1 Other people are posing for smiling group photos at Auschwitz and Pearl Harbour. Should I say anything?
2 I pose for photos beside a memorial to a famous author, or a person featured in a novel. How to avoid smiling photos.
Answer
1 Ask the tour guide or site owner to put up a sign.
2 Take several photos so you can pick one which looks suitable.
Stories
The subject of behaviour is in the news because of Holocaust Memorial Day in January. Auschwitz was liberated by the Russians, already abandoned by the Germans, in 1945. A person who was shocked to see photos of adults, teenagers and children leaping about and laughing and striking silly poses on holocaust memorials uploaded photos from other people's websites. He changed the backgrounds to show the people posing against horrific concentration camp pictures.
One argument is that a memorial is not a cemetery, unlike Auschwitz. However, I still think it is inappropriate to stand smiling alongside a list of names of dead people, of which there are many on a tourist's list. Some people even think it is not appropriate to stand alongside a list of names. However, I wanted to stand alongside the names at the Menin Gate in Europe, and Lockerbie, in Scotland, to show I was there, and create human interest, and make my travel article and my own memories of my holiday less gloomy.
1 I first became aware of this problem at Pearl Harbour when I saw groups of smiling orientals posing for photos. As they were speaking what I presumed was Japanese I felt uncomfortable. You cannot assume that a smiling oriental is showing disrespect. The Japanese often smile when announcing a death in their own family, to mitigate the impact on the listener. (The say some people joke at funerals, not out of disrespect but in an attempt to lighten the mood.)
2 At Auschwitz I saw orientals posing for a group photo by the train. I wondered whether they understood the significance of what they were seeing, as many people were on a whole day tour, of which Auschwitz was only part.
3 I remember standing at the gravestone of the boy who was featured in a book by Charles Dickens. Dickens had been sent to write a novel highlighting the dangers and abuses of sending unwanted stepchildren away to boarding schools. (The story went that many children died at a particular school, where the headmaster was depicted as having one eye. The writers of articles defending the headmaster said that although many children died at the school, even more died outside the school, because the death rate of children from malnutrition and communicable illnesses was so high in those days.) I stood pointing at the gravestone of a boy who had died.
The photographer, as usual, before snapping the picture, called, "Smile!"
I shouted back, 'Take several photos!'
I was later able to select a photo of myself looking serious and contemplative.
It is a reminder that photos you take and upload to the internet can be viewed by many others as well as taken out of context.
Tips
Read more on Y o l o c a u s t:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38675835
https://yolocaust.de (Includes an apology from one of the people seen leaping about on a memorial, who asks for the photo to be removed and apologises.)
Read more on physically and mentally disabled victims of the holocaust:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-38773057
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
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