Scott Barbour, Getty Images The railway tracks leading to the main gates at Auschwitz.

By Courtney Reed I knew I had to go. When people asked, I simply responded that I was traveling alone to Auschwitz because I felt I needed to -- I had no other reason.

This enigmatic answer sparked an existential crisis, and I left Florence, Italy, for Poland feeling uncertain about my character. Traveling alone induces neurosis, phobias and an altered rapport between mind and body. Confined for several hours on a train, you become both audience and raconteur of your subconscious, and mine would not cease an attempt to explain the motive behind my journey.

Visiting to pay my respects to the deceased at the site of this concentration camp in Poland seemed false because I knew of no one who had perished in the camps, my relatives did not fight in World War II, and I have no Jewish heritage. Since adolescence, however, I have been haunted by brutal images of the Holocaust, accounts of torturous experiments by Dr. Josef Mengele and chilling interviews with survivors. Though disturbing, these artifacts affected me deeply and continue to fascinate me.

Could this fascination be the force behind my visiting the museum and memorial at Auschwitz-Birkenau, and if so, did this make me a dark tourist?

Essentially, dark tourism is "the act of travel, whether intentional or otherwise, to sites of death, destruction or the seemingly macabre," said Philip Stone, a leading researcher of the phenomenon.

Michael Lipchitz, Associated Press Jim Morrison's gravesite in Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. Click photo for larger image.

Locations range from "the lighter side to the more educational to the more serious," said Mr. Stone, a senior lecturer in the Department of Tourism and Leisure at the University of Central Lancashire, England. Examples of these places include lighter trips to Alcatraz Prison or Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris (final resting place of Frederic Chopin, Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison, to name a few) to the more didactic, such as Gettysburg's battlefields or Southern plantations or somber experiences at Ground Zero or Auschwitz.

Mr. Stone, creator of the Internet database Dark Tourism Forum, added that an understanding of dark tourism should move past the "Auschwitz syndrome [because] dark tourism goes beyond the Holocaust and must be recognized as extremely diverse both in production and demand."

He is reluctant to speculate on the reasons as to why people are so drawn to such places.

"That's the million dollar question," said Mr. Stone. "There is no one reason why it exists and no one reason why people want it."

Still, he suggested several possibilities, such as the West's distance from experiencing death, now "made absent by the privatization of the medical industry." He also cited a desire to confront our own mortality, education, penance, a need to learn from history and Schadenfreude (pleasure found at another's misfortune) as possible reasons.

Whatever the reason, the concept has been gaining academic interest since two professors in Scotland coined the term in the 1990s. Malcolm Foley and John Lennon of Glasgow Caledonian University published a book in 2000: "Dark Tourism: The Attraction of Death and Disaster," which generated academic attention.

Though Mr. Stone said that U.S. research on the subject is about five years behind research in the United Kingdom, some U.S. academics are beginning to examine the subject.

Last year, Jessica Sarver, a graduate of California University of Pennsylvania, where Mr. Stone spoke last week, won an award from the Travel and Tourism Research Association for her paper "Dark Tourism and its Effects on the Tourism Industry Relating to the Flight 93 Temporary Memorial."

	Paul Ruggieri, WQED 1st Pennsylvania Artillery monument near the Peach Orchard at Gettysburg National Military Park. Click image for larger version.

"There are some visitors who travel to these destinations because of the thrill some get from death and destruction," said Ms. Sarver, who lives in Somerset County, where the hijacked United Flight 93 crashed on Sept. 11, 2001. "But overall I would attribute visitation to these sites as a form of respect or for education purposes."

Georgina Fujimoto, a correctional treatment specialist who was recently visiting Ground Zero from Mifflinburg in Eastern Pennsylvania, said viewing was a patriotic act.

"If you don't go, it's almost like you're not a good American," said Ms. Fujimoto who was in New York to visit her daughter.

Tourists have been flocking to Ground Zero since the day of the terrorists attacks in 2001. In fact, because of the high demand from visitors, New York City Vacation Packages responded by creating a Lower Manhattan Walking Tour in January 2002, according to vice president Joel Cohen. The three-hour tour allows groups to tour Ground Zero and the surrounding area for the adult price of $25 and children's price of $15. While most visitors are interested in paying their respects, said Mr. Cohen, there are repeat visitors who follow the progress on construction.

Hurricane Katrina generated similar fascination in New Orleans in August 2005. Several companies have developed Hurricane Katrina tours, focusing on the destruction. Gray Line Tours' packages began in January 2006 and were first popular with locals, but are now filled with tourists, said Jim Fewell, sales and operations director.

"People really want to see for themselves -- which is typical of any disaster, natural or manmade," he added.

Benoit Monin, assistant professor of social psychology at Stanford University, said that the desire for an immediate experience "has to do with seeing the world the way the victims did." Despite a person's motivation, he added that being in the place of a dark historical event creates a special connection between the observer and the observed.

Perhaps because of this connection, dark tourism will continue to flourish as Mr. Stone predicts. Only time will tell, but the flowers for John Lennon at Strawberry Fields in Central Park don't seem to be disappearing anytime soon.

Alyssa Rutan, left, and Lyndsey Cheek, who were visiting the Flight 93 Memorial from Mechanicsburg Junior High School near Columbus, Ohio, last May, embrace at the site of the crash near Shanksville, Somerset County. Post-Gazette