shoah chap 4

Question 1

Name the two categories of visitors to Holocaust memorials in former Nazi occupied countries

Answer 1

1. Those for whom the victims are ‘Us’
2. Those for whom the victims are ‘Them’
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Question 2

What is a museum’s role?

Answer 2

1. To conserve and preserve objects in their care
2. Satisfy the political aims of the body that funds the museum
3. To attract the public

Question 3

Why is there often a conflict between the roles of a museum?

Answer 3

A Government who funds a museum wants to portray:
1. social cohesion
2. celebrate national history and myths
3. attract and increase tourism
A museum Curator may want to display objects on aesthetic judgement or rarity BUT this may fail to attract tourists OR it may highlight a national embarrassment
They will have to put aside authenticity to tell a story

Question 4

What is the importance of location for context of a memorial?

Answer 4

An object in one placed might be incomprehensible BUT in another location take on new meanings.

Question 5

Gyula Pauer & Can Togay?

Answer 5

60 pairs of bronze shoes on the bank of the Danube

Question 6

What makes the Pauer & Togay monument powerful?

Answer 6

The context of place is vital:

1. 300m from Hungarian Parliament
2. The authentic site of the murder of 10,000 Jews shot by Fascist Hungarian militia on banks of the Danube
3. Evocative and moving constructed artwork of shoes - children’s, babies, women’s and men’s - ordinary people’s shoes

Question 7

Why is the Pauer & Togay monument important?

Answer 7

1. They provide a stimulus for reflection without breaking codes of conduct
2. In most former Nazi occupied countries including Germany the issue of the Holocaust is by no means resolved - former Nazis or people involved in the atrocities are still being prosecuted and the additional uncomfortable issues of a Nation’s denial and guilt

Question 8

what is Cultural Patrimony?

Answer 8

Objects possessing or continuing cultural, traditional or historical importance to the heritage of a group - eg songs/stories of the Yiddish Community of Central and Eastern Europe

Question 9

Who is Emanuel Ringelblum?

Answer 9

Academic who along with others in the Warsaw Ghetto collated diaries, documentation, posters, letters about the people in the Ghetto. Just before the destruction of the Ghetto in the Warsaw Uprising he organised the burying of the archive in 3 milk churns and metal boxes

Question 10

Why is the milk churn considered the most important item in the USHMM, Washington D.C?

Answer 10

An authentic ordinary object which contained documentation describing the lives of ordinary Jews from Warsaw which ensured their stories lived on after the systematic killing of Warsaw’s Jewish population (30% of the total population)
It is an archaeological artefact that shows traces of sand and earth where it was buried.
It is displayed like an ancient relic or work of art.

Question 11

Why are authentic objects important in museums?

Answer 11

Director of USHMM, Washington D.C believes authentic objects are a direct link to the event or people
and a ‘silent witness’ to the events
the authenticity and story is embedded in the object

Question 12

USHMM, Washington D.C uses reproductions of objects, why?

Answer 12

They have little authentic value but add to the effect as a stage prop would do - used to convey and portray - to provoke an emotional reaction eg Concentration camp gates, Warsaw Ghetto Bridge

Question 13

What are the cons of commemoration?

Answer 13

A tomb commemorates an absent person - it is a marker of the person BUT without regular care and attention it becomes neglected and forgotten.

Question 14

What are the cons for memorials?

Answer 14

Memorials require regular ceremonies with the participation of people to retain meaning and significance BUT
If it is a religious based memorial then the attention given could transform its sacrality and turn it into a spectacle of culture and nationalism

Question 15

what do ceremonies and memories both require?

Answer 15

They both need to be rehearsed and performed with the help of others otherwise they will fade into insignificance

Question 16

What is a collective memory?

Answer 16

shared memories by a group, as a community or culture

Question 17

How do Museums facilitate collective memory?

Answer 17

They display objects, photographs, films with their associated memories and this can play in preserving and rehearsing collective memory

Question 18

What has had an impact on keeping social memory alive - oral tradition of stories and myths?

Answer 18

mass migration

Question 19

What is the Tower of Faces?

Answer 19

In the USHMM, Washington D.C - clever use of photographic reproductions of individuals from an authentic archive - Yaffa Eliach Shetl Collection
They are presented in such a way, a looming tower of faces, to provoke feelings of awe and unease.
These people no longer exist - it stops the visitor in their tracks

Question 20

How is the Yiddish culture , language and traditions represented in Shoah museums and memorials?

Answer 20

The museums and memorials across Europe present the Shoah through a contemporary Israeli Hebrew gaze because the Yiddish culture, language and community is absent. Systematic persecution and extermination means Yiddish culture, language and community has been replaced by a Hebrew speaking Jewish community.

Question 21

Which body authenticates and controls all documentation and commemorating of the Shoah all over the world?

Answer 21

Yad Vashem

Question 22

Why is there a need for genocide memorials?

Answer 22

to demonstrate how ‘we’ could easily become victims and how ‘we’ could easily become the perpetrators

Question 23

How has the Shoah made ethnic identity an escapable part of the history of the 20C?

Answer 23

Every Jewish victim was given Israeli citizenship - a political and cultural move be Israel

Question 24

What is CDJC?

Answer 24

The Centre for Contemporary Jewish Documentation - an independent French organisation set up in 1943 to preserve the evidence of Nazi war crimes for future generations

Question 25

Memorial de la Shoah, Paris

Answer 25

Private Jewish Foundation in Paris
Memorial, tomb, library and museum
Situated in an area (Marais) where many Jews lived and worked
Permission was needed by Yad Vashem for the archive to be held on the site and also to cross reference names of the French Jews deported to German run concentration camps held on database

Question 26

What are the functions of Memorial de la Shoah, Paris?

Answer 26

1. Primary function -A memorial for Jewish people - this is reinforced by the names on the wall and the design of the crypt - with Star of David - and ashes of victims from concentration camp mixed with earth from Israel. Plus names of Les Justes (ppl who helped Jews despite risk to themselves) on wall outside enclosure
2. Secondary function - to explain to non Jewish visitors what happened during the Vichy period - the role of French police and officials in carrying out Nazi policy - using objects: Door of Hut 6 from internment camp, Machine used by guards to grind down bones of victims before Allied troops arrived.
3. Third function - Archival resource for anyone to access - also Vichy regime index cards, photographs, film, documents - many histories are supported by a personal object - a spoon, garment. Evidence is used objectively

Question 27

What is the significance of stones in Jewish Monuments and memorials?

Answer 27

Stones are part of the Jewish ritual of Shiva - mourning. Placing a stone on a grave, tomb, monument or memorial is a sign that it is visited but also as a symbol of the lasting presence of the deceased’s life and memory.

Question 28

Why is it difficult to memorialise the absence of Jews from across Europe?

Answer 28

The Shoah could not be represented by conventional museographic means because authentic objects are often problematic eg Hair from concentration camp victims - distasteful, upsetting, disrespectful and so more abstract means of communication have been sought.

Question 29

The Treblinka Memorial, Poland

Answer 29

Haupt, Duszenko, Stryniewicz designers
17,000 roughly shaped stones leading to a massive granite structure - stones link to Jewish tradition of mourning and remembrance
Significance of memorial location - Nazis attempted to hide camps by demolishing and ploughing over Treblinka 2 before the allies appeared
Therefore the memorial highlights 2 absences:
The absence of people
The absence of the camp

Question 30

Mauthausen concentration camp memorial

Answer 30

Mauthausen, Austria
Commemorative stones - carpet of rough stones represents the Jewish victims
Stones have double significance:
Jewish tradition of mourning and remembrance
Forced labour of prisoners in nearby granite quarry
At first only a proportion of the victims were Jewish, many political opponents and intellectuals from Greece, Yugoslavia and Italy
28 monuments and plaques at Mauthausen to represent the victims of different communities

Question 31

What is genocide?

Answer 31

systematic ethnic cleansing/ systematic murder of civilians on the basis of their ethnicity
Jews, Roma, Sinti
Nazis also killed disabled, mentally ill, Gay, political opponents, trade unionists

Question 32

Jewish Museum, Berlin

Answer 32

Designer, Daniel Libeskind
original Jewish museum closed down by Nazis
Berlin Gov. allocated 18C building for new Jewish Museum
competition to find architect
furore over Berlin Senates’ decision to withdraw funding over museum - international pressure
project reinstated and shell of building opens
Layout: Zigzag concrete labyrinth
echoing spaces
jagged slashes of windows
open voids

Question 33

What did the designers of USHMM in Washington D.C and Berlin Jewish museum want to create with their design?

Answer 33

Wanted to create a sense of disturbance in the visitor
Feeling cut off from normal society and losing a sense of identity
intimidating scale of display - hall of witness (USHMM)
brutal materials - elevators
Towers - evoking camp guard towers
Vertical spaces - anxiety inducing

Question 34

USHMM, Washington D.C

Answer 34

Director of museum saw his job as 'telling a story'
uses reconstructions for a visitors:
entering a Ghetto
passing through a cattle truck
Under an Auschwitz gateway 
and combines this with authentic objects

Question 35

Berlin Jewish Museum

Answer 35

Libeskind’s design adopts a violent attitude to relationship between building and its context
strong sense of disturbance
floors slope, walls lean inwards
Basement: introduction to museum
leads to exile or extermination- stark choice
axis of exile - leads to a garden where vegetation is out of reach. leaning piers and sharply inclined surface
axis of Holocaust - grim enclosed dark tower with thin opening at top that lets in a little light, noise and cold air
along the top of these axis are selective authentic objects - individual stories
four storey staircase which represents toil of forced labour
Upper floors - authentic objects are displayed in traditional fashion to document Jewish culture over ten centuries in Berlin - educational approach

Question 36

Museum de la Shoah, Paris

Answer 36

Paris Shoah museum not designed to create a disturbing effect on the visitor
Crypt is reverential
The objects in the museum are shocking but the space used to display these objects is not

Question 37

what is the difference between a conventional memorial and a Jewish memorial?

Answer 37

Conventional war memorial - communities gather together to commemorate the dead
Jewish memorial - whole communities were wiped out - only a few survivors
Therefore commemoration is shared by absent Jews and present non-Jews

Question 38

Holocaust memorials and museums

Answer 38

almost as much about the guilt of the perpetrators as of the suffering of the victims

Question 39

Why are Holocaust memorials in Germany, France and other former occupied countries controversial?

Answer 39

unresolved issues pertaining to the Holocaust and their involvement with it

Question 40

what is the purpose of a counter monument?

Answer 40

As a commemoration of absence - a counter monument is designed to impact on the key space between the object and the viewer to keep memory in the eye of the beholder. It seeks to undermine national leaders desire for a memorial to portray symbols of healing and closure

Question 41

Why are counter monuments important?

Answer 41

Historian James Young says,
Holocaust memorials should not allow people to safely lock up their collective memories in monuments and ceremonies which would let brief cathartic moments of pity and shame obscure the continuing issue of racial prejudice

Question 42

perspectives of opposing groups in choosing a designer for Jewish museum in Berlin

Answer 42

High brow academics: wanted abstract counter monuments - mistrustful of iconic representative memorials - iconoclasm
Lower brow members: suspicious of abstract and conceptual art - favoured (according to high brow) kitsch monumental figuration and emotional release

Question 43

Monument against Fascism

Answer 43

Shalev-Gerz & Gerz’s ‘Monument against Fascism’
Central district of Hamburg - no direct connection with Jewish community
Monument invited visitors (via several languages) to inscribe their names as a commitment not to forget Hamburg’s Jews.
The monument attracted protest
covered by a scrawl of names and graffiti which is said to be a fair reflection of current attitudes
as the pole became filled up it moved down until it was completely gone - artists claimed that the absence of the pole signified a betrayal
The artists said in response to the protest about the remarks on the pole that they did not presume to tell people what they ought to think.

Question 44

The Aschrott Fountain

Answer 44

Hoheisel - Kassel, Germany
A fountain that was donated by a Jewish entrepreneur was destroyed by Nazi enthusiasts
1984 competition
local artist Hoheisel created a white concrete hollow replica of the fountain
buried it upside down in the town hall square
took place during an arts festival
only base is visible
sound of water and partial glazing of the surface allow the visitor to realise the depth of the monument
from a distance the monument looks like a geometric marble pattern
Like the Hamburg monument - ‘forgetting’ or sealing off a disturbing memory - a counter monument to provoke
The artists claims the fountain can be righted when the German people have changed their attitude to what happened in the Nazi period

Question 45

Bibliothek memorial

Answer 45

Micha Ullman - Israeli artist
Bebelplatz, Berlin - in front of a faculty building of Humboldt University
Commemorates the burning of 20,000
Ullman books by Nationalist students in 1933 - an action that was a clear portent to the ensuing genocidal programme
books selected on ethnic and political lines
buried a room with empty bookshelves - absence of books
tomb like
a plaque with a line ‘where books are burned in the end people will burn’
illuminated at night, little can be seen during the day
camera obscura - registering those who see it just as the statues on nearby faculty buildings witnessed events of the past

Question 46

Reaction to Bibliothek memorial

Answer 46

artists believes memorials only work if unstrained by a script or story
buried empty space not only comments on the burning of the books but also is a stimulus to reflection
controversy with town council decision to allow a car park to be built under the square - disrespectful to his monument and the values it expressed
Ullman hoped the space close to the university where the memorial is would become alive with students, exchanging and reading books
At present on tourist trail

Question 47

Why do Jewish memorials have a turbulent history in Germany and former German-occupied countries?

Answer 47

The Holocaust and issues associated with it are not resolved in Germany and former German/Nazi occupied countries.
The search for perpetrators of the genocide goes on
De-Nazification took place in Germany and Nazi-occupied countries on people who held positions of authority during the war but many of these people still held positions of power.
It helps to explain why the raid growth in Shoah memorials and monuments has happened only after these people have retired.
Countries still haven’t confronted their complicity in the Holocaust even after all of these years - re France and Vichy, Finland and so on

Question 48

German National Monument to murdered Jews of Europe

Answer 48

Peter Eisenman (originally with sculpture Serra)
Berlin - 20,000 metre site close to where Hitler’s bunker and Chancellory building
cemetery theme
concrete pillars of varying height but all same base size
visitor can enter from any direction into the labyrinth
Underground information centre on the Shoah
Until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the reunification - no decision could be made about a national monument to the Shoah in Berlin

Question 49

Difficulties with Eisenman and Serra’s entry for the Berlin monument

Answer 49

The competition was split into 2 camps:
1. Traditional, representational and easily understandable and identifiable
2. Counter-monument, abstract, conceptual, minimalist art
Arguments over who the monument would commemorate, only Jewish victims or Roma, Sinti, Homosexuals, political opponents, murdered civilians in other countries?
Two winners were chosen but the result was overturned by specialist and public criticism and political obstruction.
The explicit Jewish iconography in many of the designs hit a nerve
New selection panel was chosen which included rt historian, museum director, architect and only one foreigner
When Eisenman and Serra were chosen - they were asked to adapt the design (reduce maximum height of pillars and cut the number of pillars) - Serra refused and left the competition

Question 50

what was the criteria for the National monument in Berlin?

Answer 50

What are the nationals reasons for remembrance?
Are they:
redemptory
part of a mourning process
pedagogical
self-aggrandizing or inspiration against contemporary xenophobia?
To what national and social ends will this memorial be built?
Just how compensatory a gesture will it be?
Will it be a place for Jews to mourn lost Jews?
A place for Germans to mourn lost Jews?
A place for Jews to remember what Germans once did to them?

Question 51

How successful is the Berlin national monument?

Answer 51

It is on the tourist trail - does the tourist gaze diminish the sacrality of the monument?
Issue with the cemetery theme is the respect of the columns
they are not consecrated stones but there should be an element of respect at a monument
there are guardians of the site who try and stop people climbing and playing on the stones

Question 52

Memorial des Martyrs de la deportation de Paris

Answer 52

Pingusson and Veysset
Paris - Association of the Deported commissioned this monument
ile de cite - behind Notre Dames - prime site
to commemorate deportation of 160,000 people from France to Germany and occupied territories
Association believed it should be a sculptural monument - looked for an architect and sculpture