I Am The Dark Tourist: Messenger of Remembrance

By H E Sawyer

Dark tourism is the practice of visiting sites associated with death and disaster. Participation is increasing, yet the machinations behind dark tourism remain shrouded in mystery, and intentionally so. This book, a companion to I Am The Dark Tourist Travels to the Darkest Sites on Earth, explores the seductive premise of 'transformation' that dark tourism offers: that visiting memorials to past tragedy will ultimately lead us to become better versions of ourselves.

Championed by enthusiastic governments — notably in the UK — 'must have' memorialisation provides an opportunity to engage the public with contrived grief from the past to be replaced by establishment neglect in the future.

From the waters of Loch Ness to the chaos of Mexico's Dia de Muertos, H.E. Sawyer considers the questions feared by state-sponsored dark tourism, and poses one of his own:

"Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"

• Language: English
• Publisher: Headpress
• Release date: Nov 2, 2023
• ISBN: 9781915316189

H E Sawyer

H E Sawyer spent over 40 years travelling to dark sites in blissful ignorance before discovering this behaviour had been defined by academics and sensationalised by the mainstream media.

Book preview

PREFACE

A Brief Description of Dark Tourism

‘D ARK TOURISM’ IS the practice of visiting sites associated with death and disaster.

The term is credited to Dr John Lennon and Professor Malcolm Foley with their 1996 paper, JFK and Dark Tourism: A Fascination with Assassination, and their subsequent book, Dark Tourism: The Attraction of Death and Disaster, published in 2000.

The phenomena is also referred to as ‘Thanatourism’, derived from the Ancient Greek word ‘Thanatos’, the personification of death, articulated in Professor Tony Seaton’s 1996 paper, Guided by the Dark: From Thanatopsis to Thanatourism, where the tourist is motivated by the desire for actual or symbolic encounters with death.

Dr Philip Stone, Executive Director of the Institute for Dark Tourism Research, describes it as, the act of travel, whether intentional or otherwise, to sites of death, destruction or the seemingly macabre.

Globally renowned examples of dark tourism destinations include the National September 11 Memorial and Museum in New York, commemorating the terrorist attacks of 1993 and 2001, the abandoned lands surrounding Chernobyl, site of the world’s worst nuclear accident in 1986, the memorial museums of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, targets of the two atomic attacks of WWII, the Killing Fields and Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, memorialising the Cambodian genocide of the 1970s, and the former Nazi death and concentration camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Dark tourism is diverse and accessible incorporating cemeteries, memorials and associated museums, battlefields, ghost tours, murder sites, prisons, plantations, shipwrecks and suicide spots.

While many sites cater for the increasing demand for ‘something different’, many providers resist association with the tag due to its perceived ghoulish nature. Other sites prefer to remain hidden.

Therefore the destinations of the dark tourist can be divided into two distinct categories: dark tourism sites, such as 9/11 New York, and dark sites, such as Aokigahara, the Japanese forest associated with reclusive suicide.

The determining factor: have we been invited to come and stare?

In Defence of Dark Tourists

TRADITIONALLY THE NARRATIVE of dark tourism is shared between the major dark tourism sites, associated academia, and the media.

Sites seek to promote themselves in the competition for footfall within this developing market. They strum an educational message drawing schoolchildren to inflate visitor numbers while simultaneously countering suggestions they cater for ghouls and voyeurs by exploiting the dead.

Academic research seeks to understand the multiple facets and nuances of the phenomena. Data is drawn from tourists, through structured surveys or ephemeral review sites, such as Tripadvisor, but invariably any conclusions remain a mystery, buried within distant academic papers.

The mainstream media finds schadenfreude in the questionable behaviour of dark tourists. Our misdemeanours, some unintentional, others less so, provide sensationalist fodder and a convenient excuse for the media to revisit death and disaster, while tourist transgressions provide publicity and empathy for the ‘wronged’ site.

From the perspective of a committed dark tourist the narrative feels one-sided. We’re either dark tourism’s justification, guinea pigs, or scapegoats. As the pursuit enters the mainstream consciousness with designated sites receiving state funding worldwide, the stories being told could benefit from the tourist’s considered perspective. This would provide a balance to those putting dark tourists under the microscope, spotlight, or black spot.

Illustration

‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ at Auschwitz.

Why This Book

ON REFLECTION MY first book could be seen as a collection of glorified postcards from globally recognised sites. While visiting, researching and writing about them provided a captivating learning curve I didn’t sense the challenge in producing a ‘B-list’ for a subsequent book, for example swapping Auschwitz-Birkenau for Dachau or Belsen, or — depressingly — Chernobyl for Fukushima.

But while writing it became evident that some sites were unwilling to engage with critical thinking, or even acknowledge that they were dark tourism attractions, the Titanic Museum Belfast a notable example. That questions were seldom entertained seemed ironic, given education was the core message.

And there were intriguing themes to explore within the genre. For example the use of dark tourism sites to teach us not only about what happened in the past but how we should think and behave in the present. Whatever our reasons for exploring the darkness, a proliferation of memorial museums could now deliver social programming by piggybacking onto remembrance. It seems only fair these institutions should be scrutinised to ensure their takeaway message is justified, if it’s working, and whether they have our best interests at heart. We’re providing their validation and funding, after all.

And having ‘paid my dues’ by producing a book on dark tourism, I wondered whether this might open doors previously closed. As always it is the hope that kills.

‘Messenger of Remembrance’

WHILE DARK TOURISM provides a diverse range of sites worldwide covering all manner of tragedy, the Holocaust has established itself during my lifetime as the largest organised provider, championed and financed by western governments. Set in mainland Europe against a backdrop of mass murder, personal stories have been exported through museum and memorial representations around the world.

Auschwitz-Birkenau and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum provide a daily drip feed through social media platforms, supplemented by western news media, films, TV, books, school curricula and anniversaries. For seventy-five years and counting, new Holocaust memorials and learning centres enjoy state support for the virtue, footfall, and tourist revenue they bring.

The shadow cast by this memorialisation and its presentation lengthens, darkens, and intensifies as the event recedes from living memory. This is not happenstance. In January 2017 Pawel Sawicki, Press and PR officer at the Auschwitz–Birkenau State Museum, stated that although tourists visited Auschwitz, the museum didn’t consider itself an attraction, and that visiting tourists would be transformed into ‘messengers of remembrance’.

Auschwitz supplied the narrative to distance itself from its tourist attraction reality, simultaneously sanitising the millions passing through its iconic gates. Dark tourists were now redefined to become apostle-esque. But there’s always the risk some might not follow this prescription.

A ‘Messenger of Remembrance’ could recall those things best forgotten.

Author’s Note

THROUGHOUT THIS BOOK I have included chapters focusing on differing interactions with the Holocaust as it is presented in contemporary times: as an historical tour, for ‘re-education’ in the fight against anti-Semitism, and the establishment of a new UK memorial.

These chapters have been spread out to provide both author and reader with some breathing space for reflection. In this I was guided by the closing words of Professor Tim Cole in his book, Selling the Holocaust, where he opined that: our contemporary obsession with the ‘Holocaust’ may not simply be doing us less good than we often claim. It may actually be doing us harm.

In Memoriam

Alzbeta ‘Sissy’ Meisl

How lucky am I that I could Never Forget you

H x

21st August 2022

Illustration

On Loch Ness.

THE LOCH

SUDDENLY I CATCH myself scouring the surface and turn away with an embarrassed smile just in case anyone was watching. I had no idea how long I’d been captivated by the wake of languid ribbon undulating across the water, as if a serpentine spine were winding beneath. Grow up, man! There’s nothing there and the truth is there never was, because science says so, sucking the ‘wonder ifs’ and weirdness out of everything mysterious. Late afternoon sun on my face, I sit back in the stern to enjoy the experience for what it is, an idyllic boat trip for a dozen tourists on Loch Ness.

Skipper Ali Matheson provides a running commentary:

Of course, we have found Nessie …

Ears are pricked. Ali indicates a sonar printout stuck in the wheelhouse, an unmistakable silhouette complete with signature neck. Classic monster. Discovered in 2016, it transpired to be the nine-metre life size prop built for The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, which sank without trace in 1969. Director Billy Wilder dispensed with the creature’s prosthetic humps, inadvertently negating its buoyancy and sending the model straight to the bottom where it now resides.

It’s yet another twist in the on-going tale of the elusive beastie that, to the eternal gratitude of a now thriving tourism industry, has made this loch home. According to the regional daily Press and Journal, ‘Nessie’ contributed over £40 million to the Highland economy in 2018. That toothy smile, those big bug eyes, resplendent evergreen scales, Tam O’Shanter at a jaunty angle, the cartoon creature rules these shores from fridge magnet to Christmas tree bauble. By the starboard rail the Eastern European couple suspend their Nessie cuddly toy over the water at arms length for a photo opportunity against the perfect backdrop and natural habitat. Wish I’d thought of that.

On our return to the jetty, as we chug serenely beneath the ruined battlements of Urquhart Castle, I join Skipper Matheson at the wheel. Everyone else is out on deck, enjoying the view or searching, so I can ask the prescient question:

So what’s the strangest thing you’ve seen?

Ali has been conducting tours for seven years, weather permitting. When he’s not catering for tourists his boat Deepscan doubles as a research vessel, exploring the mysteries beneath its keel. He’s out on the waters more than most, knows them like the back of his hand, including all those deceptive tricks of the light. In all probability who better to ask? Initially reticent, Ali checks to make sure no one’s looking, then pulls out his phone and scrolls for a photo he took of the depth sounder a few years back. The screenshot silhouette looks like the head of a shepherd’s crook, sticking up from the bottom.

What the hell is that?

Ali has no idea and only noticed the anomaly after he’d docked. He says it could be sunken driftwood. Or it could be a swim bladder, but if it were then it would have to be a huge fish.

And as science has long established, and Ali’s commentary reiterated, there isn’t sufficient fish stock to support an apex predator of monstrous proportions. There’s actually very few fish given the loch is the largest body of fresh water in the UK. It’s cold and brown from a metre down with wretched peaty visibility.

As an afterthought Ali asks if I’m from the media. I tell him I write about dark tourism but won’t be making any ripples. He says when local journalists ask if he’s seen anything he says no, otherwise they’ll presume he’s chasing publicity for his tours. Those signature hoaxes from yesteryear have become a burden. He intimates many locals feel their integrity is worth more than providing monster sightings to benefit the press. It’s the repercussions of the sins of the fathers at a time when Loch Ness has become self-sustaining and self-sufficient, in part because of those sins. Ali’s reluctance to engage is understandable and the inevitable side effect of cumulative fake news over the years.

A piece in the Scotsman in September 2003 purported to put the myth to bed. Back in 1933 the local water bailiff moonlighted as a ‘stringer’ for the Inverness Courier, essentially a freelancer paid to deliver local news. During a slow week he filed copy about a strange creature seen from his boat. His story was picked up by the London press and given a Plesiosaur-like makeover. The public now had something tangible to imagine with an accompanying artist’s impression, suggesting a dinosaur, or its descendant, had survived the millennia hiding out in the loch.1

This 2003 reveal in the Scotsman was courtesy of an uncredited journalist who befriended the water bailiff. We just have to take their word for it, the now deceased bailiff and his ghostwriting confidant, given this revelation conveniently fell on the seventieth anniversary. And ignore the earlier 1916 sighting by gamekeeper James Cameron, who arrived at the Drumnadrochit Hotel, his face as white as paper, having witnessed an enormous animal that surfaced near his boat, causing him to flee in panic.

The bailiff’s story from 1933 was fanned by a spate of sightings following the timely construction of the A82 road, running along the northern shore from Inverness to Fort Augusta. A couple claimed a long-necked creature crossed in front of their car, heading towards the water. Blurry photographs appeared in the press including the iconic ‘periscope up’ image that cast ripples for sixty years before being debunked as a hoax to coincide with the anniversary. The longevity of these sightings illustrates how the public took to Nessie. Endeared, they wanted to believe. Some still do. There’s no harm in that.

But nowadays the locals most likely to see something have closed ranks leaving ‘sightings’ to the tourists. We dock and transfer back to the Loch Ness Centre by minibus. I thank Ali for his honesty and engagement before wandering down to the Fiddlers Rest pub in Drumnadrochit to scrape a table for something to eat before it’s rammed inside and out.

On the brow of the bend the twee bagpipes are still piping out of ‘Nessieland’ as they have all day. It’s a family friendly attraction, circa 1980s, flanked by Ma, Pa, and Baby Plesiosaurs in smiling fibreglass, ideal props for that cheesy souvenir photo. Nessieland has a gift shop frontage. There’s an amusing range of tee shirts where the monster has been incorporated into designs bastardised from other global icons: Superman, Star Wars, Jurassic Park and Jack Daniels. The lights were off in the attraction and there seemed little point paying the admission to turn them on. It’s rubber sharks, snakes, and stylised Loch Ness Monsters, fun time for the under-fives, if only for a little while.

Loch Ness is most definitely dark tourism lite. There hasn’t been a death associated with the monster reportedly since 565AD, and today’s tourists aren’t coming because of that.2 It’s a fun day out spun from an enduring mystery.

THE MULTI-AWARD-WINNING LOCH Ness Centre and Exhibition resides in the former Drumnadrochit Hotel. It’s an imposing façade and definitely the daddy to Bond’s Skyfall. There’s no vintage Aston Martin outside for this is an underwater adventure, so there’s a 1960s mini submarine displayed instead.

Illustration

The Loch Ness Centre.

I join three from the US in reception, buy a ticket and watch an introductory film. When the curtain parts we walk into a cave, complete with decorative dinosaur skulls. There’s an informative multimedia presentation that covers the creation of the loch along the Great Glen geographical fault line. As the narration ends our path to the second chamber of seven is illuminated, the process repeated as we move through the chronological story of the loch, covering mythical tales of Norse water horses, ‘sightings’, demonstrations of how photographs were faked, and the various craft and techniques used to explore the depths. As the forty-minute presentation crests, seating has been incorporated for those needing to rest their legs.

At the conclusion of the audio-visual presentation there’s a gallery of static exhibits including a diorama depicting the discovery of the ‘R for Robert’ Wellington WWII bomber, which ditched in the loch during a training exercise on New Year’s Eve 1940. The plane was located by sonar in 1974 sitting at seventy metres, and raised in 1985 to be restored at Weybridge where it was originally built. There’s also a pair of eye-catching polystyrene human heads, one of which was sent to the bottom at 230m to illustrate the crushing effect of pressure at depth.

But it is the dated newspaper reports that captivate: ‘Big Game Hunter’s Discovery’ from December 1933 where Marmaduke Wetherall (ex-Central Africa) found a set of footprints belonging to a very powerful soft-footed animal about twenty feet long. This was incredibly fortuitous because Weatherall had been commissioned by the Daily Mail to find the creature. Zoologists from the Natural History Museum noted every footprint was identical, came from a hippopotamus, and most likely one whose leg was now used as a base for an umbrella stand, a popular interior design accessory of the period. This amusement is balanced by an endearing report from August 1938. The local police, now convinced an amphibious cryptid3 lived on their patch, were determined to protect it. Inverness Chief Constable William Fraser was alarmed by the news that a bounty-killer couple from London were having a specialised harpoon gun made to target the creature. In a letter to the Under Secretary of State the Chief Constable suggested they should promote the monster’s preservation as desirable. As if the Loch Ness Monster wasn’t surreal enough another report noted Chief Constable Fraser had asked for a full account of the experience of the man who claims to have seen the kangaroo version bouncing about the road in the moonlight.

Illustration

The effect of pressure in the depths of Loch Ness.

Overriding everything is the prophecy of Inverness County Council convener, Colonel D. W. Cameron:

I hope nobody will discover the monster. So long as the monster goes on, so long will it draw people to Loch Ness to investigate the mystery and the more people who come the more money will be left in the county to the benefit of the county. Long may the monster continue.

ADRIAN SHINE STRIDES purposely out of an Edgar Rice Burroughs novel. Eyes twinkling, a magnificent greying beard, he extends a hand in welcome. He makes quite an impression, like a steampunk eccentric about to fly his rocket ship to the moon in a tweed space suit. Originally from Surrey, Shine was captivated from childhood so it was only a matter of time before he made the loch his permanent home in 1973. He laughs whilst reminiscing. He believed it would only take a couple of months to prove the creature’s existence, thus making his fame and fortune. Engineering a submersible hide he paid his dues in the dark depths and was duly adopted by David James MP and naturalist Sir Peter Scott who co-founded the Loch Ness Phenomena Investigation Bureau.

I ask Adrian when he realised he wasn’t going to find anything. Without hesitation he says 1976, and although he’s subsequently recreated some of the notorious photographs to illustrate their fakery, this hasn’t dampened his natural curiosity. He was project leader of ‘Operation Deepscan’ in October 1986, where a flotilla spent a week drag-netting the loch with sonar. Although it was a fruitless search it drew Shine towards the dynamics and diversity of deep lakes.

He now runs the Loch Ness Project, teamed with the Loch Ness Centre and Exhibition. It’s a symbiotic relationship. Adrian designed the presentation and reciprocal support allows him to conduct scientific research where discoveries can be incorporated into the public display. It’s the mythical 1930s monster that underwrites contemporary scientific research. The Loch Ness Project logo is a clever morph of the ‘Surgeon’s Photograph’ of the periscope neck into a microscope, illustrating the emphasis is now on scientific endeavour whilst acknowledging the monster’s legacy.4 Adrian saliently draws my attention to the fact that when sightings began in earnest in 1933, the box office hit was King Kong. While he may no longer personally subscribe to Nessie, Shine recognises people continue to see something. The question for him now is that if it’s not a monster — then what is it?

Across the water Steve Feltham still believes. He’s been the full time hunter since the summer of 1991, having been hooked as a child on a family holiday in 1970. He now lives in a converted mobile library in the Dores Inn car park on the southern shore. A former potter, he sells clay models of Nessie to fund his search.5

AROUND THESE PARTS Willie Cameron is known as Mr Loch Ness.

I eat it. Breathe it. Sleep it. I’ve watched the loch from early morning through to early morning, both drunk and sober.

I note him as The Man with the Attaché Case. Willie holds court in his office at Loch Ness Marketing, established in 1994 to cater for film and television logistics when Braveheart and Rob Roy were the rage. His entrepreneurial prowess means he has fingers in many pies, including a local bakery. He tells me why Loch Ness is so successful.

"It’s curiosity. Is there, or isn’t there? If someone came tomorrow and said, categorically, ‘There is absolutely nothing there’, even if they could provide evidence, 50% of people would say, ‘I’m sorry I don’t believe you. There is something there.’ It’s a win-win."

Willie has a family connection. His late father, a police detective, saw something in June 1965. It’s a story that’s been told countless times. I happen to be today’s recipient.

Fishing by Urquhart castle, his father saw a rotating shape like an upturned boat moving against the headwind, suggesting it was animal or mechanical, although there was no sound. What made this incident noteworthy were the nine other witnesses, including a spotter from the Loch Ness Phenomena Investigation Bureau. Willie’s father didn’t go to the media, they came to him. When ITV revisited twenty-seven years later for a documentary and he re-told his story, they checked their original interview from ’65; his father hadn’t changed a thing.

Willie says there’s locals who’ve seen something strange, and they’ve seen deer swimming, seals, driftwood, the wake that travels twenty miles down the loch long after the boat that made it has gone.

To somebody who lives in Chipping Sodbury, that’s the monster.

But locals know these abnormalities. Then they see something they can’t explain. Reported sightings can still be found online but the days of the national splash are gone. The mystery is that despite Nessie’s reluctance to surface the tourist economy is booming. In the 1990s 25% of the gross turnover was made in the six weeks of summer. Highlands tourism is seasonal and hotels used to close between October and March. This winter of 19/20 will be the first where there’s sufficient business to keep the lights on.

Burgeoning Indian hotel chain OYO are investing in and rebranding the Drumnadrochit Hotel with intent to increase business by 40%. Chinese tourists have increased by nearly 200% in a decade. Up to a dozen coach parties come daily from Glasgow and Edinburgh with tourists willing to undertake a twelve-hour trip for a Highland experience that includes the tick-box of Loch Ness.

IT’S IRONIC THAT the monster makes Loch Ness a dark tourism site, given its existence may never be confirmed. We’ve essentially been invited to come and stare at dark water and wonder, based on tales from the past, because that’s what made the loch the attraction it is today. What intrigued me from the dark tourism perspective was not whether there was or wasn’t a monster, rather what was the motivation behind it. Was it a yarn to fill a slow news week that got out of hand, or a deliberate ploy for tourism pitched to perfection? Like the monster we’ll never know.6

Either way there’s the sense no malice was involved, that it was done in the spirit of teasing, perfectly illustrated by the report of the kangaroo version bouncing about the road in the moonlight. It didn’t feel like we were being taken in by a confidence trick, although that itself may have been the trick, because we wanted to believe. Who put the monster in Loch Ness? We did. The only ill-will during the myth building process surrounds the ‘Surgeon Photograph’, ‘Big Game Hunter’ Weatherall’s petulant retaliation to the exposure of his monster footprint ‘discovery’.7

Nessie has survived the hoaxes and fakery and morphed into a cute cartoon character, and perhaps that Disneyfication is the real trick. The lolling joyful face tugs at the heartstrings and despite my cynicism I’ve got my wallet out for a fridge magnet, one where the head is spring-mounted, so it wobbles and laughs at me every time there’s a raid. I buy a Loch Ness FC replica football shirt for the iconic monster design. 20% of shirts are sold internationally across thirty countries from Hong Kong to Mexico illustrating Nessie’s reach.

AND NOW I sit in the window of the Drumnadrochit Post Office-cumcafé with a coffee and sandwich which, with a tip, will cost a tenner, waiting for the bus to Inverness. I’ve enjoyed my time here. The weather has been spectacularly blue, the loch as flat as a millpond and my questions have been welcomed, even the awkward ones.

Loch Ness may not fulfil my usual criteria for dark tourism. There is an absence of death and tragedy here, but a monster is unequivocally ‘dark’, certainly when it was part of childhood-lore, before science torpedoed it. It’s a benign family attraction drawing in excess of half a million annually. The education is informative, well presented, and offered without agenda — the loch is not on any school syllabus, so — there’s no captive audience to swell attendance. Mythology and science co-exist ably supported by a charismatic cartoon character and there’s no controversy over whether you believe or not. The skill is ensuring visitors leave cash-lite with a smile on their face and memories in the bank without expectations dashed because they didn’t actually see Nessie. It’s important the loch, as a global brand, retains the lifeblood sense of mystery and is not regarded as a tourist trap. The nature of the attraction has evolved. It used to be sightings-led. Over time the application of science legitimises the income derived from the idea of the monster, because the half million plus aren’t coming for the dynamics and diversity of deep lakes.

I leave a tenner and wave goodbye to the change. Smiles all round.

There was another telling souvenir to be had. Sweden recently sent a delegation to Loch Ness, because they too had their own ‘Great-Lake Monster’, the Storsjöodjuret, resident of Lake Storsjön. No doubt the delegates cruised the loch toured the exhibition and met The Man with the Attaché Case, keen to discover how to maximise the potential earnings of their own monster, the one that in all probability doesn’t exist.

I BEGAN WITH Loch Ness to illustrate how something can be made out of nothing and become a literal monster with the willingness and susceptibility of our active imaginations. But the loch is also a prime example of a dark tourism attraction redefining its role, changing to cater for differing times, beliefs and clientele, and although my visit didn’t ‘change’ me personally — I didn’t subscribe to the monster before my arrival, or when I left — it changed my behaviour, inasmuch as I scoured the surface in hope at every opportunity.

The idea of travel changing a person is neither new nor fanciful. The Grand Tour of Europe during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw the upper classes adopt the trip for education and as a rite of passage. The 1960s saw the dawning of the age of the backpacker, middle class kids traipsing the developing world to find themselves in ashrams and tie-dye. Now the concept of the gap year with wheelie suitcases and umbilical mobiles is mainstream. And it’s this capacity to ‘change’ or ‘transform’ visitors that plays a fundamental role within dark tourism, especially when we encounter its darker examples. If travel broadens the mind it would be surprising if journeying to the ‘Dark Side’ didn’t evoke change. Academia concurred.

A conference at Glasgow University in June 2017, Dark Tourism Sites related to the Holocaust, the Nazi Past and World War II: Visitation and Practice included a paper entitled, A journey everyone should take — Sites of Holocaust memory and the question of dark tourist transformation.

I found the idea of dark tourist transformation fascinating. What were we being changed from — and into? How was this being achieved — and why? And did sites project they had the power to transform us — even if they didn’t?

For example, Auschwitz-Birkenau promoted their ability to induce change by re-branding their tourists. As noted in the preface, Press and PR officer Paweł Sawicki stated that: "many people who begin their visit as tourists later become messengers of remembrance, and that this happens thanks to experiencing the authenticity of the site as guided by educators. Visiting the former camp itself is a valuable personal experience which can teach and change people." (My emphasis)

Auschwitz-Birkenau receives over 2 million visitors annually, and labelling them as ‘messengers of remembrance’ felt somewhat presumptuous, if not pretentious. But it demonstrated that if we didn’t change of our own accord it could be said that we had as a fait accompli. But it’s not always possible for the site’s PR to control why and how it is remembered. Auschwitz undoubtedly ‘changed’ me each time I went, but it was not the sort of change the museum would welcome because repeated visits shifted my focus away from what Auschwitz was, towards what Auschwitz is, and how it projects itself now. I applied critical thought.

Danny Tatlow, author of A journey everyone should take — Sites of Holocaust memory and the question of dark tourist transformation, kindly sent his thesis, which cited Auschwitz-Birkenau and Anne Frank’s house as examples. Tatlow referenced academia that advanced transformative travel as only available to those ‘conscious travellers’ searching for ‘meaning’, the upper echelons, effectively a continuation of The Grand Tour set.8

But Auschwitz isn’t selective. They want anyone over the age of fourteen. And all can benefit. For example, the then British Prime Minister, David Cameron, took a ninety-minute tour on his way home from talks with the Turkish President in December 2014. It wasn’t a specific day trip pilgrimage, Cameron happened to be passing.

The PM offered tick box platitudes: overwhelming sense of grief, a reminder of why the UK must fight against prejudice, and stand up for inclusiveness, etcetera. The BBC website reported Karen Pollock, CEO of the Holocaust Educational Trust, saying Cameron would benefit from this life-changing visit. The PM’s experience was defined and broadcast. He’d been ‘changed’ for the record, regardless of whether he had or not. This established Auschwitz could give the Prime Minister a ninety-minute makeover and the Holocaust Educational Trust could interpret this as beneficial, as opposed to inducing despair at the futility of mankind’s existence and our capacity to wrought unimaginable horror on one another, which would not be an unreasonable conclusion after visiting any number of dark tourism sites. The designated message was that Cameron would be a ‘better’ person, solely as a result of his visitation.9

While dark tourism attractions and dark sites are able to exert change, certainly in the moment one is there — the discovery of a necktie noose in the suicide forest of Aokigahara springs to mind — profound change, in essence becoming ‘better’, is more likely to occur through pivotal interactions with the living rather than during a poignant pause before an unknown victim’s shoe, strategically placed behind glass. But for the promotion of dark tourism the theme of undertaking pilgrimage to attain personal reward is a seductive one.

Following this rationale to its logical conclusion — visitation equating personal improvement — we should in future only elect Prime Ministers who have already been to Auschwitz-Birkenau, for they are discernibly ‘better’ than those who have not. Or 9/11. Or both. Presumably the more dark tourism sites one attends the ‘better’ one becomes. The Pope has visited numerous examples to support this thesis, and with tongue firmly in cheek, so too have I. Such rationale is therefore demonstrably flawed. However, the perception that positive change could occur during a visit enhances a site’s aura and footfall. It becomes a quasi-religious experience. As Paweł’s messengers of remembrance branding demonstrates, there is no need to leave this to chance. It happens because Auschwitz says so.

THERE’S A DISCERNIBLE difference between the traditional museum and the memorial museum associated with dark tourism.