This study begins to fill the gap in research of people's motivations to visit sites of death and suffering and to contribute to a deeper understanding of dark tourism consumption within dark ...conflict sites. The article aims to examine the motivations of visitors to former transit camp Westerbork as an iconic dark site in the Netherlands. The research process involved a self-administered survey questionnaire filled by 238, randomly selected Dutch visitors. Data are analysed by means of exploratory factor analysis to decide upon the relevant factors for representing the motivations of visitors to Westerbork. The findings show that people visit Westerbork mainly for 'self-understanding', 'curiosity', 'conscience', a 'must see' this place and 'exclusiveness'. This is the first study to examine visitors' motivations to Westerbork as a dark site. Most research on visitor motivations is not based on empirical data, but on theoretical research.
Etty Hillesum Potgieter, Raymond
In die skriflig : tydskrif van die Gereformeerde Teologiese Vereniging,
01/2020, Letnik:
54, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Etty Hillesum, known as the adult Anne Frank, diarised her emotional and intellectual journey from 09 March 1941 to 15 September 1943, a final postcard thrown from the train en route to Auschwitz ...from Westerbork transit camp. Her diarising initially aided her therapeutically to analyse her personal feelings rationally. But the changing circumstances in the Netherlands, due to the Nazi occupation in addition to her own turmoil, turned her diarising into a highly personal inner conversation. She initially addressed herself. As her conversation deepened, it took on the semblance of a two-way conversation. Hillesum eventually concluded that she was conversing with God. Her life became more meaningful as she adopted a New Testament servant mentality and attitude of forgiveness towards her Nazi enemies. It was this attitude that compelled her to serve the younger women of Westerbork transit camp, but also to tell them of God’s power in forgiveness and hope for the future. This study will attempt to show Hillesum’s place within Reformed theological thinking. This is a necessary exercise, as many people do not only drift away from the church, but do not turn to it or to Christian ministers for pastoral assistance in matters of the spirit.
In this vivid memoir originally published in German, Anne Groschler (1888-1982) recounts her 1944 escape from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp to Mandatory Palestine via "Transport 222", an ...exchange transport of 222 Jews for "Aryan" prisoners of war. In the most detailed contribution of the exchange ever published, Groschler paints an authentic picture of life before WWII amongst the upper echelons of German society, her ultimate persecution and escape to Holland where she was betrayed, the horrors of life in the Westerbork and Bergen-Belsen camps, and her eventual flight via "Transport 222" to Palestine. Written immediately after her liberation in 1944, this unique document captures a little-known chapter of Holocaust history.
Debates about the meanings of place often emerge when unsettled pasts resurface unexpectedly in ways that dislocate present-day land-uses. Such was the case for the IGU 2011 Regional Meeting in ...Chile, which was held in Santiago's Military Academy. When considering the geographical scholarship about place and memory, the debates resulting from the conference should not be surprising. Geographers have long examined the controversial processes of social memory and forgetting at places marked by state-perpetrated violence and have noted the unpredictability of group memory due to the translocal nature of how places are connected to peoples and pasts through socio-political networks, cultural and economic connections, and personal and shared emotional geographies. To understand the complexities of ethical relationships we have with places marked by violence, we look to another example, the Memorial and Museum Camp Westerbork in the Netherlands. The past is never 'set in stone' or stable in present-day landscapes. Just as the narratives associated with remembering and forgetting the past may change through time, so too do the spatial contexts of memory. When space-times shift unexpectedly, new social discussions about the significance of the past in the present may emerge. With both examples in mind, we conclude by making a case for the creation of "responsible geographies of memory". We argue that it is our professional responsibility as geographers and our obligation as global citizens to: 1) acknowledge that landscapes often function as places of critical testimony for survivors; 2) problematize singular claims to the authenticity of place made through universal narratives and seemingly stable material landscapes; 3) create safe spaces of listening, wherein stories about place can be articulated and acknowledged by various stakeholders, while recognizing the moral complexities in representing violence through textual, visual and embodied means; and 4) recognize the progressive potential of places as cosmopolitan spaces of encounter and learning. By treating places marked by difficult pasts as cosmopolitan, hosts and visitors are invited to engage critically with the unfolding processes of memory politics, and adopt respectful approaches toward justice that includes caring for places and peoples in the past and present. Debatten über die Bedeutung von Orten der Erinnerung entstehen oftmals, wenn eine nicht aufgearbeitete Vergangenheit die gegenwärtige Nutzung dieser Orte in unerwarteter Weise in Frage stellt. Genau dies war der Fall, als im Jahr 2001 das IGU Regional Meeting in Chile in Santiagos Militärakademie ausgerichtet wurde. Ein Blick in die einschlägige geographische Literatur über Erinnerungsorte lässt die aus dieser Konferenz sich ergebende Debatte kaum überraschend erscheinen. Die kontroversen Prozesse kollektiven Gedenkens und Vergessens an Orten, die durch staatlich verübte Gewaltverbrechen gekennzeichnet sind, gelten seit langem als Gegenstand geographischer Forschung. Die Erkenntnisse belegen, dass kollektives Gedenken angesichts des translokalen Charakters, wie Orte mit Menschen und ihrer Vergangenheiten durch sozio-politische Netzwerke, kulturell und ökonomische Verbindungen sowie persönliche und geteilte Geographien der Emotion verknüpft sind, letztlich unvorhersehbar bleibt. Um die Komplexität unserer ethischen Beziehungen zu von Gewalt geprägten Orten zu verstehen, betrachten wir ein weiteres Beispiel – die „Gedenkstätte und Museum Lager Westerbork“ in den Niederlanden. Vergangenheit ist nie "in Stein gemeißelt" oder gleichbleibend in der gegenwärtigen Landschaft. Ebenso wie sich die mit Gedenken und Vergessen verbundenen Geschichten im Laufe der Zeit verändern können, gilt dies auch für räumliche Kontexte der Erinnerung. Kommt es zu unerwarteten Verschiebungen dieses raum-zeitlichen Gefüges, können daraus neue soziale Diskussionen über die Bedeutung der Vergangenheit für die Gegenwart erwachsen. Auf der Grundlage beider Fallbeispiele plädieren wir in der Schlussfolgerung für die Entwicklung „verantwortungsbewusster Geographien der Erinnerung“. Wir sind der Auffassung, dass es sowohl unserer professionellen Verantwortung als Geographen, als auch unserer Pflicht als Weltbürger entspricht: 1) anzuerkennen, dass Landschaften oftmals bedeutsame Zeugnisse für Überlebende darstellen; 2) einseitige Ansprüche auf Authentizität von Orten zu hinterfragen, die sich aus universalen Narrativen und vermeintlich beständigen materiellen Landschaften ergeben; 3) sichere Räume des Zuhörens zu schaffen, in denen unterschiedliche Interessengruppen ihre jeweiligen Erzählungen artikulieren und anerkennen sowie die moralische Komplexitäten der Gewalt textlich, visuell und verkörpert vermittelt werden können, und 4) das zunehmende Potential von Orten der Erinnerung als kosmopolitische Räume der Begegnung und des Lernens zu erkennen. Eine kosmopolitische Sicht auf historisch belastete Orte lädt Veranstalter und Besucher dazu ein, sich mit den Prozessen von Erinnerungspolitiken kritisch auseinanderzusetzen und eine respektvolle Haltung gegenüber einer solchen Gerechtigkeit einzunehmen, die (Für-)Sorge für Erinnerungsorte wie auch Menschen in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart einschließt.
Between August and December 1942, western deportation trains heading from Drancy, Westerbork, and Mechelen/Malines to Auschwitz were stopped in Cosel (today Kędzierzyn-Koźle, Poland, Upper Silesia), ...a town situated forty miles northwest of the death camp, by the SS and order police. During this so-called Cosel period, nearly 9,000 able-bodied men aged between sixteen and fifty-five were made to step out, while the elderly, the women, and the children rode on to Auschwitz, where they were murdered in the gas chambers almost immediately. From Cosel, the men were distributed among forced labor camps specifically set up for Eastern Upper Silesian Jews from the fall of 1940. These forced labor camps, superintended by SS Special Commissioner Albrecht Schmelt, were operated independently from the Auschwitz concentration camp and its satellites, hence the men were selected in Cosel and not on the ramp of Birkenau. The Cosel stops thus facilitated the transfer of western deportees into a secluded camp system that existed in parallel to the subcamps of concentration camps. The camp system was intrinsically linked to the construction of the "thoroughfare IV" to the Ukraine, supervised by the Reich Highway Company (Reichsautobahn), which had begun to use Jewish forced labor on a large scale. Most of the men taken off the trains in Cosel perished due to the adverse conditions in the camps. Based on survivor testimonies, this paper aims to providing the first detailed analysis of the Cosel period, while equally addressing the profound psychological trauma it effectuated.
The Jewish Council in Amsterdam appointed Etty Hillesum to an administrative position in its organization in mid-July 1942. She did not remain long in that position, however, becoming a social worker ...in the transition camp of Westerbork by the end of her first month on the job. Her task: To take care of all the men, women, and children who were being deported to Eastern Europe. In the first year, remarkably, she was permitted to travel freely between Amsterdam and Camp Westerbork. In June of 1943, the door slammed shut on that privilege, Etty Hillesum herself was deemed a prisoner
Etty Hillesum’s choice not to go into hiding plays a significant role in the assessments of her as a person. There are two basic positions regarding her choice: according to the first, she shared the ...fate of the other victims of the Shoah (the persecution of the Jews during the Second World War) out of a sense of solidarity. This position often includes labels such as “sacred” and “martyr”.¹ The martyrdom sometimes carries a socio-political connotation, positing that it was solidarity with the Jewish proletariat that made her choose to follow them into death. In this regard, Jan Geurt Gaarlandt’s
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