"Postcards from Auschwitz is an important intervention into the vexed topic of Holocaust 'tourism.' Reynolds deftly challenges the various criticisms of the 'Shoah business'its presumed commercialization of suffering, conversion of horror into kitsch, and its putative role in evacuating Holocaust memory of substance. He addresses such received wisdom not by denying its power, but by way of a compelling exploration of the experience of Holocaust memorialization in Warsaw, Berlin, Jerusalem, and Washington, D.C that does not only analyze various national narratives of the event, but also defines the tourist's experience in surprisingly textured and nuanced terms. The book is a real eye-opener and should be read by anyone with an interest in contemporary Holocaust memory."
"Reynolds lays bare the faulty assumptions about tourism and tourists that undergird the criticisms leveled at sites of Holocaust commemoration. His own scholarship, by contrast, takes seriously the abilities of tourists to reflect just as critically as any of the scholars who write about the topic, and shows how their presence (including their own discomfort with the idea of tourism) helps Holocaust tourism remain an open-ended process of meaning-making. This is tourism studies at its finest. Reynolds' authorial voice is pitch perfect - sophisticated without being pedantic, readable without being simplistic."
"Postcards stand for the superficiality of tourism, but also have a flip side in which the viewer can express agency, sometimes undercutting the message of the glossy picture. Reynolds is one of the few scholars to take both Holocaust memory and tourism seriously. Among the questions the book explores are: How does one portray the victims suffering without turning it into a spectacle? How do memorial sites negotiate between historical verities and traumatic experience? What agency do tourist publics have in reading and interpreting Holocaust sites and what are the responsibilities of site managers in responding to them? Where does one draw the line between knowledge-seeking and voyeurism? The result is a thought-provoking, multi-disciplinary account of the ethics of memory and responsibility in an age of snapshots and selfie shares."
★ 02/12/2018
Reynolds, professor of modern languages at Grinnell College, incisively scrutinizes the intersection of tourism and Holocaust remembrance in this revealing book. He first questions how sites associated with the Holocaust interact with the tourism industry, defending that industry against claims that all disaster tourism is superficial or voyeuristic. He then discusses how representations of the Holocaust at heavily visited locations (such as Auschwitz and Dachau) have evolved over time as knowledge and political agendas have changed, addressing specifically the “memory boom” of the 1990s that helped spur the refashioning of many sites into museums. At lesser-known sites, such as Chelmno and Sobibor, he explores the different approaches to preservation and discusses whether commemoration alters history. Cities central to the Holocaust enter his view, too, as Reynolds outlines the dilemmas in Warsaw posed by the desire to commemorate both Polish Catholic and Jewish victims of Nazi aggression while acknowledging Polish complicity. In Berlin, “counter-memorials” (purposefully inconspicuous memorials that aim to question the idea of memorialization) invite alternative interpretations of history, while Israel’s Yad Vashem offers a redemptive narrative for those lost during the Holocaust and Washington, D.C.’s Holocaust Museum reveals, in Reynolds’s view, an anxiety about Holocaust memory in a period when eyewitnesses are dying. Reynolds covers a wide range of issues, handling his subject carefully and thoroughly. While he sometimes belabors his points, he raises important questions about history, tourism, and genocide. (Apr.)
"Reynolds’ theoretically informed selection of cases allows for both breadth and depth in analyzing the promises and pitfalls of Holocaust tourism. Postcards from Auschwitz does not lay to rest ethical questions, but rather raises new ones for future scholarship. This book will appeal to scholars within the interdisciplinary realms of tourism studies, museum studies, public history, and Holocaust studies, as well as the staples of history, anthropology, philosophy, and literary studies. Reynolds’ courage in broaching a controversial and understudied subject will no doubt inspire continued scholarship on Holocaust tourism’s complexity and transformative potential."
"A graphic journey of discovery that reveals . . . many troubling questions: Do Holocaust tourists come as casual sightseers or as pilgrims? Where is evidence, in those dedicated places, of redemption? Soon there will be no survivors of the Holocaust; what will the places, monuments, and museums tell future generations?"- Kirkus Reviews
" Postcards from Auschwitz is an important intervention into the vexed topic of Holocaust 'tourism.' Reynolds deftly challenges the various criticisms of the 'Shoah business'—its presumed commercialization of suffering, conversion of horror into kitsch, and its putative role in evacuating Holocaust memory of substance. He addresses such received wisdom not by denying its power, but by way of a compelling exploration of the experience of Holocaust memorialization in Warsaw, Berlin, Jerusalem, and Washington, D.C that does not only analyze various national narratives of the event, but also defines the tourist's experience in surprisingly textured and nuanced terms. The book is a real eye-opener and should be read by anyone with an interest in contemporary Holocaust memory."-Carolyn J. Dean,Charles J. Stille Professor of History and French, Yale University
"Incisively scrutinizes the intersection of tourism and Holocaust remembrance . . . raises important questions about history, tourism, and genocide."- STARRED Publishers Weekly
"Reynolds lays bare the faulty assumptions about tourism and tourists that undergird the criticisms leveled at sites of Holocaust commemoration. His own scholarship, by contrast, takes seriously the abilities of tourists to reflect just as critically as any of the scholars who write about the topic, and shows how their presence (including their own discomfort with the idea of tourism) helps Holocaust tourism remain an open-ended process of meaning-making. This is tourism studies at its finest. Reynolds' authorial voice is pitch perfect - sophisticated without being pedantic, readable without being simplistic."-Shaul Kelner,author of Tours That Bind: Diaspora, Pilgrimage and Israeli Birthright Tourism
"This should be required reading for anyone contemplating a trip to places of remembrance, such as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum or the Auschwitz and Dachau death camps in Europe. Reynolds effectively tells how history and tourism intersect."- Library Journal
"Postcards stand for the superficiality of tourism, but also have a flip side in which the viewer can express agency, sometimes undercutting the message of the glossy picture. Reynolds is one of the few scholars to take both Holocaust memory and tourism seriously. Among the questions the book explores are: How does one portray the victims’ suffering without turning it into a spectacle? How do memorial sites negotiate between historical verities and traumatic experience? What agency do tourist publics have in reading and interpreting Holocaust sites and what are the responsibilities of site managers in responding to them? Where does one draw the line between knowledge-seeking and voyeurism? The result is a thought-provoking, multi-disciplinary account of the ethics of memory and responsibility in an age of snapshots and selfie shares."-Jackie Feldman,author of Above the Death-Pits, beneath the Flag
2018-02-27
An academic study of the nascent discipline of "Holocaust tourism."To conduct his research, Reynolds (Modern Languages/Grinnell Coll.) visited the sites once devoted to the destruction of all European Jews and others who were offensive to the Nazi regime, traveling to the museums, monuments, and attractions dedicated to the millions murdered by the Third Reich. He joined the crowds that arrive at the archetypal death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau, which "saw records attendance in 2016, receiving more than two million visitors from all over the world"—and where visitors can purchase postcards that showcase evidence of the atrocities that occurred so many decades ago. "What remains to be seen," writes the author, "is whether these visitors take any lessons with them after they leave." Reynolds also journeyed to Majdanek, Sobibór, and Treblinka and toured the monuments in Warsaw, Poland, where law now forbids any hint of Polish culpability in Nazi crimes. In Berlin, the author went to the House of the Wannsee Conference and explores the latest "countermonuments." His tour continued at the prodigious Yad Vashem complex in Jerusalem, and the last stop was the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., where some observers have found cause for concern about the Americanization of the Holocaust. The author's astute text does not invite a cursory reading; his penchant for academic prose and prolixity will appeal primarily to scholars. Throughout, the author depicts a graphic journey of discovery that reveals bits of kitsch and many troubling questions: Do Holocaust tourists come as casual sightseers or as pilgrims? Where is evidence, in those dedicated places, of redemption? Soon there will be no survivors of the Holocaust; what will the places, monuments, and museums tell future generations? Unlike Tim Cole in his 1999 book Selling the Holocaust, Reynolds remains sanguine about the efficacy of Holocaust tourism. A diligent, sometimes-laborious study of the necessity and uses of Holocaust tourism.
