by H.E. Sawyer (Manchester: Headpress, 2023), 314 pages

- reviewed in March 2024

  

  

  

SPOILER ALERT: in the following rather long text I have to give away various details, including frequent verbatim quotes, from the book’s content in order to discuss them. So if you don’t want any such spoilers or are simply not so interested in the details, you can jump forward to the shorter general conclusion here.

  

  

  

  

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I am familiar with and have reviewed the same author’s previous book, entitled “I Am The Dark Tourist – Travels to the Darkest Sites on Earth”. I found it to be excellent. So when I was invited by the publishers to write a review also for this new book, I was delighted and keen – and naturally my expectations were very high indeed. So have these expectations been met? Read on …

  

  

REVIEW:

  

The cover page is basically a version of the one the first book had, in fact it has the same title, but a different subtitle: “Messenger of Remembrance”. What is meant by that will become clear shortly. The photo also resembles that of the first book, except that the masked face and the shirt in this photo of the author sport a Mexican “Dia de Muertos” style, complemented by a Mexican sombrero hat (instead of the black top hat in the first book’s cover photo). His gloved hands hold a camera in front of his belly, thus subtly marking him as a tourist. (The camera is one by Pentax, I was pleased to note, as I am also a Pentax user, though of different models to this one on the cover – see photography.)

  

The back cover, featuring an (uncommented on) photo of the Covid remembrance wall in London, has both a recommendation quote by another author and historian and a short blurb. The latter makes it clear that this is not simply a sequel to the first book, but follows a different approach, namely digging deeper into the “machinations of dark tourism [that] remain shrouded in mystery, and intentionally so”, as, so the suspicion goes, “governments” keen on memorialization allegedly see this as a chance to “groom the public”, by providing “transformations”, namely the opportunity to become “better” persons through dark touristic visits to such memorials.

  

I had to gulp a bit. I didn’t expect such a negative stance or for memorialization to be viewed as an alleged conspiracy to manipulate dark tourists (or the public at large). Nevertheless, my curiosity was certainly piqued. How will this line of thought pan out in the body of the book?

  

Opening the book, the first page found is a collection of five quotes from reviews praising the author’s first book, including the final line of my own review of it.

  

Following the publishers’ details, the title page and a table of contents, is a Foreword, penned this time not by anybody from the travel industry (as was the case in H.E. Sawyer’s previous book) but by an academic researcher and lecturer. It features the usual focus on motivations, ethics and marketing, and stresses that the book “explores some uncomfortable realities of dark tourism”, but also that “disagreement and contemplation are expected” (p3). That kind of reflects what I had gleaned from the blurb already.

  

The book’s author’s own voice then takes over with the Preface. It is subdivided into five sections of around a page each. “A Brief Description of Dark Tourism” offers the usual short-hand definitions, which I trust I won’t have to reiterate for readers of this website. It finishes on a note already indicated in his previous book, namely a distinction between proper dark TOURISM sites such as the 9/11 Memorial, where we are invited to visit, and “dark sites” where we are not, citing as an example the Aokigahara “suicide forest” in Japan (which, as my Japan intro section stresses, is indeed not covered on this website for a number of ethical and personal reasons).

  

There follows a section entitled “In Defence of Dark Tourists”, which however rather notes that the academic research into dark tourism largely remains “buried within distant academic papers” (p5) while the mainstream media tend towards sensationalism and feeding on cases of questionable tourist behaviour. The resulting frequent misrepresentations of dark tourism in the media are only too familiar to me. The author rightly sees all this as off balance and claims that this state of affairs “could benefit from the tourist’s considered perspective” (p5). Indeed, I couldn’t agree more.

  

The next section “Why This Book” explains that from the experience of writing the first book the author decided that this second one could not simply be a “B-list” of just more dark (tourism) sites reported on in the same manner as in that first book. From the work on that book it also became clear that many sites were “unwilling” to “even acknowledge that they were dark tourism attractions”, the author gives the “Titanic Museum Belfast” as an example (p6). Interestingly, I had the opposite experience with that particular site (they only insisted that I call it an “Experience”, not a “Museum”). But it is of course true that the term ‘dark tourism’ is usually shunned or even rejected within the tourism industry. I know that only too well from my own experience. Next comes a reiteration of the suspicion that dark tourism sites may not just teach us about the past but “how we should think and behave in the present” and the author calls that “social programming” (p6). Heavy stuff. We’ll have to see if such a view gets underpinned later in the book. Finally the author voices his hope that having produced a book about dark tourism this might “open doors previously closed” (p7), but we already get an indication that this has not made such a difference.

  

Next is a section explaining the subtitle “Messenger of Remembrance”. Apparently this was taken from a statement by a PR officer at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, in which the view that the place is a tourist attraction is countered by the wish that it should instead “transform” visiting tourists into said “messengers of remembrance”, thus distancing itself “from its tourist attraction reality”. But as the author notes, such a “prescription” may not always be followed (p7). Lastly there’s an “Author’s Note” which makes it clear that the book will have a heavy focus on the Holocaust, from various perspectives, interspersed with other topics to provide “breathing space”. The author also states that he was guided by a line from a book called “Selling the Holocaust”, namely that the current “obsession” with the topic may actually do more harm than good. Well, we’ll see …

  

Before the first proper chapter comes an “In Memoriam” note, namely to a late Holocaust survivor the author used to know in the UK and who clearly had an inspiring role in the author’s own developing interest in the topic.

  

  

Chapter 1 is entitled “The Loch”. And indeed it is about Loch Ness and its legendary alleged “monster”. This choice came as a surprise to me, as I would not have considered it a genuine dark tourism destination, especially given that it is well known that all those hoaxes about monster “sightings” have been thoroughly refuted. Still the allure seems to remain and supports a veritable tourism infrastructure generating a sizeable revenue. But the author eventually admits that Loch Ness is at the lightest end of the dark tourism spectrum (and for me it’s actually off that scale altogether).

  

The chapter is not as monothematic as the title suggests. About halfway through it totally changes direction. The author takes Loch Ness and its monster as an example of how things can change within dark tourism, in this case from scary monster to cuddly cartoon-character exploited by a touristy money-making machine. He asserts that his own visit didn’t change him personally (he didn’t believe in the monster’s existence anyway) but admits it changed his behaviour: scouring the Loch’s surface in hope (despite better knowledge). I guess that’s just what most people do (me included). He then takes the idea of travel “changing” people even further, adding that this had been the very idea behind the Grand Tour, and similarly the modern age of backpacking and gap-year travels. This brings him back to the idea of visitors at Auschwitz and other Holocaust sites being “transformed” into “messengers of remembrance”. He finds the idea that all 2 million Auschwitz visitors each year all being thus transformed “presumptuous, if not pretentious” (p21). Of course it is. It’s PR talk, which by its very core nature is inherently pretentious. He adds that his repeat visits to Auschwitz did change him, but in ways the PR department may not like, namely becoming ever more critical of how the site is today and how it “projects itself now” (p22). I can concur. My most recent visit to Auschwitz also had me focusing on the site’s nature as a visitor attraction today rather than on its grim history.

  

The author also references some academic writing that supports the idea of “conscious travellers” searching for meaning and hence transformation. But he also adds that Auschwitz directs its expectation in that regard not just at conscious travellers but at everyone (over the age of 14). Yet he also notes that expressions of such “change” are commonplace on platforms like TripAdvisor and quotes a whole host of predictable platitudes voiced by former UK Prime Minister David Cameron following his brief visit to Auschwitz (just 90 minutes, hardly enough to scratch the surface) tagged on to some political meeting in Poland. Indeed all this talk about “life-changing” experiences at Auschwitz is terribly clichéd. These platitudes are so hackneyed that they’ve become self-replicating.

  

However, the book’s author then proceeds to attach a much deeper meaning to all this. He infers that the idea of “pilgrimage” to a site like Auschwitz (or another “must see”, the Anne Frank House) for the goal of “personal improvement” means that before we visit we are not good enough and have to be bettered. Furthermore he sees behind such a “moral obligation” some sinister plan governments have up their sleeve “beyond memorialisation” to manipulate us into becoming “better”, and more “state-pleasing”, which he finds “positively Orwellian” (p24-28). To me this smacks of a conspiracy theory. But I think he’s over-interpreting the PR platitudes and clichés. After all, even though some politicians may use such hackneyed clichés themselves, the “transformation” PR came not from governments but from the Auschwitz-Birkenau management’s PR department. My guide back in 2008 also said “das muss man gesehen haben” (‘this is something one must have seen’) at one point in the tour. But what if that is indeed so? I didn’t feel manipulated. Nor did I feel I had noticeably changed. I knew a lot about Auschwitz before I went there and had visited other concentration and death camp memorials previously (including Majdanek, which the author also notes is much more authentic), so Auschwitz didn’t even exert such a shock effect on me, as maybe it does on first-time visitors who make Auschwitz the only camp they ever visit.

  

The author also notes a degree of competition between Auschwitz and other sites (such as the 9/11 Memorial) including through social media (I wouldn’t know, since I’m excluded). In addition he criticizes the “compulsion to corral schoolchildren as a captive audience”, who then present “an opportunity to nurture uncritical conformity at an impressionable age” (p25). I find this a little too cynical as well, also given that it is not Auschwitz that’s doing the corralling of “schoolchildren” (in fact typically teenagers aged 16 or over) but schools themselves. My first visit to a concentration camp memorial (Theresienstadt) was also as part of such a school trip, but I do not think it has made me uncritical and conformist.

  

And then there are the negative experiences that prevent positive “change”, as expressed in many less than glowing reviews online. Some are the result of preconceptions not being met but mostly they refer to the “over-tourism” aspects that Auschwitz indeed suffers from, be it long queues, rushing guides or tourists’ “irksome” behaviour, especially selfie-taking. In a footnote the author points out, though, that selfies are now seen as acceptable by the Auschwitz management, as it is “behaviour owned by the younger demographic” (p26). As an old fart (I was born in 1963, like this book’s author), and from that demographic’s perspective, I disagree and still find selfies at sites like Auschwitz inappropriate.

  

Well, the scene has been set and by that point I was expecting more critical, possibly over-critical passages to follow in the remainder of the book. And it did indeed fulfil that expectation …

  

  

Chapter 2 is entitled “The Tour” and it’s a report from an organized tour package called simply “The Holocaust” that the author signed up for and which included Warsaw, Treblinka, Majdanek and Bełżec (but not Sobibór!) and culminated with Kraków and Auschwitz. The reason he signed up for such a tour is that after he’d published his first book, the author’s “attention turned to an omission: the dark tourism package holiday” (p30). I was a bit surprised to read that and I don’t think it’s really an omission, as to my knowledge such dark tourism package holidays are as good as non-existent. And indeed this Holocaust tour is also not sold as dark tourism (even though it inescapably is that, of course) but with a “historical veneer”. But why should that be merely a “veneer”? Given that this tour is even co-led by a historian!

  

The author says in addition to the sites included in the tour his “primary interest would be my fellow tourists” (p30). And over the following pages the reader is given quite a detailed account of some of the ca. two dozen participants (a largely more mature, even elderly set from various anglophone countries) and the ensuing group dynamics. This had me scribble in the margin “that’s why I avoid group travel” … Indeed from my experience, group travel is actually very much the exception to the rule in that most dark tourism takes place as independent individual travel. So this tour is actually quite unrepresentative of dark tourism.

  

I’ll spare you the details of the participants (all given humorous monikers by the author) and the group dynamics and instead pick out the critical remarks. One applied to the positioning of a USHMM plaque right on the ghetto wall remnant in Warsaw, which the author found petulant and sees it as evidence that “presenting the Holocaust has become an unedifying competition” (p34). Given the current proliferation of new Holocaust museums and memorials (even in places as far from where it took place as Australia) I’m prepared to almost agree, though I think the more overt competition is primarily between the big players like Auschwitz, Yad Vashem the Anne Frank House and the USHMM, not between comparatively minor ones like Groß-Rosen or Stutthof.

  

Another critical remark concerns a “Never Again” note left in the guestbook at the museum in Treblinka, in huge capital letters across two whole pages “unintentionally reinforcing just what a meaningless trope” these two words have become (p42). Indeed.

  

With regard to Bełżec the author enthuses that it is an outstanding memorial, and I don’t disagree, yet he finds some fault in the Room of Reflection. On the one hand as it incorporates “New Age” thinking, and whether that’s appropriate or not he finds “debatable” (p52); moreover the room uncannily resembles a gas chamber, albeit only a symbolical one. Anyway, he’s not convinced and finds it “gimmicky” (p53). Again I’m in agreement.

  

I struggled a bit more with the author’s assessment of the “airport security” now installed at Auschwitz (emptying of pockets, bag inspection, metal detectors), which he surmises is because of “competition” by the 9/11 Museum (p55). I find that overly speculative. What if the measures have been introduced for genuine security concerns? After all, most Jewish museums also have such security gates (because, sadly, they do seem to be needed).

  

Similarly, I can’t quite follow the author’s conclusion that his photography at Auschwitz on earlier visits when he tried to get shots without people in them meant that his “previous photos depicting a deserted site” were “pretentious, egoistical, and a tacit misrepresentation of the reality” (p56). The latter may be so, but I’m sure most visitors prefer photos without hordes of tourists in them (though that is tricky to achieve these days given the visitor numbers). That the author on this visit is interested specifically in other tourists and their behaviour is also an unusual and specialist perspective. Whether the adoption of this special perspective is any more unpretentious is also debatable. And then there’s the issue of privacy. That’s a core reason why I too strive to get shots that are unpeopled (sparing myself the need for pixelating faces afterwards). And while such images may be misrepresentative of the over-tourism reality at Auschwitz, they are more representative of the site as such. It is no coincidence that the professional photos in guidebooks and the postcards sold at the bookshops in Auschwitz are also devoid of visitors in the frames (as the author remarks too later on).

  

  

Chapter 3, entitled “Shadow Places”, was one of the most intriguing for me. That’s because in this chapter the author reports from his participation, as a mere observer, in an academic conference about dark tourism! He was driven by curiosity, not just about what would be discussed, and wondered how could this “impact on us, the actual dark tourists”. He rightly observes that the “relationship between academia and tourists felt distinctly one-sided”, in that academics “needed us for surveys to compile data” but whether “tourists needed academics was moot”; dark tourists are “likely oblivious to scholars talking about them behind their backs and probably couldn’t care less even if they did”. “But I cared”, he adds (p63).

  

And so he tried to make it to a conference in Warsaw entitled “Shadow Places: Urban Strategies of Dealing with Painful Pasts”. He did manage to get a place as a non-contributor (so had to pay for his accommodation himself) and in preparation studies the event’s programme. The titles of some of the papers to be given “looked way beyond my comprehension” and with some extra-convoluted “eye-popping” examples even “a dictionary didn’t help” (p65). I found myself grinning broadly at this point, as I remember only too well from my own former academic career the compulsion for maximally cryptic verbiage in the titles of papers (and I may occasionally have been guilty of this myself) just to make them appear more scholarly.

  

The author’s observations as an outsider continue to be revealing and amusing. His own critical thinking, unburdened by academic baggage, affords him an analysis that reveals the neologism term ‘shadow places’ as distinct from ‘dark’ or ‘evil’ but relying on those notions, as ultimately like “the Emperor’s New Clothes”. Indeed I would concur that it (just like ‘heterotopia’, which the author nevertheless borrows from academia without any criticism) should have fallen victim to the heuristic principle of ‘Occam’s razor’ (see here for more of an explanation).

  

My favourite bit, and the one that most resonated with my own conference experience is the passage about the post-presentation discussions. I quote it in full:

  

“The Q&A before the mid-session interval is tedious with long-winded questions that become mini-presentations in their own right, so-much-so it’s nigh on impossible to determine what the actual question is, even from the corresponding answer which feels equally protracted and ambiguous. This transpires to be the norm throughout.” (p71).

  

As I read this I nodded enthusiastically and almost laughed out loud (but restrained myself, because I was reading the book on a train). So reminiscent of my own experiences of what I often felt was the least enjoyable part of academic conferences.

  

For a while the chapter gravitates back towards Auschwitz and it’s over-tourism problems before we are given short summaries about the remaining presentations. And then comes the excursion. There were four different ones on offer and the author opted for the Rakowiecka Prison Museum. This is a memorial for political prisoners during communism but located within a functioning remand prison. Hence “[t]his isn’t Alcatraz” but has a “very different vibe and no gift shop” as the author wryly notes (p79). The author had earlier wondered whether academics take selfies. Now is a chance to find out. They do take some photos, though in the classic snapshot of each other style, as an image on that page testifies. The author notes that despite the “disparity between academia and tourists” on this occasion “Team Academia [was] ostensibly behaving like Team Dark Tourist” (p80f).

  

In the coverage of the next day’s programme, specifically in a passage about Vienna and Austria, a footnote (No. 12, p83) made be balk. Here the author notes that Austria attempted to be “the first European country to introduce mandatory Covid-19 vaccines for its citizens, inviting inevitable comparisons with National Socialism”. Hang on a minute … Have I missed something in history? I’m not aware of the Nazis ever having enforced mandatory vaccinations. Or could it be that the author is comparing it to the Nazis’ medial experiments? In that case does he subscribe to the wacky conspiracy theory that suggested the vaccination programmes were actually a Bill-Gates-led experiment trying to inject us all with nano-chips for future mind control? … though I’ve never heard it explained how a nano-chip floating around randomly in our bloodstream could possibly be capable of such a thing. Anyway, the footnote is an odd aside, and a different version of it will be encountered later once more, in chapter 10… (see below).

  

The conference finishes with the usual call for “further research” (a trope I’ve not once experienced as missing from any of the conferences I have attended), and as participants disperse, the author approaches one of them with the simple question what the conference “might tangibly contribute towards dark tourism”, meaning to the practitioner side of dark tourism. The answer refers to the capacity of some delegates as advisers for various stakeholder in the tourism industry, and in one case it’s even a director (of Flossenbürg). The author notes an enhanced appreciation of the academic side of the topic in himself and acknowledges that instead of ignoring him “they’ve listened and engaged”. And he emphasizes that this is “in stark contrast to the mainstream media’s treatment of dark tourism” (p89).

  

  

Chapter 4 is entitled “Carefree”. This at first cryptic title is explained soon enough, and it goes in two directions: A) it’s taken from a chant fans of Chelsea Football Club apparently sing in the stands, and B) the carefree attitude to a fake news story on the part of the club, the media and other bodies. This is the story, copied and disseminated by prestigious outlets such as The Guardian or the BBC, that Chelsea FC was allegedly planning to send some of their fans suspected of anti-Semitism on a compulsory educational trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau (or else face expulsion from the club and the home ground). It wasn’t a true story but made sensationalist headlines. So here we are, Auschwitz yet again. Chelsea had indeed taken fans to Auschwitz before but not as a punishment, that was just imagined. Chelsea’s then owner, Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, who is Jewish, initiated a broad campaign against the well-known rife undercurrent of anti-Semitism amongst the club’s fan base, even when some of the reported incidents of fans misbehaving abroad were more racist in nature than anti-Semitic.

  

The chapter soon gets bogged down in political and media minutiae, which, while interesting to read as such, have little relevance to dark tourism (beyond the untrue allegation of a dark tourism trip as a means of punishment). But then comes the twist: the author applies to attend a seminar for journalists entitled “History, Memory and Responsibility” organized by the management of Auschwitz. To his own surprise he is given a place amongst 16 journalists, accommodation and full board paid for “because of all the former Nazi death and concentration camps, Auschwitz-Birkenau can afford to” (p112). So he’s back in yet another context of visitation. This time he gets even more critical of how “Auschwitz hogs the Holocaust limelight” (p120) and allegedly manipulates its narrative. He’s particularly concerned about the large tanks containing victims’ hair, shoes, glasses, etc. – all taken from Birkenau but displayed “in the more tourist friendly environment of Auschwitz I” (p116). He wonders what these artefacts are supposed to do to visitors – even though the overt reason is given both in his questions and the label attached to this section at the museum: evidence. But the author reckons they are there because that’s what visitors have come to expect to see. Well, they’ve been on display since long before the site attracted the visitor numbers it does today, so I find that reasoning unconvincing. True, as a third time visitor you’re likely to become “desensitised” towards such artefacts. I’ve experienced that effect myself on several occasions. But is that a valid reason for questioning “the integrity of the contemporary narrative these mountains of jumble are shoring up” (p117)? I have my doubts.

   

He also seems to find fault with recent interventions in the preservation of the site such as the reinforcement of barrack walls in Birkenau, the removal of graffiti and the installation of CCTV and patrolling security guards. These measures may indeed mar the place authenticity to a degree, but are probably just necessary, given the massive tourist footfall.

  

On the tour of Birkenau his group observe an Asian tourist stepping onto the freight waggon placed at the ramp, posing for a photo. The author comments that this is “cringe inducing stereotypical dark tourism behaviour the media thrive on” (p118). And he indicates that in the past he may have been guilty of similar transgressions, but he doesn’t elaborate on it. Anyway, I object. Such behaviour may be typical for general tourists who happen to have stumbled into a dark tourism site, but it’s not at all typical of conscious, dedicated dark tourists, who have long since learned how to behave appropriately at sites of tragedy, and this appears to include the author. So why fall for the media moral panic at such atypical behaviour of an atypical visitor (atypical in terms of ‘proper’ dark tourism).

   

The author also notes the almost aggressive social-media presence and activity of Auschwitz – actively chasing followers to increase numbers and intervening at various points, when the Auschwitz-Birkenau management objects to, e.g. the inaccuracies in the book “The Tattooist of Auschwitz” or that incident where US high school kids were apparently giving Nazi salutes, photos of which went viral (but lacking the humorous context – these weren’t genuine Nazi salutes, but performed in jest, perhaps not the best sense of humour but certainly not malicious). But remarkably they did not object to the fake news story revolving around Chelsea FC. The second day of the seminar then gives the author the chance to ask his question: “Why didn’t you complain?” (p123). Predictably he’s only given evasive non-answers like that it was “an old story” (when in fact it was less than a year old at that point and still making waves). The conclusion has to be that the attention-generating sensationalist headlines were actually welcomed or at least condoned for the sake of publicity … as a remark closing this chapter, the author notes that Roman Abramovich sold Chelsea FC following the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine and fans were admonished to stop singing his name in the stadium. We’ll encounter another Abramovich purge later on (in chapter 11 – see below) …

   

  

Chapter 5 is called “Highgate & Brookwood”. These are two celebrated cemeteries in London. Here the author is in his element as a professed fan of the dark tourism subcategory of cemetery tourism. But again he applies a lot of critical thought. He had obviously been to Highgate numerous times over the decades, now his interest was rekindled through a headline in The Observer including the words “Highgate Cemetery woos death tourists”. The article is about plans for refurbishment and the possible addition of a cafe and gift shop. (Such additions had already arrived at other notable cemeteries.) The cemetery is also forced to adapt to the massively increased visitor numbers, now standing at 100,000 annually.

  

Yet when the author approached the Chief Executive of the Friends of Highgate Cemetery, the organization which looks after the place and runs guided tours, his attempt at engagement was rebutted. Apparently the person in charge of one of London’s top dark tourism attractions does not want his site to be associated with the term and certainly not with a book about dark tourism. This is quite typical for the tourism industry. I’ve encountered similar reactions. Yet it is illogical, as Sawyer correctly points out: of the 100,000 visitors a year only a minority will be the “recently bereaved” or Genealogists, as was claimed, but clearly dark tourists. They may not like the word in the tourism industry but that’s the reality. The reality denial got even worse. When the author contacted somebody else associated with the cemetery with his questions about Highgate, his enquiry was passed on the Chief Executive who replied: “This is the guy who writes about dark tourism and I’m trying to avoid giving him any material!” (quoted on p141). So it stopped there.

  

However, his interest was redirected to Brookwood Cemetery, aka The London Necropolis, which The Observer claimed was planning a “museum of death”. It turns out that is not actually the case, when the author engages with the Cemetery Society that looks after Brookwood. But he goes on a three-hour guided tour of the vast site, which is trying to rebrand itself as a “heritage destination”, though it is actually too big for ordinary tourist visitation. I admit I hadn’t even heard of Brookwood and have never been there, but next time I find myself in London with sufficient time on my hands I will certainly rectify that, and maybe go on a guided tour as well.

  

But back to Highgate. Due to the Covid pandemic, the cemetery for the first time ever allowed self-guided tours. The author notes sarcastically that the “online ticket portal has no issue with who I am or what I write” (p155) and just took his money. So he used this opportunity to explore corners of the cemetery never included in the guided tours. That’s something I’d also be keen to do one day.

  

  

Chapter 6 has two titles. The main one is “Edward Colston” and the subtitle added is “Frankenstein’s Monster”. Colston was a once “feted philanthropist” in Bristol in south-west England. Problem: he made his fortune in the slave trade. In the wake of the George Floyd murder and the ensuing Black Lives Matter movement, a wave of iconoclasm rolled over the USA and Europe, and before long it was Colston’s statue in Bristol that was up for toppling by an angry mob. Not only was the statue, already disfigured by graffiti, torn down, it was then dumped into the harbour.

  

Soon after it was salvaged and subsequently put in a museum in Bristol (called M-Shed). Thus it had become a kind of dark tourism attraction and Sawyer duly visited it. I’m not sure, though, that I would have deemed it important and dark enough to make the special trip to take a look at it. I don’t see it on a par with the many solid dark tourism attractions Britain has. But opinions differ and it certainly has given the author space to voice some very current observations about memorial culture issues.

  

The chapter then delves deep into UK politics and also adduces other instances of the defacing or toppling of statues, and he observes that the mob who toppled Colston was predominantly white and middle class, giving the assumed anti-racist motivation a bit of a doubtful flavour. Again the author engages with various bodies involved and reports from the court case against the Colston-topplers (they were acquitted) and the whole sociological and political entanglement around it. For UK readers there may be much of interest here (and again there are a few really funny bits interspersed – I especially liked the part on p177f about the renaming of the Colston Arms pub, temporarily renamed “Ye Olde Pubby Mcdrunkface” and suggested new names included “The Emtpy Plinth” or “The Sunken Slaver” … can’t beat the good old British sense of humour!). But from an international point of view, and specifically from the perspective of a dark tourism practitioner, this chapter is one of the less relevant ones in the book. So I’ll leave it at this and move on to the next chapter, which can perhaps be regarded as the book’s core, insofar as it brings together two of the main veins of the book, UK (memorial) politics and the Holocaust, and at 40 pages is also the book’s longest:

  

  

Chapter 7 is entitled “The Omnishambles”. The title is followed by a dictionary excerpt providing an explanation of the meaning of the word, though I think it’s transparent enough. The reference is to what was at least a multi-shambles, namely the campaign, counter-campaign and politics involved in the proposed UK Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre in London.

  

The chapter takes its lead from two surveys, one an international one, the other conducted in the UK only. This revealed a lack of understanding of the Holocaust especially amongst young people. But again manipulative politics is at play here when various bodies involved misinterpreted the 5% in the UK who didn’t know about the Holocaust to mean that that’s the proportion of Holocaust deniers and anti-Semites (but ignorance is not the same as denial!). It’s almost a fake news incident reminiscent of the Chelsea FC story noted above. The author claims this artificially inflated number may actually have fostered more anti-Semitism, and he gives depressingly overt examples gleaned from comment sections on Russia Today (now no longer accessible, for reasons that are probably obvious enough).

  

And again clichés play a role here too. Sawyer laboriously dissects politicians’ speeches (David Cameron featuring especially again) for the relentless mantra of the Holocaust being “the darkest hour of human history”. Of course, the “hour” is glaring nonsense, given that the Holocaust took years, but the author sees the word “darkest” as problematic, as for victims/survivors of, say, the Cambodian genocide, that would be the darkest from their perspective. True, but I still think it’s legitimate to characterize the Holocaust as the darkest chapter in history, simply because of the scale and nature of the planned industrialized mass murder. That does indeed not compare to anything else.

  

Yet Sawyer, again, sees competition at play and the zeal to create a new UK Holocaust Memorial as politically driven. He also rightly points out that there already is a Holocaust memorial in London, a simple stone monument in Hyde Park from 1983, now seen as “wholly inadequate” (but it wasn’t seen so in 1983!). And he observes well that while the Holocaust as such is claimed to be “incomparable” the memorial can be compared and has been. The author also points out that there already is a National Holocaust Centre in Britain, namely in Laxton in Nottinghamshire (though from a typical Londoner’s perspective that location is a good as at the North Pole) and that London already has the substantial Holocaust section in the Imperial War Museum in Lambeth.

  

In having two institutions commemorating the Holocaust in London in such close proximity the author sees a parallel to the National 9/11 Memorial & Museum and coexisting 9/11 Tribute Museum, except with the significant difference that “the event being memorialised in London hadn’t even occurred here” (p208).

  

The reader is given several block quotes from various proposals in the competition for the UK Holocaust Memorial’s design. As is often the case in this genre it’s all painfully random and pretentious blah-blah. The winning design that won over the jury responsible for the decision was allegedly “inspired” by the proposed location in Victoria Tower Gardens, i.e. right outside the Houses of Parliament at Westminster. Yet this “inspiration” turns out to be nonsense, as the winner’s is actually a second-hand design. It had originally been submitted for a Holocaust memorial in Ottawa, Canada, a few years previously, where it was rejected in favour of a design by Daniel Libeskind. So the “UK had been foisted a hand-me-down concept. Incredibly, those doing the judging, all thirteen, had unanimously chosen the design Canada rejected”. In other words, the “crushing reality was that [the British] couldn’t even be arsed to make our ‘statement’ on a blank sheet of paper” (p206).

   

And as if all that wasn’t damning enough, the very location proposed turns out to be highly contested. In fact a “Save Victoria Tower Gardens” association was formed to oppose the location for the memorial. Interestingly this resistance was also shared by Jewish organizations. Again the author gets involved, attends meetings to hear the (convincing) arguments of those opposed to the location. Against the overwhelming opposition that emerged (roughly six to one) to the government’s favoured proposal, one of the official bodies apparently then hired a media company to help upping the pro-memorial opinions via social media. These interventions smack of a Cambridge-Analytica-like interference as in the Brexit and Trump votes.

   

I have to say I admire the author’s tenacity in trying to engage with the various bodies involved. This even included participation in a public enquiry in 2020, held remotely via video link due to the Coronavirus pandemic. As usual his reference to dark tourism is met with resistance, but he was allowed to state his counter-proposal that the memorial should not be directly outside but inside the Houses of Parliament. Arguing that if the alleged 5% of people denying or being ignorant of the Holocaust included MPs, then a few dozen MPs must fall into that category too. Given that they are the lawmakers, the location right at their place of work should have a more significant impact than a memorial in the park outside; and he adds a number of other advantages (cost, practicalities, security, etc.). But of course it’s a provocation that the establishment didn’t take to too kindly.

  

It gets more awkward still. The author notes that the USHMM originally came about in the context of a then US arms deal with Saudi Arabia (receiving F-15 fighter jets) under the Carter administration. So the museum was basically proposed to placate the Jewish communities. The USHMM can thus be seen as a “bargaining chip to lubricate an arms deal” (p225). It transpires that this precedent finds its mirror in the proposed UK Holocaust Memorial as well, its announcement coinciding with a multi-billion-pound arms deal with, you guessed it, Saudi Arabia, under then Prime Minster David Cameron (hello again). The author bravely brings this connection up in the video-link enquiry, literally asking the head of the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation whether this memorial project was “a bargaining chip in a UK arms deal” (p225f). Unsurprisingly the reaction was not a happy one. The author first has his microphone muted and his “inconvenience” is later erased from the recording before it could be played back. Full-on censorship! (And as readers of this website may recall, I can relate to that too, though in a somewhat different context).

   

The chapter goes on to point out similar possible connections of arms deals with newly proposed Holocaust museums, e.g. in Australia and Canada (yes, that one in Ottawa for which London’s design proposal had originally been submitted). So there does seem to be a rather unedifying theme emerging. I’ve certainly learned something here. And what it taught me does indeed make me uncomfortable (as the foreword had promised would happen).

   

The twist, however, came in April 2022 when the High Court quashed the proposal for the Victoria Tower Gardens location on the basis of a law from 1900 which prohibited the use of the place for any other purpose than that of a public park. (You have to wonder: shouldn’t the people in the Houses of Parliament have known that, or at least have bothered to check?) So at the time of the publication of the book, it was still an open question where the memorial might be set up instead.

  

Another theme in the “omnishambles” revolving around the proposed memorial has so far not been mentioned here. But throughout this chapter the author points out cases of allegations of sexual harassment/assault (or worse) against several of the top people involved in the government’s or associated bodies’ side, frequently leading to sackings or resignations. Eventually this even included the architect whose design for the memorial had been chosen. You just cannot make this shit up – excuse my language; but it had to be said.

  

The “Omishambles” chapter, though also steeped deep in political minutiae, turned out to be the most impressive in the whole book, I found. Eye-opening and thought-provoking to the max. Hats off to H. E. Sawyer for this.

   

  

Chapter 8 is entitled simply “Grenfell”. Grenfell Tower was a residential tower block in North Kensington, London, dating from the 1970s, which on 14 June 2017 was consumed by fire, in which 72 residents died. A few years earlier the tower had received new cladding to beautify the edifice for the benefit of more affluent neighbourhoods within sight of it. The cladding had been criticized alongside the tower’s faulty electrical wiring for years, but those concerns were ignored. Until disaster struck. The fire was started by an electrical fault and the cladding proved to be a Hindenburg-like fire accelerant.

  

The charred ruin then became a dark attraction of sorts, though the locals made it quite clear that “they did not welcome selfie takers” (p230) while relatives of the victims were still grieving. I remember it well, also from various interview questions I was asked at the time: the case triggered the usual general moral panic about dark tourism in the media. Suddenly we were, yet again, all accused of being morally dubious voyeuristic rubbernecks. I’ve never been to Grenfell Tower, though had I been in London in the wake of the disaster I would probably have gone to take a surreptitious look too. I can only imagine, but I assume it must have been a very stark sight to behold. Obviously I would not have taken selfies (I have hardly ever done so) but may have tried to discreetly take a photo of the ruin – also for the record, as it was predictable that the tower would soon either be covered, altered or even torn down.

  

This chapter about Grenfell chronicles the details of the various victims’ associations, and, again, the omnishambolic handling of it all by the government/authorities. Yet again the author gets involved, partakes in memorial marches and attends victims’ associations’ meetings. Much of it is about the complicated discussion as to what sort of memorial Grenfell should have, in addition to the grass-roots ones that have already sprung up following private initiatives. A central question was also what to do with the tower itself. Unsurprisingly, government voices favoured demolition (the easiest way out, so the disaster could more conveniently be forgotten alongside the responsibilities for it). But resistance has proved successful so far.

   

Amongst the memorialization proposals is turning the tower shell into a vertical forest similar to the Bosco Verticale in Milan, also not dissimilar to some church ruins left from WWII that were allowed to become atmospherically overgrown. Advice was also sought from representatives of other tragedies and associated memorials, such as for the “7/7” terror attacks in London in 2005, or the Aberfan disaster of 1966. One idea floated was also leaving some floors exposed for authenticity, likened to the A-Bomb Dome in Hiroshima. The author is, however, mistaken in claiming that this was “the only structure left standing after the detonation of the atomic bomb” (p248). There were indeed several others, similarly built from reinforced concrete, such as a number of banks and schools, still standing as well. Some of these are still there, even reoccupied, and form part of the memorial circuit of Hiroshima. But given the prominence attached to the A-Bomb Dome the author can probably be forgiven for forgetting about the less iconic other structures. (I’ve even called the A-Bomb Dome “dark tourism’s equivalent of the Eiffel Tower”, in a couple of interviews in recent years; and didn’t mention the other surviving structures either in that context … though I did know about them.)

  

But as this is all about a Grenfell memorial not yet in place this chapter’s relevance to practical dark tourism now is rather limited; so I won’t go into further details. Just one more thing: returning to the enthusiastically pushed proposal for a UK Holocaust Memorial, the author wonders “why the UK Government is fetishizing someone else’s dead, rather than honouring their own” (p255). What a damning closing line for this chapter. But he does have a point.

  

  

Chapter 9 is the odd man out in the book, which so far has only been concerned with either the Holocaust or dark tourism destinations within Britain (or both at the same time); this chapter is the only one venturing out of Europe, namely to Mexico for the “Dia de Muertos”, which is also the title of this chapter.

  

However, Mexico also offered up an opportunity for the author to get back into scuba diving, namely at one of the country’s fabled ‘cenotes’ (sinkholes in the karst). He goes with a fellow diver already familiar with the location, and this other diver reveals that there is a skull deep under water on a ledge, of a sacrificed child! This came as a surprise to the author and he comments: “Even when I’m having a day off dark tourism conspires to find me” (p257).

  

For his Dia de Muertos trip to Mexico he signs up for another organized tour, so he can observe his fellow participants, all from the USA or Canada, including some goths (unsurprisingly). The trip is organized by a New York outfit more into things like funerary rites, death culture, and suchlike, though the author insists on classing them as dark tourists nevertheless. Apparently the tour pans out as rather disorganized and chaotic, but they get to see cemeteries and the expected festivities.

   

The author notes that the Dia de Muertos craze is actually a recent development. It was originally no more than a small-scale regional thing, but was consciously revived and boosted as a strategy to attract tourists. Helped by extensive media exposure it has grown into the mass spectacle it is today (especially through a 2015 James Bond movie that used such festivities as a backdrop). In fact, the author interprets this as a form of transformation in itself, that of a country and its tourism. But what initially attracted him to the tour he’s on was the fact that it was advertised as promising a “transformative experience”. Again, what one would be transformed from and into what and why was left unanswered. It appears to be something used because it sounds good, a “zeitgeist” (p270).

   

Plenty of speculations are offered by the author as to why this festival is so popular with tourists, that it’s maybe because we’re terrified of our own mortality and thus anything suggesting it’s not the end is attractive. Or have we become desensitized? Or is our dread not so much of death but of being decrepit in old age? Or is the whole spectacle simply seen as “cool” (p272)? I would personally tend towards the latter. All those speculations about mortality are not something I engage in, and I have my doubts about their usefulness. I have myself only ever encountered two people who actually said they’re into dark tourism because of thoughts about their own mortality. For me it’s a thought that’s normally absent when I do what I do, whether when travelling myself or when working on this website or writing for the associated Blog.

   

  

Chapter 10 is entitled “Blown” and I have to admit that on this occasion I found it impossible to work out what exactly is meant by that. Like chapter 1 this chapter is actually a mixed bag. The first part starts out with a visitor attraction the author has been to and clearly sees as a dark tourism site. It’s an art installation commemorating a vessel that in 1919 brought back men from the Great War to Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis, north-western Scotland. But it shipwrecked just outside the harbour with great loss of lives; only about a third of those on board survived. Surely a tragedy and within dark tourism’s time frame, but a temporary art installation would not really qualify as a dark tourism destination on this website.

  

The second part is about the possibility of attending an international arms fair in Jordan as part of a package organized by some adventure tour company! Not something that would seem attractive to me, but the author was apparently bursting with excitement and anticipation … until his application was refused and the already paid deposit instantly returned – because someone in Jordan processing the permits had googled the author’s name … Again, the allegedly “dirty” word ‘dark tourism’ got in the way.

   

The bulk of the chapter, 12 pages, then goes back the premise of the book and what its main focus has been on: the notion of transformation through pilgrimage to make us ‘better’ – and he adds the question whether that is “part of the sell – or part of a con” (p283). The author’s conclusion seems to be: both.

  

And even though he first concedes, correctly in my view, that “for the individual any transformative episodes at dark/dark tourism sites will be personal, their longevity and worth indeterminable” (p284), he nevertheless launches, again, into the already indicated conspiracy theory that there is a “confidence trick” at play in dark tourism and that the “‘con’ is found in ‘contrived’” (p291). He likens it to the notion of ‘controlled spontaneity’, a phenomenon seen since the death of Princess Diana, with the mountains of flower bouquets and mementoes laid down ‘spontaneously’, and again after 9/11 and in the immediate aftermath of any terrorist attack in the UK ever since 7/7 (in 2005). According to the author, initiating such ‘controlled spontaneity’ is “with the intent of influencing us in what to think” and overtly names it “propaganda” and “mind control” (p.293). This is already heavy stuff, but it goes further: allegedly such a mechanism “epitomises contemporary memorialisation and state-sanctioned dark tourism” (p293). Hang on, “state-sanctioned dark tourism”?!? Memorialization may be under lots of state influence, especially when it comes to the Holocaust, but at state level even the existence of the notion of dark tourism is hardly ever acknowledged, just like it usually isn’t within the tourism industry. So how could it be “state-sanctioned”?!? He goes on to say that “our role” as dark tourists allegedly is “to absorb the supplied narrative then parrot it back providing authenticity, like an influencer” (p293). Now I really have to object to a characterization of all dark tourists as such naïve parroters; I also don’t get the logic of how such parroting could “provide authenticity”, and how that in turn could be like “an influencer”. Influencers are the exact opposite of authenticity!

   

I think his exasperation with the notion of “transformation” as “mind control” is grossly exaggerated and it surely does not apply to a large part of dark tourism – given that this mostly does not rely on pre-packaged tours but is for the most part individual, self-organized travel. Is it possible that his very well justified criticism of how the Holocaust is presented in the UK has derailed here to suddenly include all of dark tourism? That would be quite unfair. With regard to the Holocaust it may be correct to say “the legacy has been surreptitiously transferred over time from the survivors and their descendants to Government and its subsidiaries”, but I think saying that this is to get “control over the past to shame us in the present” goes way too far (p291). His addition that this “confidence trick” may “rely on our willing participation” did make me think, though. Am I guilty of “willing participation” in some sinister mind-control conspiracy? I’ve really been contemplating that a lot, but have come to the conclusion that I’m not such a willing participant. I believe I’m capable of critical thought too and I’ve applied it a lot (not least on this very website). I concede, the politics of memorialization, certainly in recent years in the UK, is full of extremely unsavoury aspects. But I believe it has more to do with incompetence and cronyism than with a genuine secretly orchestrated conspiracy. For me to entertain that sort of idea I’d require a lot more solid evidence than the author provides to back up his speculations. So at this point, I’m sorry to say, he has lost me.

   

One more thing. Again there is a curious footnote about the Covid pandemic, where he references the “demonization of the unvaccinated” and quotes New Zealand’s then Prime Minster Jacinda Ardern as supporting a “two-tier society”, i.e. the vaccinated and the unvaccinated (note 16, p290). And he genuinely compares this to the Nazis’ crimes and complains about a lack of condemnation on the part of Holocaust organizations re: contemporary pandemic measures (he quotes statements by them that did the opposite, condemning those opposed to vaccinations on the basis of such a comparison). It isn’t overtly stated, so remains speculation, but from such remarks you do get the strong suspicion that Sawyer may himself be an ‘anti-vaxxer’ who feels repressed by the Covid regulations. They were somewhat repressive, yes, but there’s a difference: it’s one thing to listen to very sound medical advice and accordingly introduce measures intended for the protection of the population, and quite another to implement extreme racist policies with the intention of systematically eradicating an entire section of the population, even a whole people. Comparing vaccine requirements to the Holocaust is thus a real no go in my eyes – irrespective – I hasten to add – of what one’s own views about vaccinations may be. It’s the comparison as such that is more than flawed and unacceptable.

   

The chapter finishes on a more reconciliatory note, though still based on his rather overstretched “transformation” notion. He says his book is to “remind us those exploiting dark tourism need an attentive audience for their transformation trick to work” but “as more of us are drawn by the possibility of being transformed there will be more watching how the trick is being performed, and who is playing it” (p294). Be it really a “trick” or not, of course we have to be attentive AND critical. But the idea of dark tourism being exploited for “mind-control” purposes reads way, way too much into what I believe originally is really just superficial PR talk, not a genuine conspiracy.

   

The chapter finishes with the single German word “Torschlusspanik”, which had already been the final word in his first book. Its choice remains cryptic to me here too. The translations I found offered in dictionaries, “last-minute panic” or “fear of being left on the shelf”, both just don’t seem to fit. Or is panic indeed what drove H.E. Sawyer to such far-reaching conclusions, suspicions, accusations?

  

  

Chapter 11 is entitled “The White Elephant” and the opening lines make it clear that the book was originally meant to have ended with the previous chapter, but the author was then compelled to add this extra one because of a “twist” that became “the cherry on top” (p295).

  

This twist is the new Holocaust exhibition at the Imperial War Museum (IWM) in London, which opened in October 2021. While lots of screens and stuff have been added, the former “showpiece” of the previous exhibition has gone missing. This was a large (12m x 2m) scale model of Auschwitz-Birkenau, depicting the gatehouse, deportation trains, the ramp, selection, and gas chambers, all in monochrome white and great detail. It was a specially commissioned work by a renowned artist. I also remember it as an exceptionally impressive piece of Holocaust depiction that really worked. But the management of the IWM thought otherwise. Their new policy was to only display items from the period the exhibition is about, but nothing “in “retrospect” (like such a model). The author notes that this still doesn’t apply to the new exhibition, given the intro screen showing images of various sites of the Holocaust taken (in colour) in 2018/19. Given the length of the slide show and the absence of captions to identify the locations, the screen at the bottleneck of the entrance to the exhibition is actually “an impracticality” too (p295). Anyway, the large Birkenau model didn’t “fit in with either the reimagining or the physical layout, so the decision was taken to exclude and destroy it instead” (p296).

   

Apparently, the museum first tried to find a “suitable” new home for the model, but that failed (i.e. any takers volunteering to receive it must have been deemed “unsuitable”). The author suggests that it could have been transferred to one of the renovated barracks at Auschwitz-Birkenau itself, also given the sums of donations the UK was prepared to direct there. Actually, when I recently revisited Auschwitz in January 2024, I did see a similar scale model, also all in white, of one of the gas chambers and crematoria blocks. But this can’t be from London, as the IWM admitted that after “failing” to find a new home for the model it was indeed destroyed. The author argues quite convincingly that this has been unnecessary, given the ample storage space the IWM commands, especially at its enormous branch at Duxford, where they could simply have put it into storage, crated, and the question of what to do with it could have been revisited later. But instead they destroyed the “prop”, as the correspondence now referred to it. I see it as another nasty case of iconoclasm, especially given that the model was not just a “prop” but an art installation, commissioned from a renowned artist. The question is not raised in the chapter, but I wonder: has the artist even been consulted? I would have deemed that an obligation on the part of the IWM.

   

And that’s not even the end of it. The author continues: “That London and the UK were donating money to Auschwitz in the name of preservation while the IWM were smashing up a facsimile would be risible enough … but then the IWM topped that.” (p300) He’s referring to the removal of Roman Abramovich’s name from the wall listing the donors to the new Holocaust exhibition. You’ll remember Abramovich, who is Russian and Jewish, from the fourth chapter about Chelsea FC, which Abramovich had to sell after the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine. Now he’s been purged from the IWM too. Sawyer notes pointedly: “The irony of a Jew being eradicated in 2022 from a Holocaust gallery to which he had donated unspecified millions is inescapable” (p300). Quite! And it’s not even consistent: the scrubbed out name can still be discerned on the wall if you look closely – and it hasn’t yet been removed from a plaque listing contributors at the exit. To remove him there too would have meant a new plaque. So the “treatment of Abramovich looks spiteful, petulant, but worst of all, done on the cheap”. The author adds that he’s not a fan of Abramovich, but the way the IWM treated him “made me feel sorry for him”. And he asks what this is supposed to “teach us, the public”, especially us the alleged “Messengers of Remembrance?” (p301).

  

  

The final chapter is followed by a short “Postscript” in which the author offers the overall conclusion that “the Holocaust – in the UK – is broken”, that it is being “appropriated and spun to suit an establishment narrative” (p302). I can concur with that and with the author’s disappointment with UK governments, but just not with additional conspiracy-theory-like conclusions offered up in chapter 10, originally intended as the last word in the book.

  

There is also a section of acknowledgements, a list of sources, a very short note about the author (with a photo of him in the same outfit as on the front cover), the text of which seems to have been taken from his previous book. And there’s also a six-page index, which is useful.

  

  

Finally it can be noted that the book overall is well edited. I spotted only a small number of minor glitches, a misplaced or missing comma here and there, the odd little typo, a couple of misspelled foreign words/names, and blank squares where the Polish letters in Bełżec should be in the photo captions in chapter 2 (the latter most likely not the author’s fault but a typesetting glitch). Nothing major.

  

Stylistically, the book is as engaging and entertaining as his first one already was and on several occasions even humorous. I very much liked that, offsetting the often sombre gravitas of the sites and topics covered. And I do like a good dose of sarcasm in general, which this author frequently employs.

  

  

  

I have to admit that, unlike with his first book, I am in two minds about this second book. On the one hand, it’s again a fantastic and captivating read offering many poignant observations and thought-provoking inferences. On the other hand, I find one of his core conclusions unconvincing, namely that through the notion of “transformation” of tourists into something “better” there was ultimately a con at play, or even worse: some kind of establishment conspiracy of “mind control” in “state-sanctioned dark tourism” (which I still believe does not exist – we dark tourists are typically rather ignored than targetedly manipulated).

   

All this speculation/conclusion goes way too far in my eyes, based as it is largely on the over-interpretation of what was originally just some piece of pretentious PR language, just like that talk of “life-changing experience” and such like. I do not think that too much deeper meaning should be read into such platitudes. Doing so makes the author at times come across as something like a conspiracy theorist (and his semi-cryptic footnote remarks about Covid do not help to dispel such suspicions).

   

And this is quite unfortunate, as otherwise the book is, again, excellent and a wonderful read most of the time. And I would still recommend it, despite my reservations regarding some aspects of the author’s conclusions.

   

Another aspect that makes me somewhat less happy with the book compared to his first one is the fact that it is so much more focused: on the one hand, it’s the topic of the Holocaust and its memorialization, both at Auschwitz, Poland, and in Britain (with the “omnishambles” revolving around the proposed UK Holocaust Memorial). On the other hand, the book is also UK-centric in that all the non-Holocaust-related chapters are about sites in Britain (of course travel restrictions during the Covid pandemic will have played a role here), that is: bar one, the odd one out chapter that is about Mexico and the Dia de Muertos. From my perspective, that of an international practitioner (and promoter) of dark tourism, this feels like a limitation compared to the wide net cast in the author’s first book. (I also felt the inclusion of some sites, like Loch Ness or the Colston statue, not fully convincing and I wouldn’t include them on this website.)

  

I understand that the author didn’t simply want to produce a “B-list” sequel, but aimed at finding a different approach. But in the process it has become less attractive to other dark tourists internationally. From a specific UK perspective, on the other hand, it offers a lot more than the previous book. Those who want a critical look into the UK’s memorial culture and politics will find much that is thoughtful and thought-provoking, and occasionally even provocative. But for the globetrotter dark tourist, it’s much less relevant than the first book.

   

If you are British, or are based in Britain, or have (like myself) a strong connection to the country, and/or have a special interest in the Holocaust, I’d still highly recommend this book. For everybody else I’d be more cautious.

  

  

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