Memory texts and Nazi concentration camps: a comparative analysis
by Patricia A. Stokowski
International Journal of Tourism Anthropology (IJTA), Vol. 6, No. 2, 2018

Abstract: How do visitors make sense of history at dark tourism sites, and how do onsite experiences help to structure memory? Asserting that the memory-making potential of tourism sites arises from discursive foundations, this paper analyses textual presentation and enactment at four Nazi concentration camp sites (Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland, Buchenwald and Dachau in Germany, and Mauthausen in Austria). Data suggest that concentration camp sites are experienced by visitors within three distinct but interwoven texts: linguistically, in texts of dissonance provided by managers onsite; symbolically, in texts of absence fostered during visitors' personal encounters with sites; and imaginatively, in creative texts personally constructed during visitors' experiences onsite. Each of these texts stimulates cultural memory, communicative memory, or a combination of both. Together, they are foundational elements of a genre of dark tourism discourse that organises texts, their producers and 'readers' (tourists, others), and relevant contexts to construct meaning and provoke collective memory.

Online publication date: Wed, 30-May-2018

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