. And

for some of them seeing dread and suffering is a kind of

excitement and there is not just a small number of them because11 Ballantyne, R. (2003). Interpreting Apartheid: Visitors‘ Perceptions of the District Six Museum. Curator: The Museum Journal 46(3), 279.12 Huyssen, A. (1995). Monuments and Holocaust Memory in Media Age. In Twilight Memories: Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia. New York: Routledge. 254.13 Stone, P. (2006). A dark tourism spectrum. 146.14 as seen on my own in 2011

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otherwise something called disaster tourism (visiting places

affected by hurricanes, volcanoes, tsunami or floods of mud)

would not break into worldwide.15

What can an effective interpretation do?

Sometimes an interesting history is enough for attracting

visitors, no need for questionable activities. “Dark tourism

sites are marketable if they are notorious; if the perpetrators

of the death and suffering associated with the site were

especially cruel; if the historic regime was manifestly unjust;

or if those who suffered were famous”.16

But the effective interpretation is also essential. Hot

interpretation as a good tool in dark tourism was already

mentioned before, but selective interpretation which is often based on

the political and cultural agendas of the host destinations17

is also common when we talk about war memorials, battlefields,

national struggle museums and so on. Visitors should not forget

15 Pavlát, L. (2008). Temná temná turistika. Český rozhlas komentáře September 9. Retrieved December 31, 2014, from: http://www.rozhlas.cz/komentare/portal/_zprava/492533.16 Tunbridge, J., & Ashworth, G. (1996). Dissonant heritage: The management of the past as a resource in conflict. Chichester: Wiley. 104-105.17 Kang, E. J. (2010). Experience and benefits. 22-23.

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to ask the question who and in whose interests is directing the

memorialization, and what are the purposes of that.18 It all

depends on the particular sites, but in general, business

purpose stands in front of education, prevention,

entertainment, rememberance, reminding people of their

mortality, and nation-building among others.

Media is who reminds and develops an interest in the darker

episodes of human history and as such it shapes perception of

the events associated with dark sites. Some people who already

have formed a perception of the events at such sites from media

may want to confirm these preceptions through actual visit to

the site of events.19 Also the role of the film is undeniable.

A Hollywood movie Schindler’s list (1993) was according to

experts at the beginning of renewed interest in Holocaust sites

and the next wave of interst in sites of atrocities came after

terrorist attacks in September 2001. Media, who are still

remembering the tragedy, has a big role in that.20

18 Moore, L. M. (2009). (Re) Covering the Past, Remembering the Trauma: The Politics of Commemoration at Sites of Atrocity. Journal of Public and International Affairs 20(1), 47.19 Kang, E. J. (2010). Experience and benefits. 19-20.20

Hloušková, L. (2009). Temná turistika fascinuje tisíce lidí. Novinky.cz May 25. Retrieved December 31, 2014, from: http://www.novinky.cz/cestovani/169023-temna-turistika-fascinuje-tisice-

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Visitors’ motivations

There has been a lack of empirical research on visitors’

motivations for visiting dark tourism sites. But my aim is not

to find one, the most common motive for visiting dark tourism

sites, just to discuss the main of them.

As diverse is a spectrum of dark sites, so equally diverse

tourists and their motivations are. It would be a mistake to

see them as a homogenous group. Tourists have different levels

of knowledge and familiarity as well as diversity of views in

relation to the display and all of these may affect their

motivations.21 There were surveys made in Holocaust Museum in

Houston22 and in Auschwitz-Birkenau23 and obviously the results

were different though there are more factors which could

influence that. Firstly, the surveys were done in different

times – 2003 and 2011, the perception of Holocaust is changing

and so is the attitude towards dark tourism. Secondly, the

lidi.html.21 Biran, A. et al. (2011). Sought experiences at (dark) heritage sites. Annals of Tourism Research 38(3), 825.22 Yuill, S. (2003). Dark Tourism: Understanding Visitor Motivation at Sites of Death and Disaster. MS Texas A&M University.23 Biran, A. et al. (2011). Sought experiences.

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museum about Holocaust does not evoke the same feelings as the

former concentration camp where people used to die. Both want

to show the atrocities which happened during Holocaust but in

different way. The museum is talking about ‘how it used to be’

but in Auschwitz, visitors can see and feel it on their own.

The way how the story is told is really important, especially

if the person feels somehow connected to it. Thirdly, the

location has its importance too. There are more museums of

Holocaust around the world and also more Holocaust

concentration camps (mostly in former Nazi’s territories) and

average tourist will choose the one which is nearest. There are

no concentration camps in the United States, so the Americans

who want to know more about Holocaust will visit one of the

Holocaust museums in the U.S. The purpose of these museums is

mainly educative, preventive and remembering. The motivation of

some visitors of Auschwitz is also to learn how it everything

happened, that it really happened and understand what can

ideology do with people. Many of them also come because it is

an important place in human history and it is good to see it.

Some can be just excited about seeing something unusual,

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special, unique, does not matter if the death is present there

or not. And the others are fascinated with death.

Some dark tourism literature emphasizes fascination with death

as the main motive for visiting sites in which death is

presented. However the findings of the survey suggest that

interest in death is the least important reason for the

visit.24 At least in Auschwitz. Visitors rather feel sorry and

they feel they should behave humbly, to show the respect for

people who died there. As Stone was narrating about people in

Auschwitz, smiling for a photo and their friends said: “Oh,

don’t smile – we are in Auschwitz”.25

But still there are some tourists who want to see death and

they have this opportunity increasingly more often. Body Worlds

exhibitons were the most popular exhibitions ever and when

there are some bloody demonstrations or even wars, the most

curious tourists want to be there, “armed with binoculars and

cameras, eager for a glimpse of smoke and even carnage”.26

These people are sensationalistic, the unforgettable experience

24 Biran, A. et al. (2011). Sought experiences. 836.25 Johanson, M. (2012). Understanding The Attraction.26 Kamin, D. (2014). The Rise of Dark Tourism.

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is the most important motive for them. But they are not the

majority. The majority of people who decided to visit dark

sites by their own will is aware of the enlightening function

of those sites. This function should be the most important.

The need to remember

Dark tourism sites show us the events in the past, how terrible

they were, to prevent it from happening again. Even when it is

very difficult to remember them, to look at the atrocities with

own eyes, it is important to do it. Otherwise it would be

forgotten and people would not learn anything from past

mistakes. “For if it is our concern and responsibility to

prevent forgetting, we have to be open to the powerful effects

that a melodramatic soap opera can exert on the minds of

viewers today”.27

On the example of Chile, Gómez is explaining how people easily

forget about what happened if they cannot speak about it.

Government in Chile attempted to wipe away all evidence of

27 Huyssen, A. (1995). Monuments and Holocaust Memory. 256.

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torturing during Pinochet’s dictature “because it stood as a

shameful reminder of the violent past”.28 Villa Grimaldi used

to be a concentration camp during 1974-1977, “four thousand

⦋people were⦌ tortured, two hundred and eight disappeared,

eighteen executions”.29 But activists built the museum in order

not to forget everything. Visitors can now step inside torture

cells and climb into spaces where captives were held in

isolation.

It would be also disrespectful to survivors or the families of

victims to say that something they experienced did not happen

just because people are afraid of talking about it. 27th

January 2015 is the 70th anniversary of Auschwitz liberation

and for the last survivors it “will be a day of crowning their

personal victory over doubt and oblivion”.30 It is the most

difficult for the people who experienced the atrocities to come

through it again and again but still they know that they are

the only ones who can tell how it really happened. And museums

28 Gómez-Barris, M. (2010). Visual Testimonies of Atrocity: Archives of Political Violence in Chile and Guatemala. Journal of Visual Culture 9(3), 414.29 Ibid, 412.30 Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau (2014). News. Preparation for the 70th anniversary of the liberation. Retrieved January 10, 2015, from: http://en.auschwitz.org/m/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1185&Itemid=7.

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talking about Holocaust and other atrocities should not scare

or shock people, Huyssen is talking about “death mask” or

“aesthetization of terror”,31 they are here to remember and to

prevent it from happenning again.

“The act of witnessing is never a complete act”.32

Conclusions

There are many types of dark tourism sites and they focus on

different kinds of people. Some of them are maybe unethical or

some of them just too kitschy, but untill the people will

continue to visit these sites, the tourism will continue to

produce them (and there is always enough of resources in this

area) and the other way round. It is not bad to make a bit of

fun of death, because people are dying every minute and we all

know we will die one day. So why to worry about that?

Presenting death in media and culture in an alternative way is

not taboo anymore but not all the deaths are same. Some of the

events are too frightening so it is simply not possible and it

would be unethical and immoral to make a fairy tale from them.

31 Huyssen, A. (1995). Monuments and Holocaust Memory. 258.32 Gómez-Barris, M. (2010). Visual Testimonies of Atrocity. 417.

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It is not a good idea to want to earn money on everything. But

always it is better to make “fun” of it than to do nothing.

However the atrocities were horrible, we have to experience

them again in the museums or other commemorative places to

learn from them. If we try to forget, the lesson is not over.

Paul Valéry once wrote that the more beautiful the objects in

the museums are, the more possible is that their beauty will

disappear.33 But is it valid in a opposite way with the ugly

objects too? The uglier the objects are, the less ugly they

will seem in real?

Bibliography

Adorno, T. (1982). Prisms: Studies in contemporary German social thought.

Cambridge, Massachussetts: MIT Press.

33 Adorno, T. (1982). Prisms: Studies in contemporary German social thought. Cambridge, Massachussetts: MIT Press. 176.

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Ballantyne, R. (2003). Interpreting Apartheid: Visitors‘

Perceptions of the District Six Museum. Curator: The Museum Journal

46(3), 279-292.

Biran, A. et al. (2011). Sought experiences at (dark) heritage

sites. Annals of Tourism Research 38(3), 820–841.

Gómez-Barris, M. (2010). Visual Testimonies of Atrocity:

Archives of Political Violence in Chile and Guatemala. Journal of

Visual Culture 9(3), 409-419.

Hloušková, L. (2009). Temná turistika fascinuje tisíce lidí.

Novinky.cz May 25. Retrieved December 31, 2014, from:

http://www.novinky.cz/cestovani/169023-temna-turistika-

fascinuje-tisice-lidi.html.

Huyssen, A. (1995). Monuments and Holocaust Memory in Media

Age. In Twilight Memories: Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia. New York:

Routledge.

Institute for Dark Tourism Research (2014). Research. Retrieved

December 30, 2014, from:http://dark-tourism.org.uk/research.

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Johanson, M. (2012). Dark Tourism: Understanding The Attraction

Of Death And Disaster. IBTimes May 5. Retrieved December 30, 2014,

from: http://www.ibtimes.com/dark-tourism-understanding-

attraction-death-and-disaster-696604.

Kamin, D. (2014). The Rise of Dark Tourism. The Atlantic July 15.

Retrieved December 30, 2014, from:

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/07/the-

rise-of-dark-tourism/374432/?single_page=true.

Kang, E. J. (2010). Experience and benefits derived from a dark tourism site

visit: the effect of demographics and enduring involvement. The University of

Queensland: The School of Tourism.

Lennon, J., & Foley, M. (2000). Dark tourism: The attractions of death

and disaster. London: Thomson.

Memorial and Museum Auschwitz-Birkenau (2014). News. Preparation

for the 70th anniversary of the liberation. Retrieved January 10, 2015,

from: http://en.auschwitz.org/m/index.php?

option=com_content&task=view&id=1185&Itemid=7.

Minić, N. (2012). Development of „dark“ tourism in the

contemporary society. J. Geogr. Inst. Cvijic. 62(3), 81-103.

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Moore, L. M. (2009). (Re) Covering the Past, Remembering the

Trauma: The Politics of Commemoration at Sites of Atrocity.

Journal of Public and International Affairs 20(1), 47-64.

Pavlát, L. (2008). Temná temná turistika. Český rozhlas komentáře

September 9. Retrieved December 31, 2014, from:

http://www.rozhlas.cz/komentare/portal/_zprava/492533.

Stone, P. (2006). A dark tourism spectrum: Towards a typology

of death and macabre related tourist sites, attractions and

exhibitions. Tourism, 54 (2), 145-160.

Tunbridge, J., & Ashworth, G. (1996). Dissonant heritage: The

management of the past as a resource in conflict. Chichester: Wiley.

Yuill, S. (2003). Dark Tourism: Understanding Visitor Motivation at Sites of

Death and Disaster. MS Texas A&M University: Recreation, Park and

Tourism Sciences.