Israeli Holocaust Memorial Strategies at : From Silence to Recognition Author(s): Natasha Goldman Source: Art Journal, Vol. 65, No. 2 (Summer, 2006), pp. 102-122 Published by: College Art Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20068468 Accessed: 01-11-2015 01:18 UTC

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This content downloaded from 89.179.117.36 on Sun, 01 Nov 2015 01:18:36 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Moshe Safdie,Transport Memorial, 1995, Yad is site Vashem the living of Israeli national Holocaust memory, where every railway car, metal, wood, and concrete. of adds another memorial to an The Collection of the Yad Vashem Art Museum, generation evolving landscape. . ? Moshe Safdie; memorials installed from until the late are either or minim (Artwork photo 1953 1970s figurai graph by Michal R?nnen Safdie) alist in and on style focus the fighters, heroes, and martyrs of the Holocaust. Those installed since in to or the 1980s, contrast, tend be conceptual installation oriented, often employing- visual strategies of absence and disorientation?what one call are may postmodern approaches?and dedi Natasha Goldman cated to the victims and survivors of the Holocaust.

This traces at essay the development of memorials in to Israeli Holocaust Memorial Yad Vashem relation changes in Israeli attitudes toward the Holocaust, survivors, and their traumas: from silence and shame to even atYad Vashem: understanding and Strategies ' is to sympathy. At stake the potential for memorials From Silence to a framework for trauma in visual form.2 Recognition provide Thp ^tartina nninf of this srnHv is the work of

E. whose research on James Young, Holocaust memorials practically has made the a of within art subject unique category study the intersecting disciplines of and history, literature, Jewish studies, Holocaust studies.3 If Young examines

theories of memory and collective memory to elucidate the ways in which Holocaust memorials current ideas about the then it is embody past, suggested trauma set are to here that opens up another of questions that vital the commis

sioning, building, and viewing of Holocaust memorials. This to a in essay therefore contributes larger literature of "trauma studies" and the intersection of trauma and art in Most general theory particular.4 recently, Bennett contributes a transformative to trauma studies in Jill analysis elucidating the between the work of art viewer as one relationship and the that produces 1.The differences between the early and late "affect." She claims that "trauma related art is not communicative. It often memorials might be seen as a transformation transactive, from modern to postmodern touches but it does not communicate the approaches. My us, 'secret' of personal experience. Affect argument is not, however, about a history of is within and a work, and it be an audi style, and wantI to avoid a too-easy parallel produced through might experienced by between the of trauma in the ence to the work." The viewer neither trau development public coming gains knowledge of the actual sphere and a perhaps too-easy delineation matic event nor identifies with the victim. An emotional or link is made between the modern and the postmodern. Jean conceptual between the viewer and a of one Fran?ois Lyotard argues that the postmodern is work art, which foregrounds the ultimate impos a formulation that remains "always already" there, a viewer to trauma sibility of experiencing anything close lived and its aftereffects.5 highly influential. See Lyotard, The Postmodern This in is a Condition, trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian conceptual engagement, turn, only possible when there is poten Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota tial listener. Bennett invokes notion Gayatri Spivak's of the politics of resistance Press, 1984). or not must one one must 2. Dalia Manor writes that while "much has been liberation: only speak, but be heard.6 Dori Laub theo published about the Holocaust, about its impact rizes such a that the act of or to narratives position, explaining reading listening on , and about art that deals with trauma ... of extreme human is an ethical choice, tolerance of nonlinear on the subject of Israeli art and the Holocaust pain requiring little has been added there an to very [since 1995]... narration, silence, and inability communicate.7 have been very few in Israeli art developments I with and overlap diverge from Bennett's of engagement with and its relationship to the Holocaust." See Manor, politics "From to works art about trauma. is a Rejection Recognition: IsraeliArt and of Enabling her explanation of conceptual engage the inAbsence/Presence: Critical Holocaust," ment a and viewer. are between work the Bennett's examples articulated, how Essays in the Artistic Memory of the Holocaust, within a frame where trauma can be ed. Stephen C. Feinstein (Syracuse: Syracuse ever, vocalized?her discussion of the films University Press, 2005), 317. of the South African Truth and Reconciliation are a Agreement good example of 3. James E. Young, ed., The Art of Memory: this. Sometimes trauma does not have a in which it can be articulated. Holocaust Memorial Museums inHistory (Munich space Signifi and New York: and the Jewish cant in the case of Israel and Yad Vashem was the absence Prestel-Verlag complete of willing Museum, 1994); James E. Young, At Memory's listeners, in the first several decades after the nation's for Israeli Edge (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000); founding, The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Holocaust victims of trauma.

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This content downloaded from 89.179.117.36 on Sun, 01 Nov 2015 01:18:36 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions is not a at My analysis teleology of Holocaust memorials Yad Vashem, which would that in a imply Israeli attitudes toward the Holocaust have developed is as an positive and unproblematic way. Rather, my point that understanding of trauma in a to evolved the political, historical, and medical fields, way talk about trauma that had in emerged repercussions the visual field of memorial-making. Discourse trauma in certain at about has been facilitated only places certain times? not in aims to and Israel until the late 1980s. This study map the slow engage ment trauma?in with the language of visual form?in the production of

memorials at Yad Vashem. One way that a new awareness of trauma resonates at I is via a in is Yad Vashem, argue, representation of absence, which, turn, closely to art. linked psychoanalytic practice and postmodern Psychoanalysts Dori Laub and Daniel Podell suggest that trauma is best the an a in understood by metaphor of empty space, hole the psyche.8 The that not the it?is a on the to recognition of space?and filling of step way and in the normal world. In recent Western healing functioning years Europe

and the United States have witnessed a surge in the construction of Holocaust

memorials that utilize empty spaces, voids, and disorientation, all motifs that fulfill Laub and Podell s description of psychological trauma. Horst Hoheisel's

Ashcrott Brunnen (Kassel, 1987), for instance, and Jochen and Esther Gerz's Meaning (New Haven: Yale University Press, Monument Fascism are both exam 1993); and Writing and Rewriting the Holocaust against (Hamburg Harburg, 1986-93) early Indiana In (Bloomington: University, 1988). ples. architecture, Daniel Libeskind employs the aesthetics of empty spaces 4. My dissertation, "Missing Absence: Trauma and and disorientation in his Jewish Museum in Berlin (2001). Most recently, the National Memorials to the Holocaust (University of Rochester, 2002)," analyzes the many proposed 9/11 Memorial "Reflecting Absence" embodies what to trauma trauma approaches and studies, includ sees as an this author reluctantly overcodification of the aesthetics of absence ing those by Cathy Caruth, Shoshana Felman, and identification with victims that often the viewer from Dori Laub, Robert J. Lifton, and others. Ifocus on exculpates imagining JillBennett here for her very new contribution to at same both the space of perpetration and the space of victimization the time. the field in terms of viewership. See Bennett, As Bennett out, it is an out?to take a moral Empathie Vision: Affect, Trauma, and Contemporary points always easy?and easy way Art Stanford Press, a (Stanford: University 2005). position and identify with the victim.9 To negotiate one's difference from 5. For the cited term and passage, see Bennett, 5 notion is a far more difficult task. and 6. For the "conceptual link," see 4. Mark comes close to this assessment in It no is an art. Godfrey sug is accident that each of the above example of postmodern that a work of art can one's gesting "question Victor art Burgin 's essay "The Absence of Presence" defends Conceptual against own role as a post-Holocaust subject, as one in responsible in relation to the cause of such Greenbergian modernism and the revival of painting the late 1970s and early See "Barnett Newman's despair." Godfrey, For art is vital its inter 1980s. B?rgin, postmodern conceptual for "recognizing, Stations and the Memory of the Holocaust," these networks of differences in which October 108 (Spring 2004): 47. For art and trau vening within, realigning, reorganizing, ma, see also Lisa Salzman and Eric Rosenberg, it is it the very definition of'art' and what represents constituted: the glimpse eds., Trauma and Visuality inModernity (Hanover, allowed us of the of the absence and NH: Dartmouth College Press, 2006). [conceptual art] possibility of'presence,' 6. Bennett, 4. thus the of 's notion of is possibility change."IO Burgin postmodernism decidedly 7. Dori Laub, "Truth and Testimony, the Process with and to Jean-Fran?ois and the Struggle," in Trauma: Explorations in style-based (starting conceptualism) opposed Lyotard's ed. Caruth notion as Memory, Cathy (Baltimore: Johns of postmodernism being "always already" within modernism. For Press, 61-75; and "The Hopkins University 1995), is with B?rgin, "presence" aligned high modernism ? la Greenberg, the "absence Empty Circle," American Psychiatric Association 46, no. 2 (1988): 507-30. of presence" with postmodernism. Presence, B?rgin argues, denies difference by 8. Dori Laub and Daniel "Art and " Podell, one term an in to "valorizing of opposition order suppress another." Without Trauma," International Journal of Psychoanalysis 76 in its can occur because are allowed (1995): 991-1005. presence (i.e., absence), change oppositions 9. Bennett, 17. to and one in a work with against another productive way: men/women; theory/ 10.Victor B?rgin, "The Absence of Presence" inside/outside of institutions?or, as Bennett would have it, ( 1984), inArt in Theory 1900-1990: An Anthology practice; speaker/ Ideas, ed. Charles Harrison and Paul of Changing listener; object/viewer. The recognition of difference between elements results Wood (Oxford, UK, and Cambridge, MA: in constructive for both Bennett and For the former, difference Blackwell, 1992), I 100. thinking B?rgin. I I. 1099. a constructive Ibid., enables affect, engagement between object and viewer; for the

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This content downloaded from 89.179.117.36 on Sun, 01 Nov 2015 01:18:36 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions the of in case latter, recognition difference effects change. Taken together the of are structure Yad Vashem, affect and change the very components that the later memorials.

A 2001 Yad Vashem press release states that in the midst of a communication revolution interest in coinciding with "a backdrop of increasing Holocaust stud ies in and research" and dramatic changes "the basic tools for commemoration," a new is An increase plan needed for the Heroes and Martyrs Authority. of 32 in visitors to an interest. percent from 1998 1999 indicates upsurge of Yad in answer to state a master Vashem, this of affairs, drew up plan, Yad Vashem 2001, a monument more two which includes for the survivors: "For than generations, survivors witness. the have borne Out of their memory and pain, they endeav to us our to ored rebuild their lives. The wall reminds of duty remember and transmit to the legacy future generations."I2 Fifty years after the first memorial was at survivors are installed Yad Vashem, all recognized. During those decades, survivors. shame and silence defined the commonly held Israeli attitude toward survivors Instead of embodying the fighting, heroic, brave "new ," the rep or new resented the European intellectual overly religious "old Jew," unfit for the its Zionist an in country and ideals, attitude made palpable Yad Vashem's early memorials.

Denial of Survivors:The Fighters in Figurai and Minimal Form

Yad Vashem's figurai Wall of Remembrance, amodified copy of 's Ghetto Uprising Monument (1948), epitomizes Zionist ideology: it a contrast embodies heightened between the passive old Jews and the fighting new resistance the Jews, thereby heroizing the fighters. Until the 1990s, relief of the fighters functioned as a sign for Yad Vashem as awhole (and was on the cover of the 1967 Yad Vashem information pamphlet, reprinted until the 1980s). It is on same name located the square of the where Holocaust Martyrs' and Remembrance takes a work to be viewed Heroes' Day place, signifying by large or are to groups of people. Groups representatives of groups expected leave the a sense in a memorial with of pride the ghetto fighters and clear message of An survivors or Israeli strength. acknowledgement of the difficulties of sympathy victims is for markedly absent. monument consists on two to on The of reliefs walls (instead of back back one as in in so one can see wall, the original Warsaw), that both reliefs simulta 12. Yad Vashem, 2001 (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, neously. The frontal relief, The Warsaw GhettoUprising, was installed atYad Vashem 2001). in In Israel, the Jewish was understood as a 13.Young, The Art of Memory, 184. 1976. Fighting Organization (ZOB) 14.The decision to recast the Warsaw Ghetto descendant of the and Israel a descendant the The Maccabees, of ghetto fighters. Uprising Monument in Israel came about partly relief, The Last March, followed months later.I3 amid fears that its existence in would not martyrs' eighteen Young analyzes in terms its be guaranteed. After the Six-Day War in 1967, the procession relief of iconographical reference, the Arch of Titus, Poles from the Communist expelled Jews party on Romans a which the triumphantly carry menorah after the destruction of the and unions in anti-Semitic purges. As a result of in A.D. substitutes the Tor ah for the for the for these events, American Jews and Israelis feared Temple 70 Rapoport menorah, that the Jewish meaning of the memorial in mer more clearly embodies tradition, diaspora, and the old Jew.14 The menorah, Warsaw would be forgotten. Leon Jolson, an on the other hand, as a in Israeli memorials in the and American survivor and philanthropist, commis appeared symbol i9?OS sioned a of the monument at Yad its to a ten reproduction 1960s for link the heroic Maccabee story, thereby reflecting Zionist Vashem with several significant changes. Young, to hark back to biblical victories as a to its An The Art of Memory, 183. dency way justify ideology.ls 15. See The Art 174. on Young, of Memory, emphasis old-world religiosity preserves stereotypes of the survivors and

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This content downloaded from 89.179.117.36 on Sun, 01 Nov 2015 01:18:36 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Nathan Rapoport, The Ghetto Uprising, from the Wall of Remembrance, 1976, cast bronze, 13 ft. IA in. x 9 ft. 8% in. x 49lA in. (4 x 2.95 x 1.25 m). Collection of the Yad Vashem Art Museum jerusalem, gift of Leon and Ann Jolson. (Artwork ? Estate of Nathan Rapoport; photograph provided by Yad Vashem)

Nathan Rapoport, The Last March, from the Wall of Remembrance, detail, 1976, cast bronze, 16 ft. 5 in. x 6 ft. 6% in. (5 x 2 m). Collection of the Yad Vashem Art Museum jerusalem, gift of Leon and Ann Jolson. (Artwork ? Estate of Nathan Rapoport; photograph provided by Yad Vashem)

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This content downloaded from 89.179.117.36 on Sun, 01 Nov 2015 01:18:36 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions is in an victims; the pain of the many suppressed favor of the heroism of the few, Israeli attitude not uncommon at the time.

Dina exist Porat explains that although differences of opinion regarding the treatment survivors in one: of postwar Israel, the prevailing belief "is the critical came to attitudes toward the Jews of Europe and those survivors who Israel dur are a source to ing the 1940s and early 19SOS of disgrace Israeli society."l6 This was in opinion contends that it only after the Adolf Eichmann trial 1961-62 that to criticism to attitudes began soften from contempt and empathy and identifica tion in is the 1970s and 1980s. This chronology of attitudes, she writes, "com mon in knowledge" Israeli society. in II or in Arriving Israel either during World War after their stays displaced

persons camps, survivors found that their experiences in the concentration and death were Survivors camps camps virtually ignored.v arriving during the various period of 1948-^3 "were registered and particulars (about them) were none to recorded, but apparently of the questions asked related their expe riences were to in a during the Holocaust."l8 They expected participate positive common a new were struggle of building community and their difficulties not "forcefully repressed but solved."19 Before the 1962 Eichmann trial, "the institutions to a attitude of the public and government amounted denial that attention . . . was an any problems existed which warranted any special there attitude towards the survivor an if not prevailing of uneasiness, outright embar

rassment" about the assumed passivity, helplessness, humiliation, weakness, in or and cowardice implied the "shameful secret" myth that the survivors had 16.Dina Porat, "Israeli Society and Recent to to allowed themselves be led like "sheep the slaughter."20This mentality Attitudes toward the Jews of Europe and on to Holocaust Survivors," in The Holocaust and heroized the fighter, placed blame the dead, and failed recognize the History, ed. Michael Berenbaum and Abraham J. emotional pain of the survivors: Peck (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 785. 1998), In an the early days, the expression of emotional burden of any segment of 17. See Yael Danieli, "On Not Confronting the the was Holocaust," inRemembering for the Future: Israeli population considered inappropriate. During the 40s and ?os Working Papers and Addenda, vol. 2, ed. Yehuda the model the Sabra dominated Israeli on and of culture, focusing struggle Bauer et al. (Oxford, UK: Pergamon Press, 1989), to at 1257. action and contribution the welfare of society the expense of individ 18. H. Z. Winnick, Israel-Netherlands Symposium ual emotional needs.21 on the Impact of Persecution, cited inDanieli, 1258. 19.Danieli, 1258, and L cited inDanieli, Eitinger, Workers in the medical field, for their were not to address the 1258. part, equipped survivors' When tried to survivors to 20. M. Vardy, Counseling the Bereaved (New York: experiences.22 practitioners encourage Wurzweiler School of Social Work of Yeshiva their share experiences, they found themselves changing the subject and refusing University, 1977), 4-5. According to one kibbutz to work their traumatic The survivors were silent because Haggadah, "Hitler alone is not responsible for the through patients' pasts. death of six million?but all of us and above all the no one to to wanted listen; the medical profession contributed this "conspiracy six million. If they knew that the Jew had power, of silence." they would not have all been butchered ..." See Charles S. Liebman and An to stories no Elieyer Don-Yehiya, unwillingness hear the survivors' left space for the healing Politics in Israel Indiana (Bloomington: University to as effects of testimony, for those whom Laub refers the ethical, empathetic Press, 1984), 55. In situation stories more 21. Dan Bar-On, "Transgenerational Aftereffects listeners. this "untold often pass powerfully from gener the Holocaust in Israel: of Three Generations," to are . . . ation generation than stories that discussible parents do not tell, and inBreaking Crystal: Writing and Memory after children do not in a of silence between survivors and Auschwitz, ed. Efraim Sicher (Urbana: University ask," resulting conspiracy of Illinois Press, 1998), 107. their children.23 survivors never Often sought therapy, but rather formed "nor 22. Danieli, 1261. malization in Dan Bar-On's could be another form of 23. Ibid., 99. strategies" which, opinion, 24. Dan Bar-On, Fear and Three Generations the Bar-On were and Hope: repression.24 Only fighters, states, lauded made welcome: of the Holocaust (Cambridge, MA: Harvard "In the of the War of there was a to University Press, 1995), 24. political atmosphere Independence, tendency 25. 99. those who in or Bar-On, "Transgenerational Aftereffects," legitimize only fought the ghetto uprisings with the partisans."25

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This content downloaded from 89.179.117.36 on Sun, 01 Nov 2015 01:18:36 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions a in The became principal element the developing in War order for myth of heroism Israel's 1948 of Independence?the calling even as a national mobilization cited the uprising heroic Jewish precedent.26

When morale reached an all-time low at the kibbutz Yad Mordechai (the kib butz's names translates as "memorial to Mordechai," the leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising), the uprising became a prototype?troops debated whether to retreat from the Egyptians or to follow the ghetto fighters' model. They did retreat, but held off Egyptian forces long enough so that could gather its event was not as heroic? own defenses and remain sovereign. The viewed only was was into a it miraculous. The story of the ghetto fighters glorified founding Israeli In the 19SOS and "there was no school curriculum 26. Hannah Yablonka, "The Formation of myth. 1960s, although Holocaust Consciousness in the State of Israel: at all concerning the subject [the Holocaust], every boy and girl was familiar The Early Days," inBreaking Crystal, 121. with the name Anielewicz and the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto, but only few 27. N. Keren, "Ideologies: Attitudes and Holo had heard names like Treblinka and Auschwitz."27 caust Teaching in the State of Israel?History and in et Recent Development," Bauer al, Remember Artists in the of the Israeli warrior the i9?Os, meanwhile, glorified image ing for the Future, vol. 1, 1031. Chaim Schatzker one mortals in and an writes that the educational curriculum did not "as who surpassed ordinary stature, beauty, stance," include the Holocaust. The teachers themselves extreme to Films dealt reaction the "derogatory image of the Diaspora Jew."28 very often were survivors and perhaps were not with Holocaust survivors, but often cast them in a Zionist Often fea capable of teaching children about experiences light. they related to their own. Schatzker inRemembering for tured survivors as children who, at the climax of the film, lose their "feminine, the Future, vol. 1,970. Other sources indicate a characteristics, reach adulthood, and become Zionist new Jews.29 frustration on the part of students who had to Diasporic" was in art and same was "tolerate" European teachers who embodied the While the Diaspora Jew negated film, the image highly of the the negative ?mage Diaspora Jew. During in trials. In Eichmann was on trial for the politicized public 1961-62, put imple Eichmann trial, Schatzker explains, it became clear mass murder the the to education professionals that students could mentation of the of Jewish people, changing catastrophe not process the information they heard about the into a series stories with Here there was of the Holocaust of personalized faces. trial, Eichmann's actions, and survivors' stories, a clear-cut a Nazi was on trial. Survivors were called to their prompting a change in the school curriculum. See enemy: upon give Chaim Schatzker, "The of the Holocaust were time. A new was Impact testimony; their stories told for the first legitimacy given on Israeli Society and Israeli Education," in to the of the life and death of the Jew, one of the millions, who Remembering for the Future, vol. 1,968-74. See story simple Dina the Holocaust to Israeli also Porat, "Teaching was neither a hero nor a traitor.30The trial gave momentum to Holocaust Students, 1974-1987," inRemembering for the research, and "consciousness of the Holocaust fused into the hard core of Israeli Future, vol. 3, 2692-97. in 28. Esther Levinger, "Socialist-Zionist Ideology collective identity"31 IsraeliWar Memorials of the 1950s,"Journal of the War in which Soon after, the abysmal weeks preceding Six-Day 1967, Contemporary History 28 ( 1993): 737. were economic and the fear of another 29. Nurith Gertz, "From Jew to Hebrew: The marked by and psychological depression 'Zion Narrative' in IsraeliCinema of the 1940s a Holocaust, fused collective action and readiness against life-or-death threat.32 and 1950s," in Israeli Issues 4, no. 4 ( 1998): War to was exacerbated when 175-82. The analogy of the Six-Day the Holocaust many 30. Yechiam Weitz, "Political Dimensions of Israelis saw Arabs in the roles of Germans.33 After Israel's victory, however, Israeli Holocaust Memory in Israel," The Shaping of soldiers found themselves in the role of the in territories, Israeli Identity, ed. Robert Wistrich and David oppressors occupied Ohana Frank Cass, 141. a to their however of Ger (London: 1995), creating confusing counterpart knowledge, minimal, 31. Yablonka, 133. man in the War coincided occupiers Europe.34 The perceived heroism of Six-Day 32. Amos Elon, The Israelis: Fathers and Sons (New York'and Hammondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1981), with the continual building of memorials for the fighters of the Holocaust. 216. resistance the Commemorating the Jewish during Holocaust, Buky 33. At the end of the war (viewed as a euphoric Pillar of Heroism is an of the "hero memorial at Yad victory by Israel), Israel occupied the whole West Schwartz's example type" Bank, including the Eastern part of Jerusalem monument is minimal in Vashem. Unlike Rapoport's figurai work, Schwartz's (formerly Jordan), providing access to previously and embodies the minimalist "rhetoric of that Anna Chave so closed-off holy places. See Keren, 1030. style power" aptly 34. Porat, the Holocaust," 2693. In a force the viewer.zs Schwartz's "Teaching describes when sculptural objects evoke upon Zionist ideology, there were either oppressors stainless-steel looms over the viewer, in or oppressed, and the history of the Holocaust twenty-one-meter-high pillar imposing Israeli soldiers in the role of the suddenly put its towering presence. oppressors. Schwartz is a video artist, and self-described Sabra whose work has 35. Anna Chave, "Minimalism and the Rhetoric of sculptor, 44-63. an in modernist abstraction. with Pinhas Power," Arts Magazine 64 (January 1990): been marked by interest Together Eshet,

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This content downloaded from 89.179.117.36 on Sun, 01 Nov 2015 01:18:36 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Buky Schwartz, Pillar of Heroism, instal lation view and detail with Hebrew inscrip tion, 1968, steel and concrete, 68 ft. 10% in. high (21 m). Collection of the Yad Vashem Art Museum jerusalem. (Artwork ? Buky Schwartz; photograph provided by Yad Vashem)

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This content downloaded from 89.179.117.36 on Sun, 01 Nov 2015 01:18:36 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions was one a artists he of the leading Ten Plus Sculptors, group comprising young were in the 1960s, many of whom studied in Paris and London, who known for or their unconventional exhibitions with unusual formats (miniature exception or in collective work.36 Abstraction was a ally large circular) and experiments to way for Israeli artists to enter the international art scene, be taken seriously, in and to avoid the conflicts of memory and identity Israel.37 were the On November 26, 1962, there forty-one submissions for competi tower Naomi tion to build the Pillar of Heroism. A one-hundred-foot-high by a won but was never built. Henrzk, student of sculptor Ze'ev Ben Zvi, first prize, s more was installed Instead, Schwarz much highly polished stainless-steel pillar in fifteen years later. Its inscription reads: "Now and forever memory of those in the in the who rebelled in the camps and the ghettos, who fought woods, underground with the Allied forces; braved their way to Eretz Israel; and died name of God."38 While the memorial valorizes the sanctifying the explicitly hero, the dedication speech of the memorial, delivered byYitzak Arad, chief edu

cation officer of the army and former partisan, implicitly invokes the "ordinary Jew" who heroically lived through the Holocaust:

The world wonders from where our soldiers draw their inspiration for are its answer is the source of our hero their bravery, what sources? The that ism in the present lies in the heritage of the heroism of the Jewish people, a is as as the the ... In this heritage that old history of Jewish people. long we must see heroism in the Holocaust chain the special place of Jewish period: the heroism of the rebels in the ghettos and the death camps, of the in moun Jewish partisans in the forests of Eastern Europe and the Balkan all over This chain of tains, of the Jewish underground fighters Europe.

heroism also includes the heroism of the ordinary Jew who, under the conditions of the ghetto as a for his survival and the death camps, preserved his image human being, fought day after day, and thus heroically fought the battle of survival of the entire Jewish people.39

For the Israeli public, the Pillar of Heroism glorifies the fighters and heroes and at same as a victims. s the time uncannily functions sign of the Alan Grossberg is as a work the and novel See Under: Love recognized about Holocaust, trauma, In Heroism a in the Israeli public. it, the Pillar of becomes sign of the chimneys

camps of destruction:

Sometimes when Momik lies on his stomach in ambush, he sees the tall smokestack of the new building they just finished over on Mt. Herzl, which a sort and he it's a they call Yad Vashem, funny of name, pretends ship sailing full of from Over There that wants to take in 36. Gideon Ofrat, One Hundred Years of Art in by illegal immigrants nobody Israel, trans. Peretz Kidron Westview . . . to to rescue . . . when he (Boulder: and he's going have that ship somehow and Press, 1998), 226. asked his old what the smokestack is for, looked at each other, 37. Moshe Barasch, Yona Fischer, and Yyal people they Artists Israel 1920-1980 Munin him that there's a museum and Aaron Zalmona, eds., of (New and finally told there, Marcus, York: Museum, and Detroit: State Jewish Wayne out a Is it an art who hadn't been of his house for couple of years, asked, University, 1981), 51. sure it a 38. See Yad Vashem Web site, http://yad museum? and Hannah Zeitrin smiled crookedly and said, Oh is, vashem.org.il/visiting/sites/pillar.html museum of human art, that's what kind of art.40 39. Quoted inYoung, Texture of Memory, 256, emphasis added. "His old refers to the Holocaust survivors with whom Momik, a nine 40. David Grossman, See Under: Love, trans. Betsy people" 55. his afternoons after school. Momik exhibits the Rosenberg (London: Cape, 1990), year-old schoolboy, spends signs

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This content downloaded from 89.179.117.36 on Sun, 01 Nov 2015 01:18:36 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Bernie Fink, Monument to the Jewish trauma wants to save of second-generation throughout the story; that he the Soldiers and Partisans Who Fought against on the boat his of for the first Nazi Germany, 1985, granite and stainless immigrants heightens feeling responsibility gen 16 ft. 5 in. x 6 ft. 6V< in. x 6 ft. 63/ in. to rescue not on steel, eration. He yearns only the elusive immigrants the imaginary (5x2x2 m). Collection of the Yad Vashem boat, but also his parents from the silence that their existence. For Art Museum jerusalem. (Artwork ? pervades daily Bernie Fink; photograph provided by the the survivor Hannah Zeitrin, "the smokestack" is reminiscent of the gas cham author) bers, and the "museum of human life" refers to those smokestacks as well as to the museum at Yad Vashem. The minimalist monument to heroism becomes a

monument to trauma. is Official rhetoric undermined by popular belief. to Partisans Bernie Fink's Memorial the Jewish Soldiers and Who Fought against Nazi Germany ( 1985) is dedicated to the Jewish heroes of the Holocaust who the Nazis as Allied as in the resistance fought against soldiers, partisans, in Even movements, and the ghettos. during the changing atmosphere regarding

opinions about the Holocaust in the mid-1980s, Yad Vashem still filled its func tion as a to memorial dedicated "heroes and martyrs." Six great, oblong, hex six rest in two agonal granite blocks (representing the million) stacks of three, an in the a star. The monument stands in forming opening shape of Jewish front a in ancient of tiered sunken plaza the shape of the menorah, recalling Jewish rebellion. connections to Clearly symbolic elements heighten the heroism, while are as to the imposing sleek forms linked, is Schwartz's memorial, minimalism. was on a moment Fink's memorial built just the cusp of historical when atti tudes were to beginning change radically.

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This content downloaded from 89.179.117.36 on Sun, 01 Nov 2015 01:18:36 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Moshe Children's details Safdie, Memorial, Postmodern Strategies: Absence and Disorientation in Memorials showing children's photographs and reflected memorial candles, 1987,Yad In 1976 Moshe Safdie was invited to Yad Vashem to create a children's memorial, Vashem Art Museum jerusalem (artwork in success ? Moshe Safdie; photographs by Michal dedicated 1987. The great of his Habitat '67 apartment complex (for R?nnen Safdie) the 1967World Exposition) inMontreal prompted the invitation, for the Israeli government found in him an Israeli architect of international acclaim.41 Safdie was Knesset to a museum to one and a asked by the design small the half million in Government a Jewish children killed the Holocaust. officials imagined docu vitrines mentary museum, with and historical explanations. Safdie, however, 41. Moshe Safdie was born in Israel, but emigrat visitors visits to thought that would be emotionally exhausted after their the ed to Canada, with his family, when he was fifteen Historical Museum on site. a years old. See Uriel M. Adiv, "Safdie, Moshe," at already located the Instead of designing documen Grove Art available at Online, by subscription an an consist tary space, he presented alternative model: architectural complex http://www.oup.com/online/groveart/.

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This content downloaded from 89.179.117.36 on Sun, 01 Nov 2015 01:18:36 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions a room with five candles. ing of lined mirrors, containing endlessly reflecting to was hesitant to build the the The administration, according Safdie, memorial; main concern was use seen as officials' that the of light might be uplifting.42 on a American survivors saw the model and were They stalled decision until its immediately convinced of power and relevance. Abraham and Edita Spiegel, son was at saw whose killed Auschwitz, the project and immediately sponsored its construction. is to out the Memorial was Safdie quick point that Children's war built before the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial, which fundamentally shifted and memorials away from heroizing motifs and toward contemplation, respect, to sorrow. It took American survivors and an exiled Israeli architect make possi ble the first memorial at Yad Vashem that addressed victims, albeit a delineated 42. Interview with Moshe Safdie, August 26, 2004, Somerville, MA. group of victims?the children.

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This content downloaded from 89.179.117.36 on Sun, 01 Nov 2015 01:18:36 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions the visitor a Upon entering memorial, the passes large, mounted square of to a clear glass, inscribed the memory of the children, and walks into bunker like tunnel that leads to a hollowed-out cavern. On underground the right hangs a plaque of Uziel Spiegel, Abraham and Edita Spiegel's son. Through a door and the visitor is music a around bend, the greeted by atonal and recorded recitation in and Hebrew English of children's names, ages, and places of ori with gin, coinciding large-format photographic portraits of children. They to a nationalities A appear represent range of and religious backgrounds. small door to enter to a room. allows people single file and leads darkened Reflected in mirrors, five memorial candles splinter into millions of lights. The Talmud states that souls of unburied dead never find rest in their endless wanderings about the and the are universe, reflecting flames for Safdie "the souls of the children."43 A leads visitors room is path single-file through the space. As the disorienting and filled with both darkness and light, itmight very well be the kind of visual code that Laub and Podell speak of when they write that art trauma is about marked by empty spaces, disorientation, and discomfort.44 The in in viewers to change attitudes Israel allowed accept the visual metaphors and in aesthetic codes employed the Children's Memorial. of visitors' reactions it Regardless (some have called "pure kitsch"), the memorial clearly does not depict Zionism in the guise of ghetto fighters. The move toward with the innocent victims who were not sympathizing fighters an coincided with acceptance of survivors and their stories that started in the early 1960s with the Eichmann trial. These attitudes visually coalesced in in trauma an Safdie's memorial 1987, when had become accepted medical

condition for which the survivors and their families were treated. The psy Dina Wardi in chotherapist describes the role children play family memory and inherited trauma.

The of the on sign candle, for instance, takes heightened significance when viewed in terms of Israeli psychotherapeutic practice that addresses trauma.While candles in the Children's Memorial signify deceased children, the of the candle more the of metaphor broadly signifies memory deceased in more family members survivors' families. About the work Safdie said: "The I entered the material, the more I became convinced that what was needed was a ner a memorial to its mirror neshama, candle, multiplied infinity through A ner in is a image."4^ neshema, the Jewish tradition, sign for the dead. Wardi describes the role of children of Holocaust survivors are out to who singled those who died in the Holocaust. ancient represent Following Jewish tradition, children often bear the names of dead relatives. When named after relatives

in who died the Holocaust, she explains, these children, whom she calls "memorial candles," often bear the burden of Holocaust mourning for the entire family. Wardi that survivors out one child to observes often single bear the burden of and death. That child as a on memory often functions metaphor whom

parents unload their needs and conflicts.46 Survivors considered the establish 43. Moshe Safdie, Jerusalem: The Future of the Past ment of new families a to the central element in the Nazi to (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1989), 197. response plan: 44. Laub and Podell, 991-1005. exterminate all of Jews Europe, and very important, mothers and children. "I 45. Safdie, 196. was born in "relates one "I have three names: 46. Dina Wardi and Efraim Sicher, "The Burden of 1946, survivor, given Arye, Zvi, in 24. and three names. I am Memory," Breaking Crystal, Moshe, family actually carrying the whole family around

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This content downloaded from 89.179.117.36 on Sun, 01 Nov 2015 01:18:36 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions on in at my shoulders."47 The other children the family, least consciously freed of

these burdens, grow up to have semi-normal lives, while the memorial-candle

child often has trouble with relationships, careers, and family. The memorial is are candle the emotional healer, while the siblings the physical healers, estab own entire Bar-On con lishing their families and thus "rebuilding" families.48 to not tributes this research by demonstrating that only the memorial-candle and trauma.49 children, but also their siblings bear the burden of memory in as Classical memory theory orders images empty spaces (such empty build , so as to ensure In case memorial the ings) better memory. the of the candle, a so to on a memory of dead relative is "shelved," say, the body of living child, a kind seems to and memory spaces become of memory body, for which there no It to be precedent.50 might be safe say, following Wardi, that the memorial as a candle child functions for the parents continual, if rarely expressed, shock

of past trauma. A memorial for victims who are children is easier to make than a memorial

for victims who are adults?and it is here that this memorial comes close to ful

Bennett art filling what calls the "moralizing" function of works of that clearly out victims versus spell "good" "evil" perpetrators, thereby leaving the position viewer victim never or of the allied with the and contemplating his her poten In are not to tiality for sadistic behavior.5I this instance, children obviously able lead a resistance their is as and One fight; passivity accepted morally right just. could argue that thememorial embodies Zionist ideology that heroizes the fighter reason victims are not is and blames the victim?the only these blamed because are they children.52

If the tradition of private mourning existed in the naming process described a more in above, public shift attitudes slowly developed. Bar-On's study of Israeli a in in families coincided with noticeable change Israeli society the 1970s and a survivors a 1980s, marked by less judgmental attitude toward Holocaust and need to of emotional of the need 47. Quoted inDiane Wardi, Memorial Candles speak: "Acknowledgment complex processes, Tavistock 28. (London: Routledge, 1992), for self-actualization, and of differences between individuals and generations 48. Wardi, Memorial Candles, 38. came more mature about in the seventies and A society 49. Bar-On, Fear and Hope. only eighties. emerged, to to cost 50. Aby Warburg's approach memory included which learned acknowledge the high of previous patterns."53 the notion that bodies can and carry memory, in was not in This change attitudes found only the medical community, of although he was dealing specifically with painted which Bar-On is a but also in images of bodies, his might be the only precedent part, public speeches, newspapers, and literature. to on a was for attempting put memory body. He It is now in recognized that this change attitudes "has permeated almost every concerned with the way that bodies, in paintings, of the Porat three instances of and carry explosive energies from the past in specific segment community"54 analyzes speeches motifs, such as gowns and hair. The view survivors in in flowing writings by people who interacted with the 19SOS, and who, the er who these motifs as ones recognizes repeated made it known that had their in relation from the past can be greeted by a bodily "shock" 1990s, publicly they rethought positions of to survivors. to a recognition. the She refers speech by Ehud Barak, the novels of Hanoch 51. Bennett, 15. Bartov, and the memoirs of a Holocaust survivor, Avraham Each text indi 52. In this context it is important to remark on Tory. as cates a victims the dualism of catastrophe and redemption, sympathetic position against the ideology that the "went like Saul Friedl?nder it.The memorial on Mt. explains to Bartov was to voice sheep the slaughter." stated publicly that he unable these Zion is part of the orthodox Yeshiva complex and in in it focuses its exhibition area on the catastrophe of opinions earlier, but that changes Israeli culture the 1990s made possible the Holocaust. A full comparison between the Mt. ?and even necessary?to do so. The were not sudden, but rather were Zion memorial and Yad Vashem would be a chal changes the of a series of events in to held lenging project. Friedl?nder, "Memory of the products culminating changes commonly Shoah in Israel," in The Art of some not Memory. beliefs, of which?and by far all?I have described above. Porat sug 53. Bar-On, Fear and Hope, 29. factors to this 54. Porat, "Israeli Society and Recent Attitudes," gests contributing change: 785.

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This content downloaded from 89.179.117.36 on Sun, 01 Nov 2015 01:18:36 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions wars in East to more complicated the Middle lead empathy toward other Jews in distress;

a a following theYom KippurWar process of self-examination included rethinking of Zionism;

a War II concern with man in the as to post-World "the street" opposed the hero;

Ben-Gurion 's call for a "new was a return to man" being replaced by Jewish history and culture;

the more Israel it to to an became established, the less needed cling idea of heroism; and

a 1995 "each person has a name" ceremony in the Knesset commemor ated the living.55

an were The Gulf War played important role, for various aspects of it understood as metaphors for the Holocaust. Survivors, for instance, viewed themselves as

"experts" about living under the threat of death.56 Wearing gas masks reminded Israelis of the and the was to Holocaust, fact that gas supplied Iraq by German was megacompanies only exacerbated the metaphor. While Saddam Hussein to compared Hitler, Israelis compared their passive position with the passive sit uation of in earlier. in Jews Europe fifty years The Palestinians Judea and Samaria, on their roofs at the missiles over Tel Aviv and Ramat dancing sight of falling Gan, brought back the memory of Poles dancing at the sight of theWarsaw Ghetto it Uprising.The survivors, meanwhile, felt that they had "been through already":

are true we We, the survivors, the Zionists of today, because know what it means . . standing up against fears, against those who attack you. .We know, more than Sabras, more than newcomers from other countries and situa . . . tions, the value of the Jewish state. Each of us witnessed such horrors and . . . that now a bombs that a suffering few destroyed few buildings here and or confined to a in there, being your place for just few weeks, and your own seem to us a country, children's game.57

Moshe Zuckermann analyzes the Israeli press during the Gulf War and demon strates through surveys that "Holocaust survivors and their families show the lowest level of to other in anxiety compared groups the population."58 Survivors knew all there was to writes not know, Porat, and could be frightened again by 55. These bullet points paraphrase Porat's text. trifling details such as wearing gas masks. A newspaper article published ten Porat explains that in the public debates of 1995, after the war started attested to the need to reevaluate notions about the survivors were cared for so that they could serve days as voters, but were received with contempt by Holocaust in light of the fears generated by the Gulf War: Israelis. Porat, "Israeli Society and Recent Attitudes," 795. Our attitude to the Jews murdered in the Holocaust, an attitude of hard 56. The following accounts of the Gulf War are hearted mixed with from Porat, "Israeli Society and Recent Attitudes," vanity insecurity and anxiety, changed considerably. 793-94. It became more sober, human, and soft, a lot less "Israeli," a lot more 57. Conversation between Porat and Avraham The that "it will never to us" has turned into a Tory, February 1991, cited in Porat, "Israeli "Jewish." certainty happen Society and Recent Attitudes," 792. realization that "it did to ... In recent events happen us." this respect, the 58. Moshe Zuckermann, Shoah baheder ha'arum are one more in the of our attitude . . . the (Holocaust in the Sealed Room), cited in Porat, step process changing [to] "Israeli and Recent Attitudes," 794. reaction in the war. The Society Jewish Jews of Europe took from us, perhaps finally,

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This content downloaded from 89.179.117.36 on Sun, 01 Nov 2015 01:18:36 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions status we we status the assumed deserved, the of judges sitting, cold and on a on millions of distant, the high bench, issuing verdict Jews.59

survivors a trauma victim As attitudes toward the changed, the possibility for to as take the position "speaker" emerged, thus enabling ^position for the "lis a tener."60 Between the period of pre-state Israel and the Gulf War, language of trauma not became accepted. Perhaps unexpectedly, the forms chosen for official survivors memorials also changed. While earlier memorials heroize the who in a more and fought resistance, later memorials embody open empathetic? not victims although necessarily unproblematic?official attitude toward the and survivors.

The changes described in the preceding pages should not be called, too In films from the simply, "positive" changes. his analysis of Israeli 1940s through Gertz new survivors in the 1960s, explains that attitudes toward resulted repre sentations Zionist While earlier that only reinforced ideology. films exaggerate in Zionist ideals of heroism and negate images of Diaspora Jews, films the 1960s a survivors show strong relationship between the and their Diaspora past.61 These to was visi films only bring the surface what hidden before: making these images is not are Zionist ble necessarily positive, for the images still parts of ideology. were are In Before, they hidden. Now, they visible but otherwise unchanged. the framework of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, the point atwhich one is to listen to stories extreme is an in a willing and ready of pain important step 59. Yechiam Weitz, "Yes, ItHappened to Us As an to traumatic Well," Davar, January 25, 1991, cited in Porat, healing process that also marks ethical decision deal with the "Israeli Society and Recent Attitudes," 794. Hidden come to the fore, but what matters are the ways in which 60. Felman and Laub describe an ethics of listen past. images are handled and viewers. ing,which Bennett, among others, criticizes for they respected by the seemingly facile appropriation of sympathy. at LipaYahalom and Dan Zemach's Valley of the Communities (1987-92) Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub, eds., Testimony: Yad Vashem embodies for the dead rather than for the heroes. Cut Crises inWitnessing (New Haven: Yale University respect praise Press, is a structure into 1992). from natural bedrock, the valley labyrinthine divided geo 61. Gertz, 175-96. areas Jewish communities that were not 62. Efraim Sicher writes that a controversy arose graphical naming practically?but the of the because it In the in which the memorial was the during planning valley para completely?destroyed.62 period built, immortalizes the lost world and doxically Jewish of the dead Israeli cultural rhetoric that under reconstructs it as a ruin, another khurban. The concept memorializing paralleled traumas title "Valley of the Communities" ultimately was stood the survivors' and their relevance for contemporary Israeli society. chosen over "Valley of the Destroyed To the memorial, one walks down a road. From above, the Communities" as some Holocaust survivors did approach curving an with cream-color stones that are go back to live in their towns and villages. See space resembles archaeological site, shining, Sicher, "The Burden of The of Memory: Writing reminiscent of those that line the Jerusalem streets. Before one enters the memo the Post-Holocaust Generation," inBreaking a vista of the next covered with the of the Crystal, 43. rial, however, hill, buildings living 63. One hundred and seven walls corre creates a to names roughly communities of Jerusalem, counterpart the of destroyed vil spond to the geographic arrangement of the and cities below. The names of five thousand communities are carved into map of Europe and North Africa. The names lages that appear inHebrew characters are those com rocks that rise to heights of thirty or more feet.63 "The valley itself is a labyrinth used the whereas monly by Jews themselves, of and of and dead ends inwhich it is intended that those written in Latin characters were the ver courtyards walls, openings on eve visitors will sense some in a sions popular with the non-Jews the of the degree of insecurity, of being trapped frustrating Second World War. The different sizes of font maze to in a that threatens collapse upon them, of being caught place from indicate the different sizes of the Jewish communi which is difficult."64 ties. The names are not engraved on the walls in escape lists, but appear to be haphazardly arranged. This to Similar the experiences of individuals in the Children's Memorial, visitors was done inorder to emphasize the dispersed to the of the Communities the site as due to nature of the Jewish communities in the Diaspora. Valley experience individuals, for, See the Yad Vashem Web site at it is to view as a www.yad its construction, practically impossible the memorial part of vashem.org. of visitors. Different individuals view the site in various 64. Yad Vashem Web site, http://yad group might ways. vashem.org.il/visiting/index_visiting.html. While Jewish visitors may search for the names of their families' former homes,

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This content downloaded from 89.179.117.36 on Sun, 01 Nov 2015 01:18:36 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Moshe Safdie,Transport Memorial, 1995, or visitors names German other European might search for the of their home railway car, metal, wood, and concrete. towns. Individuals are confronted with millions of the Collection of the Yad Vashem Art Museum, dead, represented by ? Moshe Safdie; communities on viewer Jerusalem. (Artwork pho thousands of listed the rocks. The might be unprepared tograph by Michal R?nnen Safdie) to experience this overwhelming number of dead, and the feeling of being lost

opposite: and disoriented can be forced upon the viewer. Nevertheless, the form the LipaYahalom and Dan Zemach,Valley of memorial takes and the it fills, that is, to create a space where the viewer the Communities, view into maze from goal names runs counter to above and detail of engraved of feels disoriented and alone, the objectives of the hero-fighter communities ? and (artwork LipaYahalom Zionist memorials. Dan Zemach; photographs by the author) memor The Valley of the Communities is reminiscent of unofficial, private ials in Israel. Judith Tydor Baumel analyzes forms of individual and communal commemoration in to memorial monu Holocaust Israel, referring yizkor books, 65. Judith Tydor Baumel, "In Everlasting Memory: ments, memorial stones, and on tombstones.65 The of the Individual and Communal Holocaust Memory in inscriptions Valley in The Israeli 145-70. is a curious to creation Israel," Shaping of Identity, Communities, she writes, analogue the of memorial

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This content downloaded from 89.179.117.36 on Sun, 01 Nov 2015 01:18:36 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions stones in put up by small European communities memory of their destroyed towns communities often on and villages. Individuals and small concentrated own commemoration?Zionist ideas of heroism remembering the dead for their resistance are and markedly absent. After the war, the landsmanschaften, organiza tions a to composed of former members of European community, felt obliged

install memorial stones over nonexistent graves. This type of commemoration in with stones started 1947.66 By the 1960s, long boulevards lined memorial were most at entrances to main Aviv cemeteries. created, notably the the three Tel writes use stones in Communities is Baumel that the of the Valley of the similar to stones?a a landsmanschaften memorial place for reflection and substitute grave, was without martyrs' ashes. "The fact that this project adopted by the vanguard commemoration?a of national Holocaust body which for years promoted the in its a ethos of physical heroism memorials and research projects?is proof of transition within Israeli She conceptual occurring society." continues, "Today is a to to a there greater willingness grant legitimacy European immigrant cul to its to it com ture, recognize vitality and incorporate parts of within national ... memorative patterns. In the 1990s, the concept of memorializing the dead fit was to traumas. For with Israeli cultural rhetoric that sympathetic survivors' the were to stories first time, Israelis willing hear the and experiences of survivors."67 is not While Safdie's second memorial, the Transport Memorial, dedicated to a was a in survivors, the voice of survivor given preeminent space it. Com in a pleted 1994, the memorial consists of railway car, donated from Poland, out remains a an which precariously juts from the replicated of bridge after is a concrete explosion. The bundle of mangled steel supported by retaining wall. A comes into view as visitor railway platform the descends the retaining wall, on which is inscribed an individual survivor's account of the conditions in sim

cars: one were into our car. ... It is ilar "Over hundred people packed cattle to in our car. impossible describe the tragic situation airless, closed Everyone to to a air . . time at tried push his way small opening ." For the first Yad Vashem, a survivor's voice is made visible.

Wall inTribute to the Survivors: Modernism Revisited

In the the trauma foregoing examples, visual trope of has yielded spaces for viewers to a sympathetic consider the plight of all victims, without invoking Since in a new hierarchy among them. the redesigning of Yad Vashem 2005,

memorial entitled the Wall in Tribute to the Survivors greets visitors upon their It is museum entry. part of the much larger redesign of the complex by Moshe entire in Safdie. Although the complex deserves attention, only the Wall Tribute to the Survivors will be addressed here.

in to is in its massive The Wall Tribute the Survivors minimal design, white, 66. Baumel, 155. In 1947, members of the former concrete a hollow, pillars creating colonnade signifying both strength and classi Polish-Jewish community of Zdonska-Wolla cism. At the same it invokes a minimal aesthetic associated with received a small bag of ashes from the Chelmno time, however, extermination camp in Poland. The landsman an in to high modernism and with the obtrusive power of object relation the schaften received a free plot of land from the Tel viewer; an is in its the viewer and his Aviv cemetery. Itwas not until the mid-1950s that object present very materiality, challenging a bureaucratic was set for the installa or notion and most process up her of space place.68 If of the memorials, including Safdie's tion of this type of commemoration. earlier contributions, focus on absence and disorientation, this memorial can be 67. Baumel, 166. 68. 44-63. as Chave, read combining this strategy with the earlier presence of minimalism.

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This content downloaded from 89.179.117.36 on Sun, 01 Nov 2015 01:18:36 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Moshe Safdie, Wall inTribute to the Survivors, 2005, concrete,Yad Vashem Art Museum jerusalem (artwork ? Moshe Safdie; photograph by Timothy Hursley)

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This content downloaded from 89.179.117.36 on Sun, 01 Nov 2015 01:18:36 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions a Vacillating between light and shadow, positive and negative space, colonnade

preserves absence, as have other memorials described above. The alternation of to columns and negative space, however, adds another component the visual are trope of absence: presence. The columns unabashedly there. More important, is the biblical will perhaps, inscription that emphasizes healing and renewal: "I put my breath into you and you shall live again, and Iwill set upon you your own soul."69

The monument was to act as a designed border between the everyday world and a to is a sacred world of memorialization. According Safdie, "The Wall line to a an are a from everyday sacred: border, entrance; you know you making to a new not a mon change space."70 If earlier memorials did address survivors, ument to now transition to dedicated them enables the physical and mental the site. It viewer to move or in a one can requests the either singly group: walk or a Disorientation is not as is case in along through colonnade. the goal, the the Valley of the Communities and the Children's Memorial. Instead of the motifs of or us in the labyrinth the darkened interior, Safdie gives stable presence familiar

though almost overpowering forms. Leading beyond the dichotomy of modern a to and postmodern architecture, colonnade dedicated the survivors defines the

entrance to Israel's national site of Holocaust memory.

Natasha Goldman is assistant professor of art history at the University of Texas, El Paso. Her research and teaching concentrate on contemporary art, theory, and public space, specifically examining Holocaust memorials. A Fulbright-H ayes fellowship and the Graduate Colloquium for Political Iconography at the University of Hamburg have funded her research.

69. Ezekiel 37: 12, 14. 70. Interview with Safdie, July 26, 2004, Somerville, MA.

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