Mapping Memory: Cartography in Contemporary Holocaust Culture Michael Joseph Holden PhD thesis University of York Department of Theatre, Film, Television, and Interactive Media October 2020 Abstract In recent years, new scholarship in cartography has emerged that has begun to challenge the apparent non-neutrality of maps as representations of physical space. In the eyes of some, the ‘memory boom’ of the 1980s and 1990s, which was in no small part occasioned by an exponential increase in works of Holocaust memory, posed a similar challenge to the authority of traditional historiography. Despite such developments, there has hitherto been little research that seeks to systematically connect cartography to memory as a means of representing cultural-memory phenomena, despite the fact that maps are at times employed in cultural works that aim to address such questions. As such, this thesis asks how authors and artists respond to the legacy of the Holocaust in contemporary cultural works through the use of cartography. Particularly, it is concerned with establishing what relation questions of memory – both cultural and individual – bring to bear on the cartographies included within the works of Miriam Katin, Amy Kurzweil, Jérémie Dres, W.G. Sebald, and Nikolaus Gansterer. Accordingly, a theoretical framework combining scholarship in both cartography and memory studies will be employed. Broadly, maps within the works of these authors can be conceived of as fluid, flexible entities that challenge traditional conceptions of cartography as near-objective; this is in part owing to their connection with the questions of Holocaust memory inherent to each work – maps tend to mirror mnemonic concerns in accordance with their fluidity. Consequently, this thesis offers a potential avenue for an increased understanding of how spaces of the Holocaust are interpreted from a contemporary (cultural) perspective. Table of Contents Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………..……..p.2 Table of contents…………………………………………………………………..………….p.3 List of figures………………………………………………………………………….…………p.5 Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………….………….p.7 Declaration……………………………………………………………………………………..…p.8 1. Introduction – Mapping Holocaust Memory……………………………………p.9 1.1. Maps and power, maps and ethics………………………………………..p.13 1.2 A Mnemocartography of the Holocaust?.....................................p.32 2. Towards a mnemocartographic framework?......................................p.43 2.1. On cartography………………………………………………………………….p.44 2.2. On memory……………………………………………………………………….p.56 2.3. Memory on the move…………………………………………………………p.66 2.4. Memory, mediated…………………………………………………………….p.74 2.5. On memories personal and familial…………………………………….p.77 - Part 1 - 3. Introduction: (Comic) Arts of Memory: Mapping Family Histories of the Holocaust in the Graphic Novels of Miriam Katin, Amy Kurzweil, and Jérémie Dres…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..p.83 3.1. What’s in a name?.......................................................................p.93 4. Mapping Across Generations in Miriam Katin’s Letting It Go……....p.95 4.1. Mind-maps………………………………………………………………………p.102 4.2. Manipulating the map……………………………………………………..p.108 4.3. Mapping as monument……………………………………………………..p.119 5. Cartographies of Identity and Holocaust (Post)Memory in Amy Kurzweil’s Flying Couch……………………………………………………..…………p.126 5.1. Mapping domestic space…………………………………………………..p.131 5.2. Mapping the past……………………………………………………………..p.147 5.3. Mapping dialogic spaces…………………………………………………..p.162 6. Cartography in Conversation: Jérémie Dres’s We Won’t See Auschwitz……………………………………………………………………………….……..p.170 6.1. Mapping the brothers’ route………………………………………………p.175 6.2. Interpreting the map, embodying the map…………………………p.183 6.3. The map speaks……………………………………………………………….p.196 - Part 2 - 7. Introduction: Fluid Cartographies and ‘Solitary Travellers’: W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz and The Rings of Saturn……………………………………………………………………………………...……p.207 7.1. Charting a course: the map-text…………………………………………p.215 8. Fluid Cartography in W.G. Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn: A Centrifugal Walking Tour…………………………………………………….…………p.227 8.1. Herring…………………………………………………………………………..p.232 8.2. Ustaše, UN, Universe: the travels of Kurt Waldheim…………..p.245 8.3. Threads of silk…………………………………………………………………p.254 9. Charting a Lost Past in W.G. Sebald’s Austerlitz………………..………p.263 9.1. Slices of time, or, a stereometry of memory………………………..p.269 10. Conclusion – Mapping Mirrors Memory………………………..………….p.295 10.1. Coda: Re-mapping presence into the urban fabric of Vienna: Nikolaus Gansterer’s Memory Map…………………………………………p.296 10.2. Fluid maps for fluid memories………………………………………..p.310 Bibliography………………………………………………………………..………………..p.314 List of Figures Figure 1.1. – Map from the Stahlecker Report, titled, ‘Jewish Executions Carried out by Einsatzgruppe A.’ – p.9 Figure 1.2. – Propaganda slide, ‘The spreading of the Jews in the 1,500 years since the birth of Christ.’ – p.16 Figure 1.3. – Propaganda slide, ‘The spreading of the Jews in the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.’ – p.17 Figure 1.4. – Sketch map of Auschwitz-Birkenau, as included in the Vrba- Wetzler report. – p.21 Figure 1.5. – Sachsenhausen visitors’ map. – p.41 Figure 1.6. – Ravensbrück visitors’ map. – p.42 Figure 4.1. – ‘The Map of Germany in Miriam’s Mind.’ – p.95 Figure 4.2. – Miriam traces her son’s route. – p.110 Figure 4.3. – Catching the map in the act. – p.113 Figure 4.4. – Re-mediating the Vilnius Ghetto map. – p.120 Figure 4.5. – Vilna Ghetto map. – p.120 Figure 5.1. – At home with memory. – p.132 Figure 5.2. – The Kurzweil home. – p.134 Figure 5.3. – The Kurzweil home. – p.135 Figure 5.4. – Imitating the mother. – p.136 Figure 5.5. – Asserting independence; Kurzweil’s Stanford map. – p.140 Figure 5.6. – Calling Bubbe. – p.141 Figure 5.7. – Map-like paths. – p.144 Figure 5.8. – The past intrudes. – p.148 Figure 5.9. – Trapped in the Warsaw Ghetto. – p.153 Figure 5.10. – Mapping a family tragedy. – p.155 Figure 5.11. – A section of Kurzweil’s depiction of her grandmother’s journey across Poland. – p.156 Figure 5.12. – A section of Kurzweil’s depiction of her great-grandmother’s deportation to the camps. – p.161 Figure 5.13. – Retracing family footsteps on Google. – p.163 Figure 5.14. – Bensheim to New York City. – p.164 Figure 6.1. – At the ghetto wall. – p.176 Figure 6.2. – The tour reaches Ulica Prozna. – p.177 Figure 6.3. – Arriving at the synagogue. – p.177 Figure 6.4. – Arriving in Żelechów. – p.179 Figure 6.5. – Searching for the Żelechów Jewish cemetery. – p.179 Figure 6.6. – The brothers arrive in Kraków. – p.182 Figure 6.7. – Jérémie struggles to navigate Warsaw. – p.183 Figure 6.8. – A protagonist’s-eye view of the map. – p.184 Figure 6.9. – Looking for TSKŻ in the suburbs. – p.188 Figure 6.10. – Lunch with a side-dish of cartography. – p.190 Figure 6.11. – Mapping Jewish exile. – p.196 Figure 6.12. – The map speaks statistics. – p.200 Figure 6.13. – Rabbi Schumann leads an armchair tour of Poland, with the help of Dres’s map. – p.202 Figure 6.14. – The map of Warsaw speaks of Jewish revival. – p.202 Figure 6.15. – The travels of Rabbi Schumann. – p.203 Figure 7.1. – Barbara Hui’s ‘LitMap.’ – p.218 Figure 8.1. – Herring at Lowestoft. – p.234 Figure 8.2. – Post-liberation at Bergen Belsen. – p.238 Figure 8.3. Atrocities in the Jasenovac camp network. – p.260 Figure 9.1. – The Binger Loch and the Mäuserturm. – p.280 Figure 9.2. – Sebald’s original photograph of the Antikos Bazar in Terezín/Theresienstadt, from the exhibition ‘W.G. Sebald: Far Away, But From Where?’ – p.284 Figure 9.3. – Liverpool Street Station as it is situated in Bishopsgate. – p.287 Figure 10.1 – A section of Nikolaus Gansterer’s Memory Map. – p.299 Figure 10.2. – A closer view of Gansterer’s Memory Map. – p.299 Figure 10.3. - Gansterer's Memory Map overlain atop the Vienna Project digital app. – p.301 Acknowledgements First, my sincere thanks must go to my supervisor, Dr. Lisa Peschel, whose judicious guidance, enthusiasm, and kind encouragement have been an ever- present feature throughout the many ups and downs of the PhD process, and for whose support and advice I am extremely grateful. I must express my gratitude, too, to Dr. Dominic Williams, who was generous enough to step into the role of second supervisor part-way through the process, and whose observations have afforded many valuable insights. In this same vein, I am grateful to the other members of the WRoCAH ‘Future of Holocaust Memory’ network for their conversation and advice, and particularly to Professor Sue Vice, without whose encouragement and support I would have likely not made the decision to pursue doctoral study in the first place. My thanks must also go to Professor Kristyn Gorton, whose appreciated guidance in the role of thesis advisor has been gratefully received over the past three years. Likewise, my thanks go to Professor David Barnett who, in his role as progression panel chair, provided rigorous, judicious, and welcome advice upon the direction of my thesis. My gratitude is due, also, to Dr. Joanne Pettitt, for her perceptive, enlightening examination of this thesis. This work was supported by the University of York through the White Rose College of the Arts and Humanities (WRoCAH), for which I am grateful. On that note, I must also thank Caryn Douglas and Clare Meadley for their tireless support on all matters relating to WRoCAH, and for the admirable enthusiasm with which they support each new cohort of researchers. Both WRoCAH and the Department of Theatre,