If you do does it feel somehow different if it was a long time ago or fairly recent? Is there a “too soon”?
Thread inspired by a report on “dark tourism” visiting sites of horrible atrocities including those of recent past and highlighting how unsavory that seemed. But many of the world’s historical events to see the site of were horrible events. Where is the line crossed to disrespect of the memories vs commemoration of them and even bearing witness?
I’ve been to Hiroshima a half dozen times, Nagasaki, Pearl Harbor Arizona Memorial, numerous forts, trench complexes in Europe. Holocaust sites in Germany/Poland. Probably others. I’ve never had a feeling of disrespect; sadness for the most part. It’s history. I get the same feeling visiting memorials and cemeteries. An opportunity to learn, I suppose.
A long time friend of my Mom has owned a home in Brentwood since the 1960s. It’s right around the corner from where Ron Brown and Nicole Simpson were killed. It was a goddamned nightmare for over ten years.
It’s one thing to visit tragic locations that are historically significant, most of which have museums or learning centers attached. The other is just being a dick.
I’ve always wanted to see Hiroshima - just walk around and also spend a day in the museum. How do-able is that for an American on their own? I don’t like tours or anything structured, but I realize Japan could be challenging without some help.
I read James Elroy’s memoir at a time when I commuted twice a day past the street where his mother was murdered/dumped. Every time I passed, I thought about turning down that street and driving a block to where her body was found. I never did because I thought that would be creepy. Now there are whole podcasts and YouTube channels that do that sort of thing.
My son is traveling to Japan next year. I encouraged him to visit Hiroshima, and he put it on his list. I am not sure of the details, but I imagine there are self-guided walking tours you can find, or maybe a “tips for tours” with an English-speaking guide is pretty low-key in terms of structure.
For the OP, I have been to a few of these type of sites, and would like to visit Hiroshima as well as The Door of No Return in Senegal (of which there are apparently several in west Africa, but the one in Senegal is well-known).
What counts as “historically significant” vs “being a dick” and “creepy”?
Various sites of assassinations or many people killed by totalitarian regimes or war? What qualifies? Is it the mindset of the tourist? Is posing in stocks at the Salem witch trials horrible or long enough to not be too unseemly if also learning real history?
People constantly driving to the address which brought a lot of traffic to the formerly quiet area. Double and triple parking so they could take selfies and group shots which blocked traffic. Leaving trash in the area. Occasional vendors setting up shop. They eventually put up a big fence around the home that blocked the view and people still took pictures in front of that.
Ultimately someone bought the property and tore the place down and built a new home and probably no one cares enough anymore.
I answered some of this in a simulpost and in a post above.
Most of the examples given have an associated museum and tourist center or are located in a tourist area with informational plaques or are in some way intended for people to visit. The OJ murder house is in a neighborhood. There is nothing to learn from going there. You are ruining people’s peace.
Not that you are doing this but I am not going to do any bright line defining of when I think you should or shouldn’t visit a site.
The obvious examples for me are the former Yugoslavia. Mostar, Sarajevo and Dubrovnik. Though those are amazing places to visit regardless of their dark history.
Also the WW2 and WW1 battlefields I’ve visited. Ypres and Arnhem particularly stand out. Arnhem is particularly poignant for me as my Great Uncle and namesake (and my grandmother’s only brother) was killed and is buried.
I’ve been to the sites of the Hindenburg disaster and the Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire; no museums or visitor center at either, but small markers if you looked hard enough. I think I’ve found the location of the Brink’s Robbery in Boston, but not certain.
I’ve also found the graves of some famous people I admire; Gus Grissom, Buckminster Fuller, William Powell, and Harold Russell. I always kind of wonder if it’s disrespectful to seek out the resting place of someone I never even knew, but I like to believe that I do it in a spirit of respect and contemplation.
I did it (not exactly alone, but with another American who also did not speak Japanese—I was in the Navy and our ship pulled into a somewhat nearby port) in 2006. Didn’t have any problems.
I posted a (very) few pictures from the trip here, about midway down:
The Hiroshima site is completely open. Lots of multilingual signage at the various points of interest and the museum. Tours, private or party, are available. Self-guided as well. Way back it was headphones and cassettes, I’m sure it’s Internet phone based now.
I drove past Dachau once but didn’t stop. Just seeing the train tracks leading to it off in the distance was enough.
I’ve been to a number of European cities that were mercilessly bombed in WW1 and WW2.
Went through Checkpoint Charlie at the Berlin Wall.
Been to Warsaw, where people were systematically slaughtered by the Nazis.
I lived in Kampala, Uganda where Idi Amin ruled. It’s estimated that he murdered between 100K and 500K people. I also flew into Entebbe, where 100 Israeli commandos rescued 102 hostages. The bullet holes in the buildings have never been repaired.
I visited the Manassas Battlefield, where my great grandfather fought at Second Bull Run. The total casualties for both engagements was in excess of 25,000.
Other than Custer and Manassas, none of those places visited were because of what happened there.
If you look deep enough, there are thousands of places where horrors have perpetrated by our fellow man. We pass through most of them without realizing what has taken place in the past.
I visited what was, at the time, two big holes in the ground where the Twin Towers had stood a few months earlier, and paid my respects at an ersatz memorial that had sprung up. I also swung by Joplin, MO for a weekend visit with Mrs. Homie to visit old haunts (we lived there for a few years and we absolutely loved the city) a year or so back. While there we saw the memorial to the 2011 tornado that killed 160ish people - the memorial which, by the way, stands in a part of town that was right in the thick of it. And no, we hadn’t lived in the city for a decade by the time the tornado hit.
When we hired a guide in Mexico City to take us to the pyramids she made an unscheduled stop at Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Tlatelolco. There were no markers or memorials of any kind but she proceeded to tell us about how hundreds of students were massacred there days before the 1968 Olympics. She was old enough to have known some of those killed or disappeared. There wasn’t anything physically significant about that plaza but being there while hearing that story was far more impactful than if it was told elsewhere.
