Understanding the Recent Phenomena of Holocaust Remembrance in the Form of National Holocaust Museums and Memorials in , France, and Germany

Hannah Elizabeth Garza

Universiteit van Graduate School of Humanities

A thesis submitted for the degree of Masters in Holocaust and Studies

Spring 2017

1 Abstract

This thesis will focus on national Holocaust museums and memorials in Europe, in specific regards to the national Holocaust museums of Belgium and France, and the national Holocaust memorial of Germany. This dissertation will begin with a brief overview of the scholars used within each chapter, along with a discussion on the development of national Holocaust museums in Europe in the introduction chapter. Following the introduction, the first chapter will discuss the Kazerne Dossin Memorial Museum in , Belgium. Chapter two will then cover the Mémorial de la Shoah in , France. Finally, chapter three will then focus on the Memorial to the Murdered of Europe in conjunction with its underground information center in Berlin, Germany.

This thesis will endeavor to explore the themes represented in each museum in relation to German compliance, and the role of the bystanders from each Nation. The goal is to understand how each of these national institutions discussed within the text, portray their involvement in the events of and Second World War by way of State compliance and the actions of their bystanders. Through the initiatives of the museum and memorials published catalogs, personal research conducted by on-site visitation to each of the institutions, and through the texts of Holocaust scholars such as James Young, Raul Hilberg, and , this dissertation will explore the role in which national Holocaust museums and memorials in Europe narrate the of the Holocaust in affiliation to their State, as well how these institutions contribute to Holocaust scholarship in regards to the information that is displayed within the museum, which addresses German complicity and State contribution to the events of the Holocaust.

2 Dedication

I would like to dedicate this work to my Meamaw, Levonia Harthcock, without whom this thesis would not exist. Thank you for always supporting me, and more importantly for believing in me throughout this incredible journey. Like so many times before in my life, you saw to it that I was able to come on this remarkable journey and continued to support me every step of the way. I will never be able to put into words my deep gratitude for all that I owe you. I love you with all of my heart, and I could never begin to express my appreciation for everything you have done for me. You will forever be my motivation as I strive to achieve my dreams. For all of this, I thank you.

I would also like to dedicate this thesis to my siblings, Ethan McGehee and Gabriela Garza, who inspire and encourage me to work hard and to be a role model worthy of your respect and love. I hope that one day you too will accomplish all that you seek to achieve. I love you both dearly.

I dedicate this thesis to my family. Thank you for continuously supporting and encouraging me throughout every step of this journey. You instilled in me the strength to reach for the stars. Without your perpetual support I would not be where I am today. I hope I have made you proud.

To my friends across the world: You have inspired me to believe in myself and to never surrender to defeat. Thank you for encouraging me throughout this journey, your constant support was an invaluable asset in the completion of this dissertation.

3 Acknowledgments

I would first like to thank all the faculty and staff of the University of Amsterdam for their valuable contributions to the completion of this dissertation. The past two years have been an unforgettable journey, and the skills the University taught me will forever follow me.

I would like to thank Professor Houwink ten Cate for ensuring that I was progressing, and for keeping me on course throughout this research and writing process. You have been an amazing mentor and an invaluable asset to me in writing this dissertation and in the program as a whole. Thank you for your patience and for guiding me through this process.

I must also extend my heartfelt thanks to the UvA Graduate School of Humanities for being an incredible department full of motivating people who inspired me to strive to do my best.

I am also immensely grateful to the staff of the UvA Library, who, through thick and thin, fostered an environment conducive to the pursuit of academic excellence.

This course would not have been possible without the valuable sources of research material and support provided by the NIOD. For that, I feel fit to express my most genuine gratitude.

To John Cabot University: You instilled in me the love for academia, and paved the way for me to succeed in both the academic world, and in life. For this, I will be eternally indebted to you. Thank you for teaching me, and thank you for always supporting me.

To The Leo Baeck Program: Thank you for inspiring me to continue my research on historic Holocaust sites. It was a pleasure attending your program, a course which has continued to have a profound effect on my studies.

I would also like to take this moment to acknowledge Dr. Laurence Schram from the Kazerne Dossin Memorial Museum, thank you for taking the time to meet with me, your time and knowledge played an invaluable role in the development of this dissertation.

4 Table of Contents

Abstract……………………………………..………….…………………….…………… 2

Dedication.…………………………………………………………………………………. 3

Acknowledgments…………………………..…………………………….……………….. 4

Table of Contents………………….………..………………………………………….…… 5-6

List of Abbreviations…………………………………………………………..……………. 7-8

Introduction: The Birth of National Holocaust Museums……….………..……….………… 9

Research Questions………………………………………………………………… 13

Methodology………………………………………………………………………. 14

Structure…………………………………………………………………………… 14

Chapter 1: Belgium: The Kazerne Dossin Museum……………………………………… 16

Development of the Kazerne Dossin Museum…………….……………………..… 17

Representation of Perpetrators: Belgian Compliance with the Germans……………. 21

The Belgian Victims of the Holocaust…………………………………………….… 26

Ordinary Belgian Bystanders………………………………………………………. 31

Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………. 38

Chapter 2: France: The Mémorial de la Shoah…………………………………………….. 42

Development of the Mémorial de la Shoah……………………………………….. 43

Representation of Perpetrators: French Compliance with the Germans………………. 46

The French Victims of the Holocaust…………………………………………………. 51

Ordinary French Bystanders…………………………………………………………. 56

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………. 58

Chapter 3: Germany: The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe…………………….. 60

Development of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe…………………… 61

5 Representation of Nazi German Perpetrators………………………………………. 70

The Murdered Jews of Europe………………………………………………………. 74

Ordinary German Bystanders………………………………………………………… 80

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………. 87

Conclusion: The Role of National Holocaust Museums Today………………………………. 90

Bibliography……………………………………………………………..…………..……… 102

6 List of Abbreviations

ADL: Anti-Defamation League

AFP: Agence France-Presse

AJB: Association des Juifs en Belgique {French} [OR] Jodenvereeiniguing van Belgie {Flemish} (Association of Belgian Jews)

BKM: Der Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien (German Federal Commission for Culture and Media Affairs)

CDJ: Comité de Defense des Juifs (Jewish Defense Committee)

CDJC: Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine (Center for Contemporary Jewish Documentation)

CGQJ: Commissariat Général aux Questions Juives (General Commission on Jewish Affairs)

DM: German Mark [OR] Deutsche Mark (Currency of Germany until it was replaced by the Euro in 1999.)

EHRI: European Holocaust Research Infrastructure

ERR: Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (The Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce)

FJO: Federation of Jewish Organizations

FRG: Federal Republic of Germany [OR] West Germany

GDR: German Democratic Republic [OR] East Germany

GMF: Gruppenbezogene Menschenfeindlichkeit (Group Targeted Misanthropy)

GTE: Groupes de Travailleurs Étrangers (Groups of Foreign Workers)

HRH: His Royal Highness

ICPC: International Criminal Police Commission

IHRA: International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance

7 JMDR: The Jewish Museum of and Resistance

KBI: Katholiek Bureau voor Israël (Catholic Bureau for )

LSVD: Lesbian and Gay Federation of Germany

NHM: National Holocaust Museums

NIOD: Instituut voor Oorlogs, Holocaust en Genocidestudies (Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies)

NSDAP: Nationalspzialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers Party) Normally referred to as the Nazi Party. A political party in Germany from 1933-1945.

Propagandastaffel IIIB: German Propaganda Squadron

RSHA: Reich Security Main Office

Sipo-SD: The (Security Police)

SNCF: Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Frençais (National Society of French Railways) [OR] (French National Railway Company)

SS: (Protection Squadron) [OR] (Defense Corps) A paramilitary group created by in 1923 with the intentions of serving as his personal bodyguards. From 1929-1945 the group was controlled by who then expanded the groups role and size.

USHMM: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

VEVA: Verbond voor Economisch Verweer — Antwerpen (The Union for the Economic Defense)

VNV: Vlaams Nationaal Verbond (Flemish National Union) [OR] (Flemish National League) Far-Right National Flemish political party in Belgium between 1933 and 1944.

8 “[F]or my terror of forgetting is greater than my terror of having too much to remember.” — Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi (Zakhor, 1996)

Introduction: The Birth of National Holocaust Museums

Holocaust awareness has been around for nearly half a century, yet National Holocaust Museums (NHM) and memorials have only been integrated into European society in the past 20 years. American historian James E. Young, winner of the 1994 National Book award for his work on Holocaust Memorials and remembrance, expresses that the need to remember and memorialize the Holocaust has been on rise in the past decade. In his text, The Art of Memory, Professor Young explains how Holocaust memory has evolved in recent years; The recent decade has been a period of great preoccupation with the Holocaust, remembering and understanding this tragic era has not only been a concern of Jewish people, but also of non-Jews, especially those living in countries where the atrocities took place. There has been an outpouring of books, films, and visual art on the subject as well as the creation of special exhibitions, remembrance ceremonies, and reunion of survivors. On a larger scale, the memory of the Holocaust has inspired the planning or building of of many public monuments and institutions.1 In addressing the question of how Holocaust Memorials Museums in Europe initially came about, it is clear the boom in Holocaust awareness and education began to rise in the early 1990s. While countries such as Israel and France had already begun the task of Holocaust remembrance, and publications and memoirs such as The Diary of Anne Frank (1947), If This is a Man (1947) by Primo Levi, and (1956) by Elie Wiesel had occurred long before, it was the film releases and documentaries that focused on events of the Holocaust, released during the 1990s, that truly opened up the topic of Holocaust remembrance in European countries and launched the

1 James E. Young, The Art Of Memory: Holocaust Memorials In History, (New York: Prestel, 1994), 6.

9 widespread discussion of commemorating the victims of the Holocaust. While these discussions opened the door to the initiatives of creating NHM in many European countries, it would not be until the beginning of the early 2000s, that the construction and opening of many NHM and memorials would begin to occur in capital cities across Europe. For example, the Imperial War Museum in London (2000), the Jewish Museum in Berlin (2002), The Montreal Holocaust Museum (2003), the Holocaust Museum (2004), the renovation of (2005), the Mémorial de la Shoah in Paris (2005),2 opened their doors to the general public. Moreover, the inauguration of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe took place in 2005, and the inauguration of the Kazerne Dossin Memorial Museum took place in 2012. The development of the National Holocaust Museums in France and Belgium, and the construction of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Germany, will be the primary focus point of this dissertation. Between the 1970s and 1990s, Holocaust remembrance grew in popularity and developed into a collective need to preserve the history of the Holocaust. With survivors growing older, a major escalation in new publications on the subject began being produced, and mass media began drawing attention to events pertaining to the Holocaust, the need for museums and places of memory developed into a worldwide phenomena. Beginning with the opening of Yad Vashem in 1953 and followed many years later by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, [USHMM] opening on April 22, 1993, the importance of NHM expanded to include several nations across the world. In an article published by BBC History Magazine British Historian Jeremy Black, author of The Holocaust, argues that; “The Holocaust also became a more central issue elsewhere in the 1970s, notably in France and the United States, particularly in the 1990s.”3 He explains that while the Holocaust had become an important topic of discussion in countries such as France and the United States beginning in the 1970s, the United States began emphasizing Holocaust memorialization in the 1990s, which is the time that the USHMM opened its doors to the general public. Historian Jeremy Black argues that Holocaust awareness rose in the 1990s with global consciousness emerging from European Governments finally

2 Jacques Fredj, The Jews of France During the Holocaust, (France: Gallimard, 2011), 199. 3 Jeremy Black, “How Has Public Memory of the Holocaust Changed Over the Years?” BBC History Magazine, January 2012, Web, February 05, 2017. http://www.historyextra.com/holocaust.

10 coming to grips with the reality that each European nation that complied with the Germans, played an intricate role in the events of the Holocaust.4 From the mid-1990s to the early 2000s, many European countries began commemorating and memorializing the events of the Holocaust on a national level. No longer was the history of the Holocaust strictly German or Jewish, but European. The history of the Holocaust belonged to each individual Nation who collaborated with the Germans during the time of the Second World War. This shift led to the development of a national outlook on the events of the Holocaust, which gave rise to the development and opening of national Holocaust museums and memorials. With the rise in popularity of commemorating and remembering the victims of the Holocaust came an increase in the importance felt by scholars to record the testimonies of . Following the rise of Holocaust memorials and museums came the rise of publications, films, and documentaries focusing on the victims of the Holocaust. Many National Museums and National Memorials have spaces where visitors can listen to recorded testimonies and stories of . These testimonies are considered a key tool for commemorating the victims and the events of the Holocaust, as well as for teaching the upcoming generations about the history and events that occurred. One of the reoccurring themes in NHM is the notion of remembering, to “Never Forget” and most importantly, to teach that hatred such as that developed by the Nazi Regime should “” occur in modern society. Scholar , Professor of European history, discusses the relevance of the slogan “Never Again” in his text Mirrors of Destructions, and relates it to the Yad Vashem memorial. The slogan ‘Never again’ inscribed in many languages on camp memorials in Europe, refers primarily to the determination never to allow such inhumanity as displayed by the Nazis to recur in the world... Israel is presented as the sole repository of the Holocaust’s memory and as the official representative of its Jewish victims. It was on the basis of such assertions that Israel negotiated the restitution agreement with the FRG [Federal Republic of Germany], built Yad

4 Ibid.

11 Vashem, a national memorial to the Holocaust to which visiting foreign dignitaries are taken, and linked its foreign policies to fear of another genocide.5 The slogan “Never again” has come to commemorate and memorialize the victims of the Holocaust, as it is present and plays an integral role in a majority of the National Holocaust Memorials and National Holocaust Museums located across the world. The slogan “Never Again” reminds visitors that the events of the Holocaust should never be forgotten, for in doing so it could allow such atrocities to be committed once more in the future. Therefore the slogan acts as a reminder of the historical violence and hatred that was bestowed upon the Jews during the time of the Holocaust, and is used to promote global awareness to fight against genocide and crimes against humanity. The foundation of every Holocaust memorial and museum can be attributed to the notion of never forgetting, and “Never again.” In the text The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning Professor Young, in his critique of Holocaust memorials, argues that the development and construction of Holocaust museums and memorials in various States and Nations each tell a different story of the Holocaust based on the particular group who are commemorating and remembering it. The number of monuments and memorial spaces in Europe, Israel, and America dedicated specifically to the mass murder and resistance of Jews during the World War II now reaches into the thousands… They are proposed and designed at both national and local levels in every European country, as well as in Israel and America, by states and communities, by survivors’ groups and soldiers’ organizations, by synagogues and churches, by families and individuals. In every nation’s memorials and museums, a different Holocaust is remembered, often to

conflicting political and religious ends.6 This argument suggests that national Holocaust museums and memorials integrate the whole story of the Holocaust on a national level that is personal to the individuals that the museum or memorial is dedicated too. This would mean that the Kazerne Dossin Memorial Museum

5 Omer Bartov, Mirrors of Destruction: War, Genocide, and Modern Identity, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 169. 6 James E. Young, The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memory and Meaning, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), ix.

12 integrates the whole story of the Holocaust from a Belgian view, while the Mémorial de la Shoah integrates the story of the Holocaust from a French point of view, and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe focuses on the story of the Holocaust from the victims standpoint from the entirety of all the individuals who fell victim to National Socialism under the Third Reich.

Research Questions

This thesis will endeavor to discuss whether each of the museums accurately discuss ultimate German responsibility for the deportation of Jews from their home country, as well as the role of bystanders from their home nation. For example, does the Kazerne Dossin discuss the German influence in Belgium during the time of the Second World War, as well as the role Belgian bystanders played in the events of aiding Belgian Jews, or on the other hand, the round- ups and of Belgian Jews? Does the Mémorial de la Shoah discuss the same issues, but from a French standpoint, and does the Memorial to the Murdered Jews discuss ultimate German responsibility for the events of the Holocaust? The aim is to discover whether these museums, in addressing ultimate responsibility, deal with Belgian, French, and German complicity through the initiatives and literature of James Young, Dr. Herman Van Goethem, Jacques Fredj, and Klaus Frahm along with the assistance of noteworthy Holocaust scholars, such as Raul Hilberg and Christopher Browning, who have dedicated extensive time researching the events of the Holocaust and Second World War. The overall goal is to address the question of whether each museum admits to the faults and downfalls of its country’s actions in specific regard to the events of the Holocaust during the time of the Second World War, or whether the museums simply bypass the topics and conversations of the historical evidence of their countries submission to the German occupants. For example, Does the Mémorial de la Shoah discuss the relationship between the Vichy Government and the German occupiers? Conclusively, each museum in their portrayal, expresses information that is in scientific research accordance in making efforts to address the complicity of their State, and this is what will be discussed in further detail in the following chapters on Belgium, France, and Germany.

13 Methodology

The research methodology employed in this dissertation consists of personal research, which involved thoroughly submerging myself in analytical observations of the functioning of each museum and memorial discussed within this assessment. This process was conducted by individual field work including a detailed visit to each institution; this processes sometimes included multiple visits to the museums. Visiting each of these museums assisted in the development of personal thoughts and conclusions about each of the institutions while touring them, followed by reflection of what was observed during the visit. Additionally, when visiting the Kazerne Dossin for a second time, I had the pleasure of conducting a personal interview with Dr. Laurence Schram, the Senior Onderzoeker (researcher) of the museum, which significantly shaped my understanding of some of the exhibits and photographs within the museum. Finally, it was important to document the visits to each of the institutions discussed within this dissertation, so by way of personal photography, the museums is represented by a photograph of the exterior of the museum or memorial beginning discussed, which can be seen at the beginning of each chapter.

Structure

The structure of this dissertation involves evaluating the Kazerne Dossin Memorial Museum, the Mémorial de la Shoah, and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The overall structure consists of breaking down each of the museums and memorials into individual chapters. The first chapter analyses the Kazerne Dossin Memorial Museum. Dr. Herman Van Goethem, curator of the Kazerne Dossin Memorial Museum, explains the mission statement of the Kazerne Dossin museum, along with the goals set forth by the creators of the museum in the catalog; Kazerne Dossin: Memorial, Museum and Documentation Centre on Holocaust and Human Rights. Dr. Van Goethem states that in an effort to create an educational museum that sheds light on the Belgian narrative, the Kazerne Dossin reflects on the history of the Belgian

14 perpetrators, victims, and bystanders who played an integral role in the events of the Holocaust.7 The second chapter focuses on the French narrative of the Holocaust, and through the initiatives of Jacques Fredj, director of the Mémorial de la Shoah and author of the museums official catalog; The Jews of France During the Holocaust, he not only gives a detailed overview of the French national narrative of the roles the French peoples had in the events of World War Two and the Holocaust, he also presents information on the overall development and functioning’s of the museum.8 The third and final chapter focuses on the National German Holocaust Memorial, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Professor Young, who has done extensive research on memorialization in contemporary Germany, gives a descriptive overview of the complications the German nation faced in constructing Holocaust memorials that represent the events of the Holocaust in an educational setting while also honoring and memorializing the victims of the Third Reich’s perpetration. It is through his work that this dissertation takes form, and through his extensive research on Holocaust memorials and museums that shape the ideas and arguments presented within the main body of the dissertation. Additionally, architectural photographer Klaus Frahm’s catalog; Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, played an indispensable role in the research of the memorial, as it documents the initiatives of the architects and creators of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe as they moved forward with the development of the memorial and underground information center.9 Each chapter begins with an introduction on the development of the individual museum or memorial. Following the development of each museum, the chapter continues with an account of how the perpetrators, victims, and bystanders from in which the museum represents are portrayed within the museum. Each chapter then concludes with a discussion on the role and function of the museum, in regards to how the museum deals with the representation of German compliance, and how the museum portrays the bystanders from their nation during the time of the Second World War.

7 Herman Van Goethem, Kazerne Dossin: Memorial, Museum and Documentation Centre on Holocaust and Human Rights, (Mechelen: Kazerne Dossin, 2012).

8 Jacques Fredj, The Jews of France During the Holocaust, (France: Gallimard, 2011). 9 Klaus Frahm, Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, (Berlin: Nicolai, 2005).

15 Chapter 1:

Belgium: The Kazerne Dossin Museum

Figure 1: Hannah Garza, Mechelen, Belgium, January 2016. (Entrance to the Kazerne Dossin.)

16 Development of the Kazerne Dossin Museum

Located in Mechelen, Belgium, the Kazerne Dossin Memorial Museum and Documentation Centre on Holocaust and Human Rights is Belgium’s official National Holocaust Museum. The development of the Kazerne Dossin was a direct result to the much needed expansion of the Jewish Museum of Deportation and Resistance [JMDR], which was the museum previously located on the historic site of the Dossin Barracks. After a couple of failed projects, such as the Transit Mechelen project in 2001, a call for architects was organized and the task to expand the JMDR into the Kazerne Dossin Memorial Museum began in 2005. The museum was opened by the President of Flanders, Kris Peeters, and was inaugurated by HRH [His Royal Highness] King Albert II of Belgium on November 26, 2012. The doors to the Kazerne Dossin Memorial Museum officially opened to the public on December 1, 2012.10 Originally, the JMDR was very small and therefore unable to accommodate the vast number of visitors it began receiving annually, so the Flemish government recognized that expansion was vital to the continual growth of the museum, and felt passionately about creating a museum dedicated to Belgium’s overall role in the events of the Holocaust and Second World War, and so they contributed to the finance of the construction of the Kazerne Dossin Museum. Today, the museum is funded by the Flemish Government (about 90%), and by a small portion which comes from the Belgian Federal Government (about 10%). The mission statement of the museum, developed by Professor Herman Van Goethem, a noteworthy Belgian Historian, Professor at the University of , and curator of the Kazerne Dossin, is as followed; The museum wants to show the spiral of increasing mass violence that ultimately led to genocide. For only that reason, the museum is built up in a strict chronological order. The 25,836 deportees look at the visitors from enormous photo walls, spread over five floors (from –1 to +3). Since 2005 their portrait photos are systematically scanned in the ‘Give them a face’ project. The identity

10 Kazerne Dossin Memorial Museum, “History,” Kazerne Dossin, Web, January 19, 2017. https://www.kazernedossin.eu/EN/Museum-Memoriaal/Wegwijs/Geschiedenis.

17 that they regained contrasts sharply with the photos of the goaded masses that persecuted them and ultimately, threatened them with total annihilation.11 The museum follows the theme of perpetrators, victims, and bystanders of the Holocaust, and is divided into three main sections which are entitled, “Mass,” “Fear,” and “Death”. Professor Van Goethem explains that the aim of the museum is to teach the visitors about the experiences Belgium faced during the Second World War, in terms of how the Jews and Gypsies of Belgium fell victim to the German SS occupiers, and to the citizens of Belgium who assisted in the search and roundups of the victims, and to the common bystanders who either joined resistances in Belgium, (such as the Comité de Defense des Juifs [CDJ] who saved over 3,000 Jewish children during the war) compared to those who choose to act neither in favor or against the mistreatment of the Belgian Jews that was taking place. A common thread runs throughout the permanent exhibition and is picked out by its historical structure; the behavior of the mass in the context of a collective fracturing of society. The central question is that of the individual’s place within the mass, in terms of perpetrator, victim, or bystanders. We examine in each instance how the individual might have responded within the group context, with the underlaying aim of alerting our visitors to the phenomenon of the mass as a factor governing his or her own behavior.12 The Kazerne Dossin’s main exhibit spans three main floors, and concludes with an open arial view on the fourth floor, which overlooks the historical site of the Dossin SS assembly camp, also commonly referred to as the or the SS-Sammellager Mecheln; during the years of German occupation. The fourth floor is also used as an exhibition space where traveling exhibits related to the events of the Holocaust or human rights are sometimes on display. One of the main concepts discussed by the creators of the Kazerne Dossin Memorial Museum was the idea of making the museum both a NHM, and a museum that focuses on human

11 Kazerne Dossin Memorial Museum, “Introduction,” Kazerne Dossin, Web, March 11, 2016. https://www.kazernedossin.eu/EN/Museum-Memoriaal/Museum/Inleiding. 12 Herman Van Goethem, Kazerne Dossin: Memorial, Museum and Documentation Centre on Holocaust and Human Rights, (Mechelen: Kazerne Dossin, 2012), 10.

18 rights. This proved to be a difficult task, however the creators of the Kazerne Dossin, along with its head curator Dr. Van Goethem, were determined to achieve this goal. Dr. Van Goethem played a major in role in setting up the museum, over seeing the opening of the museum, and producing the official guidebook for the museum. In the book, Kazerne Dossin: Memorial, Museum and Documentation Centre on Holocaust and Human Rights, he discusses the work that went into making the museum function as both a Holocaust memorial museum as well as a museum on human rights: Introducing human rights to a Holocaust museum is far from straightforward. It naturally means bringing the underlying issues right up to the present. But… a museum focusing on human rights cannot exist without a concept. After prolonged reflection, Kazerne Dossin opted to link the human rights approach with the historical event that is so keenly present at the site. Two themes were then distilled from this: and exclusion on the one hand, and mass violence on the other. These themes are not separate: genocide is the most extreme form of mass violence. It centers on the eradication of an ethnicized group. Such as, genocide may be viewed as the most extreme perversion of uncontrolled nationalism. The large-scale and systematic extermination of men, women, and children is the final link in a long chain of intensifying brutality.13 The portrayal of human rights within the museum is one aspect of the institution that sets it apart from other NHM, which can sometimes lead to displays that viewers might find unexpected in this type of museum. For example, one of the most striking displays in the museum is the photograph of a group of young adults attending a modern outdoor music festival called Tomorrowland, which is held annually in Boom, Belgium. This photograph stretches across one of the walls on the first floor. When asked about the significance of the Tomorrowland picture in relation to Holocaust and human rights history, Dr. Laurence Schram, Senior Onderzoeker (researcher) of the Kazerne Dossin Memorial Museum, explained that; “The first floor of the museum is titled “Mass” and so the creators of the museum wanted to display a photo that showed a large mass of people from various countries and ethnic backgrounds coming together

13 Ibid, 12.

19 in peace and love.” The decision to use the photograph from the Tomorrowland music festival was made largely by the museums curators, including Dr. Van Goethem. Additionally, the second floor entitled “Fear” has a large photograph showing a single man standing up to the Chinese resistance, the photograph has come to be known as “Tank Man”. Since the museum focuses on both the Holocaust and human rights, the curators of the museum wanted to include photographs that portrayed human rights movements as well as photographs of the Holocaust.14 Seeing as the photograph from Tomorrowland was taken at a popular Belgian event, it is understandable that one might try to incorporate it in a Belgian museum focusing on human rights, as it shows that Belgium is an accepting nation that is welcoming to people of all backgrounds coming together in unity. However it really doesn’t have any real relevance to the Holocaust. Dr. Van Goethem states that: “Other museums compensate for a lack of original materials by resorting to reconstructions. But that is all but impossible in a Holocaust museum: reconstructing a deportation or a would be in very poor taste.”15 While this does not really explain the thought process behind the Tomorrowland photograph, it does give insight to the decision making that took place in regards to how to incorporate human rights into the museum. It is arguable that the photograph from Tomorrowland seems a bit out of place in this type of museum as, without further explanation, it seems to have no real significance to the theme of Holocaust and human rights history. The photograph of “Tank Man” ties nicely into the theme of human rights, as does the small section dedicated to U.S Slavery, also located on the second floor, however the photograph from Tomorrowland is sorely lacking in explanation upon first sight. While the photo is meant to represent the evolution of human rights, and to show how the Holocaust impacted this evolution, the lack of explanation takes away from its overall purpose and contrasts with the atmosphere of the museum. In a recent interview with Dr. Schram, she discussed how the museum receives special visitors such as Flemish politicians, who often visit when inaugurating new projects. For example, on September 1, 2015 there was a special event on the liberation of the Dossin

14 Laurence Schram, Meeting with the Senior Research Director of the Kazerne Dossin Museum, Interview by author, June 16, 2016. 15 Herman Van Goethem, Kazerne Dossin: Memorial, Museum and Documentation Centre on Holocaust and Human Rights, (Mechelen: Kazerne Dossin, 2012), 13.

20 Barracks, and many politicians showed up to help commemorate the event.16 When asked if she felt the museum does a good job at representing Belgium’s overall role in the events of the Holocaust, (such as the Belgium police officers who aided in roundups, etc.) she stated; “Yes, there is an even flow dividing the Belgian perpetrators, victims, and bystanders.”17 In recent years, France and Belgium have been subjected to anti-Semitic attacks, which in the case of the Kazerne Dossin, has resulted in a decrease of annual visitors to the museum. The annual report from last year [2015] showed that the museum received roughly 64,394 visitors, which is a slight decrease from 2013 which saw 98,435 visitors, and in 2014 which saw an average of 75,936 visitors. Dr. Schram, expressed that the recent terrorist attacks in Europe, have had a direct effect on the number of visitors the museum received in the past couple of years. When asked about the estimated number of visitors the museum will receive for the year of 2016 she stated, “With the recent terrorist attacks in cities such as Paris and , it’s hard to say because numbers have decreased.” The first year the museum opened, roughly 130,000 people visited, and in the second year roughly 110,000. The museum currently receives around 65,000-70,000 visitors a year. Additionally, the museum has had to increase it’s entrance fee to help with finances and unfortunately this has been attributed to a decrease in visits from local Belgian schools to the museum annually.

Representation of Perpetrators: Belgian Compliance with the Germans

The Kazerne Dossin Memorial Museum is located on the historical site of the Dossin SS assembly camp for Jews in Belgium, also known as the Dossin Barracks. Initially, conversations did arise about locating the museum in a larger city, such as Antwerp or Brussels, however the need to have a museum on the historic site overpowered the need to have it in a more populous city. Having decided upon the location of the museum, the creators then collected the materials used in the main exhibit from the FelixArchief in Antwerp, which are a pivotal aspect of the

16 Laurence Schram, Meeting with the Senior Research Director of the Kazerne Dossin Museum, Interview by author, June 16, 2016. 17 Ibid.

21 foundation of the museum. The transit camp located in Mechelen, Belgium, now in conjunction with the Dossin Barracks, was the largest transit camp in Belgium, and was the main railway used by German forces during the time of the Second World War to deport the Jews of Belgium to the concentration camps in the East. Belgium’s Flemish government felt strongly about constructing their national Holocaust museum on the historical site of the famous 20th deportation of Mechelen, also known as “Transport XX”, as it has a significant impact on the national narrative of Belgian participation in the events of World War Two and the Holocaust. Three months of continuous manhunts preceded the actual departure of Transport XX. The first registrations began on 16th January and on 17th April 1943, just two days prior to departure, the deportation list was finished. The list contained 1.631 Jews regardless of gender, age or health state. One in five deportees were children under the age of 15 years.18 Prior to the deportation, HRH King Leopold III of Belgium made an intervention request in behalf of the Belgian Jews, unfortunately this request had little effect. The 20th deportation of Mechelen marked one of the largest and most devastating deportations to take place in Belgium during the time of the Second World War. Additionally, this deportation was one of the first to take place in Belgium that involved such a large number of children and elderly. A handful of Belgian Jews attempted to escape, with a few being successful, however those that were caught attempting to escape were shot on the spot. 236 Jewish deportees were able to escape from Transport XX. The youngest was 11 years old and the oldest was 64 years old. 26 people were shot and killed trying to escape.19 Only 151 survived Auschwitz out of the original 1,631 Jews that were deported during the 20th deportation of Mechelen.20 When researching the statistics of Belgian victims as well as the involvement of Belgian perpetrators and bystanders, the creators of the Kazerne Dossin

18 “History of Transport XX – From Dossin to Auschwitz-Birkenau,” Kazerne Dossin, Web, January 19, 2017. https://www.kazernedossin.eu/EN/Info/History-of-Transport-XX-–-from-Dossin-to-Auschwitz.

19 Ibid. 20 Ibid.

22 Memorial Museum relied on the records used by major Belgian cities. For example, the police records from Antwerp played a significant role in the development of the exhibits found within the museum in regard to the number of victims deported from various Belgian cities, as well as the role city officials had in the round-up and deportations of the victims. The records of the Antwerp police — preserved in the city at the FelixArchief — are an important source for illustrating the various attitudes adopted by the

perpetrators, victims, and bystanders. They play a central role in the museum.21 Belgium was occupied by German forces by May 1940, and the prosecution of the Belgian Jews was in full force by 1942. The level of compliance with the Germans, as well as the level of anti- Semitic attacks against the Jews, varied by city within Belgium. Historian Bob Moore author of, Survivors: Self-Help and Rescue in Nazi-Occupied , argues that; In contrast with the capital city of Brussels and the major city of Antwerp, studies show that anti-semitism against the Jews was at a much higher level in Antwerp, and the number of Jews deported from Belgium was greater in Antwerp than in Brussels. Jews were also required to register as Jews on a special list held by the town halls. This was carried out with varying degrees of enthusiasm by every local authority in the country.22 Compliance with the German occupants in Belgium was carried out throughout all of Belgium. However, the election of Leon Delwaide, from the the far-right party, as mayor of Antwerp resulted in an increased level of devastation for the Jews of Antwerp. Upon Leon Delwaide’s election, anti-Semitism towards Belgian Jews erupted within the city and resulted in the destruction of Jews property and accompanied with the plundering of their personal possessions. In Antwerp, it was pursued with undisguised alacrity by the civil servants after the nomination of Leon Delwaide as mayor of the city on 8 December 1940. His appointment gave rise to a series of antisemitic actions specific to that city carried out by the VNV (Vlaams Nationaal Verbond) leadership in April 1941. This

21 Herman Van Goethem, Kazerne Dossin: Memorial, Museum and Documentation Centre on Holocaust and Human Rights, (Mechelen: Kazerne Dossin, 2012), 10. 22 Bob Moore, Survivors: Jewish Self-Help and Rescue in Nazi-Occupied Western Europe, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 172.

23 included the breaking of Jewish shop windows, the plundering of diamond merchants, and… two synagogues also being set on fire — events which were enthusiastically filmed by the cameramen of the German Propagandastaffel IIIB [German Propaganda Squadron].23 While Belgian Jews were targeted all throughout Belgium during the time of the Second World War, Jews in the city of Antwerp, in particular, were especially targeted due to the cooperation of city officials with the German occupants. In contrast with the far-right mayor of Antwerp was the liberal mayor of Brussels, Joseph van de Meulebroek from 1939-1942, who fought against German occupation in the city of Brussels. The role of Mayor Delwaide of Antwerp was crucial in affecting the attitudes of the local government officials and contrasted with the earlier alienation from German policies in Brussels under its mayor, van de Meulebroek.24 Joseph van de Meulebroek was arrested and deported to Germany in 1941, for his defiant opposition against the German authorities in Brussels.25 Upon the end of the Second World War, Joseph van de Meulebroek resumed his post of burgomaster (Mayor) of Brussels from the years of 1944 to 1956. The systematic persecution of Belgian Jews was carried out by the German occupied forces as well as by many Belgian civilians working under the orders issued by their government and higher officials. According to Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg, it is estimated that between 40 to 50 percent of the Belgian-Jewish and refugee community perished in the Holocaust.26 According to Hilberg’s statistics 51 percent of the Jews deported from Belgium were men.27 In regards to Belgian children, Hilberg discusses that most children had a difficult time surviving in the SS Camps, due to their young age.

23 Ibid, 172.

24 Ibid, 422. n 69. 25 John Lukacs, The Last European War: September 1939/December 1941, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 215-216.

26 Raul Hilberg, Perpetrators Victims Bystanders: The Jewish Catastrophe, 1933-1945, (New York, NY: HarperPerennial, 1993), 209. 27 Ibid, 297.

24 Very few children could survive in camps. Of 4,918 children age fifteen, who were deported to Auschwitz from Belgium, 53 came back.28 It was highly abnormal for Jewish children to be put to work in camps such as Auschwitz. Often times, children were sent straight to the gas chambers upon arrival. Hilberg supports this by giving a brief account of how Elie Wiesel survived his first few days at Auschwitz by telling a German officer that he was eighteen, when in reality he was only fifteen.29 During the summer of 1942, German officials began orchestrating plans to and deport the Jews of Belgium. It was decided that a transit camp would be created in Mechelen, which was ideal due to its location directly between Antwerp and Brussels, the two cities in Belgium with the highest population of Jews, and due to its excellent railway connections to

Eastern Europe; where the concentration camps were already operating.30 In total, between the years of 1942 and 1944 over half of the Belgian Jews were deported from the Mechelen transit camp to Auschwitz, and between the years of 1943 and 1944, most of the the Roma/Sinti of Belgium were also transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau from Mechelen.31 These deportations were issued from the Reich Security Main Office [RSHA] in Berlin from the direct office of . The history behind the historical site of the Dossin Barracks represents a dark period for the citizens of Belgium. It is a reminder not only of the lives that were lost, but also of the role many Belgians civilians and government officials played in aiding the perpetration. The obsession with creating a collective national narrative, or national memory, is the case in the Belgian narrative of the Holocaust. The Kazerne Dossin Museum retains the history of the perpetration of Belgian Jews in the Holocaust. It not only tells the story of the role Belgium played in the deportation and ultimate execution of the victims, by displaying photographs as evidence against the perpetrators and remembrance of the victims, but it also acts as an educational tool for the upcoming generations. While the museum mainly focuses on the

28 Ibid, 148. 29 Ibid, 148.

30 “Mechelen,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, January 29, 2016, Web, May 20, 2016. https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005430. 31 Ibid.

25 Belgian narrative, as many of the displays focus strictly on Belgian events, the museum manages to give an extensive collective overview on all phases of the history of World War Two in Belgium. By choosing to construct the Belgian National Holocaust museum on the historical site of the Dossin Barracks, Belgium further enhances their national identity by choosing to remember, rather than to ignore and forget, the role they as a collective nation32 played in the perpetration of the Belgium victims of the Holocaust.

The Belgian Victims of the Holocaust

One of the main goals set forth by the creators of the Kazerne Dossin Memorial Museum, was to commemorate the Belgian victims of the Holocaust. While the number of Holocaust victims from Belgium may not be as large as other European countries, the anguish and suffering endured by the victims of Nazi occupied Belgium were equally as austere as the crimes committed against Jews in surrounding European countries at the time. While the material within the museum primarily focuses on the Belgian front, the creators of the museum dedicate several sections to non-Jewish victims, such as the Roma/Sinti of Europe. It is made abundantly clear by the creators of the museum that Belgium faced many hardships throughout the duration of the Second World War, and that its people, from every background, were affected in one way or another by the occupied German forces. Holocaust Historian, Doris Bergen states that; When it comes to human suffering, each year of a war tends to be worse than the year before… This depressing observation certainly holds true for the Second World War… The Nazi German hand may have been less heavy on western Europe, but there too — in occupied, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and elsewhere — adversity and demoralization continued to build.33

32 A nations history, like Belgiums for example, is shaped by individuals from that country. So in looking at an event such as the Holocaust, it can be understood that not every single Belgian citizen is responsible for their countries actions during the time of the Second World War, they all however, share the memory of their countries actions from that time. 33 Doris L. Bergen, War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust, (New York: Rowan & Littlefield Publishers Inc, 2009), 167.

26 When looking at the Belgian narrative of the Second World War, it is important to note that apart from the Belgian Jews, another large majority group who fell victim to Nazi perpetration in Belgium, were the people who belonged to the Roma/Sinti groups who had, in part, begun immigrating to Belgium in the 1920s and 1930s. From the records obtained by the Kazerne Dossin Museum, it is estimated that prior to the start of the Second World War 300-400 Roma/ Sinti lived in Belgium, however by the 1940s there were an estimated 500 Roma/Sinti residing in

Belgium.34 No more than 300 to 400 Roma and Sinti lived in Belgium in the 1920s and ‘30s. These ‘Gypsies’ or ‘Bohemians,’ as they were called at the time, sometimes aroused curiosity and also compassion for their impoverished existence. but they also encountered frequent hostility from local people. The Aliens Police kept a close eye on them, and municipal councils often did their best to hinder their presence.35 According to the statistics provided by Historian Peter Longerich in his text: Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews, between the years of German occupation from 1940 to 1944, it is estimated that between Belgium, the Netherlands, and Northern France, several hundred Gypsies were deported and killed during the Second World War. In comparison to neighboring countries; Czechoslovakia around 35,000, Austria roughly 8,000, occupied Soviet territories lost at least 10,000 Gypsies, possibly more, around 8,000, and Germany an estimated 15,000.36 These statistics include victims that were classified by the Germans as a Rome/Sinti or Gypsy half-breeds. These are just a few countries who lost a significant amount of their accounted population of Gypsies to Nazi persecution, however many other European countries lost devastating numbers as well. The Kazerne Dossin Memorial Museum displays a section dedicated to both the Jewish and the Roma/Sinti victims of the Holocaust within the main exhibit, which gives a timeline on

34 Herman Van Goethem, Kazerne Dossin: Memorial, Museum and Documentation Centre on Holocaust and Human Rights, (Mechelen: Kazerne Dossin, 2012), 50.

35 Ibid, 50. 36 Peter Longerich, Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 421.

27 how the Nazi occupation of Belgium led to propaganda against each target group spreading throughout the country, to eventually, the round-up and deportation of the victims. The museum divided the sections into three separate floors, with each floor focusing on a different aspect of how the singling out, round-up, and deportation of the victims were carried out. The first floor focuses on how the people of Belgium reacted to the Jewish and Gypsy communities and how propaganda and outside factors, such as the media,37 played a key role in the discrimination and resentful attitude that was directed toward them. However, it wouldn’t be until the occupation of Belgium by in 1940 that would lead the Belgian people to completely outcast and isolate the two minority groups. The discrimination towards the Jews and the Roma/Sinti in Belgium would ultimately increase in 1941, and would continue throughout the duration of the Second World War. Jews grew increasingly isolated after 1941. Not only were they excluded from schools, but a curfew was imposed on them and their radios were confiscated — a ‘silent house arrest’ that was hard to bear. The world seemed dangerous and hostile, and many Jews rarely strayed beyond their own street or district. They complied with the anti-Jewish regulations to avoid the severe penalties imposed for disobedience, including detainment at the ‘Hell of Breendonk’.38 Hell of Breendonk was a nickname for the Belgian fortress near Antwerp, that was turned into a camp by the SS soldiers after the occupation of Belgium. Ironically, the original purpose of the fortress in the early-twentieth century was to defend Belgium against a possible German attack. Roughly 4,000 men were held prisoner at Breendonk during the Second World War, and it was during that time that it gained its nickname, Hell at Breendonk, due to the harsh living conditions and torture mechanisms used by the Nazi soldiers who ran the camp.39 While many Belgian Jews feared detainment at Breendonk, the increasing regularity of anti-Semitic attacks and deportations added to their fears in 1942, as anxiety towards Jews rose in Belgium.

37 Herman Van Goethem, Kazerne Dossin: Memorial, Museum and Documentation Centre on Holocaust and Human Rights, (Mechelen: Kazerne Dossin, 2012), 50.

38 Ibid, 78. 39 “Breendonk,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Web, July 2016. https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005423.

28 were introduced in Antwerp and newspapers and other media outlets began encouraging mistreatment and discrimination towards Jews.40 By July 1942 Belgian Jews were being summoned to the Dossin Barracks in Mechelen, and were then being deported to Poland. Beginning in July 1942, the Association of Belgian Jews [AJB] distributed Arbeitseinsatzbefehle (labor call-up notices) to some 12,000 Jews, who were instructed to report to the Dossin Barracks. Those who failed to appear risked several penalties. Less than half turned up. A parallel German initiative — the compulsory employment by Organisation Todt of 2,000 Jewish men from Belgium to construct the Atlantic Wall in northern France — resorted to out-and- out slave labor. Those men too were destined for deportation to Auschwitz-

Birkenau by way of Mechelen that October.41 The first floor of the museum displays information on anti-Semitism that arose in Belgium, the rounding-up of victims, and the different attitudes of the Belgian officials that varied between the two major cities of Antwerp and Brussels, under German occupation during the time of the Second World War. Violent round-ups of Jews began on 15 August 1942. The mayor of Antwerp — unlike his Brussels counterparts — placed his police at the Nazis’ service and made sure that the anti-Jewish policies were implemented. Individual officers

responded in very different ways, but cooperation was the norm.42 Moving from the development of anti-Semitic attitudes to the rounding-up of victims, the museums second floor then covers the deportation of the victims of Belgium to concentration camps in the East. The main exhibit within the museum displays the evidence of the impact and devastation that was felt by the Belgian victims of the Holocaust, and displays photographs, personal belongings, and testimonies from some of the victims, with the hope of teaching the visitors the important lesson of how wide spread hatred and animosity towards others can have

40 Herman Van Goethem, Kazerne Dossin: Memorial, Museum and Documentation Centre on Holocaust and Human Rights, (Mechelen: Kazerne Dossin, 2012), 78.

41 Ibid, 92. 42 Ibid, 92.

29 catastrophic consequences, as well as the importance of human rights movements across the world today that work towards preventing these types of events from reoccurring. Jews were devastated, extreme panic leading some to commit suicide or to leave children as foundlings. It gradually dawned that the only way out was to go into hiding. This marked the beginning of widespread individual Jewish resistance.43 Finally, the third floor of the museum covers the resistances that arose in Belgium during the time of occupation, as well as the final outcome of the Belgian victims of the Holocaust. The museum uses a vast array of knowledge to educate the visitors on the events of the Second World War in Belgium and throughout Europe. In regards to the final outcome of the victims of Belgium, Holocaust historian Raul Hilberg, estimates that roughly 24,000 Belgian Jews fell victim to Nazi perpetration between the years of 1942 and 1944.44 Belgium had neither a Vichy-style government with its own anti-Semitic agenda nor a highly Nazified occupation regime whose leaders intrigued for control over Jewish policy. Yet in the end the result was much the same for the 52,000 Jews (90% of them foreigners) residing there… Jews in Belgium were thereby defined, registered, excluded from public office and various professions, and barred from returning from abroad.45 The primary focus of the museum is centered around Belgian participants, resistance groups, events, and victims, of the Second World War, the Kazerne Dossin Memorial Museum does give insight to the full events of the Second World War, and highlights several other historical events that pertain to human rights and suffering. The amount of devastation faced by Belgium during the time of the Second World War is evident within the statistics found in the studies produced by the curators of the museum, and through the projects and initiatives conducted within the Kazerne Dossin, which is why the museum strives towards shedding light on the events of the

43 Ibid, 92.

44 Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1985), 339. 45 Christopher R. Browning, The Origins of the : The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939 - March 1942, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004), 205.

30 Second World War in Belgium, and towards producing new material and studies on both World War Two and current human rights movements.

Ordinary Belgian Bystanders

The development of the Kazerne Dossin Memorial Museum resulted in a compromise between the Flemish Belgian politicians and the Belgian Jews. The Jewish community wanted a Holocaust memorial museum, and the politicians wanted the museum to focus on human rights, so unfortunately the museum is not always consistent. In order to make the museum function as both a Holocaust museum and a museum focused on human rights, the creators of the museum decided to use the portrayal of Belgian bystanders in the Second World War, and the admission that Belgian civilians assisted in the rounding-up and deportation of thousands of Belgian Jews during the years of German occupation, as a link between commemorating Holocaust history, and educating visitors on human rights. The objective of the human rights exhibit within the museum is to educate the visitors on global controversies and fight against discrimination and wide-spread violence. In doing so, the museum aims to show the repercussions of how bystanders aid and abet in crimes of hatred, be it in participating in vicious acts, or by choosing to turn a blind eye to the events taking place. The creators of the Kazerne Dossin felt strongly about showing the visiting audiences the difference in the role of an innocent bystander by sharing stories of bystanders who chose to act, and those who did not, and what the consequences of each of those choices resulted in. In addition, the museum also displays the bystanders who chose to aid in the defense of those suffering from discrimination and unlawful treatment, many of whom went on to be awarded the title, Honored Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem. As in any dictatorship, civil servants in the occupied countries had some scope at least to hinder the Nazi system, to say ‘no’, certainly in Belgium, with its relatively ‘mild’ occupation regime. When it came to Jews and Gypsies, however,

31 the Belgian administration chose not to use that scope, out of fear, defeatism or simple unwillingness.46 The Kazerne Dossin displays photographs and posters from the 1930s showing how many Belgian citizens, prior to the occupation, supported the Jews of Belgium by joining resistance movements, and rallying in efforts to combat Hitler’s anti-Semitic policies arising in Nazi Germany during the time. One exhibit in the museum shows; Supporters of the Belgian Socialist Party carrying slogans such as ‘No to racism and anti-Semitism,’ and ‘Free immigration to Palestine,’ during the Labor day parade on 1 May 1938.47 These movements, among others, from the 1930s give an example of how Belgium challenged the anti-Semitic German policies in the 1930s and originally supported local Jews. These campaigns show how many Belgian bystanders not only supported Belgian Jews, but also united against German policies which were beginning to rise in Western Europe at the time. Popular resistance slogans were used in store fronts of local Belgian businesses showing their support of the Jewish community. Don’t feed Hitler bread to your children. In the 1930s a baker in Antwerp’s Terliststraat offered bread for sale with no German flour. The street had a synagogue and several Jewish shops. The ‘Committee to Defend the Rights of Jews,’ set up immediately after Hitler’s rise to power… The committee, which supported Jewish refugees, also had a branch in Brussels.48 Additionally, many Belgian citizens banded together to create committees and other support groups whose aim were to aid the Jews of Belgium. The two main organizations in Belgium that supported Jews during the time of German occupation were the Comité de Defense des Juifs (Jewish Defense Committee) [CDJ], and the Association des Juifs en Belgique, (Association of Belgian Jews) [AJB]. Holocaust historian Christopher Browning, discusses the AJB in his text,

46 Herman Van Goethem, Kazerne Dossin: Memorial, Museum and Documentation Centre on Holocaust and Human Rights, (Mechelen: Kazerne Dossin, 2012), 65.

47 Ibid, 31. 48 Ibid, 30.

32 The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939 - March 1942, arguing that in Belgium the AJB was more functional due to the fact that the organization did not have to answer to the Security Police. The Belgian Jews were provided with the Association of Jews in Belgium (Association des Juifs en Belgique) on November 25, 1941, although in contrast to France the Belgian association was directly subordinate to Reeder’s military

administration, without the Security Police as intermediary.49 Professor Moore argues that organizations in Belgium aimed at rescuing Jewish refugees were fully reliant on finding non-Jewish bystanders willing to help the Jews. Without such volunteers, these organizations would not have been able to succeed in helping Jews go into hiding, or acquire other items essential to surviving the German occupation of Belgium. There is no doubt that the existence of the CDJ and other clandestine Jewish organizations was central to the successful survival of many people, but a great deal of their success rested on finding non-Jews willing and able to help, either directly through the provision of hiding places, or indirectly through supplying funds, ration cards, false identity papers, and all the other essentials that those living clandestinely required.50 Dan Michman was the Chief Historian at the Yad Vashem International Institute for Holocaust Research from 2000 to 2011, and is a Professor of Modern and Chair of the Arnold and Leona Finkler Institute of Holocaust Research at Bar- Ilan University. In his published text, Belgium and the Holocaust: Jews, Belgians, Germans Professor Michman discusses how members of the in Belgium would also participate in activist movements with the initiative of helping the Jews of Belgium. While the Catholic church played a minor role in saving the Jews from Nazi persecution, many individuals from the Churches clergy felt the need to become involved in organizations that worked to combat anti-Semitism in Belgium.

49 Christopher R. Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939 - March 1942, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004), 205. 50 Bob Moore, Survivors: Jewish Self-Help and Rescue in Nazi-Occupied Western Europe, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 188.

33 The forgoing description reveals that there was a considerable degree of prejudice on the part of the Catholic clergy, which left little or no room for a rapprochement with . It was this climate, too, that prompted several Roman Catholic laymen to establish the Katholiek Bureau voor Israël [KBI: Catholic Bureau for Israel] in Antwerp. During the 1930s in Antwerp there was a considerable rise in the number of anti-Jewish incidents. The Bureau adopted a singular stance with regard to the problem of Catholic-Jewish relations within the wider current that had evolved in various European countries during the mid-1930s, for the purpose of establishing closer relations between Catholics and Jews.51 The exact date of the establishment of the KBI is unknown, however Dan Michman states that it happened towards the middle of the year in 1936.52 Its main goal was to combat anti-Semitism and to help connect the Catholics and Jews in Belgium. The organization was independent from the Catholic church, however many leaders within the organization were separate from the Catholic clergy, such as Cardinal Van Roey. Jewish leaders, such as Chief Rabbi Joseph Wiener also participated in the KBI.53 The immediate stimulus for the establishment of the KBI was a lecture given by Irène Harand in Antwerp on March 4, 1936, in which she condemned German on grounds of Christian morality… Her lecture had been organized by a Jewish organization, the Verbond voor Economisch Verweer — Antwerpen (VEVA). Immediately afterward, several Catholics who had been present met and decided to form an organization similar to the “Harandbewegung” in Belgium.54 The Harandbewegung (Harand Movement) was founded by Irene Harand in , Austria, in 1933. The movement was known as the “World Movement Against Racial Hate and Human Misery”, and while the initiatives of the Harandbewegung sparked the development of the KBI

51 Dan Michman, Belgium and the Holocaust: Jews, Belgians, Germans, (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1998), 142. 52 Ibid, 143.

53 Ibid, 144. 54 Ibid, 143.

34 in Belgium, unfortunately, the KBI did not gain popularity and spread throughout Belgium as hoped, and only operated for a short amount of time in the mid-1930s. Dan Michman argues that a lack of support, particularly from the Catholic church is one of the main causes of its failure. He argues that the organization, even with its members of church clergy, did not generate enough support form the church as a whole, and therefore was unable to gather long-lasting support form the Belgian community.55 These organizations are just a few examples of how resistance movements developed in Belgium during the time of the Second World War. In addition to combating anti-Semitism, resistance movements acted as rescuers to many Jewish victims, especially Jewish children. In both Belgium and the Netherlands, resistance groups were able to recuse thousands of Jewish children by helping them go into hiding in places such as boarding schools, monasteries, and hospitals.56 In addition to resistance groups, notable bystanders from the Catholic church were made up of individual priests, nuns, monks, and bishops, who all fought to save Belgian Jews throughout the duration of the occupation of Belgium. There are also examples of Belgian nobility who stepped forward during the time of occupation to aid in the rescue of Belgian Jews. Many of these Belgian bystanders were honored as Righteous Among the Nations after the end of the Second World War by Yad Vashem, and are additionally recognized within the Kazerne Dossin Memorial Museum. Furthermore, the Catholic church recognizes many of there members who aided in the rescue of Jewish refugees form the time of the Second World War, especially within Belgium. Monsignor Louis-Joseph Kerkhofs, was the bishop of Liège/Luik [Belgium] during the war years. He used his considerable authority and prestige to urge the clerics in his diocese to lend a hand to save Jews from deportation. His attitude inspired many people and religious institutions in the Liege area to help Jews, and

55 Ibid, 144-145. 56 Yad Vashem, “Rescue of Children,” Shoah Resource Center: 3. http://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/ Microsoft%20Word%20-%205820.pdf.

35 many cases of rescue resulted from his intervention. Father Hubert Celis being only one of them.57 Mgr Kerkhofs was honored as a Righteous Among the Nations in 1981 by Yad Vashem. These are just a few examples of the organizations, resistance groups, and ordinary bystanders from Belgium who helped to rescue or aid the victims of Nazi perpetration during the years of rising anti-Semitism in the 1930s, and the perpetration of the Jews in the 1940s. When discussing Belgian bystanders who acted honorably by aiding their Jewish neighbors, Professor Bob Moore argues that the individual initiative amongst Belgian civilians willing to aid in Jewish rescue, began at the very top of society in Belgium. In Belgium… The fact that the royal family had decided to stay after the Germans occupied the country gave King Leopold and his mother Elizabeth some leverage with the military government. In July 1942, he intervened to stop the arrest of Belgian Jews, but it was the Queen Mother Elizabeth who was more active, and during the occupation approached the German authorities on behalf of several

hundred Jews, primarily those of Belgian nationality.58 Despite the many cases of Belgian civilians choosing to help their Jewish neighbors and friends, there are just as many cases where Belgian civilians choose to betray there Jewish neighbors and conform to German authority. A comparison of Belgium’s four, largest cities during the Second World War, reveals that a large proportion of Antwerp and Charleroi bystanders acted against the Jews, whilst the proportions of residents of Liège and Brussels who betrayed their Jewish friends and neighbors was significantly lower. The deportation rates provided by Professor Moore illustrate this argument: In the Belgian case, it is noticeable that those identified as non-Jewish rescuers were not uniformly distributed across the country… the majority were to be found in the French-speaking Walloon region and in the city of Brussels, whereas the

57 “Monsignor Louis-Joseph Kerkhofs,” Yad Vashem: The World Holocaust Remembrance Center, 2017, Web, January 19, 2017. http://www.yadvashem.org/righteous/stories/the-celis-family/monsignor- kerkhofs. 58 Bob Moore, Survivors: Jewish Self-Help and Rescue in Nazi-Occupied Western Europe, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 188.

36 Flemish-speaking areas were under-represented, as was the city of Antwerp… This is clearly mirrored in the deportation rates for these same regions. Thus 67 per cent of the Jews in Antwerp were arrested and deported, whereas the percentages for Brussels (37 per cent), Liège (35 per cent) and Charleroi (42 per cent) were appreciably lower.59 The level of Jewish aid and rescue in Belgium, compared to the neighboring country of the Netherlands, can be attributed to the organizations in place that were established to help Jewish refugees. In Belgium these organizations had a major impact on the level of rescue that took place during the time of German occupation, compared to neighboring countries also under German control. Individual rescues play a disproportionately larger role in the Netherlands than in either Belgium or France simply because there was little or no pre-existing collusion between Jewish and non-Jewish organizations.60 While individual rescue may have been higher in the Netherlands than in Belgium, this is not to say that the overall rescue and aid for Jews was greater in the Netherlands than in Belgium, on the contrary evidence shows that there was in fact more rescue in Belgium than in the Netherlands. The contrast between the two countries can be identified by the fact that in Belgium there were more organizations in place, that helped Jews to either escape the country, or helped them go into hiding. In the Netherlands, such organizations did not exist on such a large scale and so they were not as successful, which resulted in more Jews being captured and deported to concentration camps in the East. The Kazerne Dossin Memorial Museum displays a vast array of information pertaining to how Belgian bystanders assisted in aiding the Jewish victims of German perpetration. The museums also discusses the bystanders who acted against the Jews by participating in raids of Jewish house holds and the destruction of Jewish synagogues. Throughout the museums, visitors can view displays showing posters and newspapers that were used to spread mass propaganda against the Jews in Belgium, the newspapers and posters displayed in the museums were used

59 Ibid, 205-206. 60 Ibid, 218.

37 during the time of the Second World War to portray the Jews as an inferior race, this propaganda against the Belgian Jews led to physical assaults and attacks on Jewish homes and synagogues, which at times were instigated by Belgian bystanders. A was initiated in Antwerp and anti-Semitism arose in many places throughout Belgium. Many believe that it was largely due to the failure of the Belgian administration to rebuke the attacks on the Jews that led to the widespread development of anti-Semitism within Belgium.61

Conclusion

The Kazerne Dossin Memorial Museum provides viewers with a historical description of the role ordinary Belgian citizens played in regards to both the protection, and deportation of Belgian Jews, and narrates the Belgian experience of World War Two by outlining the hardships experienced by the Jews residing in Belgium throughout the 1930s and 1940s. The primary goal set forth by the creators of the museum was to create a place where people from all backgrounds could come to learn about the events of the Holocaust as well as human rights. Five years before the opening of the Kazerne Dossin Memorial Museum, Antwerp mayor Patrick Janssens issued the first public apology to the Jews of Antwerp for the involvement of Belgian citizens in the rounding-up and deportation of Belgian Jews. On October 28, [2007] FJO, the Dutch-speaking Federation of Jewish Organizations, held a forum in Antwerp on “Children of the Holocaust.” No one could have predicted that this innocent event would trigger an explosive controversy… The highlight of [the] forum was the presentation of Antwerp mayor Patrick Janssens, who apologized to the Jewish community on behalf of his city for the involvement of municipal authorities and the police force in the three 1942 roundups that culminated in the deportation of 1,200 Jewish residents of the

61 Herman Van Goethem, Kazerne Dossin: Memorial, Museum and Documentation Centre on Holocaust and Human Rights, (Mechelen: Kazerne Dossin, 2012), 78.

38 city to Auschwitz. This was the first time any Antwerp official had ever issued an apology, and the Jewish community was extremely appreciative.62 Since the public apology issued by mayor Patrick Janssens in 2007, Belgium has been able to move forward in addressing their involvement in the deportation of over 25,000 Belgium Jews during the time of the Holocaust. While the deportations were mainly carried out by the German military police, Belgian officials have acknowledged the fact that Belgian officials worked with the Germans in a few of the round-ups and deportations. The Kazerne Dossin Memorial Museum takes learning about the events of the Holocaust to a broader level by incorporating education on human rights into the main exhibit. The theme of human rights history has become an important concept within the museums, as the creators pride themselves on being one of the only NHM to do so. Kazerne Dossin — Memorial, Museum and Documentation Centre on Holocaust and Human Rights — is the first Holocaust museum explicitly to incorporate human rights in its name. In so doing, it is taking a lean in an international debate that has been under way for some time now on the question of how the Shoah ought to be embedded in a broader context. Holocaust museums in the twenty- first century not only have to recall the historical event itself, they must also go beyond it, by means of an analysis geared toward an educational project centering on values such as tolerance and respect, good citizenship and responsibility. Showing what happened is not enough in itself to guard against repetition. Moreover, too exclusive a focus on the unique event that was the Shoah can result in a kind of insulation, placing it absolutely beyond ourselves, in a way that causes us to view the Shoah as an incomprehensible event in human history. Anti- Semitism and intolerance are always with us.63 While the human rights theme within the museum sets the Kazerne Dossin apart from other NHM, it also gives rise to innovative aspects that could be incorporated into other history

62 Georges Schnek,“Belgium,” The American Jewish Year Book 108 (2008): 404-405, JSTOR. 63 Herman Van Goethem, Kazerne Dossin: Memorial, Museum and Documentation Centre on Holocaust and Human Rights, (Mechelen: Kazerne Dossin, 2012), 12.

39 museums that cover events such as the Holocaust, in the hopes of developing a stronger connecting with their audiences who might find it hard to grasp the full scale of events that often occur in times of war. The creators of the Kazerne Dossin memorial museum strive to collaborate with other Holocaust museums and organizations across the world in order to create a well-rounded and accurate portrayal of information on the events of the Holocaust. The museum oversees several special projects such as the traveling exhibit on hidden children from the Holocaust. In addition, the museum is currently developing a multimedia project in order to organize all of their private information to help distribute their collections with some of their partners.64 Finally, when asked if there was anything special about the Kazerne Dossin museum that sets it apart from other NHM, Dr. Schram responded; “The museum almost only focuses on the Belgian case of the Holocaust. It does not focus on what happened in other countries; it tells the National history of Belgium in World War Two. So unlike Yad Vashem or the USHMM, the museum focuses primarily on what happened in Belgium and in Northern France.”65 Dr. Van Goethem made a similar statement in the museums catalog, stating; “As a Belgian place of remembrance, Kazerne Dossin focuses on Belgium rather than on the Holocaust in general.”66 The Kazerne Dossin Memorial Museum does incorporate information pertaining to the entirety of European history on the Holocaust, and displays information that relates to neighboring countries in order to give an accurate portrayal on the entire history of the Holocaust. The creators of the Kazerne Dossin have worked hard to incorporate the national narrative of the history of Belgium in the Second World War into the main exhibits of the museum, as many of the museum visitors are of a Belgian background. The narrative of the museum has a constant focus on the history of Belgium throughout the Second World War, and on the role the Belgium nation had in the events of the Holocaust with a special focus on Belgian victims and Belgian heroes.

64 Laurence Schram, “Meeting with the Senior Research Director of the Kazerne Dossin Museum,” Interview by author, June 16, 2016.

65 Ibid. 66 Herman Van Goethem, Kazerne Dossin: Memorial, Museum and Documentation Centre on Holocaust and Human Rights, (Mechelen: Kazerne Dossin, 2012), 13.

40 The Dossin Barracks functions as a site of memory, place of remembrance, memorial, and museum. As a site of memory and place of remembrance the Dossin Barracks is memorialized as the historic site where a vast majority of Belgian Jews were deported from Belgium to Auschwitz, the same can be implied as it functions as a museum with the goal being to educate and never forget the events of the Holocaust. The Belgian National Holocaust museum covers the main events of the Second World War and the events of the Holocaust. However, the museum covers the broader European events of the Second World War, and incorporates them into the Belgian theme of the museum. Additionally, the main exhibits within the museum discuss the participation of the allied States in the war, and cover a vast array of information focused on the Belgian victims of the Holocaust as well as the Belgian civilians that assisted in aiding the victims during the war. The museum welcomes visitors form all backgrounds in the hopes of spreading knowledge on World War Two, the Holocaust, and human rights.

41 Chapter 2:

France: The Mémorial de la Shoah

Figure 2: Hannah Garza, Paris, France, April 2016. (Entrance to the Mémorial de la Shoah.)

42 Development of the Mémorial de la Shoah

The Mémorial de la Shoah, located in Paris, France, came into existence thanks to the hard work and initiative of Issac Schneersohn. Isaac Schneersohn was born in Russia in1881. During the Second World War he brought together 40 representatives from various Jewish organizations to establish the Center for Contemporary Jewish Documentation (CDJC). This organization would be the foundation leading to more expansive projects in Holocaust memorialization. Schneersohn’s largest project involved creating the Memorial to the unknown Jewish Martyr in Paris, France, which would be developed into the Mémorial de la Shoah in 1995. In the early 1950s, Issac Schneersohn initiated a project to build the Memorial to the unknown Jewish Martyr, which opened in 1956. It compromises a memorial crypt with ashes from the extermination camps, a documentation center, and a permanent exhibition. This French initiative gave rise to a memorial in Jerusalem,

Yad Vashem, which the Israeli parliament approved in May 1953.67 The Memorial to the unknown Jewish Martyr helped to inspire the eventual creation of Yad Vashem, and in the end, became the foundation used to create the Mémorial de la Shoah. Furthermore, all of the documents collected by the CDJC during the time of the Second World War were used to develop the concepts of the museum, and are housed in the museums file rooms for safe keepings. “Through the initiative of Isaac Schneersohn, the foundation stone of what, at the time, was the Memorial Monument to the Unknown Jewish Martyr, was laid on 27th May 1953 on a site donated by the City of Paris. Several countries, France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Yugoslavia, contributed to the construction of the Memorial with donations of work of art.”68 On January 25, 2005 the Mémorial de la Shoah officially opened to the public, following the inauguration led by the President of France, President Jacques Chirac. The exterior of the memorial was designed by Alexandre Persitz, Georges Goldberg and Léon Arretche, and

67 Jacques Fredj, The Jews of France During the Holocaust, (France: Gallimard, 2011), 200. 68 Mémorial de la Shoah, “Permanent Exhibit” Mémorial de la Shoah, (Paris, France: Visited April 2016).

43 countries from all over the world helped to gather materials that were put on display within the memorial, and were used when the memorial was turned into the official National museum.69 Ashes from the extermination camps and from the were solemnly interred in soil brought from Israel on 24th February 1957 by Chief Rabbi Jean- Pierre Jouve and is now classed as an historical monument.70 One of the main purposes of the institution is to educate the upcoming generation on the events of the Second World War, and the creators of the museum have worked hard to make all of the information housed in the museum open to the public. Although it is a continuation of the CDJC and the Memorial to the Unknown Jewish Martyr, the Shoah Memorial is also a new phase in the transmission of the memory and the lessons of the Shoah, which so far had been essentially borne by the direct witnesses of the extermination of Jews of Europe.71 As previously stated, the museum houses an expansive resource center, and the museums archives are cited as being “the first and foremost collection of archives on the Shoah in

Europe,” as stated on the museums official website.72 The memorial plays a large role in being active within the French community, for example, here is a list of some of the activities sponsored by the museum: The Centre de Documentation (Documentation Center), the Museum (with its permanent exhibit), temporary exhibitions, pedagogical and training activities, an auditorium (which is used for conferences, lectures, debates, presentations, concerts, and slideshows), a multimedia learning center, a bookshop, services for families of victim, and finally, annual visits to sites of commemoration.73 In 2011 the Mémorial de la Shoah produced their museum catalogue entitled, The Jews of France During the Holocaust, which was largely researched and produced by the director of the museum, Jacques Fredj. The Jews of France

69 Ibid.

70 Ibid. 71 “Presentation of the Memorial - Mémorial de la Shoah,” Mémorial de la Shoah, Web, April 24, 2016. http://www.memorialdelashoah.org/english-version/presentation-of-the-memorial.html.

72 Ibid. 73 Ibid.

44 During the Holocaust, catalog contains information on the development of the museum, information on the exhibits found within the museum, and additional information on the history of France during World War Two.74 The main exhibit of the museum focuses primarily on the fate of the French victims of the Holocaust, and highlights the atrocities they faced by the hands of their very own government. Through the initiative brought about by public officials in France, the Mémorial de la Shoah was able to explore the fate of the French victims in a way, that until the mid-1990s, had never been done before. In a commemoration speech on the Vel’ d’Hiv round-up, given by President Jacques Chirac on July 16, 1995, the President spoke about the conditions the victims were subjected to, and brought newfound awareness to the fate of French Jewish victims. On July 16, 1942, four hundred and fifty French police agents and gendarmes, acting under the authority of their leaders, responded to the Nazis’ demands… Horrible scenes were witnessed: families torn apart, mothers separated from their children, elderly men, some of whom were veterans of the First World War and had spilled their blood for France, were callously thrown into Parisian buses and police vans… Taken to the Vélodrome d’Hiver, the victims had to wait for days in what we know were terrible conditions before being led away to one of the staging camps… In Paris and in the provinces. Sixty-four trains were to depart for Auschwitz. Seventy-six thousands Jews deported from France would never return.75 The museum highlights the French resisters, ordinary rescuers, and even gives a list of “The various French networks” involved in the French resistance in a moderately modest manner.76 In contrast to how the Kazerne Dossin Memorial Museum focused primarily on Belgian bystanders and Belgian collaborators, the Mémorial de la Shoah focuses on French heroes who bravely and diligently fought against German occupation and the mistreatment of the French Jews. This is

74 Jacques Fredj, The Jews of France During the Holocaust, (France: Gallimard, 2011).

75 Jacques Chirac, “Chirac’s Speech,” Chirac’s Speech, July 16, 1995, Web, May 08, 2016. http://www.levendel.com/En/html/chirac-s_speech.html. 76 Mémorial de la Shoah, “Permanent Exhibit” Mémorial de la Shoah, (Paris, France: Visited April 2016).

45 not to say that the Kazerne Dossin neglects to represent Belgian heroes within the museum, but more to say that the Mémorial de la Shoah devotes more attention on the recognition and remembrance of French heroes within their main exhibit. Ultimately, the main focus of the Mémorial de la Shoah is to accurately portray the history and commemoration of the French victims of the Holocaust. The museum devotes a large portion of the main exhibit to remembrance, and even has a section where an audio speaker plays testimonies given by survivors after the war.

Representation of Perpetrators: French Compliance with the Germans

The representation of French compliance with the Nazi German is thoroughly represented throughout the museum, as well as in texts produced by the museum. From the Nazi occupation of France, to the development of the Vichy Government, to the round-up and deportation of French Jews, the Mémorial de la Shoah displays a vast array of information pertaining to the treatment of French Jews during the time of the Second World War. The narrative of begins with discussions of the anti-Semitism that arose during the late-1930s. Historians Michale Marrus and Robert Paxton describe the development of anti- semitic attitudes towards Jews in France in their text, Vichy France and the Jews; In the climate of the late 1930s, it was not difficult for a French civil servant to become inured to dealing highhandedly with foreign refugees, among whom none were more conspicuous or more defenseless or, evidently, more irritating than were Jews… Nineteen thirty-eight was the crucial year. Internal tensions and

alarms of war threw Jews into the spotlight.77 After a brief overview of France’s relationship with the Jews prior to the beginning of the Second World War, the museum gives visitors an extensive description of the history of the conspiracies, paranoia, ideologies, and politics, including the development of the Vichy Government, that arose in France during World War Two; beginning with the rise of Adolf Hitler in 1933, and

77 Michael R. Marrus and Robert O. Paxton. Vichy France and the Jews, (New York: Basic Books, 1981), 57-58.

46 ending with contemporary commemoration of the Shoah. Using displays of photography, written text, and personal objects taken from the victims during the time of the Second World War, the Mémorial de la Shoah gives accounts of the role France played in the extermination of the Jewish people. One of the first exhibits that discusses the role the French state had in the deportation of the Jews from France discusses the armistice agreement between France and Germany, which was signed on June 20, 1940 in Compiègne, France. After the armistice was signed, the whole of France was in a state of anguish, particularly the Jews. Some of the Jews who had left their homes returned to Paris. The first German decree for the occupied zone, dated September 27, 1940, made it compulsory for Jews (defined as those of Jewish faith or having more than two grandparents of Jewish faith) to register at the sub prefecture of their department of residence before October 20… It was henceforth forbidden for Jews who had left to return to the occupied zone.78 This exhibit follows the sections discussing Hitlers rise to power in Germany and shifts focus to how the Jews of France were affected not only by the objectives enforced during German occupation, but to how the total occupation of France affected the daily lives of the French Jews. The vast majority of Jews in the occupied zone obeyed the law. On October 21, 1940, 149,734 Jews reported for the census; among them, 86,664 were French and 65,070 foreigners. After that, dozens of Jews continued to report to the prefecture every day to be in compliance and even more after the French law dated June 2, 1941, which applied throughout France, whatever zone they were in. On the basis of these registrations the prefecture would create four sub-files of

different colors, classified by name, residence, nationality, and profession.79 The exhibit displays some of the documents used from during the time of occupation, and contributes various photographs of French Jews. Another popular form of representation used in the museum, apart from official documents and photographs, is copies of announcements issued by the Vichy government, and copies of magazines issued from the era that spread propaganda

78 Jacques Fredj, The Jews of France During the Holocaust, (France: Gallimard, 2011), 52. 79 Ibid, 53.

47 and hatred towards the Jews of France; which represent how the media portrayed the events that were taking place during the early years of the war. Following the dynamics of portraying the history in a timeline setting, the Mémorial de la Shoah introduces the visiting audience to the government policies implemented by the French state. The most prominent being the development of the Vichy government, established on July 10, 1940. French historian Henry Rousso specializes in the study of the Second World War in France. In his text, The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France Since 1944, Rousso describes the surrender of France to the German aggressors in 1940. The war of 1939-40 was brief but disastrous: some 90,000 French soldiers died, and nearly two million French troops were taken prisoner. Crushing and unexpected military defeat let to a humiliating and ferocious occupation by foreign troops. Metropolitan France was divided into separate zones, and the Empire disintegrated as Vichy and de Gaulle vied for control of its component countries. Within France, civil war attained its peak in 1944 but continued after the Liberation in the form of the so-called épuration, or purge of those alleged to have collaborated with the Nazis. Finally, France rejoined the Allied war effort in 1944-45 as it also began to face the problems of economic, political, and moral reconstruction.80 Following the defeat of France by German troops in 1940 along with the discussion of the laws implemented during that time by the occupied German forces and newly formed Vichy government, the museum transitions into portraying how the perpetrators organized and carried out the round-up and deportation of the Jews in France. The museum also illustrates that many of the initial laws and round-ups that took place in France were not necessarily issued by German officials, but rather by the Vichy government of France. Ideologically inclined to exclude the Jews, the French government started to incarcerate them on its own initiative, at a time when the camps were not yet the preferred German choice for implementing their anti-Semitic policy, before the

80 Henry Rousso, The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France Since 1944, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 5.

48 spring of 1941. The law dated October 4, 1940, published in the Journal Officiel on October 18-the same day as the Jewish Status legislation, gave French authorities the power to imprison all individuals seen as a threat to national defense or political security. Simultaneously, once the law dated September 27, 1940 was promulgated, the prefects gathered all male immigrants aged 18 to 55. ‘supernumerary to the national economy’ into GTE [Groupes de Travailleurs

Étrangers (Groups of Foreign Workers)].81 The exhibit notes that most of the internment camps in France were located in the North, and has kept an impressive record on the number of victims deported from France during the time of German occupation. In mid-1941, Paris was subjected to three major round-ups, which ultimately become the process used for all of the major deportations that followed throughout France. The process involved rounding-up and deporting Jews to holding camps located in Drancy, Compiègne, Beaune-la-Rolande, Pithiviers, and Loiret before transporting them to the death camps located in Poland, and was largely carried out by Parisian officials. On May 14, 1941, the Prefecture de Police arrested 3,747 foreign Jews, including 3,430 Polish Jews who were sent directly to Austerlitz railway station, bound for camps in the Loiret, Pithiviers, and Beaune-la-Rolande. On August 20, 1941, at the instigation of the ’s Department for Jewish Affairs (Sipo-SD) [The Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police)], the Parisian municipal police force, supervised by German military personnel, arrested 4,232 Jews, all men between 18 and 50, including approximately 1,500 French citizens, over several days, mainly in the 11th district of Paris. They were sent to Drancy, which had been hastily prepared for the purpose.82 However, it wouldn’t be until almost one year later, on July 16, 1942 that Paris would face its most devastating round-up from the entirety of the occupation. The museum depicts the events

81 Jacques Fredj, The Jews of France During the Holocaust, (France: Gallimard, 2011), 58. 82 Ibid, 58.

49 that led to the devastating round-up providing both statistics of the number of victims as well as the persons involved. The plan was to arrest 22,000 Jews in Paris and its suburbs, employing more than 1,472 teams of uniformed and plainclothes policemen assisted by inspectors from domestic intelligence and criminal investigation units. The railway company- SNCF-was asked to help with transporting couples and their children to the Loiret camps, and the Paris metropolitan transport system loaned 50 buses to the Préfecture de Police.83 This round-up would become known as the Vel’ d’Hiv round-up. Named after the Parisian sports stadium, the Velodrome d’hiver, where the victims were held for roughly six days, under extremely harsh conditions, and were guarded by the Parisian gendarmerie. On July 16, 1942, at 4 a.m., the roundup began, with 4,500 policemen mobilized for the job. The first to be targeted were German, Austrian, Polish, Czechoslovakian, Russian, and stateless Jews. It was no longer just men. Women under 60 and children were rounded up as well. Children younger than 16 were taken along with their parents. The roundup continued until July 17 at 5 p.m. The total number of arrests was 12,884, including 3,118 men, 5,119 women, and 4,115 children.84 The museum displays a clear history of the role ordinary Frenchmen played in regards to the perpetration of the French Jews, and teaches the visitors of the museum, through the main exhibit, how local French initiatives had a significant impact in the events of the Holocaust from the propaganda that led to the destruction of Jewish homes and businesses, and eventually to the round-ups and deportation of their own Jewish citizens. In order to understand the overall purpose of the Mémorial de la Shoah and the role it plays in supporting Holocaust memorialization on a national level, it is important to first analyze the background of Holocaust memorialization in France upon the end of World War Two. While memorialization began rather quickly in France after the end of the war, it would take many

83 Ibid, 79. 84 Ibid, 79.

50 years for France to accept the role it played in regards to the deportation of the French Jews, and for them to accept the crime of obedience they carried out. The Mémorial de la Shoah approaches the topic of French obedience to the Nazi occupiers by displaying articles issued by the French government during the time of the Second World War within their main exhibits throughout the museum. These articles show that the French State issued laws regulating Jewish property and assets. In addition, the museum provides the visiting audience historical evidence, including photographs, newspapers, and other types of printed material that showcase the role the French civilians played in aiding the Germans in rounding-up and deporting the French Jews. Though until very recently, no one in France liked to talk about it because this rafle or round-up involved ordinary Parisian gendarmes, bus drivers, and other civic officials of the collaborationist government under Nazi occupation, along with those French bureaucrats working for the Vichy regime of Marshall Pétain to the south.85 The progress of reconciliation was such a difficult task for the French, that following the end of World War Two, General Charles de Gaulle, once elected to office, went as far as to permanently destroy evidence that linked French compliance to the Holocaust, including having “the few remaining photographs airbrushed so that French police officers were removed and the round-up presented as an all-German operation”.86 It is safe to say that France has come a long way in respect to facing their past, and the Mémorial de la Shoah is a prime example of how the French have accepted their personal involvement in the perpetration of French Jews during the time of the Holocaust.

The French Victims of the Holocaust

The creators of the Mémorial de la Shoah made it their personal mission to prioritize the remembrance and commemoration of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust within the museum.

85 Norman Simms, “A Cycle of Judicial Memory and Immoral Forgetting: Vel D’hiv 1942,” Shofar 30, no. 2 (Winter 2012): 124, JSTOR. 86 Ibid, 124.

51 Both the inside and outside of the museum pay tribute to victims of Nazi perpetration during the Second World War. The façade of the museum building bares the names of the French Honored Righteous Among the Nations, as honored by Yad Vashem. Upon entering the museum, visitors encounter a vessel with names of various concentration and death camps including Dachau and Auschwitz at its base. The vessel contains ashes of Jewish victims from the camps. Further into the entrance, visitors encounter several walls bearing the name of every French victim of the Holocaust. Upon entering the museum, visitors encounter a crypt with an eternal flame which burns in the memory of over 5 million Jewish victims of the Holocaust,87 and an area which houses the documents used by France from 1940 to 1945 to identify Jews. Additionally, the museum houses a “book of memory” that holds the names of the victims of the Holocaust. The Jews of France had to deal with opposition from both the French Vichy Government and the occupied German Government during the years of World War Two. Prior to the onset of the Second World War French Jews could often find support from many of their fellow French civilians, however, beginning in the early 1940s, French Jews were subjected to harsh and shocking laws implemented upon them by both the French and German Governments within France. French Jews were trapped by the double legislation, French and German. But the Vichy Government published dozens of laws whereas the German occupants served only as a stimulus, and published only 13 decrees. The Jewish population was isolated, excluded from French society and shocked to find itself so. Jewish organizations protested with energy against these exceptional measures, which apparently did not outrage many French, at least not in 1940 and 1941.88 Anti-semitism was on the rise in France beginning in the late-1930s and leading into the 1940s. As a result of the disparity that developed from the anti-semitism, French Jews suffered severe consequences. As early as 1940 violence against French Jews occurred, such as the looting of their private property and businesses and the destruction of synagogues. The distribution of the Yellow Star of David in France began on May 29, 1942, and every Jew over the age of six was

87 Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1985), 339. 88 Jacques Fredj, The Jews of France During the Holocaust, (France: Gallimard, 2011), 55.

52 required to wear it.89 It was also during this time that many French Jews who had fled their homes in occupied areas of France, prior to the German occupation and the development of the Vichy Government, found that they were now no longer allowed to return. On March 29, 1941, the Commissariat général aux questions juives (General Commission on Jewish Affairs) was formed by Admiral Darlan. The creation of the CGQJ was ordered by Nazi authorities and was responsible for drafting and proposing anti-Jewish laws throughout all of France, looting the property of French Jews, and carrying out violations to the status of Jews.90 After the development of the CGQJ, German occupants in France began the process to Aryanize the possessions and property taken from the Jews of France. Officials from the CGQJ in conjunction with the Vichy Government, competed with Germans officials to transfer the funds taken from the Jews to State coffers. This process involved thousands of French civil servants, and further isolated the French Jews from French society.91 Shortly after these implementations were enforced, the deportation of Jews from France began. In 1943 extensive roundups still occurred, organized by the Germans with the help of the French police: the roundup in Marseilles in January 1943, which resulted in the arrest of over 2,000 Jews; the one in Paris in February 1943; and another in the Italian zone in October 1943. After this period, Vichy stopped police collaboration with the Germans.92 The official rounding up and deportation of French Jews began on March 27, 1942 when the first transport of Jews left France.93 These deportations were carried out until the liberation of Paris on August 25, 1944. Using the statistics of Raul Hilberg, it is estimated that 75,000 Jews from France perished during the time of the Second World War.94

89 Ibid, 75.

90 Ibid, 51.

91 Ibid, 106. 92 Ibid, 170.

93 Ibid, 74. 94 Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1985), 339.

53 In regard to the ethics of remembrance, how some museums choose to represent the victims through photographs is highly significant, and has sparked many debates within the museum world. For example, one of the main topics of controversy that arises in regards to the portrayal of Jewish victims of the Holocaust, is whether or not the individual museums chose to display shocking or graphic photos, or do they chose to solely display photographs that are respectful to the victims? Photographs that would be consider disrespectful to the victims would include, photographs of the deceased, (including photographs of piles or pits of corpuses) or photographs containing nudity. The Mémorial de la Shoah does display photographs of the deceased victims, however photographs continuing nudity were not as prominent. The museum also displayed several famous photographs commonly associated with the Holocaust. This is a stark contrast to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe exhibit in Berlin, Germany, as that museum has made it their goal to use modest, non controversial photographs, and to use pictures of victims that are not seen as often. One noteworthy downfall of the museum is the lacking discussion on other mass atrocities that may have taken place in France during the time of the Second World War. The discussion of French compliance with the perpetration of the French victims did not really begin to rise until the mid-1990s, and it wasn’t until President Chirac gave his speech in 1995 that the French nation fully accepted its role in regards to being active perpetrators, and officiated an apology to the victims.95 Barely two months after taking office, President Jacques Chirac today publicly recognized France’s responsibility for deporting thousands of Jews to Nazi death camps during the German occupation in the Second World War… during ceremonies marking the 53rd anniversary of the first mass arrests of Jews in

Paris.96 This admission of guilt was not without its drawbacks. The biggest issue was the effect it had on French National identity, and the narrative the people of France identified with in memory of the events of the Second World War. Discussions on the role ordinary civilians played in the

95 Jacques Fredj, The Jews of France During the Holocaust, (France: Gallimard, 2011), 196. 96 Marlise Simons, “Chirac Affirms France’s Guilt In Fate of Jews,” , Web, May 08, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/17/world/chirac-affirms-france-s-guilt-in-fate-of-jews.html.

54 treatment of French victims was not a topic that was commonly discusses, and for a long time, it was a topic the people of France preferred to ignore. For the first 25 years after the war, French leaders held Nazi Germany sole responsible for the deportations. More recently, in an argument that Jewish groups saw as sophistry, they have blamed the collaborationist wartime government based in Vichy, absolving the French state.97 Once the French government accepted their role in the perpetration of Jewish civilians, the topic of victim compensation arose. In an article posted by the New York Times in 1995, issued the day after President Chirac gave his speech accepting the fact that the French State openly complied with the perpetration of the French Jews, many French Jews questioned why survivors had never been compensated for the possessions and valuables that had been stolen from them by the French State during the time of the Second World War. Yet, even now, it may not be easy for France to turn over these black pages of History. Just this weekend, [July 1995] Mr. Klarsfeld raised another difficult issue. He said the French state confiscated money, property and valuables from Jews being deported from France and then failed to return these assets or pay reparations to surviving children of deportees.98 The French government, after many years of ignoring their responsibility, finally took initiative to compensate French survivors of the Holocaust. The Mémorial de la Shoah is now one of the foremost organizations responsible for connecting survivors, or family members of survivors, with the appropriate contacts for receiving government funded compensation for confiscated possessions taken by the French government between the years of 1940-1945. The website for the museum provides this information and contacts for the victims and their families members. This is just one of the many initiatives that the museum operates for French Holocaust survivors and their families.99

97 Ibid.

98 Ibid. 99 “Compensation and Restitution for Holocaust Victims in France,” Shoah Memorial - Homepage, Web, April 24, 2016. http://holocaust-compensation-france.memorialdelashoah.org/en/index_engl.html.

55 Ordinary French Bystanders

Following the discussion on the French victims of the Holocaust, it is important to develop a better understanding of how the ordinary French civilian fits into the narrative of the Second World War, and how the Mémorial de la Shoah represents the average bystanders in France during the time. Propaganda produced in the media, and newly implemented French laws made normal civilians apprehensive of their Jewish neighbors. Under these circumstances, ordinary French civilians commonly succumbed to purposefully ignoring the brutal conditions the Jewish people faced, and at times, even participated in stripping the rights from them all- together. Once the war came to an end, many people chose to “forget” what had taken place during of the war, and the topic was one that many people avoided at all costs. Ordinary non-Jewish citizens of France pretended they could not remember, claimed not to know anyone who did recall, and resisted attempts to help them recollect. Anyone who did collaborate with the Nazis in this affair must have been a monster, the feeling went, and therefore the individuals who collaborated and did not seem like monsters could neither have known nor participated in the business. A vicious circle. Gendarmes, neighbors, passersby on the street, no one could bring to mind such an event happening, though they did not deny that it must have happened; it is not something nice to talk about. In time, of course, most French people did really forget, and the teachers and school textbooks forgot to remind them.100 Like civilians in Germany, Austria, and Poland, many people in France saw opportunities of promotion in the workplace, and a way to acquire new properties and possessions when the French Jews were stripped of their rights and forced from their homes. While there was some resistance among ordinary civilians on the behalf of their Jewish friends, most people chose to turn a blind-eye to the atrocities taking place. Furthermore, what is surprising in the case of

100 Norman Simms, “A Cycle of Judicial Memory and Immoral Forgetting: Vel D'hiv 1942,” Shofar 30, no. 2 (Winter 2012): 124, JSTOR.

56 France, is the fact that the French government not only easily complied with the Nazis commands, but in some cases even issued restrictions to Jews before they were told to do so by the German authorities. The French authorities negotiated with the Germans to take Jewish children that the Nazis did not even ask for. Most French people did not realize that there were more than 200 camps in their country. From 1940, Marshal Pétain, the president of the Vichy regime, had sent Jews to those camps without any demands coming from the Germans. He also published anti-Jewish laws before the Germans asked him to.101 The closing of Jewish businesses, massive looting, and overall group conformity against the Jews became common in France. As the Jews were stripped of their rights, they became more vulnerable, making them an easier target, which led to an increase of petty crimes carried out by the ordinary civilian. However, once the war came to an end, the people of France had a difficult time coming to terms with their own personal actions. Others keep silent, destroy evidence, and paper over the cracks with sweet tales of heroism and charity because they believe it is better for the young people and for the national psyche.102 Even though much of the evidence was destroyed, the museum gives an excellent description of the role the ordinary French bystander contributed to the overall narrative of the perpetration of French Jews. One piece of evidence that could not be destroyed or covered up, was the destruction and mass looting of public property associated with the Jews. The theft of expensive artwork, mass collections of books, and valuable musical instruments could not be replace, ignored, denied, or overlooked.103 When survivors returned to France after the war, not only did many find themselves without a home, but they also found that their cultural property was also missing. Most of the looting of cultural property in France was carried out by Alfred Rosenberg’s

101 Simon Round, “The Day France Betrayed Its Jews,” The Jewish Chronicle, Web, May 08, 2016. http://www.thejc.com/arts/film/50047/the-day-france-betrayed-its-jews.

102 Norman Simms, “A Cycle of Judicial Memory and Immoral Forgetting: Vel D'hiv 1942,” Shofar 30, no. 2 (Winter 2012): 125, JSTOR. 103 Jacques Fredj, The Jews of France During the Holocaust, (France: Gallimard, 2011), 108.

57 ERR [Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (The Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce)], however it was not uncommon for the ordinary French civilian to partake in regular looting activities.104

Conclusion

The Mémorial de la Shoah gives an accurate account of the horrors faced by the Jews of France during Nazi occupation, and provides viewers with a descriptive narrative of the role France had in regards to the deportation of French Jews. While the museum primarily focuses on the victims, it also follows a timeline based narrative of the activities that occurred in France beginning with the Hitler’s rise to power, and ending with the trials of Nazi perpetrators in the years following the end of the war. The Mémorial de la Shoah is able to portray an accurate description of the World War Two in France partially due to the admission of guilt made by President Chirac in 1995. In passing on the memory of the Jewish people and of its sufferings, and of the camps; in bearing witness again and again, in acknowledging the errors of the past, and the errors committed by the State; in concealing nothing about the dark hours of our history, we are simply defending an idea of humanity, of human liberty and dignity. We are struggling against the forces of darkness which are

constantly at work.105 It has been twenty years since President Chirac made his speech, and the museum has since then been able to expand on the knowledge it presents to their viewers. Had France not accepted partial responsibility for the fate of the Jewish victims of France, some of the information found in the museum today would be completely different. The French National Holocaust museum covers just about all of the main topics of the Holocaust, it is very well organized, and offers free entrance to everyone. The museums is mainly financed by donations and the French government. The Mémorial de la Shoah is heavily aimed towards the French narrative, which can be seen by

104 Ibid, 108. 105 Jacques Chirac, “Chirac’s Speech,” Chirac’s Speech, Web, May 08, 2016. http://www.levendel.com/En/html/chirac-s_speech.html.

58 the fact that most all of the videos are entirely in French, with no option for translation, as was the entire traveling exhibit that was on display at the time of my visit in April 2016. However the museum does well in portraying the full narrative of the events of the Holocaust. In the main exhibit Germany is mentioned when talking about Hitler, the occupation of France, and , which is to be expected, and Poland is mentioned when talking about concentration camps and deportations. Additionally, the museum does dedicate a small section to the “allied” States. It is clear that the museum is intended for a French audience, however this is not to say that the museum does not offer the opportunity for visitors from any background to under-go an enriching educational experience when touring the museum.

59 Chapter 3:

Germany: Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

Figure 3: Hannah Garza, Berlin, Germany, July 2014. (Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.)

60 Development of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, located in Berlin, Germany, was inaugurated in 2005 as Germany’s official National Holocaust Monument. The monument is dedicated to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust and has an two additional monuments that accompany the memorial which are in turn dedicated to the Homosexual and the Sinti and Roma victims of the Holocaust. The two adjacent memorials are entitled; Memorial to Homosexuals Persecuted Under Nazism and, Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Victims of National Socialism. The development and construction of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe took roughly 10 years to complete. The project began in 1995 with a competition to find an artist, and or, engineer that could capture the historical importance and magnitude of the events behind the memorials foundational concept. After years of debate, as well as a second competition, it was finally decided that the project “field of stelae” proposal by Peter Eisenman and Richard Serra would be the winner. The final project took three years to construct. On May 10, 2005 the Memorial was inaugurated and two days later, May 12, 2005, the Field of Stelae and underground Information Center opened to the general public. It is estimated that the Information Center receives around 1,800 visitors each day.106 Architectural photographer Klaus Frahm, documented the construction of the site over the course of three years and produced a catalog, that was eventually published by the memorials information centre, entitled; Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe was an extremely expensive project, costing over 27.6 million euro to construct. The cost of construction was mainly covered by private donations and federal funding. Today, the memorial still operates on federal funding, along with donations made at the information center located underneath the memorial. Arguably, one of the main reasons behind the delayed construction of the memorial is in part due to the division of Germany at the end of the Second World War. After the war came to an end, Germany was divided into East and West, and the residents of the East refused to take responsibility for the events of the war and the Holocaust, their defense being that all Fascists lived in the West, and

106 Klaus Frahm, Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, (Berlin: Nicolai, 2005), 127.

61 therefore they were not responsible. However, with the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, Germany could no longer overlook its past, and for the first time since 1945, was forced to look at its history as a collective group. In doing so, it became evident that something needed to be done to acknowledge the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany during the time of the Second World War. So in February 1990, a group of German citizens organized a proposal for the memorial, and presented it to the new German government. This group eventually developed into the Association for the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and after a few years of negotiating, the group proposed a location for the memorial. The proposal indicated that the area near the former Ministerial Gardens, located in the Northern area of the former site of the Reich Chancellery, was the desired location for the memorial.107 Two years later in April 1992, Chancellor of Germany, Helmut Kohl would grant the Association for the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe the space they requested in their original proposal, and the task of creating and developing the memorial would officially begin. The Federal German Government showed their support of the proposal by providing a portion of the former Ministerial Gardens to the organization to construct the monument.108 However, this was only be the beginning of the development of the memorial, as many obstacles and debates from both scholars and the local community, heavily delayed the eventual construction of the site. Like many other European countries, Germany has no official National Holocaust Museum, although the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe compensates in part for the lack of an official museum, as the memorials underground information center offers a complete historical background on the events of the Holocaust. In addition to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Berlin is also home to the Wannsee Villa, Gleis 17, and Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, to name just a few historical sites significant to Holocaust history and memory in Berlin. These historical sites are significant to the memory of the Holocaust as the Wannsee Villa is the location where leading Nazi officials, including Adolf Eichmann and Heinrich Himmler, met to construct the plans for the Final Solution; a policy that

107 “Stiftung Denkmal für die Ermordeten Juden Europas: History,” History, Web, March 07, 2017. http:// www.stiftung-denkmal.de/en/memorials/the-memorial-to-the-murdered-jews-of-europe/history.html. 108 Ibid.

62 was created with the intention of exterminating the Jewish race from Europe. Gleis 17 was the railway where Jews were deported from the city of Berlin to concentration camps in the East, and the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp was the principal concentration camp of Berlin. The camp was used, in its early days, for political opponents, but as the war progressed the camp imprisoned; Jews, Homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Roma and Sinti prisoners. In addition to historic sites related specifically to the Holocaust, Berlin is home to several museums that teach about the events of the Holocaust, these museums include the Jewish Museum Berlin which gives a detailed history of Jewish life in Germany, and the Topography of Terror Museum which focuses primarily on the German perpetrators of the Holocaust. It comes as no surprise that a Jewish Museum in the heart of Germany’s capital would create a stir. Although Berlin does possess a national memorial to the Holocaust — the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (Stiftung Denkmal für die Ermordeten Juden Europas) — Germany lacks a national Holocaust museum. The Jewish Museum Berlin — although not a Holocaust museum — does at least approach such a task with its Holocaust exhibit and Holocaust memorial spaces, and therefore it assumes a vast responsibility.109 The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, the Memorial, and the Topography of Terror Museum, target a similar audience as they cover a related history. However, this has not deterred large audiences from visiting these institutions. It is estimated that nearly half a million people visit the underground information center of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe each year.110 In comparison to the number of visitors of the Wannsee Conference Memorial which, since 2006, receives over 100,000 visitors annually,111 and the

109 Jennifer Hansen-Glucklich, Holocaust Memory Reframed: Museums and the Challenges of Representation, (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2014), 37.

110 “Stiftung Denkmal für die Ermordeten Juden Europas: The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe,” Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe with Exhibition at the Information Centre, 2016, Web, November 17, 2016. http://www.stiftung-denkmal.de/en/memorials/the-memorial-to-the-murdered- jews-of-europe.html. 111 “Haus der Wannsee-Konferenz Gedenk-und Bildungsstätte,” Annual Report 2013-2014, 22. 2014, Web, January 11, 2017. http://www.ghwk.de/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf-wannsee/publikationen bericht_2013-14.pdf.

63 Topography of Terror Museum which in 2015 received more than 1 million visitors.112 In terms of annual visitors, the memorials and museums may “compete” with one another, however they do in turn collaborate with each other in regards to shared information, as they share the same common goal in spreading Holocaust awareness and to educate as many people as possible on the events of the Holocaust. The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe was created as a place of remembrance for Germany to observe and atone for their actions against the Jews during the Holocaust. Margaret McCarthy, Professor of German studies at Davidson College, examines the importance of such a monument in the heart of Berlin, and how it would contribute to and remembrance. In January 2000, Speaker of Parliament Wolfgang Thierse declared before the Bundestag that Germany would commemorate the attempted annihilation of European Jewry with a Holocaust memorial because modern German identity is inextricably tied to the horrors that Hitler perpetrated. Elie Wiesel, also present, had made the same point earlier: ‘No people ever inflicted such suffering as your people on mine in such a short period. Until the end of time, Auschwitz is part of your history and mine.’113 The memorial is an important part of Holocaust education in Berlin as it houses an underground information center that is used by organizations such as the Leo Baeck Institute and Shoah Foundation. The underground information center is open to the public for tours and houses a library, archive, and electronic database on Holocaust research.114 German politician and journalist Michael Naumann explains the educational purposes of the underground information center, as well as the initiative of the center in regards to collaborating with other museums and institutions in Berlin, in the hopes of creating a curriculum in which Germany can learn about the

112 “Topographie des Terrors,” Topography of Terror, Web, January 11, 2017. http://www.topographie.de/en/.

113 Margaret McCarthy, “Putting Stone in Place: Anne Duden and German Acts of Memory,” The German Quarterly 77, no. 2 (Spring 2004): 213, JSTOR. 114 Michael Naumann, “Remembrance and Political Reality: Historical Consciousness in Germany After the Genocide,” New German Critique, no. 80 (Spring 2000): 25, JSTOR.

64 events of the Holocaust and Second World War as a unified national perspective. Michael Naumann argues that by constructing the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe Germany is moving past its ongoing struggle with a rhetoric of guilt and self-recrimination. In such, Germany would further address its longtime guilt and blame for their actions in the events of the Holocaust. It is for this reason that, in addition to to his memorial design, Peter Eisenman conceived a ‘House of Remembrance.’ The whole complex in the very heart of Berlin will take the visual form of a field of pillars while providing a cognitive, educational approach to the history of the Shoah… The intention is to create a unique center for education and research of international standing. In conjunction with the Jewish Museum, the Topography of Terror, and other memorial sites, its researchers and educators will work on developing a curriculum for the nation’s perception of its own history, which might yet take us beyond the rhetoric of guilt and self-recrimination.115 Architect Peter Eisenman, designed the memorial with the idea of having the visiting audience engage and interact with the memorial personally, by being able to wander through the memorial and develop there own thoughts and emotions without being prompted by text or guide. The visitors is meant to draw their own conclusions on the significance of the events that the memorial represents, and to develop their own connection to the memorial. Once the visitor has had the chance to walk around the memorial, the information center below is then able to educate the visitors about the history of the Holocaust. The monument is open on all sides round the clock. It has no entrance and no exit, no centre, no destination and no prescribed paths; there is no ‘wreath dumping point’, as it was once so disparagingly put, and no parade grounds of honour; the site survives without symmetry, and carries no hierarchy of significance and insignificance, no customary dramatic scheme to lead visitors from the periphery to the very centre. The classical rule of placing something important on a pedestal, emphasizing it and enhancing it dramatically, had been deliberately reversed. The

115 Ibid, 25.

65 field's centre of gravity is not above the normal level, but recognizably below it.116 The memorial is composed of 2,711 stelae blocks of various sizes, and is roughly the size of two German Federal League football fields.117 Thus making the memorial extraordinarily large in comparison to most other memorials and monuments dedicated to the events of World War Two and the Holocaust. Yet the main objection that the creators of the memorial had to overcome was the belief that places of memory, or to quote French Historian Pierre Nora, “Lieux de Memoire”118 (Sites of Memory), were more significant for remembrance and education, than places that were created to commemorate an event. The directors of memorial sites around Germany fear the project would create an ‘artificially authentic site’ in Berlin, with Peter Eisenman’s field of pillars substituting for the camp memorials, and the ‘House of Remembrance’ duplicating educational work elsewhere. The Berlin memorial is a mere simulacrum, so the criticism goes. But this objection is based on a twofold misunderstanding. It is, first, mistaken to suppose the ‘authenticity’ of a site where unspeakable crimes were committed is somehow of greater value for remembrance than a commissioned memorial. It is of course true that the authentic aura of the camps and mass graves on German soil overwhelm and render mute. But in the course of time that aura will fade, even vanish entirely — once the knowledge that generated it is lost or the will to acquire it has gone.119 The debate on how best to commemorate a historical event, such as the Holocaust, is ongoing and far from meeting a final outcome. While many argue that the Germany’s memorial resulted in a simulacrum, or copy of other Holocaust memorials — ordinary in comparison, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe has far surpassed the expectation set forth by the original

116 Klaus Frahm, Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, (Berlin: Nicolai, 2005), 9-10. 117 Ibid, 127.

118 Pierre Nora, “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Memoire.” Representations no. 26 (1989): 7. JSTOR. 119 Michael Naumann, “Remembrance and Political Reality: Historical Consciousness in Germany After the Genocide,” New German Critique, no. 80 (Spring 2000): 25-26, JSTOR.

66 directors of the memorial. In addition to its visual appearance, the argument of location was also a major drawback for the memorials creators. When initially deciding where to erect the memorial, much debate arose on proper remembrance of the Holocaust and the felicitousness of the commemorative memorials location. The monument, a stone’s throw from the new Reichstag and from Hitler’s bunker, is unavoidably part of the story of Germany reborn. Some believe the monument is an essential and properly-placed part of the story; others, and I am one of them, opposed the location of a commemorative monument to victims of the Holocaust within such a narrative. Placing the monument in the heart of the national capital, geographically and metaphorically, also draws attention away from many original

and sensitive commemorative forms in Berlin and elsewhere in Germany.120 Many historians believed that a memorial located at such a historic location would take away the significance of other monumentalization forms of other memorials located throughout Germany. This argument is made by American historian and Professor of history at Yale University, Jay Winter. Professor Winter focusses primarily on the commemoration of World War One, however he does conduct research on commemoration in the 20th century, which often leads to research on Holocaust remembrance. In an article entitled, “The Generation of Memory: Reflections on the ‘Memory Boom’ in Contemporary Historical Studies,” published by Canadian Military History, he reflects on how best to remember the victims of the Holocaust by arguing that national memorials, like that of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, often become lost in the grand narrative of history and memory, much like that of historian ’s published material, Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust.121 Focussing on the national level of notation, in my view, wrongly configures the problem of how to remember the victims of the Holocaust. The alternative to a national monument is not nothing; indeed the array of local, small-scale commemorative forms are entirely consistent with the federal, regionalized, richly

120 Jay Winter, “The Generation of Memory: Reflections on the ‘Memory Boom’ in Contemporary Historical Studies,” Canadian Military History, 5th ser., 10, no. 3 (January 25, 2012): 58-59. 121 Daniel Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, (New York: Vintage Books, 1997).

67 complex nature of German cultural history, and helps show the multiplicity of meaning of remembrance, and indeed history, lost in grand national narratives like

that of Daniel Goldhagen.122 Professor Winter’s argues that by placing the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in the heart of the Berlin, problems arise in regards to the proper portrayal of commemoration to the victims. The issue of commemorating the victims of Nazi perpetration leads to the discussion of how best to exhibit the history of Nazi perpetration and the representation of the crimes committed by the German Third Reich during the time of the Second World War. Accepting the role Nazi Germans had in the mass murder of millions of people is still difficult for many Germans to come to terms with. Yet, upon the memorials construction, the argument of how best to authentically portray the events of the Holocaust in regards to commemoration, was not the only setback that the memorial originally faced, in terms of approaching and teaching about German brutality within the exhibit. The second challenge the memorial’s underground Information Center underwent was finding a way to connect the displayed information with other leading Holocaust museums, such as Yad Vashem and the USHMM, in a manner that coincided with global Holocaust education principles. Furthermore, the creators also needed to find a way to incorporate the events of the Holocaust into modern German history that corresponded and resonated with the people of Germany. Accepting the fact that Germany was the main perpetrator in the events of the Holocaust, German history will forever be tied to the history of the Holocaust. The second objection warns that a ‘House of Remembrance’ could create the mistaken impression that Germany was actually a ‘remembrance desert’ and that Israeli and American authorities had to be called in to get the project off the ground. No such help has been ‘summoned.’ However, these countries have a much older and obviously very different tradition than Germany’s, not only in regard to juridical efforts to confront the Holocaust, but also in terms of museum education. Of course we must consult with and learn from these countries. But the

122 Jay Winter, “The Generation of Memory: Reflections on the ‘Memory Boom’ in Contemporary Historical Studies,” Canadian Military History, 5th ser., 10, no. 3 (January 25, 2012): 58-59.

68 Berlin ‘House of Remembrance’ will have to develop an appropriate perspective of its own on German history — in collaboration with experts from other

memorial sites and the Jewish Museum.123 The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe was developed as a place of remembrance and as place for education for the upcoming generations, as the creators of the memorial worked hard to collaborate with other Holocaust museums in order to create an extensive database of information, where their research and resources could be used for future research and projects. Gerhard Schröder was Chancellor of Germany, When the memorial opened to the public in 2005, serving as Chancellor from the years of 1998 to 2005. Chancellor Schröder fully supported the construction of the memorial, and hoped that the people of Germany, and others from all around the world would choose to visit the site. The memorial was met with general acceptance upon its inauguration, and has managed to thrive as more and more people visit the site each year. Chancellor Schröder’s hope, much derided at the time, that the memorial might become a place ‘that people like to go to’ has been fulfilled from the onset, to a surprising extent. In the first month after the dedication alone, estimates by the monument foundation responsible suggest that at least sixty thousand people have visited the site; a good twenty thousand visited the Information Centre every day. No one can say how long this stream of visitors, this curiosity, will last. Undoubtedly, after the initial euphoria has subsided, caustic criticism and violent disapproval will start to mingle with the general acceptance. Nevertheless it is this harmony of political intention and popular acceptance at the moment of dedication that actually makes the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe into the reunited Germany’s first national monument.124 Upon its opening, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe has been met, for the most part, with praise from all who visited it, and has managed to accumulate praise and reverence as time

123 Michael Naumann, “Remembrance and Political Reality: Historical Consciousness in Germany After the Genocide,” New German Critique, no. 80 (Spring 2000): 26. JSTOR. 124 Klaus Frahm, Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, (Berlin: Nicolai, 2005), 17.

69 passes, becoming one of Berlin’s most visited sites. However, as stated by Klaus Frahm, it is hard to tell how long the “stream of visitors” will last. Yet this uncertainty can be applied towards most any monument, memorial, or museum that is constructed. One must hope that the general public continues to find interest in the subjects of the past, and that educators impress upon their students the importance of learning about and understanding history, as that is what will keep the visitors interested in visiting the memorial.

Representation of Nazi German Perpetrators

Depicting the Nazi perpetrators of the Holocaust within a museum can often times present a challenge. Doing so within a memorial dedicated to the victims of Nazi crimes in a commemoration space located in the heart of Germany, can become even more complicated. Professor James E. Young was appointed by the Berlin Senate to the five-member Findungskommission, in 1997. This position enabled him to have a voice in the development of

Germany’s National Holocaust Memorial, The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.125 He held that position throughout the development and creation of the memorial. Professor Young stated that; In Germany, there’s a real threat that the Holocaust, once commemorated on a national level, will in some ways be laid to rest. I fear that, in Germany's National Memorial process, the government’s main reason for creating a National Memorial to Europe’s murdered Jews in Berlin is to put a great gravestone over the 20th century – so that Germany can move on to the 21st century unencumbered by its terrible past. If that were the truth, I’d rather not see a single memorial. And being involved with it now, actually, I have lots of questions to ask of the government in the process.126

125 “James E. Young,” UMass Amherst, Department of English, Web. March 06, 2017. https://www.umass.edu/english/member/james-young. 126 Adi Gordon and Amos Goldberg, “Holocaust Monuments and Counter-Monuments: Excerpt from Interview with Professor James E. Young,” Shoah Resource Center, 8, Yad Vashem.

70 Professor Young, who has dedicated an extensive amount of time researching Holocaust memorials and monuments, discusses the trials faced by many museums and memorials in his text: The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memory and Meaning. He notes that in Germany, many monuments undergo endless amounts of scrutiny and debate by historians, scholars, and common civilians alike prior to their development, and continue throughout the development, and still the debate does not come to an end upon the completion of the project. Often, these institutions continue to face harsh scrutiny years after they have opened their doors to the public. Nonetheless, Holocaust memorial-work in Germany today remains a tortured, self-reflective, even paralyzing preoccupation. Every monument, at every turn, is endlessly scrutinized, explicated, and debated.127 This is most certainly the case regarding the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Having to appease a vast audience while also treading a thin-line between being overly harsh about the history of the event, but also not omitting information regardless of how difficult it might be to face it. One difficult tasks faced by the creators of the memorial was how best to portray the perpetrators of the Nazi genocide, as the memorial would be situated in the capital of Germany, home to many of the perpetrators of the Holocaust and their extended family. Given the state-sponsored monument’s traditional function as self-aggrandizing locus for national memory, the ambiguity of German memory comes as no surprise. After all, while the victors of history have long erected monuments to their triumphs and victims have build memorials to their martyrdom, only rarely does a nation call upon itself to remember the victims of crimes it has perpetrated. Where are the national monuments to the genocide of American Indians, to the millions of Africans enslaved and murdered, to the Russian kulaks and peasants starved to death by the millions? They barely exist.128

127 James E. Young, The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memory and Meaning, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 20. 128 Ibid, 21.

71 As discussed by Professor Young, Germany is one of the first nations to erect a monument to the victims of their own persecution. Furthermore, Germany is one of the first nations to try to apologize for their past misdoings, and to try to make amends with the victims. The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, along with its underground information center, promote Holocaust awareness and Holocaust education, and reserve the memory of the victims. It stands as a constant reminder about the tragic events that took place, and outlines the history of the event so that visitors can gather information on not only the victims, but also the events that led to their perpetration. While the information center mainly focuses on the story of the victims, it does outline the actions of the perpetrators, including the events they participated in and a few of the initiatives and pogroms they created. From its rise to power in 1933, the Nazi regime built a series of detention facilities to imprison and eliminate so-called ‘enemies of the state.’ Most prisoners in the early concentration camps were German Communists, Socialists, Social Democrats, Roma (Gypsies), Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, and persons accused of ‘asocial’ or socially deviant behavior. These facilities were called ‘concentration camps’ because those imprisoned there were physically ‘concentrated’ in one location.129 Visitors of the information center are introduced to the events of the Holocaust and World War Two by way of displayed information, such as timelines, photographs, and video recordings. These tools are used to explain the events of the Holocaust and to help educate the visitors so that they may walk away with a well rounded overview of knowledge about the perpetration of the European Jews. The timeline displayed within the information center focuses on the events of World War Two in Germany that ultimately led to the development of the Final Solution. The timeline gives information on the events of and continues to the construction of the concentration and death camps that the Jews were deported too. In March 1938 Germany annexed Austria and began arresting German and Austrian Jews. The German Nazis proceeded to imprison them in concentration camps throughout Germany, such as Dachau, Buchenwald, and

129 “Nazi Camps,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Web. January 02, 2017. https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005144.

72 Sachsenhausen. These events led to a pogrom in Germany called Kristallnacht, which in tern led to the arrest of adult male Jews who were deported to concentration camps in Germany.130 Kristallnacht, also known as Reichskristallnacht or the “Night of Broken Glass,” took place in Germany during the hours between November 9th and 10th, 1938.131 This event marked the beginning of mass violence against the Jews in Germany. Roughly four years after the events of Kristallnacht, the top German officials, led by , held a conference at the

Wannsee Villa in Berlin, Germany on January 20, 1942.132 In the text, Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews, German historian Peter Longerich explains that it was during this conference that the Nazis discussed the exact details of the Final Solution. The discussion included detailed plans on how they were going to initiate the rounding-up and mass- murder of the European Jews. Then the conference participants went a step further, and discussed the question of how the Jews in the General Government and the occupied Soviet territories were actually to be ‘removed’ — in other words they talked in concrete terms about the method for murder: ‘In the concluding stages different possible solutions were discussed. Both Gauleiter Dr Meyer [the representative of the Eastern Ministry] and State Secretary Dr Bühler argued that certain preliminary measures for the final solution should immediately be taken in the relevant area itself, although in

such a way as to avoid causing disquiet among the local population.133 The Wannsee conference is discussed in one of the first displays in the center, and is an important point of discussion as it was there that the Nazi officials put into place the exact details of the persecution of the European Jews. The first room in the information center, entitled “The Foyer,” introduces the visiting students to a large glass encased exhibit featuring a timeline of

130 Ibid. 131 Peter Longerich, Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 109-113.

132 Doris L. Bergen, War and Genocide: A Concise History of the Holocaust, (New York: Rowan & Littlefield Publishers Inc, 2009), 164. 133 Peter Longerich, Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 309.

73 events. “The exhibition starts with an overview of the National Socialist terror policy between 1933 and 1945.”134 Beginning with the rise of Adolf Hitler, and expanding through to the way the German nation conformed to his rule, the development of the Third Reich and the implementations and propaganda they, the German nation, bestowed upon the Jews of Europe. Finally, when attempting to document the mass murder of the Jews, the information center dedicated an entire room, entitled “Information Portal to European Sites of Remembrance,” which depicts the history of the perpetration and murder of European Jews by displaying a map with the location of all of the concentration camps, work camps, and death camps that the Nazis operated during the time of World War Two. Using the intelligence of historian Raul Hilberg, the major camps operating in Germany were; Dachau, the first camp opened in Germany, Bergen- Belsen, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen. These concentration camps were responsible for roughly 150,000 deaths in total.135 Additionally, the Nazis constructed six major Death Camps, all of which were located in German-occupied Poland, and were collectively responsible for the mass murder of roughly 5,100,000 Jews between the years of 1941 through 1945. These camps include; Auschwitz, Treblinka, Bełżec, Sobibór, Kulmhof (Chełmno), and Lublin.136 All of these camps are discussed within the information center, and information about each of the camps is available through their digital catalogs, and via displays found in the final rooms of the center.

The Murdered Jews of Europe

In its creation, the sole purpose of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe was to commemorate the Jewish victims of Nazi perpetration. With this in mind, the German government choose to have two additional memorials in the surrounding area constructed that specifically commemorate the Homosexual and Gypsy victims of Nazi perpetration. These two separate monuments compensate for the lack of information pertaining to these victims in the

134 Stiftung Denkmal für die Ermordeten Juden Europas: Foyer,” Foyer, Web, March 07, 2017. https:// www.stiftung-denkmal.de/en/exhibitions/information-centre/prelude.html#c138.

135 Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1985), 338. 136 Ibid, 338.

74 underground information center of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The Memorial to Homosexuals Persecuted Under Nazism was created by Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset, and opened to the public on May 27, 2008. The memorial was part of an initiative created by the Lesbian and Gay Federation of Germany (LSVD), who felt strongly about having a memorial site commemorating the hardships they faced under Hitlers Nazi Regime. The artists have adopted the formal language of the Holocaust Memorial, adding an element: through a small square window the spectator can see a film depicting a kiss. It serves both as a memorial to the homosexual victims of National Socialism and as a lasting symbol against exclusion, intolerance and animosity towards gays and lesbians. The Memorial was built in accordance with a resolution of the German Bundestag… It was initiated by the ‘Remember the Homosexual Victims of National Socialism’ initiative and the Lesbian and Gay Federation of Germany (LSVD).137 The Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Victims of National Socialism was created by Dani Karavan, and was opened to the public on October, 24, 2012. Chancellor Angela Merkel attended the inauguration and presented a speech to the attending audience. This project was carried out through the initiatives of the German Central Council of Sinti and Roma.138 In 1992, the German government decided to erect a national memorial to the murdered European Sinti and Roma who were persecuted as Gypsies. The Memorial by artist Dani Karavan consists of a well with a retractable stone on which a fresh flower is placed daily. Panels present information on the

137 “Stiftung Denkmal für die Ermordeten Juden Europas: Memorial to the Homosexuals Persecuted under the National Socialist Regime,” The Memorial to the Homosexuals Persecuted under the National Socialist Regime, Web, February 02, 2017. http://www.stiftung-denkmal.de/en/memorials/memorial-to- the-homosexuals-persecuted-under-the-national-socialist-regime.html#c948. 138 Chris Cottrell, “Memorial to Roma Holocaust Victims Opens in Berlin,” The New York Times, October 24, 2012, Web, January 11, 2017. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/25/world/europe/memorial-to- romany-victims-of-holocaust-opens-in-berlin.html.

75 persecution and mass murder of this minority under the National Socialist regime of terror.139 In conjunction with the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, the two memorials commemorate the two individual groups who found themselves targeted and victimized by Nazi policies and discrimination against those they identified as “un-pure” in Hitler’s Germany, during the time of the Second World War. The combination of the three memorials signify the commemoration and remembrance to all of the people who fell victim to the Nazi Germans throughout the duration of World War Two. When trying to create a memorial that commemorates over 5 million victims who were murdered during the Holocaust, the creators of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe felt that personalizing the stories of some of the victims was the best way to establish a permanent connection with the visitor. For example, the first room the visitor enters in the information center is known as the “Foyer.” The “Foyer” is a long rectangular room where visitors are introduced to a timeline on the history of the Holocaust. At the end of the room, right before the entry to the next room, is a large photograph showing the faces of 6 victims, varying in age and gender. The creators of the information center felt strongly that the faces that were to be displayed should be unknown, as in unfamiliar faces in the history of the Holocaust. They specifically decided against displaying famous faces of the Holocaust, such as Anne Frank, Primo Levi, or Elie Wiesel, because they did not want the viewers to associate the information that they would learn within the memorial, to one specific person. Each room inside the information center focuses on a different aspect of the trials faced by the victims of the Holocaust. These rooms include the “Room of Dimensions” which focuses on the trials faced by the victims during deportation and imprisonment. In this room visitors are presented with the number and statistics of Jewish victims from each of the European countries invaded, controlled, or occupied by the Germans during the war. Upon the floor, visitors view illuminated quotes by Jewish victims desperately trying to pass along final messages or farewells to their families,

139 “Stiftung Denkmal für die Ermordeten Juden Europas: Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Murdered under the National Socialist Regime,” Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Murdered under the National Socialist Regime, Web, February 02, 2017. http://www.stiftung-denkmal.de/en/memorials/sinti-and-roma- memorial.html#c952.

76 often time left behind in clothing or thrown from passing trains. These quotes have been collected throughout the years and compiled into databases used by institutions and memorials, like that of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The next room in the information center entitled, the “Room of Families” focuses on the victims family life lives prior to and after the time of the Holocaust. This room utilizes the fate of 15 different Jewish families to demonstrate to the viewers what life was like for the Jews of Europe before, during, and after the time of the Holocaust by way of photographs, personal objects, and quotes about their experiences. Following the “Room of Families” visitors of the information center would then move into the “Rooms of Names” which focuses on the individual lives of the victims prior to, during, and sometimes after, the time of the Holocaust. Upon entering the room visitors find a dark, only slightly illuminated room with several benches. In this room visitors sit and listen to testimonies of Jewish victims, hearing voices representing different ages and genders, giving accounts of their experiences of the Holocaust. These testimonies include texts from memoirs, messages passed in secret to their loved ones, and sometimes personal memories of survivors. Finally, visitors of the information center enter the “Room of Sites” which focuses on the general events of the Holocaust. In this room visitors are presented with information on the events of the Holocaust. This information would include facts on Jewish in Europe, concentration and death camps, mass shootings, deportation routes, and death marches. Photographs and audio commentary portray information to the visitors to help them better comprehend the information being presented to them. Additionally, the information center includes a Video Archive known as the “Voices of Survival,” which encourages visitors to engage in the documentation of over 150 video interviews of survivors. These tools allow visitors to intellectually connect with their visit to the memorial, and to walk away with a broad understanding of the events of the Holocaust and the Second World War, while also indirectly learning about the primary role the German nation had in the overall events of the Holocaust. The information center brings the history the Holocaust closer to the visiting audiences by giving an accurate description of the events surrounding the Holocaust, and by attempting to give a voice to the victims by sharing their stories with the audience, which ultimately helps the visitors to connect to the individuals to whom the memorial is dedicated.

77 Following the Wannsee conference on January 20, 1942, the Nazi Germans continued their task of identifying and rounding up Jews, and expanded their efforts to include the deportation of over 5 million European Jews from their home countries to concentration camps located mainly in Poland and Germany. Their goal of aryanizing Europe did not stop at the elimination of Jews from Europe, but expanded to include Gypsies (often times referred to as Roma or Sinti), Homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and other groups seen as, or classified as, “un-pure” in the eyes of the Germans. However, the persecution of the Jews of Europe began long before the year of 1942. Starting as early as the year 1933, the Germans had begun their pursuit of the isolation and persecution of the European Jews. The persecution of the European Jews developed from propaganda and the anti-Semitism that stemmed from it. While anti- Semitism had been a problem in Europe in the past, nothing could prepare the Jewish people for what was to come between the years of 1933 through 1945. Their oppression began with boycotts against their local businesses, and led to them having their rights violated and eventually taken away. Following these trials, the destruction of their property and personal belongings began, and finally they faced deportation from their home countries. The information center beneath the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe outlines the hardships faced by the Jews in a unique manner. The creators behind the information center strived to have the visitors make a personal connection with the victims by displaying personal information about individual victims; such as their story, their last words, or information about their families and life before the war. In portraying the history of the Holocaust, the memorial remains solely dedicated to remembering the victims who perished at the hands of the Nazis. Many of the rooms in the underground information center focus solely on the remembrance of the victims of National Socialism, such as the “Room of Names,” the “Room of Dimensions,” and the “Room of Families.” In searching out the means by which the memories of mass trauma and violence are preserved and recorded, a balance must be struck between the documentation of terror and the representation of humanity in the aftermath of genocide. While the former may act as a warning for future generations, such a warning will have

78 little efficacy if the frames of commemoration dehumanize the subject and denigrate the memory of those who can no longer speak for or represent

themselves.140 The creators behind the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe endeavor to memorialize the victims of the Holocaust with as much dignity as possible. Within the displays presented in the information center, you will find that none of the photographs show images with nude victims, or piles of deceased bodies. The curators of the memorial made it their main goal to commemorate the victims with as much grace as possible, while not taking away from the lesson of what hatred and prejudice against a targeted group of people can lead to. However, in reference to the memorial itself, Michael Naumann quotes architect Peter Eisenman in his article “Remembrance and Political Reality,” saying; To cite the architect Peter Eisenman: The scope and scale of the Holocaust inevitably render futile all attempts to represent it by traditional means. In remembering the Holocaust, there can be no place for nostalgia.141 Notwithstanding the large number of annual visitors the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe receives each year, and regardless of the positive feedback many have had for the memorial, the concept and originality of the memorial seems to always be surrounded by debate among historians and scholars alike when it comes to specifics such as the memorials location, design, and title. However, in regards to properly commemorating the victims of National Socialism, the underground information center does a magnificent job of giving personality to the victims it commemorates by way of photographs, documentation, and audio commentary; despite the negative criticism the memorial receives during its initial concept and design.

140 Janet Jacobs, Memorializing the Holocaust: Gender, Genocide, and Collective Memory, (London: I.B. Tauris, 2010), 156. 141 Michael Naumann, “Remembrance and Political Reality: Historical Consciousness in Germany After the Genocide,” New German Critique, no. 80 (Spring 2000): 24, JSTOR.

79 Ordinary German Bystanders

Through the initiatives of the Ministry of Propaganda, German activists which consisted of “Ordinary German” civilians and organized parties, carried out a series of anti-Jewish crimes throughout Germany starting in the late-1930s. These crimes consisted of the destruction of Jewish synagogues and Jewish owned businesses. One of the first pogroms, known as Kristallnacht, took place in 1938 and marked the widespread discrimination against the Jews in Germany.142 German bystanders were accomplices in Kristallnacht. It was a State ordered pogrom, and bystanders did not protest, but instead actively participated. The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe recognizes the significance of the Kristallnacht event by hosting exhibits on the remembrance and commemoration of the event in conjunction with the Topography of Terror Museum and the Jewish Museum Berlin. Their most recent exhibit on Kristallnacht entitled, Fire! 75 Years after Kristallnacht in November 1938, marked the 75th anniversary of the event.143 The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe distinguishes Kristallnacht as an important part of Holocaust history and memory and references the event in many of the main exhibits throughout the information center. Beginning in the late 1950s commemoration events began taking place in Germany to honor the victims of the crimes carried out by the German government and the German bystanders. These commemoration ceremonies coincide with the role and values set forth by the creators of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, as both commemoration ceremonies and memorials are developed with the initiatives of remembering and honoring the victims of a tragic event. As a yearly event, Kristallnacht commemorations began in Germany in the 1950s when surviving Jewish populations, primarily in East Germany, annually recalled

142 Peter Longerich, Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 109-113. 143 “Stiftung Denkmal für die Ermordeten Juden Europas: Fire! 75 Years after Kristallnacht in November 1938,” Fire! 75 Years after Kristallnacht in November 1938, Web, March 07, 2017. https://www.stiftung- denkmal.de/en/exhibitions/fire-75-years-after-kristallnacht-in-november-1938.html.

80 the 1938 attacks against synagogues, Jewish-owned businesses, and Jewish citizens. By the late 1970s, with the growing visibility of the Holocaust in German society, Kristallnacht assumed an increasingly important role, having been identified as the tragic turning point in German history, when violence against the Jews became legitimated and sponsored by the Nazi state.144 The commemoration of events pertaining to the Holocaust, such as the liberation of Auschwitz, now known as Holocaust Remembrance Day, take place across the world annually, but none other like that in Germany. The commemoration and recognition of Holocaust events, play an important role in the acceptance and admission of responsibility for the role that many German bystanders had in perpetration of the European Jews during the time of the Second World War. In Germany, the narrative of the Holocaust and how it is passed on from one generation to another depends on various factors. There are official politics and ceremonies on Holocaust Remembrance Day on 27 January and on the Kristallnacht Remembrance Day, 9 November. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989, the latter has been observed mainly by the Jewish community.145 The information center of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, for example, must find a way to diligently cover all aspects of the events of the Holocaust, as difficult as the topic might be, including the concept of German bystanders as accomplices to the perpetration of European Jews. The role ordinary bystanders had in the events of the Second World War, is often a sensitive subject in German classrooms, as many German families strongly oppose having had any part in the events of the Holocaust, and this is the information they pass on to their children. German historian Susanne Urban specializes in counteracting anti-Semitism. Dr. Urban’s background in led her to pursue positions at the Jewish Museum in Frankfurt and Yad Vashem. In an article published by the Jewish Political Studies Review, Dr. Urban explains that the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe is an excellent resource for

144 Janet Jacobs, Memorializing the Holocaust: Gender, Genocide, and Collective Memory, (London: I.B. Tauris, 2010), 85. 145 Susanne Y. Urban, “At Issue: Representations of the Holocaust in Today’s Germany: Between Justification and Empathy,” Jewish Political Studies Review 20, no. 1/2 (Spring 2008): 79, JSTOR.

81 educators, as it covers the complete narrative of the Holocaust as in the role of the victims, perpetrators, and the bystanders. The information accessible to the public in the memorials underground information center gives the statistics and numbers of the victims; how many were deported from their home countries, how many did not survive the camps, the estimated number of deaths at each camp, and how many survived, etc. This information is also valuable in regard to German participation of the persecution of the Jews, in that it shows the scale of how German bystanders aided in the perpetration of the Jews. Additionally, the memorial also lists the “Honored Righteous Among the Nation” which helps to show an average of how many German civilians actually chose to help their Jewish neighbors. Dr. Urban uses the text Opa War Kein Nazi (Grandpa Wasn’t a Nazi), for the percentages below. The research behind the text, Opa War Kein Nazi was conducted by the Psychological Institute of the University of Hanover which was sponsored by the Volkswagen Foundation.146 The figures below reflect the image of German society from the standpoint of today’s narratives: 26 percent of Germans helped persecuted people. 13 percent of Germans were active in the resistance. Around 9 percent of Germans prayed for the persecuted. 17 percent of Germans always openly objected to Nazi propaganda. Only 1 percent of Germans were involved in crimes and only 3 percent were anti-Semites.147 Based on the statistics provided by Dr. Urban, it is evident that many Germans feel that the perpetrators and bystanders consisted of a small majority, and that the role many “Ordinary Germans” had in the overall events of the Holocaust was minimal. Meaning that it is hard for students to understand that, for example, train drivers and police officers can both be considered ordinary German bystanders who assisted in the deportation, and ultimately, mass murder of the European Jews.

146 Christelle Le Faucheur, “Review of Welzer, Harald; Moller, Sabine; Tschuggnall, Karoline, “Opa war kein Nazi”: Nationalsozialismus und Holocaust im Familiengedächtnis.” H-Net Reviews, (April, 2004): http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=9159. 147 Susanne Y. Urban, “At Issue: Representations of the Holocaust in Today's Germany: Between Justification and Empathy,” Jewish Political Studies Review 20, no. 1/2 (Spring 2008): 86-87, JSTOR.

82 According to this outlook, anti-Semites, perpetrators, and bystanders were a tiny minority—the ‘other,’ not oneself. It is therefore not surprising that books by, for example, Peter Longerich, Otto Doc Kulka and Eberhard Jäckel, or Robert Gellately on the bystanders, the pressure from the German people themselves for more anti-Jewish laws, and so on are not bestsellers, whereas author Jörg Friedrich with his comparisons between the bombing of German cities and the

crematories of Auschwitz has sold tens of thousands of copies.148 Dr. Susanne Urban argues that German students largely attribute the events of the Holocaust to the actions of Hitler, and that the “Ordinary Germans” had no choice but to obey the decrees set forth by Hitler and his party during the time of the Second World War. When discussing the events of , many Germans argue that had the bystanders, or average citizens, disobeyed the orders set forth by their government, the repercussions could have included being sent to a concentration camp, or worse, the possibly of death via execution, making resistance impossible.149 The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe represents the actions of German bystanders in the events of the Holocaust by displaying photographs of German SS men in the “Foyer” room, as well as in the “Information Portal of European Sites of Remembrance” room. In addition, the information center uses audio testimonies of victims who describe their experiences with SS soldiers in the camps and with their German neighbors, giving accounts of Germans who betrayed them, or in some cases, memories of Germans who in some form or another attempted to give them aid. In reality, after 1933 and above all during the war, nearly every German family engaged in profiteering by obtaining furniture, clothes, even cutlery, and so on from the storerooms where the property of the deported and murdered European Jews was piling up. But such facts and even knowledge are pushed aside. Instead, ‘alibis are adopted. Excuses are internalized.’150

148 Ibid, 87.

149 Ibid, 87. 150 Ibid, 87-88.

83 American historian, Christopher Browning argues in his text, The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939 - March 1942, that many Germans showed little interest in the operations of the German government in regard to Jewish policies during the time of the Second World War. Browning argues that “Ordinary Germans” did not oppose the programs and regulations set forth for the Jews by their administrations, nor did it effect their overall personal opinion of their government. Among the German population there was virtually no sign of dismay or even interest concerning the deportations. There was no political cost to the popularity of the regime.151 Christopher Browning uses the intelligence of historians, Ian Kershaw, Otto Dov Kulka, and David Bankier to assist in his research on the participation of “Ordinary German” bystanders. Using the arguments and opinions of these historians, Browning explains the standpoints of the German bystanders and civilians throughout the years of World War Two.152 Bankier emphasizes a greater sense of guilt and shame among Germans, wide- spread denial and repression, and a growing fear over the consequences of impending defeat and a commensurate rejection of the regime’s anti-Semitic propaganda.153 Christopher Browning goes on to state that the three scholars agree on the fact that while many Germans believed in the cause, a large portion of the German population did not share the commitment to the genocide of the Jews, the way that other “true believers” did. The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe incorporates the notion of “Ordinary German” bystanders as being accomplices throughout a majority of the exhibits, while the notion of German bystanders as being indifferent is not heavily discussed within the center. This can be attributed to the fact that the center mainly focuses on the story of the victim, while only providing a small narrative of information, within the main exhibition, that pertains to the German perpetrators and

151 Christopher R. Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939 - March 1942, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004), 388.

152 Ibid, 388. 153 Ibid, 388.

84 bystanders. The center focuses mainly on how the victims were treated by the perpetrators and bystanders, with a specific focus on statistics and major historical episodes important to the overall events of the Holocaust. However, the information center does cover the development and spread of anti-Semitism in Germany and attributes the spark of anti-Semitism as the stepping stones used by Hitler to plan the destruction of European Jewry. Christopher Browning argues that while anti-Semitism was widespread in Germany, “Ordinary German” bystanders did not want to participate, or be personally involved, with the mass murder of the European Jews.154 Kershaw concludes that while the ‘depersonalization of the Jews had been the real success story of Nazi propaganda and policy,’ nonetheless ‘the ‘’ was of no more than minimal interest to the vast majority of Germans during the war years… Kershaw summed up his position in the memorable phrase that ‘the road to Auschwitz was built by hatred, but paved with indifference.155 Ian Kershaw argues that the indifference many “Ordinary Germans” displayed during the years of war, was equally as significant to the fate of the Jews of Europe as that of being physically involved with the deportation and mass murder of the Jews. Additionally, David Bankier attributes the success of the Nazi party being able to carryout the deportation and mass murder of the Jewish people to the fact that the “Ordinary German” civilians showed no interest in what was happening to the Jews, nor did they inquire about their fate.156 From 1941 onwards, the failure of Nazi promises to materialize drove a wedge between the population and the regime… declining hopes of victory and spiraling presentiments of a bitter end issued in a move to distance themselves from propaganda in general and from the Jewish issue in particularly… Ordinary Germans knew how to distinguish between an acceptable discrimination… and the unacceptable horror of genocide… the more the news of mass murder filtered

154 Ibid, 388-389.

155 Ibid, 389. 156 Ibid, 389.

85 through, the less the public wanted to be involved in the final solution of the Jewish question.157 The permanent exhibits in the underground information center, portray German bystanders as accomplices in the events of the Holocaust. The exhibits feature photographs taken during the 1930s and 1940s in Germany, historical documents collected from institutions such as the Wannsee conference, and victim testimonies to paint a picture for the visitors on how German bystanders aided in the State issued pogroms, round-ups, and deportations of their Jewish neighbors during the time of the Third Reich. The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe plays a crucial role in combating the argument that “Ordinary German” bystanders in Germany played a “minimal” role in the events of the Holocaust, as many Germans would argue. Through the initiatives of extensive research and education, the underground information center documents the events of the Holocaust, as well as the role many German bystanders had in the events ,promoting the argument made by Christopher Browning on the role of “Ordinary German,” which can be seen within the exhibits in the information center. This information confirms the study and research on the roles “Ordinary German” bystanders had in the events of the Second World War, and the Holocaust. Further combating the popular opinion that “Ordinary Germans” resisted, or, played a minor role in the perpetration of the European Jews. The underground information center, in conjunction with the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, portrays the history of German Bystanders within their exhibit in the main “Foyer” which displays a timeline beginning with the rise of Adolf Hitler, ascending through the years of the Second World War, and ending with the liberation of the concentration camps. With the help of additional exhibits throughout the information center, and the many archives accessible to the visitors, those wishing to explore the role of German bystanders in the Second World War will find that the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe has a plethora of information to aid in their research.

157 Ibid, 389-390.

86 Conclusion

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe is a memorial that aims to commemorate the tragic events of the Holocaust. However, since before its official inauguration, the memorial has undergone scrutiny from the academic world and its surrounding community, making the task of creating a memorial space that respectably represents the Jewish victims of the Holocaust difficult. With the additional memorials in the surrounding area, the Memorial to Homosexuals Persecuted Under Nazism and the Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Victims of National Socialism the underground information center is further able to characterize the victims of National Socialism in a manner that is befitting to both the historical narrative of the events of the Holocaust, as well as to the memory of the deceased. Many concepts adopted in the creation of the memorial display a sense of determination to combat historical inaccuracies on the outlook of the German nation coming to terms with their acceptance of the role they played in the perpetration of the European Jews. All that is partway certain is that the Holocaust Memorial, like all memorials, will speak at least as audibly about the intentions of those who built it as it will about the victims of the genocide it is intended to remind us of. Perhaps that is the central message that the memorial carries: that the German Federal Republic, sixty years after the end of the war, after a difficult but necessary and ultimately also illuminating historical and political debate about the symbolic and artistic treatment of German guilt and responsibility, has decided to make an extensive site available in the centre of its capital, Berlin, and to build a Memorial to the

Murdered Jews of Europe there.158 Thus, can it not be argued that the positive attributes of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe consist of promoting Holocaust education which then fights against the manipulation of memory and other forms of ? James Young reflects in his text At Memory’s Edge: After-Images of the Holocaust Contemporary Art and Architecture, the memorials impossible task of trying to commemorate the victims of National Socialism.

158 Klaus Frahm, Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, (Berlin: Nicolai, 2005), 15.

87 We had hoped for a memorial that would evolve over time to reflect every generation’s preoccupations, the kinds of significance every generation will find in the memory of Europe’s murdered Jews. In this memorial, which insists on its incompleteness, its working through of an intractable problem over any solution, we found a memorial that was as suggestive in its complex conception as it was eloquent in its formal design. As such, it came as close to being adequate to Germany’s impossible task as is humanly possible. This is finally all we could ask of Germany’s national attempt to commemorate the Nazis’ murder of European Jewry.159 Professor Young recognizes both the positive and negative attributes of the memorial and argues that while the memorial has its downfalls, it has also taken on the impossible task of attempting to reconcile with the tragic events of the past brought on by the Hitler’s regime, by promoting Germany’s newfound sense of collective remembrance. In the catalog produced by Klaus Frahm and the memorial, Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Frahm sites the research and initiative of James Young as reference to Germany’s attempt to reconcile with its past misdoings. The American Judaist James E. Young wrote in the late nineties that no other nation had ever attempted to ‘reunite on the story subsoil of the memory of its crime, or to place the remembrance of these crimes in the geographic centre of its capital,’ thus precisely identifying both the project’s objective dilemma and its enormous ambitions.160 Thus, it can be concluded that the biggest dilemma in regards to the construction and development of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, was how the German nation could best succeed in redressing for the crimes committed by the Nazis during the time of the Second World War. Like no other nation in the world, Germany is compelled to confront its recent past, to come to terms with this unique chapter of history. To suggest that they or

159 James E. Young, At Memory’s Edge: After-Images of the Holocaust Contemporary Art and Architecture, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 216. 160 Klaus Frahm, Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, (Berlin: Nicolai, 2005), 6-7.

88 their governments are still shying away from this truth would be mistaken. There are, for example, some 4,000 publicly subsidized museums in the country.161 The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, in conjunction with its underground information center and surrounding memorials dedicated to the Homosexual and Gypsy victims of the Holocaust, give visitors the opportunity to learn more about the events of the Holocaust. The underground information center covers the main events of the Holocaust such as the rise of Adolf Hitler and development of the Third Reich, the initial rejection of the Jews from German society, the events and pogroms against the Jews that took place throughout Germany prior to the onset of the Second World War, the creation of the “Final Solution” during the Wannsee conference, the round-up and deportation of the Jews, and finally the extermination of the Jews of Europe. This information is portrayed through exhibits with written texts, photographs, and personal testimonies form the victims. The creators of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe aimed to create an educational institution where visitors could come to learn and reflect on the events of the Holocaust, with the hope of giving visitors an educational experience that would stay with them long into the future. The creators aimed to create a memorial that would continue to have a lasting impact on those who visit it, and to present them with an educational experience that would not fade years later, due to a personal connection visitors would associate with the photographs and testimonies they encountered during their visit. The aspect of creating a memorial site that visitors could personally connect with, is what sets the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe apart from other memorials. This is not to say that other memorials do not invoke a sense of personal connection, rather the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe was created with the sole purpose of not focusing on one specific individual, by connecting the history of the Holocaust to several different victims of varying ages, nationalities, and genders in the hope of making a personal connection with all who visit the site, while also honoring the memory of all the victims who lost their lives in the Holocaust.

161 Michael Naumann, “Remembrance and Political Reality: Historical Consciousness in Germany After the Genocide,” New German Critique, no. 80 (Spring 2000): 21, JSTOR.

89 “Never shall I forget” — Elie Wiesel (Night, 1956)

Conclusion: The Role of National Holocaust Museums Today

In discovering whether each of the museums address the question of ultimate German responsibility for the deportation of the Jews, and admit to the downfall of their countries actions in specific regard to the events of the Holocaust during the time of the Second World War, this dissertation aimed to discover how complicity in Belgium was discussed within the Kazerne Dossin Memorial museum, how complicity in France was discussed within the Mémorial de la Shoah, and how compliance and responsibility for the actions of the Holocaust in Germany is addressed within the information center below the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. In surveying the way each of the museums and memorials discuss German responsibility for the deportation and internment of European Jews, as well as how bystanders from each country are portrayed as either accomplices or as rescuers within the museum, this dissertation inspired to give an account of how the Kazerne Dossin Memorial Museum, the Mémorial de la Shoah, and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe represented the Nazi occupation of their country and the role in which bystanders from each of the respective nations, are portrayed within the main exhibits and throughout each of the museums and information centers. The Kazerne Dossin focuses mainly on the events of the Second World War and the Holocaust from a Belgian standpoint. The museum portrays the role Belgian bystanders had in the deportation of Belgian Jews, and emphasizes the immoral suffering of the Belgian Jews from the years of German occupation onward throughout the war. Additionally, the museum discusses the fact that it was through complicity with the German occupants that the actions against the Jews took place in Belgium. The Mémorial de la Shoah portrays the events of the Second World War and the Holocaust from a French perspective, however the museum goes into far more detail about the events of the Second world War than that of the Kazerne Dossin Memorial Museum and the Memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe. This could partially be due to the fact that the Mémorial de la Shoah is fully dedicated to covering the events of the Holocaust and does not go

90 into detail about events that do not pertain to the Second World War and events of the Holocaust. The museum narrates the entire story in a timeline like fashion beginning with the rise of Adolf Hitler and ends with the . The museum goes into detail about French complicity with the German occupants, and give examples of what life was like for the French Jews during the time of the Second World War beginning with life before the rise of Hitler, expanding throughout the years of the war, and ending with the liberation of the concentration camps and the ending of the War. Finally, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe focuses mainly on the trials faced by the Jews of Europe during the time of World War Two. The information center portrayed the history of the Holocaust through the voices and stories of the victims of the Holocaust by displaying personal notes, photographs, and testimonies collected after the years of the War. Three of the five rooms that makeup the information center are entirely dedicated to the victims while the other two rooms display information about the rise of Hitler, the development of anti- semitism in Europe, the formation of the Third Reich, and the development of concentration camps throughout Europe. Arguably, out of the three museums the Mémorial de la Shoah covered the events of the German occupation of France, French compliance with the German occupants, and the role in which French bystanders participated in the events of the Holocaust to the fullest extent. This is not to say that the Kazerne Dossin museum did not accurately discuss the Belgian aspect of the war, or that the information center of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe did not accurately discuss German responsibility for the events of the Holocaust, but that the Mémorial de la Shoah covered the most information from a well-rounded historical view. The Mémorial de la Shoah’s museum catalog had the most information on the events of the Holocaust, and illustrated the entire history of the Holocaust in Europe providing pictures, sources, and background information on the materials discussed within the museum, whereas the other two catalogs focused only on what is displayed within the memorial or museum. In addition to the extensive catalog, the museum presents its viewers with more exhibits and information than either of the other two institutions.

91 The research conducted by James Young and Jacques Fredj was preferred in this dissertation due to the information they presented on the development and functioning’s of national Holocaust memorials and museums in Europe and throughout the world. Through the various literature of James Young, who has produced a vast amount of literature and research on Holocaust memorials, museums, and memory can be further explored in specific relation to individual museums and memorials. The ideas and theories presented by James Young in his literature were an invaluable asset to the development of this dissertation, because he not only explores the importance of Holocaust memory, but he also compares memorials from various worldwide locations. James Young discusses memorials that have been constructed on historical sites as well as memorials and museums that have been constructed for the sole purpose of teaching about the events of the Holocaust in places far away from where the events took place. Professor Young’s literature helped to develop the way in which each of the museums discussed within this dissertation were viewed and analyzed upon personal visitations, and it was through his methods and theories on the role memorials and museums have in todays society and the way in which they are integrated into the culture of today that this dissertation was developed. In the text, The Texture of Memory, Professor Young discusses the importance of Holocaust memorials and museums and how they relate to Holocaust remembrance. Professor Young’s extensive research on Holocaust memory and memorialization provided the knowledge and understanding of the role national Holocaust museums and memorials have in a countries history and society, reflected in this dissertation. Professor Young’s text also explores the ambiguity of memory of Holocaust memorial sites in Germany reflecting that; For a nation’s impulse to memorialize its own crimes is difficult to sustain and is almost always imposed as a certain kind of penance from without. When memory and penance are linked, however, what happens when the greatest burden of penance — Germany’s division — is removed? It is likely that without the wall as a punitive reminder, Germany will become a little more like other nations: its

national institutions will recall primarily its own martyrs and triumphs?162

162 James E. Young, The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memory and Meaning, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 25-26.

92 The ideas and theories presented by Professor Young on Holocaust remembrance and the way a nation memorializes its past was the foundation of this dissertation. This thesis endeavored to discover the way in which NHM portrayed the perpetrators, victims, and bystanders of their nation within their national institution and the work of James Young provided insight on how these institutions are developed and constructed, as well as the role they are meant to play in their nation’s society upon their inauguration. Furthermore, museum director Jacques Fredj explains that museums are vitally important to the continual development of education in Holocaust studies. They play an influential role in educating their surrounding community, and the visitors they receive, on the events of the Holocaust. Additionally, national Holocaust museums and memorials play an important role in educating their home nation on the role their country had in the events surrounding the Holocaust and World War Two. From the late 1970s, the Holocaust was documented in several research projects and figured increasingly in cinema, theater, and literature. In this context, by the late 1980s, the acknowledgment of the Jewish genocide and its integration into European history transformed commemorative sites into historical museums of the Holocaust. Major museums have opened all over the world, hoping to raise awareness among younger generations about the history of the Holocaust.163 The continual expansion of Holocaust memorials and NHM in Europe and across the world, not only help to raise awareness on the events of the Holocaust, but also aid in the development and distribution of other education tools; such as documentaries, literature, and films. Many memorials and museums house documents used by scholars for research purposes, such as that of the Mémorial de la Shoah, and obtain data that is used in the research by those looking to produce updated literature and documentaries. The arguments and theories presented by Dr. Herman Van Goethem and Klaus Frahm were at times impaired in their portrayal of the institutions covered in their literature. This is not to say that their research was inadequate, but more so incomplete in that these authors did not give a complete details of the institutions for which they produced the catalog. For example, the catalog produced by Klaus Frahm for the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe gives very

163 Jacques Fredj, The Jews of France During the Holocaust, (France: Gallimard, 2011), 200.

93 little information about the underground information center, and even less about what the underground information center portrays. The catalog does not discuss the various rooms within the underground information center in full detail and does not discuss the history of the events of the Holocaust like the other two catalogs do. The catalog focuses most of its entirety on the development and construction of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, giving little mention to the other two memorials constructed in conjunction with the Memorial to the

Murdered Jews of Europe.164 It is the method of description, or lack thereof, used by the two authors that is the main point of dispute. In addition to their defense of the overall functioning of the museums and memorials discussed in their literature, both Dr. Van Goethem and Klaus Frahm fail to provide information on some of the exhibits in the museums within the museums catalog. For example, Dr. Herman Van Goethem supports the decision to make Belgium’s NHM function as both a Holocaust museum and a Human Rights museum. While this initiative derived from a positive ambition, the way in which it was executed by the creators of the Kazerne Dossin is somewhat disorienting to the visitors, and ultimately takes away from the performance of the museum. Many of the exhibits that Dr. Van Goethem supports in his literature do not fit well into the museum; for example, the photograph of the Tomorrowland event. Dr. Van Goethem supports the photographs and exhibits used in the museum, and even played a deciding role in choosing to display many of the exhibits. Upon visiting the museum it became clear that some of the Human Rights exhibits within Belgium’s NHM did not add to the educational experience of the visitors, rather they leave the visitors questioning the purpose and role they serve within the museum. As mentioned before, it is not Dr. Van Goethem’s research and theories that are being disputed, rather his defense of the overall functioning of the museum as both a National Holocaust museum and Human Rights museum in its current state. In regards to Klaus Frahm whom, while not a Holocaust scholar, created the catalog for the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in which he documented the construction and development of the memorial and underground information center, cites James Young in defense of promoting the memorials attractive traits and positive impact on the surrounding area. He defends the memorials purpose of promoting

164 The Memorial to Homosexuals Persecuted Under Nazism and the Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Victims of National Socialism.

94 Holocaust memory in Germany as well as the underground centers ability to aid in Holocaust scholarship. While this argument is not technically incorrect, it is still more of a personal opinion rather than a fact, and should have been discussed by a Holocaust scholar rather than an architectural photographer if the information center planned to sell his literature to visitors looking to learn more about the memorial and about the events of the Holocaust. Additionally, many of the opinions made by Klaus Frahm about the success of the memorial were made prior to the opening of the memorial to the public and while he discusses this in the catalog, once again, those opinions would have been better coming from a Holocaust scholar who is far more knowledgeable on the subject of Holocaust museums, memorials, and memory. However, to be fair, his documentation of the construction of the memorial was conducted in a very eloquent manner. In the text Holocaust and Memory: The Experience of the Holocaust and Its Consequences: An Investigation Based on Personal Narratives, Professor Barbara Engelking, founder and Director of the Polish Center of Holocaust Research at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, asks the question: What is the legacy of the Holocaust, and how do we remember it? The Holocaust is one of the most important symbols of the twentieth century. What will that symbol one day mean, what does it mean for us now? What is the legacy of the Holocaust? Have we - the witness - drawn any conclusions from these dramatic experiences?165 The question asked by Professor Engelking on how we remember the Holocaust can be linked to the development of museums and memorials.The method of creating museums and memorials is a direct result of wanting to remember and commemorate the events of the Holocaust. In addition to museums and memorials, Holocaust remembrance takes many other forms; from historic literature, documenting the victims experiences, film, documentaries, and memorialization of historic sites related to the events of the Holocaust. Arguably, the most important aspect of remembering a historical event, such as the Holocaust, comes from the creation of memorials

165 Barbara Engelking, Holocaust and Memory: The Experience of the Holocaust and Its Consequences: An Investigation Based on Personal Narratives, (New York: Continuum, 2004,) 322.

95 and museums. This is because national Holocaust museums cover many aspects of the history of the events of the Holocaust rather than narrowing the discussion down to a specific individual, a solitary place, or a singular event. Museums play an important role in increasing Holocaust awareness and in doing so have grown in importance in recent years. One of the most crucial aspects of creating a museum or memorial is making sure that it appeals to the visitors or passer- by. If the monument goes unnoticed, it is not for-filling its overall purpose. Klaus Frahm brings to attention Robert Musil, who was an Austrian philosophical writer, argument about “invisible monuments.” In his text Posthumous Papers of a Living Author; Robert Musil argues that “There is nothing in this world as invisible as a monument.”166 Robert Musil once wrote that monuments have the quality of becoming invisible after a certain time. Passers-by who rush past statues, obelisks or commemorative stones in their home town every day are scarcely aware of them because they are soon taken for granted as part of the community furniture, present physically, but mute, almost meaningless, amidst the milling crowds. And a time will come when even people who deliberately approach the monument will not be able to understand what they even mean any more; assessments of the historical events and figures they commemorate change, even violent emotions cool down, figures that used to be all-powerful are forgotten at some point, reduced to a name and set

of dates, and with them, the monuments dedicated to them also pale.167 In arguing that monuments have the ability to become “invisible” with the passage of time, creators of memorials and museums, such as that of the Kazerne Dossin Memorial Museum, the Mémorial de la Shoah, and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, must strive to create spaces that maintain the ability to stand the test of time, that permanently retain their appeal to visitors, and leave a lasting impression on those who visit them throughout the years. The concept of establishing a place of remembrance that leaves a long lasting impression on its visitors is discussed by James Young in his definition of a “society’s memory.” James Young uses sites of memory, memorials, and museums to argue that a “society’s memory” is shaped by

166 Robert Musil, Posthumous Papers of a Living Author, (, NY: Archipelago Books, 2006) 64. 167 Klaus Frahm, Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, (Berlin: Nicolai, 2005), 14-15.

96 places of remembrance, which help to permanently imbed a specific historical event into the context of the societies history. A society’s memory is negotiated in the social body’s beliefs and values, rituals and institutions, and in the case of modern societies in particular, it is shaped by such public sites of memory as the museum, the memorial, and the monument.168 When discussing the role that national Holocaust museums and memorials have on there surrounding communities, it is important to understand that these institutions represent a greater purpose. When a European nation resolves to construct a national museum or memorial that commemorates the events of the Holocaust, it shows that nation is coming to terms with the involvement their State had in the events of the Holocaust. Can it then be concluded that the history of the Holocaust is not just part of German or Jewish history, but European history as a whole, and is shared by all European Nations who succumbed to German compliance? This argument relates to the development of Holocaust memorials and museums throughout Europe and the world. For example, why should Belgium and France each construct a national Holocaust museum if the Holocaust is not an integral part of their countries history? Additionally, many States view the development and construction of national Holocaust memorial or museum as a way of issuing an apology to the victims of the Holocaust from their respected State. Even more important than the mere recognition of past injustice or even of a debt to the Jewish people are apologies for wartime behavior. These will remain well documented for future generations after all survivors have passed away. Although official admissions of a nation’s Holocaust crimes are important, apologies lend even greater emphasis to such confessions.169 The development of many national Holocaust museums and memorials in Europe came about when the government of a particular State decided to issue an apology to the victims of the Holocaust from their Nation. This example can be seen in the redevelopment and expansion of the Memorial to the Unknown Jewish Martyr into the Mémorial de la Shoah in France after

168 James E. Young, The Art Of Memory: Holocaust Memorials In History, (New York: Prestel, 1994), 9. 169 Manfred Gerstenfeld, “The Multiple Distortions of Holocaust Memory,” Jewish Political Studies Review 19, no. 3/4 (Fall 2007): 42, JSTOR.

97 President Jacques Chirac’s 1995 speech addressing French responsibility for the persecution of French Jews during the time of the Second World War. In addition, the creation of various national Holocaust museums and memorials has prompted many State government officials to issue apologies to victims of the Holocaust from their Nation, during the inauguration of the national institution. For example, during the inauguration of both the Kazerne Dossin Memorial Museum, and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, government officials took the opportunity to address the victims by way of issuing a public apology. However, the establishment of museums reminding people of the political crimes committed by their own political leaders or depicting crimes in which members of their own social system were involved… often engenders powerful public resistance. Such museums came into being following an arduous process of learning to confront these crimes as a matter of public conscience. And this process is only possible in countries allowing free public discussion on both these crimes and the sociopolitical context in which they are perpetrated.170 The coming of existence of national Holocaust museums is the direct result of willingness, inspired in some cases by way of Government apology, as well as by accepting the responsibility of compliance by the State to participate in the Holocaust. Without the compliance of each State the Holocaust could not have happened. Holocaust historian Dr. Saul Friedländer has done extensive research on the history of the 20th century with a specialized focus on the Second World War and the Holocaust. In his text, The Years of Extermination; Dr. Friedländer argues that willingness to comply with the Germans by the various European nations during the time of the Second World War led to the events of the Holocaust. He argues that had European nations not complied with the Germans, the Holocaust could not have happened on such a radical scale. At each step, in occupied Europe, the execution of German measures depended on the submissiveness of political authorities, the assistance of local police forces or

170 International Committee of Memorial Museums for the Remembrance of Victims of Public Crimes, “Places of History and Remembrance,” The Journal of Museum Education 29, no. 2/3 (Fall 2004): 34, JSTOR.

98 other auxiliaries, and the passivity or support of the populations and mainly of the political and spiritual elites.171 The theories and arguments discussed in Professor Friedländer’s literature combines both viewpoints of the functioning of intentionalist versus functionalist debate. Arguably, most national Holocaust museums function with an intentionalist mentality, in that they stress ultimate German responsibility for the Holocaust within the information they present to the visitors. On the other hand, the museums function on a functionalist level in that they focus on the matter of implementation, or man power, which was necessary to carry out the events of the Holocaust. Ultimately the museums and memorials discussed within this dissertation function as both intentionalist and functionalist as they combine the two outlooks. Dr. Saul Friedländer expresses his view that Adolf Hitler was directly responsible for the entirety of the Holocaust in his text, Nazi Germany and the Jews: The Years of Persecution; I have emphasized Hitler’s personal role and the function of his ideology in the genesis and implementation of the Nazi regime’s anti-Jewish measures. In no way, however, should this be seen as a return to earlier reductive interpretations, with their sole emphasis on the role (and responsibility) of the supreme leader… Nazism was not essentially driven by the chaotic clash of competing bureaucratic and party fiefdoms, nor was the planning of its anti-Jewish policies mainly left to the cost-benefit calculations of technocrats. In all its major decisions the regime depended on Hitler.172 Professor Saul Friedländer theories stem from an intentionalist point of view, arguing that ultimate German responsibility for the events of the Holocaust began with accepting Adolf Hitler as the leader of the Germany, and as the leaders of Germany Hitler was responsible for all of the decisions made by the German government, including their anti-Semitic actions against the Jewish people; making Hitler directly responsible for the countries actions during the years of the Second World War, including the attempted extermination of the Jews. This theory can be seen

171 Saul Friedländer, The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945, (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), xi. 172 Saul Friedländer, Nazi Germany and the Jews: The Years of Persecution, 1933-1939, (New York: HarperCollins, 1997), 3.

99 when an museum or memorial, such as that of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, stresses the concept of ultimate German responsibility within the institution as approaching an intentionalist point of view. However, when a museum or related institution, such as the Kazerne Dossin or the Mémorial de la Shoah, expresses the understanding that the Holocaust could never have occurred without the cooperation of the German occupied States, the institution is operating from a functionalist point of view. In accepting the role each European Nation had in the events of the Holocaust, scholars have been able to further explore the role of the “ordinary” bystander from each of those nations. Additionally, since the inauguration of national Holocaust museums in Europe and across the world scholars have been able to further expand their knowledge on the State’s compliance to German occupation during the time of the Second World War. One of the main themes in each of the three museums is a direct focus on the countries involvement in the Holocaust, be it on the perpetrators of Germany, or the occupied countries compliance with the German offenders. In the case of the Kazerne Dossin Memorial museum, the Belgian Holocaust museum concentrates on the role of Belgian bystanders who obeyed the orders of the Germans, while the French museum emphasizes the role of the French heroes who fought against the Germans. Ultimately, each of the museums prioritize the commemoration of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, with the Belgian and French museum highlighting the stories of the victims from each of their own nations, while the German memorial pays tribute to all of the victims of the Holocaust throughout Europe. The arguments and discussions presented in this dissertation point to the conclusion that each museum in their portrayal, express historical facts that are in accordance with historical research, which make efforts to address the complicity of their State. The continual expansion of national Holocaust memorials and museums throughout the world promote Holocaust awareness and combat against Holocaust denial. In addition, the continual growth of Holocaust memorialization supports the theory that the events of the Holocaust and the Second World War are a vital part of our international comprehensive history, which without further exploration, would result in the acceptance of non-compliance by a responsible State in the event of an occupation of a dictatorship which aims to dehumanize and eradicate a particular group of people. The theories and discussions represented in this dissertation aim to combat the

100 argument that Holocaust memorialization is of little, or insignificant, importance in the present era, by way of outlining and demonstrating the way in which Belgium, France, and Germany represent their compliance to the events of the Holocaust within their national Holocaust memorial or museum.

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