Exhibiting Atrocity: Memorial Museums and the Politics of Past Violence
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EXHIBITING ATROCITY EXHIBITING ATROCITY Memorial Museums and the Politics of Past Violence Amy Sodaro Rutgers University Press New Brunswick, Camden, and Newark, New Jersey, and London 978-0-8135-9214-5 978-0-8135-9213-8 978-0-8135-9215-2 Cataloging-in-Publication data is available from the Library of Congress. A British Cataloging- in- Publication record for this book is available from the British Library. Copyright © 2018 by Amy Sodaro All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 106 Somerset Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901. The only exception to this prohibition is “fair use” as defined by U.S. copyright law. The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences— Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48- 1992. www .rutgersuniversitypress .org Manufactured in the United States of America CONTENTS Acknowledgments vii Introduction 1 1 Memorial Museums: The Emergence of a New Form 12 2 TheUnited States Holocaust Memorial Museum: The Creation of a “Living Memorial” 30 3 TheHouse of Terror: “The Only One of Its Kind” 58 4 TheKigali Genocide Memorial Centre: Building a “Lasting Peace” 84 5 TheMuseum of Memory and Human Rights: “A Living Museum for Chile’s Memory” 111 6 TheNational September 11 Memorial Museum: “To Bear Solemn Witness” 138 7 Memorial Museums: Promises and Limits 162 Notes 185 References 195 Index 205 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book has been many years in the making. The journey began more than a decade ago with two courses at the New School for Social Research (NSSR): one on Holocaust Memory with the incomparable late Geoffrey Hartman and a summer course on collective memory in Krakow, Poland, taught by Jonathan Veitch and Elzbieta Matynia. The seed that was planted by those courses eventually grew into a master’s thesis, then a dissertation on memorial museums, and finally, this book. I was extraordinarily fortunate to embark on the study of memory as memory studies was burgeoning at NSSR. With NSSR’s roots as a Univer- sity in Exile, it is not surprising that memory became a key area of academic interest, and I benefited tremendously from the strong community of fellow graduate students and faculty working on issues of memory. I am especially indebted to my dissertation committee, Elzbieta, Jeffrey Goldfarb, and the late (and very dearly missed) Vera Zolberg, whose wonderful insight into memory as an object of study helped shape my nascent interests into a worthy academic endeavor. And I am particularly grateful for the NSSR Memory Group, especially Adam Brown, Rachel Daniell, Lindsey Freeman, Yifat Gutman, and Benjamin Nienass. This group was a steady source of intellectual support and companionship during my doctoral work, though I still marvel that any of us were able to finish our studies with the tireless effort we put into organizing conferences and events, publishing books and journals, and working to build a memory studies network. One of the best things about my research on memorial museums has been the opportunity to travel the world to visit memorial museums, and I must extend special thanks to the many individuals associated with the museums in this book who generously shared their time and knowledge. In Budapest, Hungary, this included House of Terror director Maria Schmidt and researcher Aron Mathe. In Rwanda and the United Kingdom, James Smith, director of Aegis Trust; Freddy Mutanguha, director of the Kigali Memorial Centre; Steven Robinson, Aegis’s Rwanda development officer; and Honore Gatera, head guide of Kigali Memorial Centre. And in Santiago, Chile, and the United States, Katherine Hite, professor of political science vii viii Acknowledgments at Vassar College; Carolina Aguilera, PhD candidate at Pontifical Catholic University of Chile; Ricardo Brodsky, director of the Museum of Memory and Human Rights; Maria Jose Bunster, general coordinator and head of museography and exhibitions of the museum; Mireya Davila, of the Insti- tuto de Asuntos Públicos, Universidad de Chile, who wrote the museum script; Daniela Jara of the Center for Social Conflict and Cohesion Stud- ies in Santiago; and Manuela Badilla, PhD candidate at NSSR who put me in touch with all these wonderful resources. I would also like to extend my gratitude to the Professional Staff Congress/CUNY Research Foundation, which generously funded my travel to Chile in 2015, enabling me to expand my research to include this important museum. In addition to the many individuals who assisted me in my travels, I have had the valuable support of many people here in New York. I am grateful to my wonderful colleagues at the Borough of Manhattan Community College for their ever useful advice and support, in particular helping me find a bal- ance between teaching, service, and scholarship. I am also deeply indebted to New York University’s Faculty Resource Network. In addition to attend- ing two stellar summer seminars at NYU, I would never have finished this book without my participation in their Scholar- in- Residence program in June 2016. Not only did the program afford me access to NYU’s vast library and an inspiring group of fellow scholars, but it also gave me the opportu- nity to work with Dr. Joyce Apsel of NYU’s Liberal Studies program, whose encouragement and expertise have been immeasurable. I am also grateful to Marlie Wasserman, now retired from Rutgers University Press, whose ini- tial feedback on parts of the manuscript was extremely helpful, and Rutgers editor Lisa Banning, who has been simply wonderful to work with. I must also thank my family for their enthusiasm for my interest in such “depressing” museums. In particular, I thank my sister, Sally LaPorte, for her careful and thoughtful reading of the final manuscript. And without Jonah Kokodyniak, who has been by my side for this entire journey, this book would never have happened. His support for the project has never wavered, and for years he has happily read drafts, talked over ideas, and never once complained about planning vacations to places with violent pasts! Sweet little Stella has only been around for part of the journey, extending it in the best possible ways. In the last few months, as I finished the manuscript, the world has changed, becoming a much darker and more frightening place. I know that memory and memorialization will play a role both in the dangerous retreat Acknowledgments ix from globalization, cosmopolitanism, and democratic ideals that we are witnessing and in resistance to this movement. However, it is too soon to have a clear idea of what role memory scholars and memory workers will play as we grapple with this changing political and social landscape. I have presented some tentative thoughts throughout the manuscript on the rela- tionship of memorial museums to this changing world order, but much remains to be seen. In the meantime, I hope that my two fields of memory studies and sociology can contribute, in some small way, to the fight against creeping authoritarianism, intolerance, and division. INTRODUCTION In Montgomery, Alabama, a new museum called From Enslave- ment to Mass Incarceration is slated to open in April 2018 in a former slave warehouse. Created by the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), the museum is intended to explore “the legacy of slavery, racial terrorism, segregation, and contemporary issues of mass incarceration, excessive punishment, and police violence” (Equal Justice Initiative 2016). Designed by Local Projects, an “experience design” studio that was one of the lead exhibition designers of the National September 11 Memorial Museum and claims as its mission to “push the boundaries of emotional storytelling” (Local Projects), the new museum will confront the violence of African American history in a way that is interactive and deeply experiential. Using virtual reality technology, re- creations, sounds, and images, the goal of the museum is to “immerse visitors in the sights and sounds of the domestic slave trade, racial terror- ism, and the Jim Crow South” (Equal Justice Initiative 2016). In connect- ing visitors to the past in a visceral way, it also intends to help them make connections between the violence of the past and the continued inequality and violence of the present, seeking to use the past to work toward a better future. The museum is part of a larger memory initiative by the EJI that also includes the Memorial to Peace and Justice; located on six acres of land overlooking the city of Montgomery, it will be the first national memorial to the more than four thousand victims of lynching in the American South. The memorial is designed by MASS Design Group, which aims at “design that heals” and is also designing the new African Center for Peace at the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre (MASS Design). The memorial will be an interactive space intended to help confront this exceedingly dark aspect of US history. Underpinning these two projects is the firm belief of EJI that 1 2 Exhibiting Atrocity “public commemoration plays a significant role in prompting community- wide reconciliation” (Equal Justice Initiative 2016); without these sites of commemoration, this violent past may remain in the dark and the wounds will not heal. The Montgomery museum and memorial open on the tail of the new Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. This wildly popular newest museum on the National Mall is intended to be not just for African Americans but for all Americans, tell- ing a dual narrative of “uplift and tragedy seemingly on a fixed collision course” (Cotter 2016) that echoes broader social and political tensions in a nation passing the torch from its first black president to one unasham- edly connected to white supremacist movements.