ABSTRACT
This author explores how the site evokes the genocidal crimes and seeks to claim that a dark tourism prism is the only lens through which Auschwitz is experienced and understood. Auschwitzs role as the archetypal Holocaust dark tourism destination does not come without controversy. Many survivors and their families bemoan the so-called industry of Auschwitz. In Birkenau, one has unparalleled freedom to wander in arguably the worst place the largest site of death with no guides and just the self. The author stood inside the camp staring back through the gates of Birkenau, he realised that the films powerful psychic lure had entailed a trap of sorts of which he was not fully aware when anticipating the journey. The author describes the word souvenir a memento object that a tourist brings home for the memories associated with it.
