This letter is not directed at the people going on this trip. It is not directed at the historian who was hired to guide it.
It is directed squarely at the company that created this advertisement and the people who approved it.
I looked at this ad several times because I honestly could not believe what I was seeing.
There, beneath one of the most horrifying images in Jewish history—the entrance to Auschwitz, the gateway through which more than a million Jews were marched to their deaths—appear the selling points: “5 Star Hotels.” “Gourmet Meals.”
How?
How did this make it from a designer’s computer to the printer without a single person saying, “Stop. This is wrong.”
Auschwitz is not a tourist attraction. It is not another stop on a European itinerary. It is the largest Jewish cemetery in the world. It is soaked with the blood of our parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, and children.
That gate was the entrance to hell.
Jews walked through those gates starving, terrified, beaten, humiliated, stripped of every ounce of human dignity. Mothers carried babies through those gates, never to emerge. Fathers watched their families disappear forever. Children were marched directly to the gas chambers. The elderly, the weak, and the sick were sent to their deaths within hours of arriving.
Millions never came back out.
And beneath that image we advertise…
“Gourmet Meals.”
Read those words again.
“Gourmet Meals.”
If those words placed beneath the entrance to Auschwitz do not make a person shudder, something has gone terribly wrong.
This is not ancient history. This happened within living memory. There are still Holocaust survivors among us. There are still Jews who roll up their sleeves every morning to reveal the Auschwitz numbers permanently burned into their flesh. Imagine one of them opening a print publication and seeing this horror in front of their eyes.
Imagine surviving Auschwitz only to see the gates of that nightmare transformed into the backdrop for a luxury travel advertisement.
No one is criticizing the fact that participants will sleep in comfortable hotels or eat good food. That is not the issue.
The issue is judgment.
The issue is sensitivity.
The issue is respect.
There is a line that should never be crossed, and this advertisement crossed it.
Some places are so sacred in their tragedy that they demand silence, reverence, and humility. Auschwitz is one of them. Every stone cries out. Every inch of that ground is mixed with the ashes of kedoshim. It is a place where entire kehillos vanished, where Torah giants, innocent children, mothers, fathers, and babies were systematically exterminated simply because they were Jews.
To use that image as the backdrop for selling luxury accommodations and gourmet dining is profoundly insensitive. It diminishes the solemnity of the place and sends a message that no Jewish publication or organization should ever want to convey.
Who approved this?
Who looked at this layout and thought it appropriately reflected the sanctity of Auschwitz?
The Holocaust must never become a marketing opportunity. Auschwitz must never become the backdrop for selling comfort, luxury, or convenience.
We owe the six million—and the survivors who still live among us—far better than this.
A Deeply Disturbed Reader
The views expressed in this letter are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of YWN. Have an opinion you would like to share? Send it to us for review.
(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)
10 Responses
Who appointed you to be the one to call out rogue marketers? Believe it or not, you’re not the only one dismayed by the crass marketing that goes on in frum publications. You read it & ignore it. That’s what we all do. Or, stop buying the magazines that print these advertisements.
Kudos to the writer.
I am a 2Ger…I grew up living and breathing post holocaust trauma from both my parents.
Speechless
Nuff said
If you haven’t realized yet nothing is sacred to this generation people will sell out anything to make a buck
I agree with the letter writer.
Yes, we have lost our shame.
Fully agree with the letter. Also can’t stand to see frum ppl driving
Audis, VW, Mercedes, etc, the same brands that were used to bring our grandparents to extermination.
I spit on those cars. Not on the drivers, who sadly have no sense of our recent history, but on the vehicles.
The constant chase of consumerism and materialism has caused the lose of sensibilities in many people and turned them into crass, unthinking, unfeeling zombies.
One of the few letters I can say 99% of readers agree with (save some very questionable commentors).
What on earth? Is visiting Aushwitz really become a tourist attraction?
I am totally astounded, what do you think a holocaust survivor reading a mnagazine and coming across this advert will think? what i went through for 6 years in gehinom on earth was for my grandchild to enjoy some tourist trip?
Maybe after seeing this advert, that will shed some light on the point made by a previous writer elsewhere, that fumed about girls going on these trips, and people answering that they come back “inspired”. Inspired by what? the sushi? the 5 course meals? A proper visit there would be to take the visitor on a 24 hour virtual hunger, and give them just some potato peals or moldy bread to eat, that would be better!
This ad is SICKENING, HOW DETATCHED AND MONEY GREEDY have some become?!?!?
Kol Hakavod to the writer for noticing this disgusting lack of respect. I’m sure many readers of the ad just turned the page.
Yasher Koach.
@pure yiddishkeit
“I am totally astounded, what do you think a holocaust survivor reading a magazine and coming across this advert will think? what i went through for 6 years in gehinom on earth was for my grandchild to enjoy some tourist trip?”
No, that’s not a question to ask, because one has nothing to do with the other, of course. As well, you could ask the same question about touring anything else, too, like even the Kosel. If you include harugei beithar, the destruction of the second Bais haMikdash was the deadliest destruction of Jews ever in history, far exceeding the Holocaust, as per the gemara in Gittin. Yet, people tour all over E”Y.
The problem is not making a dignified tour there; the concern is the design of the ad.