, Memorials and Forgiveness

Leslie Anne Boldt

Abstract In ‘On Forgiveness,’ Jacques Derrida describes proliferating scenes of national repentance as signifying ‘a “universal urgency” of memory.’1 Memory and repentance are often inscribed architecturally in the form of monuments and memorials. Arthur Danto distinguishes between the two when he suggests that ‘[w]e erect monuments so that we shall always remember, and build memorials so that we shall never forget.’2 For Danto, ‘monuments commemorate the memorable and embody the myths of beginnings’ while ‘memorials ritualize remembrance and mark the reality of ends.’3 By considering ’s and its Holocaust Memorial, as well as Hiroshima’s Cenotaph for the Atomic Bomb Victims, I examine the nuances distinguishing the meaning of monuments and memorials. I also explore the notion of engaging forgiveness through memorial architecture, and whether it is possible to invite forgiveness at a site where the need to honour victims of war is paramount.

Key Words: Abstraction, architecture, atonement, forgiveness, healing, memorial, memory, , reconciliation, trauma.

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Arthur Danto has famously written that, ‘we erect monuments so that we shall always remember, and build memorials so that we shall never forget.’4 For Danto, a further distinction between monuments and memorials derives from the fact that ‘[m]onuments commemorate the memorable and embody the myths of beginnings’ while ‘[m]emorials ritualize remembrance and mark the reality of ends.’5 Events surrounding the triumphs and horrors of war are undoubtedly the source of many, if not most, monuments and memorials erected around the world. As Danto notes, these structures – whether monuments or memorials – call for remembrance, be it in the spirit of national pride or from the depths of sorrow. The feelings of mourning and reverence that one is invited to feel at a memorial site are often inextricably linked to the acknowledgment that grievous acts, perhaps even war crimes, were committed in the course of hostilities waged between and within nations. Although these violent acts may be contextualized by a description of the political motivations or ideological positions underpinning the atrocities committed, they are invariably hard if not impossible to forgive. Indeed, it is most likely that the language of forgiveness is entirely absent from the memorial site, whose function is to honour the victims of war and destruction. In light of Danto’s definitions, this chapter examines several examples of World War II memorials in an attempt to understand how their history, design and location invite reflection on 56 Monuments, Memorials and Forgiveness ______victimization and loss in diverse and site-specific ways. Each of these memorials precludes, to varying degrees, the discourse of forgiveness as a part of its architectural and linguistic vocabulary. The distinction Danto makes between monument and memorial has often been quoted in articles and book chapters devoted to memorial architecture, allowing these authors to pursue their reflections on the nuances that complicate the division between these two terms. As Christine Berberich observes, the German language makes a relevant distinction between memorial and monument that is unavailable in English, based on differences between the words ‘Denkmal’ (meaning both ‘monument’ and ‘memorial’), and ‘Mahnmal’:

While a Denkmal wishes to induce the onlookers to “denk mal!,” to think, the Mahnmal contains the word mahnen, to reprimand… A Mahnmal consequently acquires a dual function: it commemorates the victims, in the case of the Berlin Holocaust memorial [for] the murdered Jews of Europe. But at the same time it also confronts the perpetrators, and their descendants, with a remembrance of their crimes.6

As Megan Rook-Koepsel notes, the viewer is expected, if not required, to respond intellectually and emotionally to both the Denkmal and the Mahnmal, but viewing a Mahnmal implies an extra burden, namely the ‘implication of guilt and the need to participate in the mourning of the war.’7 Rook-Koepsel makes a further distinction between the two words when she writes that Mahnmal assumes a continual reprimand, ‘one that spans generations.’8 While Berlin’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (described as both a Denkmal and a Mahnmal in German) constitutes a single example of a memorial site in Berlin, another memorial in the same city, the Neue Wache, further complicates Danto’s division between monument and memorial. Originally built between 1816 and 1818 to honour those who had died during the Napoleonic wars, the Neue Wache became in 1931 a memorial ‘for those who had fallen in .’9 While it sustained heavy damage due to Allied bombings in World War II, it was repaired and reopened with an in 1960 in what had become East Berlin as a memorial ‘to the victims of fascism and militarism.’10 A website for the memorial indicates that the site serves to honour both victims of Nazism, in particular those who died in concentration camps, and fallen soldiers:

In 1969, the remains of an unknown soldier and an unknown concentration camp prisoner were buried there, surrounded by earth taken from the battlefields of World War II and from concentration camps. Until 1990, on every Wednesday an honour guard marched in front of this memorial.11