My friend Tom had come to visit from Australia and we had decided to do some travelling around Eastern Europe. We nicknamed our trip ‘Tom & Lara’s Wonder Tour (Plus Auschwitz)’ and we organised to meet up at the airport in Krakow. Unfortunately, Tom’s flight got completely fucked around and he ended up getting in much later than we originally had planned, and I had already organised for our tour out to Auschwitz-Birkenau – with a pick-up time of 6:30 am. This is how, on very little sleep, we were trying to pick something appropriate for Tom to wear.
After rejecting a t-shirt with a flat-line ECG that said “Sorry, you almost bored me to death”, a Breaking Bad top – “Cooking with Chemistry”, and there was definitely one where two cacti were trying to shoot each other, we settled for a plain black tee that was more than slightly in need of a wash. This took up about 20 minutes of our precious morning, and also meant that we got on the bus without coffee.
We arrived at Auschwitz and even though it was August, it was bloody freezing. Fortunately, Tom had a jacket in his backpack. They called our group as it was our turn to enter. As we walked under the infamous gateway, I grabbed Tom, and hissed in his ear “Do you know what’s written on your back??”
Watching the realisation dawn on him, I couldn’t help but laugh. So, despite our best efforts not to offend or upset anyone, we walked into Auschwitz trying to stifle our over-tired giggles.
Tom quickly took his jacket off, but if there’s one place in the world you can’t complain about being cold…
Now, I’m sorry if this sounds glib or irreverent. We were both truly and deeply embarrassed about our snickering, and honestly, I don’t think anyone else even noticed. It’s certainly not the worst thing I’ve seen someone do at a place that should be respected. Here are some of the ways I’ve seen people act like a douche, and why you should try to avoid them.
Selfish Selfies – Holocaust Memorial, Berlin
You might have heard some of the discussion about this earlier in the year after Shahak Shapira’s project Yolocaust*, where he took selfies of people from the Holocaust Memorial and photoshopped scenes from concentration camps into the background. He didn’t ask permission from any of the people whose pictures had been used (taken from Facebook, Instagram, Tinder and Grindr) however there is an email address at the bottom of the page – undouche.me@yolocaust.de. The Tumblr page Selfies at Serious Places is also bandied around a lot in this discussion. Some of the retractions are worth a read.

I have very mixed feelings about this memorial. Degussa, the company that covers the 2,700 concrete pillars of the memorial in an anti-graffiti coating, once owned Degesch, who in turn produced the Zyklon-B used in Nazi concentration camps. Initially, when the news broke, Degussa was shafted and construction stopped until a more suitable product could be found… Except that sacking Degussa would have been too costly, so work was resumed. Now, while Peter Eisenmen, the architect, said that “One must always forgive. That is the essence of this monument,” I personally don’t feel that forgiveness extends all the way to allowing Degussa to profit from their participation in the memorial.
#Holocaust selfies are always going to happen when you turn sombre sites into tourist attractions. (#holocaust currently has in excess of 400,000 public posts on Instagram). Having said that, show a bit of respect, forgo the selfie and save the histrionics for a place that isn’t commemorating the murder of six million or so people.

* What, you’re annoyed I didn’t come up with the term Yolocaust? Nothing is original. Just ask James Joyce, who thought he’d written a decent book, but it was actually just The Odyssey.
Not Wearing a Shirt – Srebrenica, Bosnia & Herzegovina
The Srebrenica Genocide saw more than 8,000 Muslim Bosniaks (mostly men and boys) murdered by the Bosnian Serb Army of Republika Srpska from the 13 – 18 July 1995. It was the worst episode of mass murder in Europe since World War Two, and the United Nations (UN) have accepted a portion of the blame for their failure to protect the Bosniak people in Srebrenica, officially a UN ‘Safe Zone’ since 1993. In 2011, it was ruled that the Netherlands was responsible for the deaths of three Bosniak men who were forced out of the UN camp at Potočari and subsequently killed by Bosnian Serbs.
When I visited the Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial Centre, it was July and pushing 40°C. In my opinion, it’s never so hot that you have to take your shirt off. Apparently, the lads on tour who were there the same time as I was don’t share that opinion. Even with their Santa Cruz muscle shirts tucked into the back of their Dickies, they couldn’t help but look disgusted when one of the girls they were with exclaimed: “Okay so I know this is what started World War One, but what is this place?”
Pro-tip: If you know that someone died in the spot you’re standing, do your best to keep your nipples covered.
Taking Shit That Isn’t Yours (AKA Stealing) – Every Urban Exploration Site Ever
After I visited Ilyicha in Dnipro, I started wondering about why there was absolutely nothing Soviet left in the place. It had been picked clean. Then, after reading an article by Darmon Richter from the Bohemian Blog called “Here’s Why I Don’t Share Locations”, I really started drinking the don’t-take-shit-that-isn’t-yours Kool-Aid.

It seems bizarre to suggest treating an urbex site like a national park – but stick with me here. Take nothing but photographs, leave nothing but footprints. If you do anything other than that, you’re devaluing the experience for the person that comes after you, and reducing the potential for that stuff to be put in a museum in the eventuality that the community does get its shit together. It might seem unlikely right now, but how does that make it any more rightfully yours?
There’s a myriad of other knock-on effects that I’m not going to lecture you with any more than I already have. But, do you really need that bullet from the sniper tower? Or the doll from Chernobyl? The newspaper from the Soviet bunker? Why? If you can answer that with anything less pathetic than “I thought it was cool…” or equivalent, then go ahead. But my money’s on that you probably can’t. Impress others with your stories and your personality rather than the shit you stole.
TL;DR
Wear a shirt around dead people and don’t steal stuff.
Oh my gosh that’s so embarrassing about the jacket haha! I would have laughed to… so awkward at a site like Auschwitz. Not sure how I feel about the photoshop job you mentioned either… there’s something to be said for acknowledging where you and juggling and selfies certainly don’t do that.
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We’d tried so hard to make sure he was wearing something sensible… you know what they say, best laid plans of mice and men
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Murphy’s Law 😛
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Oh no your clothing dramas made me laugh! But they are only clothes after all and don’t reflect what’s inside. Some of these memorials sound really interesting. I’ve been to a few such in Asia and think it is important to remember these tragedies in the hope we won’t see them repeated.
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I’ve heard of people taking bones from the killing fields in Cambodia… if that’s not disrespectful, I don’t know what is!
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Haha so funny about the clothing situation! I’m sure I would have laughed too! Can’t believe the stories about the selfies and the photoshopped pictures!
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Apparently, everyone whose photo was used found out pretty quickly, even though the artist didn’t notify any of them directly – How embarrassing!!
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Wow! That’s crazy! So embarrassing!
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Damn, that is an unfortunate jacket to be wearing at Auschwitz. Trust an Aussie 😉 (being one of them means I can say that, right?)
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Trust our luck for it be cold in August!
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Eh that was an unlucky choice of t-shirt despite your best effort. Honest mistake.. 🙂
I came across earlier with those selfies and people really need to show more respect..
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It was like being back at school, when the teacher has told you to stop laughing. The more we tried to stop, the harder we giggled.
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I visited the memorial in Berlin a few years ago. I remember trying to find a respectful way to take pictures. It’s a really moving memorial and I wanted to capture it without making a spectacle. We definitely saw some people doing some disrespectful stuff, including lounging on some of the shorter structures.
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That’s one of the problems – some of the lower ones are at perfect butt height. Of course people are going to sit on them!
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There’s fun, fact and so many funny stories! It was nice reading this 🙂
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Thanks Nikita, glad you got something out of it
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Your clothing drama really made me laugh, too. 😀 I have been to multiple concentration camps by myself, but also as part of my school class (I`m German) and our teacher almost started crying when he saw two girls taking selfies and making funny faces. I understand why. There are so many other places to do that.
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It seems common sense is lost on some people. It’s basic decency and consideration for others. I didn’t even mention the could I saw making out in the Holocaust section of the Imperial War Museum in London… wrong on so many levels.
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Iread about that photoshop site, i think its good in the fact that it brings attention to the fact that there is a time and place for selfies. Holocaust memorials are not one. I visited Dacau in 97 and these places, although abandonded etc still give me the creeps!
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I completely agree. Love a selfie, myself (I usually travel alone) but show a bit of decorum!
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Really misleading title and I honestly found this disrespectful. I really don’t appreciate how you brushed over the meaningful significance of the berlin holocaust memorial and auschwitz. (I would not be proud about laughing at Auschwitz. ) Maybe respect the memories of those who died by focusing on the history of these sites and discuss WHY people go in the first place + etiquette.
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Karen,
That is your opinion and you are entitled to it – far be it from me to tell someone on the internet why they’re wrong. While I have my own feelings about the Berlin Holocaust Memorial, which itself has been criticised for putting abstraction in place of actual memory, I agree with the sentiment that treating the Holocaust as a tacit fact which everybody knows is the first step on the road to forgetting. However, having said that, I do not feel it is my place, or the place of this blog, to detail the events of the Holocaust.
The entire premise of the article is about respectful behaviour at solemn, historical sites. I’m sorry you found the title misleading, it’s a modern literary technique known as “click-bait”. If you’re unfamiliar, you should probably check out Wired’s 2015 article “You’ll Be Outraged At How Easy It Was To Get You To Click On This Headline”.
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I am also guilty of taking a picture at Holocaust memorial in Berlin. But I was 17 and stupid. Would never ever do anything like that again.
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A picture or a selfie? I think there’s a big difference. It’s an impressive and photogenic memorial. It probably doesn’t need a smiling face in front of it though.
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I think a stifled giggle that arose out of trying to show respect in one’s clothing is totally fine, it’s not like you were giggling at the history, at what had happened or anything. And I agree with you totally on how crass some of the selfie tourists can be at sites like this. As for those who steal items from a site, that’s just low. Really really low!
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I think people were more offended when I took the header photo of the railway tracks, as it involved me lying down on my belly to focus my camera.
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Disrespectful, uneducated people at sights like these really rile me – at least you guys tried to not be inappropriate! The worst is seeing shots on instagram with captions like ‘got this place to myself’ etc – there is a reason why you shouldn’t be there and have respect that people died!! and don’t even comment back random crap when someone tries to tell you the history. (sorry personal bug bear!)
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It was the fact that she thought WWI could have started in 1993 that confused me the most.
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Really enjoyed reading your post, and the lack of respect people have for these sites makes me sad. I do have to say though that the title made me feel (and still does) very uncomfortable.
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Thanks – while it’s hardly a conspiracy theory article a out how the Holocaust never happened I can see why the title would be a turn off for a lot of people.
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