There’s a certain uneasiness about the growing number of visitors to former concentration camps, ghettos, and other sites associated with the Holocaust. Are they pilgrims or voyeurs? Is horror commercialized?

Grinnell College scholar Daniel Reynolds points instead to a valuable upside. Drawing from his book Postcards from Auschwitz: Holocaust Tourism and the Meaning of Remembrance, he examines how tourism has become an increasingly vital component in the evolving collective remembrance of the Holocaust. Even at places like Auschwitz and Dachau, memorials have struggled over the years to get the facts straight. Historians have worked over time to correct the record, driven in part by the intense public interest.

The event, commemorating International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, is co-presented by the Midwest Center for Holocaust Education.

For presentation slides, click here.