Lives to Remember Nelson-Parr 1

Mikayla Nelson-Parr

Lives to Remember

Chandler Gilbert Community College

Lives to Remember Nelson-Parr 2

People travel to certain destinations for specific points of interest. These points of

interests can be family related, scenery, culture, and even food. What if a specific point of

interest could involve something so tragic that death and grief were associated with it? What if

people visited locations that were scenes of demise that included genocide, tragedy, or suicide?

This is called Dark Tourism, where people visit places that were associated with a dark past.

The term dark tourism (sometimes referred to as grief tourism or thanotour-ism) refers to

the intriguing phenomenon by which sites of death and disaster become transformed into sites of

popular tourist attraction (Derody and Brennan, 2014). This tourism Is becoming a form of

attraction for many, but the reason behind going to these tragic places might not be so grim after

all. These memorial sites hold special meaning to someone, whether it be grief or a bittersweet

memory. Dark tourism is a crucial part in history where humanity was let down and catastrophe

was the result. By going to these sites, it allows people to see the wrongdoings humankind made,

and absorb their mistakes.

A place known as Murambi Technical School in Rwanda is where thousands of Tutsis

were murdered after being lead to the school, abandoned, and attacked by the Hutu. We are

refusing to bury our dead. Some people say the genocide never took place here, they say we

exaggerate. These corpses will stay in this school as a testimony to the genocide. (Rutaremara,

2005). A concern for many is the thought of people being ashamed and in denial of events that

took place in the Rwanda genocide. Khmer Rouge is a communist party that took over Cambodia

and didnt end until the late 1990s. They took control over the country and led the people into

famine, without medical care, and execution. Rwanda and Cambodia are still recovering today

from the mass genocide that took place. These places are sites for dark tourism, although it isnt
Lives to Remember Nelson-Parr 3

as popular as some other attraction sites. These governments would rather hide a massacre than

admit what horror took place in their history.

Visiting places such as the 9/11 terrorist attack memorial in Manhattan or Auschwitz, the

Jewish concentration camp that involved over a million deaths of innocent civilians based on

religion and prisoners of war, is an overwhelming sense of emotions that wont be felt unless you

allow yourself to have a deep connection with the tragedy. Its a crucial part in history that allows

us to understand and learn from the lessons of the past. Future generations will enter the

museum from a different world, with different concerns and perspectives. But they will leave it

as I did with a deeper sense of the significance of their role in human history: to do good or evil,

to bear witness or keep silent. (Barnett, 1993). Museums and memorial sites of death arent

meant for the wicked minded, its intended to make someone grasp the concept of the dim reality

that occurred. Dark tourism can even be something simple such as Chernobyl where a reactor

failed and the city of Pripyat was evacuated leaving a vacant, eerie, and spooky place to be

wandered and explored. People around the world were in uproars about this accident and

nuclear testing is now banned, under The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban, that was enacted in

1996.

Dark tourism is very popular amongst the various forms of tourism that can be found.

With the rise of dark tourism and the locations available to travel and admire also comes people

finding ways to use it to achieve money. Tourism is also associated with business with money in

mind, using such popular attractions is an easy way to earn money when millions of people are

visiting top attractions each year. This could include a museum or even an average bus ride

OnBoard Tours has started the NYC Freedom Tour ($59.99) for the tourist (Hollander, 2011).

Even if there isnt a pricey fee for the attraction, there are food shops and souvenirs to buy,
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anything to make a dollar off you. So, if people are making a profit on such attractions are the

victims who suffered truly being remembered? Is dark tourism a type of tourism that can be

described as insulting to the people who lost loved ones?

When people visit places like the 9/11 terrorist attack memorial in Manhattan or

Auschwitz do they think about the memory that was left behind or all the people that cherished

and made it such an important impact on society or do they see it as an attraction to entertain

them or a way to make a business. People may forget the tragedies humans can inflict on one

another in the name of religion, race, or other differences. They might also forget about all the

innocent lives that were lost and the families that were ruined. With Dark Tourism also comes

knowledge, without such instances of the tragedies that have occurred we would be ignorant of

such things that have occurred.

Many people are against such tourism as it could be insulting and degrading to the lives

lost and the memory its suppose to exert. Many people fail to realize what Dark Tourism is until

diving deeper into the meaning. They dont realize visiting such places could hold a deeper

meaning or value, they might see it as a monument or location where something tragic has

happened and thats the extent of it. Dark tourism is intended for exploiting the mistakes that

happened in the past. Putting yourself in the sense of mind of the people that died during mass

genocide, watched their loved ones suffer, and cried until the tears meant nothing. Dark tourism

is keeping these horrible events alive. It displays the suffering that occurred. Without out the

memoirs of these sites, would the tragedy be left unspoken? The world learns from its mistakes

thats made it its history. Humanity shouldnt be ignorant to what its caused, but gain power

from it.
Lives to Remember Nelson-Parr 5

References

Barnett, V. (1993). Bearing witness: The Holocaust Museum. The Christian Century, 110(16),

509+. Retrieved from https://ez1.maricopa.edu:2048/login?

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Dermody, E., & Brennan, M. (2014). Dark Tourism. In M. Brennan (Ed.), The AZ of Death and

Dying: Social, Medical, and Cultural Aspects (pp. 128-131). Santa Barbara, CA:

Greenwood. Retrieved from https://ez1.maricopa.edu:2048/login?

url=http://go.galegroup.com.ez1.maricopa.edu/ps/i.do?

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Hollander, S. (2011, Sep 07). 9/11: A decade after: A new draw for tourists. Wall Street Journal

Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.ez1.maricopa.edu/docview/887749792?

accountid=3859

Rutaremara, T. (2005). Through A Glass Darkly. Retrieved May 04, 2017, from

http://maps.cga.harvard.edu/rwanda/murambi.html