Haunting absence: Treblinka and birkenau

Abstract

This chapter examines two sites of historical trauma to consider the role of absence and intangibility as key factors in the power of a place to unsettle. It argues that there is significant value in sites that were destroyed by perpetrators, leaving nothing but ruins and now memorials. This creates a different experience for visitors than sites that hold remains of the event and remnants of the period. This paper considers Pierre Nora's 'realms of memory' and James Young's critical examination of the power of ruins and the key role of the visitor interaction with historical sites for memory to persist, arguing that it is sites of trauma that are marked by voids and absence that offer a unique experience that is more dependent on visitors thinking rather than simply 'seeing', and it is through this that such sites can unsettle. Drawing on Maria Tumurkin's theory of 'traumascapes', along with the 'dark tourism' phenomenon, this paper argues that the constructed memory developed through the creation of museums at sites of trauma detracts from the unsettling nature of such place and space.