The Denkmal Für Die Ermordeten Juden Europas and the Stolpersteine

Home , Joachim Fest, Stolperstein

Reactions to Holocaust Memorials: The Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas and the Stolpersteine

A thesis submitted to the

Graduate School

of the University of Cincinnati

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts

In the Department of German Studies

of the College of Arts and Sciences

Emily R. Lamb

B.A. Ohio University

April 2020

Committee Chair: Tanja Nusser, Ph.D.

Committee Member: Svea Bräunert, Ph.D

Abstract

People have been memorializing the Holocaust since before it even ended, taking forms such as that of statues, plaques, entire museums, and numerous others. Many have criticized these ways of remembering the Holocaust, but at the same time plenty others see the good that comes from having these memorials, for the nation of Germany and its citizens, as well as others who visit the memorials as tourists.

Looking specifically at the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas and the

Stolpersteine, this thesis closely examines Holocaust memorials, their history, and how different groups have reacted to them. These groups include politicians, everyday citizens, and also my perspective, as someone who is neither a European nor German citizen and has no personal connection to the Holocaust or its victims. The two memorials, although quite different from one another in nearly every way, are successful in commemorating their respective Holocaust victims and keeping their memory and the memory of the tragic Holocaust alive.

Acknowledgements I would like to dedicate this thesis in thanks to all those who have helped me accomplish this milestone in my master’s career, including family, friends, and members of the Department of German Studies at the University of Cincinnati.

I want to thank Drs. Tanja Nusser and Svea Bräunert, who advised me on my thesis and helped me every step of the way, always providing feedback and encouraging me in my writing.

Thank you also to Dr. Todd Herzog, Dr. Evan Torner, Dr. Lindsay Preseau, Dr. Mareike Gronich and to my past and present fellow Graduate Teaching Assistants at the University of Cincinnati.

Each of you had a hand in my thesis in one way or another and were always supporting me throughout this process. Thank you too to Dr. Richard Schade, for everything you did for us and our department. Your memory will always stay with us; may you rest in peace.

A special thank you to my family and friends, who always believed in me, prayed for me, and supported me. Thank you especially to my parents, Karen and Culver Lamb, and to my sister and brother-in-law, Katie and Chris Schade. I wouldn’t be where I am today without you.

Last but not least, I want to thank Jared Brichant, my biggest support who has been by my side through every step of the last three years. Thank you for encouraging me to never give up and for always reminding me of what I am capable of.

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Table of Contents

Abstract ...... i

Acknowledgements ...... iii

Table of Contents ...... iv

List of Figures ...... v

Introduction ...... 1

Memory and Memorial Culture ...... 16

Critiques Against and Criticisms of Memorials ...... 33

Conclusion ...... 43

Works Cited ...... 45

List of Figures

Figure 1: Western side of the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas facing Southeast ...... 5

Figure 2: West side of Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas facing East ...... 6

Figure 3: West side of Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas facing East ...... 7

Figure 4: Stolpersteine in memory of the Kroner family ...... 11

Figure 5: Stolpersteine in memory of Holocaust victims ...... 12

Introduction

If we are willing, we will always be able to remember the Holocaust and will not forget its history. People are continually visiting museums, memorials, monuments, statues and all other kinds of places of remembrance, but even if one were to never visit any of these sites, we are reminded still of these events in our calendars and have certain days set aside each year to reflect on those times, for example Holocaust Remembrance Day or the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.1

The Holocaust was an unprecedented and unfollowed event in history which claimed the lives of approximately six million Jews and 11 million others between the years of 1941 and

1945.2 Although it took place many decades ago, the Holocaust and its memorials are still an important topic in today’s world; we are now in the third and fourth generation after the

Holocaust occurred, and the survivors thereof will not be with us much longer. The Holocaust and its memory is also still a topic in Germany’s politics. For example, Björn Höcke, current politician in Germany for the Alternative für Deutschland party (AfD), is “one of the most controversial figures in the AfD's leadership structure, having criticized the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas (Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe) in Berlin and advocated the abolition of a law that makes Holocaust denial illegal in Germany” (Schumacher).

He played a role in helping aid the (temporary) victory of Thuringia’s now former state premier,

Thomas Kemmerich in the election that took place on February 5th of this year; although

Kemmerich was only in power for 24 hours, this could still lead to dangerous consequences

1 See also: Murray J. Kohn’s Is the Holocaust Vanishing? 2 Of course, this is not the only act of genocide to exist – what is meant here is the extreme to which this specific genocide occurred.

concerning the laws against Holocaust denial that are currently in place and the promotion of Nazi ideologies in the future, as the votes for him came from those who politically identify with the far right.3

There were a number of events that collectively make up the Holocaust;4 specific ways in which it has been memorialized in a post-war, reunified Germany will be examined at length in this thesis. Looking at and thinking about various aspects of memorials and their histories, this thesis will analyze two specific Holocaust memorials – the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden

Europas and the Stolpersteine (stumbling stones); the former is located solely in Berlin, while the latter can be seen all throughout Germany and in other countries in Europe. This thesis is structured into three main sections; the first will include a detailed description of the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas and Stolpersteine memorials and their physical appearances as well as their differences. The second section will dive deeper into the history of memorials and memory/memorial culture, taking a closer examination of the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden

Europas and the Stolpersteine. In the third section, I will be discussing the various critiques and criticisms that have come up surrounding memorials in general while also bringing in the two aforementioned Holocaust memorials. This section will also include a small discussion about a group of people who deny and downplay the Holocaust, who think certain aspects about it didn’t happen to the extreme that they truly did. The last section will then be a conclusion of my research, and what memorials mean for and to me, as someone who has no personal connection to the Holocaust or its victims.

3 See also: Sarah Lawton’s article Political earthquake in Thuringia as new President gets elected with far-right votes in Euractiv’s online database. 4 These events include but are not limited to the beginning of experimental killings with gas in Auschwitz in 1941, systemic gassings in Chelmno, the planning of the Final Solution, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943, and many others. See also the online page titled Events in the history of the Holocaust on The Holocaust Explained section of The Wiener Holocaust Library online database.

I chose to examine these specific memorials in part because of the way they are nearly complete opposites of one another, both in their physical appearance and how they remember the victims of the Holocaust. Because of these differences, they then each achieve a different form of impact on their visitors. I am also looking at these two memorials because of the significance that Berlin holds in relation to the Nazi era.5 From a tourism stance, “Berlin is the place where tourists confront the fanaticism of the perpetrators. As the Third Reich’s seat of government,

Berlin was the administrative hub of the Final Solution from its earliest conceptions” (Reynolds

141). Berlin is home to many memorials, monuments, plaques, and museums, not just in remembrance of the Jews who were persecuted during the Holocaust but also for the Sinti and

Roma, political opponents of the Nazi regime, artists and authors whose work opposed National

Socialist ideologies, homosexuals, prisoners of war, those who were forced to labor, prisoners of war, and many other victims. It is no surprise that there are so many Holocaust memorials in

Berlin, due to the fact that this is where a majority of the politics behind the traumatic event took place and where the Nazi dictatorship was based, beginning in 1933. The attack orders during the war came from Berlin – to burn synagogues throughout the Reich, to loot shops owned by

Jewish traders, and to detain Jews in concentration camps; this persecution of Jews and victims increased dramatically with the beginning of the Second World War in September 1939.6 A major event soon thereafter was the Wannsee Conference held in Berlin in 1942; this meeting came to be known as one of the most important events in the planning of the Final Solution which would ultimately claim the lives of millions of European Jews.7

5 Although, virtually the whole of German society was involved, from the SS, the railway industries who transported the victims, and the neighbours who betrayed Jews in hiding to the police (Schlör 24). 6 See also: Joachim Schlör’s Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas. 7 See also: Peter Longerich’s The Wannsee Conference in the Development of the Final Solution.

In modern day Germany in central Berlin, the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas stands next to the famous Brandenburger Tor, and before the erecting of this massive memorial, there was much debate and controversy about this memorial, both revolving around the location, and if all of the victims of Nazism should be remembered, or only the Jews. The location was decided on because it was described as “an important link between the inner city and Tiergarten”,8 and, according to Joachim Schlör in his book Denkmal für die ermordeten

Juden Europas, it was also decided that the memorial would be dedicated to “the unique nature of the murder of the Jews of Europe (35)”, quite possibly because of the “attempt [that] was made to forcibly destroy and wipe out the centuries-old link between Jews and Europe” (Schlör

24).

8 There are other memorials and monuments at Tiergarten that are representative of some aspect of the Holocaust, including the Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Victims of National Socialism, the Monument to Homosexuals Persecuted Under National Socialist Regime. The Reichskanzlei (Reich Chancellery) was also located nearby.

Fig. 1: Western side of the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas facing Southeast. Photographer Emily Lamb. Photo taken February 27, 2016.

Fig. 2: West side of Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas facing East. Photographer Emily Lamb. Photo taken February 27, 2016.

Fig. 3: West side of Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas facing East. Photographer Emily Lamb. Photo taken February 27, 2016.

At first glance, one who is not familiar with the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas would most likely not be able to recognize what it is or why it is there. It is located next to the Brandenburger Tor and the final design, created by U.S. architect Peter Eisenman, consists of 2,711 gray rectangular pillars of varying sizes, ranging from half of a meter to about three meters tall. Depending on where one is standing, visitors are either able to gaze over a sizeable portion of the five-acre memorial or are unable to see past the towering pillars as Figures 1-3 show. There are no names on any of the pillars, nor, depending on the side one is standing on or looking from, a clear sign or anything stating what it is or who it is for. There is however an underground information center located under the memorial, where visitors can go and learn more about the events that transpired leading up to the Holocaust, as well as come face to face with pictures of some of its victims.

In terms of its location, the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas is concentrated by being limited to the five-acre plot of land and can only be experienced and interacted with in this space. Looking at Figure 1, this photo was taken from the western side of the memorial facing South. At this point, one is still near the edge and has not yet fully explored the depth of the memorial’s space. In Figure 2, the vantage point is if one were standing at the western side of the memorial facing the East, with the Brandenburg Gate down the street to the left. With this image, one can start to get a better idea of the varying heights of the pillars, how the ground works with the memorial to bring visitors deeper, and just how engulfing and disorienting this memorial can become when one ventures into its center. This effect is created by the height of the pillars blocking most of the view of what is outside the memorial. Figure 3 is a photo taken from the heart of the memorial, at one of its deepest points where the pillars more or less tower over their visitors.

Turning now to the second memorial I will be discussing, the Stolpersteine (stumbling stones), one can see in many different ways that this memorial is quite different from the

Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas. It consists of a collection of small stones that collectively make up the memorial; these are scattered not only across Berlin, but throughout

Germany and different parts of Europe as well. These stones are there to “commemorate the mostly Jewish residents who suffered persecution during the Nazi era and, in many cases, perished” (Reynolds 161).

In appearance, they are small, brass, cobblestone-size plaques in the ground “usually placed in front of the victim’s last address of choice, forever memorializing their place in the neighborhood and community” (Atlas Obscura). The stones also include the place or cause of death, as can be seen in Figure 4 below, “Ermordet in Auschwitz” or “Gedemütigt/Entrechtet

Flucht in den Tod”. These Stolpersteine bring a permanent and tangible piece of memory to places that no longer exist – many Jewish neighborhoods were destroyed during the war, and having these stones lay in memory of its residents in a way restores a small piece of what was lost. Each plaque also has inscribed the name(s) of the Holocaust victims, making the remembrance of them more personal which is in stark contrast to the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas, where there are no names on the large pillars but rather it represents the group of people as a whole.

Another personal touch to the Stolpersteine is that each individual stone is created by hand. The memorial was designed and executed by the German artist Gunter Demnig, and not only with the memory of the Jewish victims in mind; the Stolpersteine are also in remembrance of the Sinti and Roma,9 members of the LGBT community, and other persecuted groups. Since

9 Sinti and Roma are commonly referred to as “Gypsies”.

2005, Michael Friedrichs-Friedländer has been helping Demnig create the stones (there is such a big desire for them to be installed, that Demnig no longer had the time to devote to them). When

Friendrichs-Friendländer was asked why creates the stones by hand instead of with the help of machinery, he responded by saying, “To show respect for the victims, it must be done by hand;

… the Holocaust was so systematic. What they invented as means of mass slaughter, it was more or less automatised. We don’t want anything like that” (Friedrichs-Friedländer). Although the work can be devastating, Friedrichs-Friedländer “feels compelled to continue by what he sees as a moral and political imperative” (Apperly).

The Stolpersteine are one of many attempts of reversing the process of using the term ‘six million’ as a synonym for the Holocaust by commemorating and remembering individuals and communities (Wollaston 37).10 On May 8th, 1985, 40 years after the liberation from the National

Socialist tyranny, Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker gave a speech during which he defined what it means to remember: „Erinnern heißt, eines Geschehens so ehrlich und rein zu gedenken, daß es zu einem Teil des eigenen Innern wird … Wir gedenken heute in Trauer aller

Toten des Krieges und der Gewaltherrschaft. Wir gedenken insbesondere der sechs Millionen

Juden, die in deutschen Konzentrationslagern ermordet wurden” (Schlör 28).11 Weizsäcker goes on to list more nations and people who, along with the German Jews, should be remembered from the Holocaust – those who were put to death because of their sexual orientation, their religious views, and even their mental (in)stability. Even if one does not have a personal connection to a tragic event that took place or the lives lost through it, it is imperative to reflect

10 Commemorating refers to honoring a person or group of people, while remembering something or someone means to recall it to memory. In this context, both terms are important to keep in mind. 11 “Remembering means thinking of an event so honestly and purely that it becomes a part of our inward selves […] We remember today in sorrow all those who died in the war and under tyranny. We remember in particular the six million Jews who were murdered in German concentration camps.”

on them and to remember and mourn its victims. Each person knows what it feels like to lose a loved one, and it is important to remember the victims of the Holocaust in order to ensure something like that never happens again and that their lives were not lost in vain. This is quite possibly one of the most important characteristics the Stolpersteine behold, is being a memorial in remembrance of nearly every kind of victim of the Holocaust.

Fig. 4: Three Stolpersteine in Berlin, memorializing victims of the same family.

Fig. 5: Stolpersteine in memory of Holocaust victims.

When looking at the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas and the Stolpersteine side by side, they are quite different from and are opposites of one another in nearly every way; these differences can be seen in their location, their physical appearance, who was behind them

(regarding both the ideas and funding for the memorials), which victims of the Holocaust they remember and how, as well as how the memorials themselves are interacted with by their visitors and passersby. I will describe the history of each memorial in greater length in the following

section, but the biggest difference to be noted here is how prominent in the public sphere every aspect of the construction of the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas was, as opposed to the more independent process and funding of creating the Stolpersteine.

As for their respective locations, the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas was built, as I have previously mentioned, on a five-acre plot of land in central Berlin; the

Stolpersteine, however, expand farther than Berlin and even farther than Germany – they can also be seen and visited in other European countries and even other continents as well. The

Stolpersteine are placed in front of its respective victim’s last place of residence and in that sense already become more personalized than the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas. In their physical appearance, they exist in space in very different ways. The Denkmal für die ermordeten

Juden Europas consists of large pillars that could not possibly go unnoticed, whereas the

Stolpersteine are level with the ground, are very small, and could easily be missed if one is not looking for them.

Two further differences to be noted are which Holocaust victims each memorial was created to remember, and how. The Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas commemorates specifically the Jewish victims, while the Stolpersteine remember many more. However, when one looks at the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas, there is no clear indication of who it is for or why it is there. Contrastingly, each individual Stolperstein represents an individual victim – it has their name, the year they were born, and when and how they died, including when they were deported to a concentration camp if that was their fate. It is much more personal to the victim in this sense and helps its viewers learn about the victims themselves as opposed to only seeing them as a collective statistic.

The ways the two memorials differ in how they memorialize their respective Holocaust victims is also reflected in their names: the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas does not give the visitor any clues in its design as to who it is commemorating, so it must be given in the name. On the other hand, when one sees a Stolperstein, it is very clear who is being remembered with each stone; as a collective memorial, they are not for a specific group of people, but rather for the individual. Visitors or passersby also have the information about the victim right there in front of them, so it is not as necessary to include in the name of the memorial itself the kinds or groups of victims which the stones represent.

Another aspect of the two memorials that differs greatly is how they answer the questions of who was behind their creation and the process of them coming into being. As previously stated, everything that went into the creation of the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas was a very public matter, involving the media and even Germany’s government, whereas the

Stolpersteine got their beginning in a much more independent way and are also privately funded.

The ideas for both memorials came from only one or two people, but when the idea for the

Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas was conceived, it was immediately brought to the public eye.

In a way, the Stolpersteine complement the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas by continuing a memory process that the other starts. A massive number of Jewish people lost their lives during the Holocaust, and it is important to remember them and keep their memory alive. However, it is also important to remember that not only Jews were persecuted at the hand of the Nazis and Demnig recognized that when he included victims with many different backgrounds in his memorial. If one visits Berlin and the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden

Europas then continues to travel throughout the country and Europe, one can still stumble across

the Stolpersteine and continue to be reminded of the history they hold. However, the opposite could also be argued: the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas can complement the

Stolpersteine in the sense that the latter recognize the singular fate of each victim and the former then remembers the massiveness of the atrocities committed.12

12 Argued by Dr. Tanja Nusser, University of Cincinnati

Memory and Memorial Culture

As Julian Bonder writes in his article On Memory, Trauma, Public Space, Monuments, and Memorials, “the word ‘memorial’ corresponds to ‘commemoration’ — ‘something that serves to preserve memory or knowledge of an individual or event’; but it also corresponds to

‘memento’— ‘something that serves to warn or remind with regard to conduct or future events’

(62). Holocaust memorials do just that, especially the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden

Europas and the Stolpersteine. They both preserve a memory of both individuals and groups as well as the events of the Holocaust, while also serving as warnings of what is possible with too much power and what should never happen again.

Keeping the above definitions in mind, memorials exist to serve a multitude of purposes; one main function of memorials and museums is to serve as an additional weapon with which to defeat the Nazis in the continual aftermath of the Holocaust, even still 75 years since its end.

Although it was Hitler’s intent that the Holocaust would be an ‘event without a witness’,13 these memorials and monuments stand as permanent reminders of the tragedy that took place all those years ago, especially when they exist at the sites where these tragedies occurred; the desire that the Holocaust would be ‘an unwritten and never to be written page of glory’14 is therefore theoretically impossible (Wollaston 36). Wollaston discusses how a memorial provides a focus of mourning for both the individual and community, because “many of those who died have no known grave or date of death;” (36) the place where one would normally go to mourn the lost

13 The Holocaust is referred to in this way because, in regard to the Jewish people, the goal of Hitler and the Nazis was to completely eradicate their kind so as to leave no trace of them behind. They hoped that after enough years had gone by, everyone would forget the Jews had ever existed. 14 The ‘glory’ here referring to Hitler’s and the Nazi’s plan, had they succeeded, to wipe the Jews from history and memory. They were hoping to do so in a way that left no trace or evidence that they ever existed, therefore being ‘unwritten and never to be written’.

life of another does not exist and one can then turn to memorials if they are seeking a physical space to do so.

While examining the history and many aspects of Holocaust memorials and memorials as a collective, it is interesting to look at the debate and discussions surrounding the various names given to the events that make up the Holocaust, the possibilities of which are seemingly endless.15 These different names and the fact that there are so many adds one more layer to the way the Holocaust is remembered. Although some remain adamant that we should not impose any name upon these events, when we give something a name, that is already a form of remembrance. Each name associated with or attributed to the Holocaust shines light on a particular discourse or aspect thereof, whether that be political, historical, philosophical, rhetorical, or theological, or even personal (Wollaston 3).

To put this into a little more of a clear perspective, Wollaston explains,

To speak of ‘Hurban’ or ‘l’univers concentrationnaire’ is to adopt the discourse of the

victims, whereas to speak of ‘extermination’ or ‘the Final Solution’ is to adopt the

language of Nazi bureaucracy. To speak of ‘Hurban’ is to contextualize events within the

continuum of Jewish history and belief, whereas ‘Shoah’ and ‘Holocaust’ were both

coined, in part, to suggest a rupture within that continuum. To capitalize ‘Holocaust’ is to

assert the uniqueness of these events; to refuse to do so is to distance oneself from such

an assertion. The situation is complicated further by the changing, often multiple

meanings of particular terms. Today, the adoption of ‘Shoah’ generally signifies the

15 My decision to utilize the term ‘Holocaust’ throughout this paper is mostly due to that essentially being the sole term that I have heard anytime I was reading or learning about the events that collectively make up the Holocaust. It was even only recently that I learned the Hebrew word for Holocaust, that being ‘Shoah’.

rejection of an attribution of religious meanings to these events, although a number of biblical usages of the term carry associations of a disaster sent by God. (Wollaston 3)

It is uncertain if one umbrella name for these events will ever become the only name associated with them, but it seems that each name has its place of belonging in the expansive discourse surrounding the Holocaust and carries a different form of memory with it. The two memorials which I am discussing in this thesis do not carry any form of the word ‘Holocaust’ in their respective names; the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas is named for a specific group of victims, and the name Stolpersteine simply describes what the memorial physically is. Both sites memorialize the Holocaust without saying so directly in their names.

Turning now to the history of memorializing the Holocaust, this action of memorialization began immediately after the Second World War, started by Jews who had been displaced to Germany; “they commemorated the catastrophe by holding memorial gatherings, services, and chronicled the recent tragedy and established the first Holocaust archives” (Jockush

181). According to Sybil Milton, “memorialization, especially in Europe, followed three distinct periods that over time led to the expansion and proliferation of a distinctly Holocaust-centered memoryscape in the European imagination” (Jacobs xvii). The first period is considered to be the decade immediately following the war – however at this time, memorials specific to the genocide of Jews were few. For the memorials “that were established, such as the gravestone for the Jews at Bergen-Belsen, were either locally initiated or privately sponsored” (Jacobs xvii).

The second period then is the time around the 1960s and 1970s, where Holocaust memorialization started to become more prevalent. The memorials and monuments constructed during this time were centered even more so on the physical locations of where there were traces of Nazi terror – places such as deportation sites, destroyed synagogues, cemeteries, and other

former concentration camps, where markers and commemorative plaques began to appear; this is mostly thanks to the urging of student groups and survivor organizations who wanted to actively remember the past and the lives that were lost (Jacobs xvii). This phase occurred during the time when the television series Holocaust was released in Germany in 1978; this series had a large influence on the development of memorials because it was quite possibly the first thing that stirred conversation and had people finally talking about what historians have referred to as the

“breakdown of civilization … and these often led on to projects for an ‘appropriate’ (whatever that might be) tribute to the victims in monuments and memorials” (Schlör 27-28).

The third period of memorialization came about in the late 1980s, “with greater social awareness of Nazi history and increased media attention … on the Jewish catastrophe of World

War II” (Jacobs xviii). Two main factors that led to this period were the fall of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe and the unification of East and West Germany, because “under the Soviet regime, there had been little or no reference to Jewish genocide in the national narratives of

World War II. This trend has slowly but significantly changed … and there has been a continued development and revision of Holocaust memorial sites throughout Eastern and Western Europe”

(xviii).

However, the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 “inaugurated a new era of memorialization in Germany as the tensions of the Cold War retreated and the earlier past seemed to reemerge”

(Reynolds 161). Germany as a now-unified nation continued to find ways to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust, both through completing projects that had begun before reunification, as well as bringing into reality new memorials and monuments designed under a unified nation, the latter including both the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas and the Stolpersteine.

They got their beginning at around the same time: discussion began around the former in the

early 1990s, and the first Stolperstein was installed in 1996, of which now more than 80,000 stones exist.

Taking the history of memorialization and memorializing the Holocaust into account, there are multiple motives behind building memorials that have evolved since this form of remembrance began; as Brett Kaplan writes in his book Unwanted Beauty, “where the aim of some memorials is to educate the next generation and to inculcate in it a sense of shared experience and destiny, other memorials are conceived as expiations of guilt or as self- aggrandizement. Still others are intended to attract tourists” (2). The variety of such motivations is reflected in the vast diversity of memorials, and the reasons behind their creation.16

Memorials have a long and diverse history: some have been carried out because of personal desire, while others have been voted on and funded on a state level. Because people hold their own values and beliefs as to why (or why not) a memorial should be built and for whom, there is no standard as for how something should be remembered or what a memorial or monument should look like. Additionally, while memorials themselves can be influenced by one or more factors, the meaning of the memorial generated

may differ depending on the preconceptions of those who visit it, and the context within

which it is viewed. [James Young] argues that memorials are essentially dialogical: ‘It is

not to Holocaust memorials as such that we turn for remembrance, but to ourselves

within the reflective space they both occupy and open up. In effect, there can be no self-

critical monuments, but only critical viewers.’ Thus, the meaning of any memorial may

vary as it reflects the conceptions of those viewing it. (Wollaston 38)

16 See also: Isabel Wollaston’s A War Against Memory? The Future of Holocaust Remembrance

For example, I have no known personal connection to the Holocaust or the victims who lost their lives to Nazi rule. For me to visit the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas would be a very different experience than it would be for someone whose loved one was one of the six million that the memorial is remembering, especially if that victim were one of the nearly 1,000 people personally and individually commemorated in the information center found underneath the memorial. The closest I could get to having such a personal interaction with the memorial is imagining and reflecting on what it must be like to be that other kind of visitor. As a tourist in

Berlin, I have visited the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas three or four times and from what I can remember, each experience felt similar. The first time I visited it, I believe I only knew what the memorial itself was and who it is for because our professor told us when we visited it as a class. As for the information center, I did not know that it even existed until I was in the research stage of this paper and therefore have never actually visited that area of the memorial. A few years later, I took some friends to see it, both to revisit it myself and for them to be able to experience and interact with it for themselves. As far as the Stolpersteine go, I cannot remember ever (consciously) coming across them. I cannot imagine that I have not passed them by as I have traveled throughout Germany and other places where they exist, but I do not consciously remember taking the time to look closely at them and figure out what they are and why they are there, nor was I able to find any pictures of my own taken of them.

These memorials we visit and experience are always influenced by something in one way or another, and as visitors we have to decide for ourselves how we interact with them based on or despite these factors. To add another layer of depth to the memorials, not only are they themselves susceptible to a form of subjectivity, but memory itself is not black and white and can easily be influenced by many factors. As Wollaston writes, “Inevitably, the memory of

events is multi-layered, and often fractured” (2); this is because the individuals or groups who do the remembering differ from one another in age, gender, nationality, political or religious affiliations, etc. The circumstance of those remembering also colors memory – for example, if one were an inmate of a concentration or death camp, a perpetrator, or a further generation of one who survived the Holocaust would give different forms of memory to each group.

These factors of influence and potential issues described above that can arise surrounding remembering and memorializing the Holocaust can be seen in the history of the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas. Building this specific memorial was a decision voted on by the

German Bundestag, but the idea was originally proposed “by a citizen’s group headed by television talk-show personality and journalist Lea Rosh and World War II historian Eberhard

Jäckel” (Young 65). However, it took ten years and two different artistic competitions before it was decided what the memorial itself should be and look like, and “the terms of the competition assumed that the monument would ‘inevitably define Germany’s own present-day memory of the

Holocaust, a complex and difficult memory” (Schlör 35).

Rosh knew she wanted the memorial to be “big and impossible to overlook…a small monument for six million murdered Jews would have been worse than nothing” (Rosh). I do not necessarily understand or agree with this argument, seeing as the Stolpersteine are much smaller than the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas and are still able to have an impact in multiple ways. A large and noticeable memorial may be beneficial in bringing to our consciousness the memories of those it commemorates and cause us to have a very conscious form of remembrance in that way, but there may also be many benefits in having something more integrated into the everyday lives of those passing something as small as the Stolpersteine.

The stones are able to be placed anywhere (as long as they are at or in front of a victim’s former

place of residence or work) and can easily transform an ordinary cobblestone into a tangible piece of memory. This also allows for an active form of remembering, because discovering the

Stolpersteine would require an active gaze and understanding of what is being seen. However, the massiveness of the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas can also in a way serve as a symbol to the massive amount of people who lost their lives during the Holocaust, and maybe that is what Lea Rosh was hoping to achieve. The Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas gives a physical location to many unanswered questions:

Before the city and country lean back and act as if things were back to normal – could

ever be back to normal – the question is raised here, cast in stone: what does the city have

in mind as it removes the ruins of history and makes itself a cosy sitting room again?

What room does it allow the memory of the Nazi dictatorship, the millionfold murder of

the Jews in Europe, planned in Berlin and carried out with such industrial efficiency? It is

a question that profoundly affects the self-regard of the whole of German society and its

political representatives. Where does this country stand, sixty years after the end of Nazi

rule and a World War? Since 1945, the question has been chewed over again and again,

in ever-changing formats, in books and newspapers, schools and universities, in public

discussions and homes alike. Here at last, it has now found itself a location. A place, in

fact. (Schlör 5)

Before discussing the process of deciding on what the memorial itself would be in regard to physical appearance, it is important as well to come back to the significance of the location of where the memorial would be built, which was decided on before any part of the creation process had begun. The space set aside for the proposed Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas, whatever shape that memorial would take, was a plot of land between the “Todesstreifen,” or

“death strip” at the foot of the Berlin wall, and the Tiergarten, spanning 20,000 square meters (nearly five acres). Being such a central location in Berlin, this area had become “one of Berlin’s most sought-after pieces of real estate – and was thus regarded as a magnanimous, if monumental, gesture to the memory of Europe’s murdered Jews” (Young 66). After receiving some 528 designs during the first competition in 1994/5, the original winning design for the memorial was conceived by Berlin artist Christine Jacob-Marks, that being an 11 m/36’-high,

20,000 m squared / 215,280-sq.-ft. concrete slab with the names of the murdered Jews carved into it (Young 34) as well as including 18 boulders from Masada in Israel placed on the surface;17 it was to be built with the possibility of including elements incorporated by runner-up

Simon Unger’s design since the two were similarly inspired (Young 67). However, although the winning entry for the memorial was described as “represent[ing] very well a generation that felt oppressed by the Holocaust memory, which would in turn oppress succeeding generations with such memory” (Young 74), this entry was withdrawn and was not built, for two main reasons.

The first being that people both of authority and of the public were simply opposed to this massive slab of concrete. The second was that the memorial would include the theme of a history of Jewish self-sacrifice, given that “Masada was the last stronghold against the Romans at the end of the Jewish revolt of 66-73 C.E. and also the site of a collective suicide of Jews that prevented the Romans from taking them as slaves” (Young 67). This led to an uprising of criticism from many different groups of citizens, including the leader of Germany’s Jewish community, Ignatz Bubis, and the total shutting down of this competition and the beginning of a new one. Deliberation for a second competition began in 1997, with the hope of ensuring “that the memorial be built before the Holocaust receded further into the history of a former century”

17 The number 18 is the Hebrew number representing life.

(68). With the hope of making the second decision-making process more achievable, there were five aims set into place that were to remain inviolable:

(1) this would be a memorial only to Europe’s murdered Jews; (2) ground would be

broken for it on 27 January 1999, Germany’s newly designated “Holocaust

Remembrance Day” marked to coincide with the 1945 liberation of Auschwitz; (3) its

location would be the 20,000-square-meter site of the Ministers Gardens, between the

Brandenburg Gate and Potsdamer Platz; (4) the nine finalists’ teams from the 1995

competition would be invited to revise their designs and concepts after incorporating

suggestions and criticism from the present colloquia; and (5) the winning design would

be chosen from the revised designs of the original nine finalists. (Young 69)

However, there continued to be criticism on all fronts, whether regarding the designs themselves, the location for the memorial, or the fact that the memorial would be commemorating only Jews, leaving out the other numerous victims of the Nazi era. Lea Rosh, one of the two people behind the proposal of the memorial, was present throughout the entire process and was able to keep everything moving forward as she was able to silence the memorial’s critics.

After many meetings and much deliberation, the memorial that was chosen and built was a design by architect Peter Eisenman and artist Richard Serra. This was decided by the five members of the Findungskommission18 and in a way, the public community as their consensus was pulling more in the direction of the design by Eisenman and Serra (Young 77). Before the final design was complete and construction came underway, Richard Serra removed himself

18 The members of the Findungskommission consisted of director of the German Holocaust Museum in Berlin (Christoph Stoelz) the director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Bonn (Dieter Ronte), Werner Hoffman (one of Germany’s preeminent twentieth-century art historians), Joseph Paul Kleihues (one of Berlin’s most widely respected and experiences arbiters of postwar architecture), and James Young, author of Texture of Memory and the only foreigner and only Jew of the committee.

from being a part of what he and Eisenman had created and all they had accomplished thus far, due to his loyalty to himself as an artist and to his work. When it was suggested that Eisenman and Serra make revisions to their design to best fit the site where it would be placed, Serra was strongly against it and therefore decided his name would be removed from the work and it would be placed solely in Eisenman’s. The pair’s original design was composed of a vast expanse of around 4,200 gray pillars, spaced 93 centimeters apart and ranging in height from ground-level to five meters high, so that

rather than pretending to answer Germany’s memorial problem in a single, reassuring

form, this design proposed multiple, collected forms arranged so that visitors have to find

their own path to the memory of Europe’s murdered Jews. As such, this memorial

provided not an answer to memory but an ongoing process, a continuing question without

a certain solution. (Young 76)

This, along with the “architect’s attempt to foster a sense of incompleteness,” with deciding that

“it will not be a memorial with a narrative beginning, middle, and end built into it” (79), pleased

Findungskommission’s member Young. At the beginning of this ten-year long torturing process, he was not convinced that a memorial was needed, and was satisfied alone with the ongoing debate that was taking place surrounding it. He saw erecting a big and central memorial as an attempt at finding a single fixed icon for Holocaust memory in Germany (68), which he did not perceive as a positive thing; he writes, “Better a thousand years of Holocaust memorial competitions and exhibitions in Germany than any single “final solution” to Germany’s memorial problem” (68). (In the following section, I will discuss in more detail those who were/are against memorials and why they are seen as more of a hinderance than a step toward reconciliation.) However, an opposing viewpoint to Young was held by Harold Marcuse, a

professor of German history at UC Santa Barbara, who argues “that the value of memorials lies in direct proportion to the accuracy and sufficiency of the information they convey: ‘Monuments should contain enough specific and personal information, including the identification of the perpetrators’ and the victims’ names, to anchor the injustice in public consciousness,’”

(Wollaston 38) which is exactly what the Stolpersteine then achieve. Since, in Young’s opinion, this memorial design would continue to not provide that one answer so many seem to be looking for, he was pleased with what Eisenman and Serra had brought to the table. One of the requested modifications of now solely Eisenman’s design was to cut back on both the number of pillars and their size. The members of the Findungskommission asked for this modification because the design did not allow for as much room for the public and commemorative activities as they would have hoped, and

at five meters high, the tallest pillars might have hidden some visitors from view, thereby

creating the sense of a labyrinthine maze, an effect desired neither by designers nor

commissioners. The potential for a purely visceral experience that might occlude a more

contemplative memorial visit was greater than some of [them] would have preferred.

(Young 77)

In the revised design, Eisenman removed approximately 1,200 of the pillars and changed their heights to range from half a meter to about three meters tall. Reducing the number of pillars brought more room to the public, but it also ensured the safety of the memorial – busses were able to drop off tourists nearby the monument without putting the pillars placed in the outer edge of the field in danger or harm’s way. The change in height also “ensures that visitors will not step on the pillars or walk out over the tops of pillars. Since the pillars will tilt at the same degree

and angle as the roll of the ground-level topography into which the pillars are set, this too will discourage climbing or clambering-over” 19 (Young 78).

Due to the appearance of this memorial, what it represents, and the pillars being large, smooth, gray in color and rectangular in shape, it would be possible that one would interpret it as a large graveyard or cemetery, with each of the pillars representing one or multiple graves or tombstones. However, it was not the intention of the architect for them to be interpreted that way, and the pillars were intentionally left blank for that reason. Since there is no writing on them telling visitors who the memorial is for or why it is there, Young

suggested that a permanent, written historical text be inscribed on a large tablet or tablets

set either into the ground or onto the ground, tilted at a readable angle, separate from the

field of pillars. Their angled position will bring visitors into respectful, even prayerful

repose as they read the text, with heads slightly bowed in memory (Young 79).

This idea however was not realized, and instead, as mentioned before, there is a place of information underground in order give tourists/visitors more information about the people who lost their lives under Nazi rule; this brings the memorial to a more intimate level between the visitors and the victims,20 whereas from the outside there is no personal connection with the victims other than the memorial representing the group of murdered Jews as a whole.21

After all of the back and forth surrounding the logistics of the memorial, the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas was officially voted on in June of 1999 by the German Bundestag, and even when the final decision was made on what the memorial would look like (how it stands

19 In my experience, what they hoped for here is not the case – the few times I have visited the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas, I can recall seeing children and teenagers climbing on the pillars, as well as visitors using them to sit on. 20 See also the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe page on the Visit Berlin website. 21 However, this might not necessarily be a bad thing – the lack of personal connection this memorial brings to its victims could also serve as an invitation to those with no personal connection to the Holocaust or its victims and/or survivors.

today), there was still criticism of erecting this memorial and it faced a lot of backlash, including fears that Berlin would become the ‘remorse capital’, and “a permanent representation of [their] shame was undesirable” (Schlör 35). The dedication of the memorial took place in January 2000, a year after the intended groundbreaking date and although many gathered at the site to witness this event, others also were not present, some out of spite, and some out of guilt. Young writes,

“Some, like Mayor Eberhard Diepken, stayed home like a petulant child who didn’t get his way; others stayed home out of the deeply felt conviction that no memorial will ever be adequate to the task. Of those who came to the dedication, most came to remember, some to mourn, and some to share in the memorial’s unflattering political limelight” (80). Despite the mixed views on the memorial, it was decided that the monument simply had to be built and construction began on April 1st, 2003, more than four years later than the planned timeline. It was then ceremonially opened in 2005.22 Berlin “continued to wrestle with its memorial demons …

[however,] this space will always remind Germany and the world at large of the self-inflicted void at the heart of German culture and consciousness – a void that defines national identity, even as it threatens such identity with its own implosion” (80). Germany accepts its past and wrongdoings as a nation and rather than try to suppress it, large steps are taken to both remember the victims from the nation’s past troubles as well as continue to create warnings for the future, to be sure that something like the Final Solution never happens again.23

22 For some time, there was a large debate surrounding the company Degussa and their involvement in the construction of the memorial; they wanted to add a coating to the pillars that would prevent graffiti on the memorial but received backlash causing a temporary halt in the memorial’s construction process because of their involvement in the Holocaust. Eisenman was in favor of their involvement in the memorial because he knew it would help them be forgiven for their past. He says, “One must always forgive. That is the essence of this monument.” For more information, see: https://www.dw.com/en/degussa-to-continue-work-on-holocaust-memorial/a-1029053. 23 This could also been seen as problematic, however, because in a way it is all about Germany and not about the victims.

Even though many feared that the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas would do the opposite of what it was intended for and cause more forgetting than anything, this memorial and the process of its fruition also helps the nation to move on from its past and continue to take steps toward reconciliation:24

From this American Jew’s (Young) perspective, this last year (referring to 1999) has been

a watershed for German memory and identity. No longer paralyzed by the memory of

crimes perpetrated in its name, Germany is now acting on the basis of such memory: it

participated boldly in NATO’s 1999 intervention against a new genocide perpetrated by

Milosevic’s Serbia; it has begun to change citizenship laws from blood- to residency-

based; and it has dedicated a permanent place in Berlin’s cityscape to commemorate what

happened the last time Germany was governed from Berlin. Endless debate and

memorialization are no longer mere substitutes for actions against contemporary

genocide but reasons for action. This is something new, not just for Germany but for the

rest of us, as well. (Young 80)

Building these memorials and having continued discussion about the nation’s past is creating lasting impact that will hopefully only continue in the future.

As mentioned in the previous section, the history of the Stolpersteine looks very different from that of the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas, in regard to who was (and still is) behind the memorial, what their motivations are, as well as who they represent. Before the stones were put in place, Demnig had painted a white line showing the path 1,000 Sinti and Roma had

24 Some research and authors on the subject have used the word ‘heal’ to describe what the nation of Germany and possibly the survivors of the Holocaust are experiencing as they construct these memorials and move toward the future. However, I am cautious to use that term. To me, healing is something that happens from an illness or broken bone, or something else that is out of one’s control. When thinking about Hitler’s actions, choices and decisions and those of the Nazis, it is hard to say if they were able to ‘heal’ from their racism and actions thereafter since that is something they chose to do and chose to be.

been forced to take when they were deported to various camps. When this line started to fade, Demnig wanted a more permanent memorial to go in its place and therefore thought of the

Stolpersteine. The idea to expand this memorial and use it to remember other Holocaust victims along with the Sinti and Roma came from a conversation that was had between Demnig and a woman in Cologne, Germany. She didn’t believe that Roma or Sinti people had ever lived in her neighborhood, so Demnig wanted to make more people aware of the histories of their neighborhoods as they had existed before they were destroyed by the war. Stolpersteine can now be seen in more than 1,600 cities in 26 countries.

Along with the Stolpersteine exist Stolperschwellen; a single Stolperstein is intended to have one name on it, commemorating only a single person. However, because there are places where thousands of names would belong in a single place, for example where victims would have previously worked, the Stolperschwellen were designed for the purpose of being able to represent such a large number of people in a single stone. This memorial is ever-growing and ever-changing and will never be (nor has ever been) restricted to a single area, city, country or even continent (in 2017, a Stolperstein was laid in Argentina). Demnig holds the credit for this memorial, however anyone is able to take part in the act of remembering and commemorating a victim of the Nazi era who either passed away as a result of their power or is/was a survivor thereof.25 If one wants to organize the installation of a Stolperstein, they must first track down as many of the victim’s relatives as they can, ask for their approval, and invite them to the installation ceremony (Apperly); the organizer of the specific Stolperstein is also the one who pays for the stone’s creation and placement. The artist, along with other colleagues, takes appointments from those who would like a Stolperstein to be laid for a specific person. By

25 See also: Michael Imort’s essay Stumbling Blocks: A Decentralized Memorial to Holocaust Victims in Memorialization in Germany Since 1945.

allowing this kind of interaction between his work and the public, Demnig is ensuring both that the process of remembering continues and remains active, and that as many people as possible are able to be commemorated in this personal way.

Critiques Against and Criticisms of Memorials

The physical memorials and monuments themselves are full of controversy in their appearance and what they represent, and there is also much debate surrounding the conception and origin of these sites. There are also mixed opinions on whether or not Holocaust memorials should exist at all; contrary to this, there have even been suggestions of erecting memorials in memory of both the victims and perpetrators of the Holocaust. Wollaston writes that there are three main criticisms or possible issues that predominate memorials. The first question that is raised is surrounding the possibility of there being too many memorials that are being built, and if “this [is] an appropriate use of resources, or should the money be spent elsewhere, for example on education or the provision of counseling support for survivors and their children” (Wollaston

39). For example, the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas cost nearly 25 million euro (or

27,141,250 U.S. dollars today) to construct; this amount would be more than enough money to make more aid available to those who are possibly still emotionally navigating the past, either as a victim or through second generational trauma that a massive physical memorial may not be able to help with.

The second concern that is raised is if “the Holocaust [is] coming to dominate Jewish self-consciousness to an unhealthy degree” (Wollaston 39). This could mean that maybe from the perspective of some Jews, whether survivors or following generations thereof, the Holocaust weighs so heavy on their minds that they cannot overcome that it happened, which could potentially lead to emotional problems and the inability to emotionally move past this tragedy.

However, it could also be alluding to the idea of Judaism of the Jewish community in general has become more synonymous with the Holocaust than the ideas and history prior to and after the

Second World War; this relates to the term ‘Holocaustomania’ coined by Jacob Neusner, referring to “contemporary American Judaism as the ‘Holocaust memorial movement’”

(Wollaston 39).

The third question surrounding Holocaust memorials that Wollaston poses is if they

misrepresent or distort the individuals and communities they purport to remember. Often,

Jews are depicted solely as victims [as opposed to being remembered for who they were

and the lives they lived before the Holocaust took their lives and being a victim became

their identity]: the focus is upon the events of 1933 – 45. …the victims are often known

solely through the artefacts they left behind, or photographs (taken primarily by the Nazis

themselves). While attempts are made to highlight the victims’ perspective, this can all

too often be submerged by that of the perpetrators. (39)

This possibility can become problematic because as important as it is to remember those whose lives were lost during the Holocaust and the events that transpired, to remember them through the lens of the Nazis could almost in a way be still encouraging, approving of, or condoning their actions and treatment of the victims even all these years later. It is the Nazis’ gaze, perspective and narration that are being transmitted to the viewers. However, the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas and the Stolpersteine appear to combat this issue in their own ways by bringing to light certain aspects of the victims’ lives. With the thorough and in-depth context given in the information center at the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas, one of the ways visitors are able to learn about some of the victims is by reading the letters they wrote back home to their loved ones. The Stolpersteine add another layer of depth to this by being placed at the residence or workplace of the victim. Through these two layers of the memorials, visitors are

able to learn a little bit more about some of the victims and pieces of their lives as opposed to seeing the victims as a collective six million.

As previously mentioned, certain forms of Holocaust remembrance are considered controversial; an additional instance of this

is the question of what forms of remembrance are appropriate, and what significance

should be attached to the Holocaust in relation to other aspects of Jewish culture, history,

and belief. Current disagreement over something as seemingly basic as a name serves as

a fitting symbol of the complexity of contemporary perceptions of these events.

(Wollaston 2)

In regard to the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas, not only was the name and who it should commemorate extensively debated, but also what the design should look like and even who should or should not be allowed to be a part of its construction process. It also took 17 years from the time of the original proposal for the memorial to be decided on, named, and constructed.

Another group that would oppose or not understand the purpose of constructing

Holocaust memorials would be those who are in denial of the Holocaust. While researching the topic of Holocaust Memorials, I came across a surprising amount of these groups, along with other thoughts and theories that oppose the idea of memorials altogether. These Holocaust deniers are in denial about one of more aspects or events surrounding the Holocaust, believing theories which “began before the Holocaust ended” (Stern 6). They exist around the world on nearly every continent, in South America, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, Japan,

Canada in the United States and all throughout Europe, with some of the European countries including Poland, Austria, France, and Great Britain; there are also a number of Germans who

are in denial of the Holocaust. The claims against the Holocaust include theories such as Hitler not ordering or knowing about the extermination of the Jews; that only a few hundred thousand

Jews died during World War II; that the survivors’ recollections are unreliable; that Auschwitz was not a death camp, and many more. It is hard to believe that this is such a widely-collective and accepted theory among Europeans, let alone among Germans, because “Nazism no longer seemed like a remote phenomenon involving an abstract ‘government’ and party but an all- embracing reality that had reached out and stamped its mark on every corner of Germany”

(Schlör 25). There are even laws in place that call for the prosecution of such beliefs, which

[criminalize] both the denial of the Holocaust and the promotion of Nazi ideology …

Presently, the following European countries have some legislation criminalizing the Nazi

message, including denial of the Holocaust: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic,

France, Germany, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Slovakia,

Spain and Switzerland. Holocaust denial is also illegal in Israel. (Bazyler)

In Germany, these deniers “seek to relativize the evil – to say, “Sure the Germans did some bad things in World War II, but so did everyone else” and “to remake the history of the Nazis into something positive,” with the hope that they could influence the future generations who would more than likely want to rid themselves of the indirect guilt weighing them down (Stern 27). It is hard to imagine that with all of the information and evidence that exists surrounding the

Holocaust, that there are so many who believe in a very downplayed version of what actually took place. With the exposure of more knowledge and witnessing that takes place in various forms other than physical memorials and monuments, hopefully these theories would be extinguished.26 If one were to visit the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas, one could get

26 A dangerous aspect of so many not believing that the Holocaust happened as brutally as it did could be a frightening factor in the potential something similar happening again, as some already believe to be possible.

a glimpse of how massive the destruction caused by the Holocaust truly was when seeing the memorial as a symbol thereof. The Stolpersteine are also able to add to that by showing these deniers where the victims lived and that even entire families and people who sought exile were taken against their will.

Among these deniers are other German citizens who want this history’s memory to be left in the past and think Jews are “exploiting the Holocaust for their own purposes” (Stanley 23), so it would not be a far stretch to say they would be against the idea of building memorials in commemoration of the victims (or their following generations) who they believe are trying to benefit from this tragedy. Without memorials, this denial and also the desire to keep Germany’s past in the past could continue to grow and spread, and passersby (not only German citizens, but tourists from other countries/continents as well) may not think on these victims who lost their lives during the Holocaust, and the events that transpired that led to such a tragedy. According to a survey in 2018, one-third of Americans, not necessarily right-wing citizens, do not believe six million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust; they think the number was substantially less, at about only two million or less. Many more even think something like the Holocaust could happen again (Schoen Consulting). A survey of more than 2,000 citizens in the United Kingdom has also found that five percent of adults do not believe the Holocaust took place at all, and one in 12 believe the scale of what happened has been greatly exaggerated. One in five believe fewer than two million Jews were murdered (BBC News).

Not only are some German citizens in opposition of Holocaust memorials, but some

Americans are as well: in the United States, there are citizens who are opposed to international

Holocaust memorials but then support the construction of such sites in America, mainly because they believe memorials in other countries cannot be trusted and are not valid. Some feel a strong

need to memorialize these events when recognizing that “the Holocaust [became] the ultimate violation of the Bill of Rights” (Wollaston 43). Among those in support is Charles Krauthammer, a former American political columnist, who argues the vitality and necessity of the United States

Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) that was opened in 1993 in Washington D.C. by bringing into question the future of other nations who have erected memorials in memory of the

Holocaust:

Yes, there are Holocaust memorials in Poland and elsewhere. But these are not to be

trusted. Who knows what Europe, birthplace of the Nazi plague, will one day say or do

with these monuments…Yes, there is a memorial in Israel. One might say that Israel

itself is a memorial to the Holocaust. But there will be those in generations to come who

will not trust the testimony of the Jews. With this building, America bears witness. The

liberators have returned to finish the job. First rescue, then remembrance. Bless them.

(Krauthammer)

As far as I know, Krauthammer’s belief was genuine, but for me it almost does not make any sense and I do not agree with what he is saying. I understand the importance of having Holocaust memorials and museums in different nations, even in ones such as the United States where none of the events thereof did not directly take place. As I have stated before, they serve as reminders of what happened during those few years and of what should never happen again. However, I do not see how Holocaust memorials in countries other than the United States do not serve the same purpose or have the same impact as they do here. One could even ask if having the memorials in the places where these events took place adds a layer of authenticity to them that they may lack in other places. Although the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas is a constructed memorial and not on a site where one of the many Holocaust atrocities physically took place, it is

still in an important location in Berlin as I have previously discussed. It is therefore able to provoke an added layer of reflection when one visits it, because not only are we as visitors drawn to remember the victims of the Holocaust, but we are invited to reflect on the history of the city during its Third Reich years as well. Thus, the location of the memorial does not take away from the emotions able to be felt when one visits this site. The location of the Stolpersteine also brings in a level of authenticity by bringing visitors closer physically and personally to the many places affected by the Nazis and Hitler’s reign and the former homes of those whose lives were lost.27

More backlash against memorials has been expressed by a new generation of artists in

Germany; for them, “the question is not whether to remember or forget the Holocaust. Rather, given the tortuous complexity of their nation’s relation to its past, they wonder whether the monument itself is more an impediment than an incitement to public memory” (Young 27). In a more general sense, building memorials takes away our own responsibility to remember; they have the potential of causing us to forget more than anything and in that regard memorials in a way squander the ability to remember those events, people and places that they are built for.28

Many feared this would be the case for the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas, and that

“instead of inciting memory of murdered Jews, we suspected, it would be a place where

Germans would come dutifully to unshoulder their memorial burden, so that they could move freely and unencumbered into the twenty-first century. A finished monument would, in effect, finish memory itself” (Young 70). This can be a dangerous result, because, as French sociologist

Jean Baudrillard states, “Forgetting the extermination is part of the extermination itself,” which

27 Some former places of residency no longer exist and have been replaced by different buildings. However, whether one is able to look on the home of the victim or the lack thereof, the location is the same and the residents’ memory can remain through the Stolpersteine. 28 A similar argument can be found in Andrea Huyssen’s essay Monument and Memory in a Postmodern Age in The Art of Memory: Holocaust Memorials in History.

is what makes it so imperative to always remember the events from history that should never be repeated, and the victims that should never have lost their lives in such a tragic and horrific way.

Although some see memorials as physical objects that take on the burden of remembering so civilians do not have to, to me (and maybe it has to do with the fact that I am not a German, nor do I have any personal connection to the Holocaust), building and visiting such memorials is a way for me to learn and to reflect on what they represent, who they are there for and the tragedies that happened that led to so many lives lost. When I visit a memorial and reflect on these things, I feel that I am helping keep their memory alive, especially when it leads to more conversations being had and works being written surrounding the topic. However, to look at

Holocaust memorials in an artistic context, survivor Aharon Appelfeld states, “only art has the power of redeeming suffering from the abyss”. If this ‘abyss’ is the shame and guilt felt by both those who were perpetrators and those not involved in the Final Solution from the repercussions that came from everything that had to do with the fascist era, then Appelfeld is saying here that only art can relieve and reconcile suffering. Kaplan supports this by saying, “many readers and viewers of Holocaust literature, art, and memorials confess that where the historical documentary might not affect them deeply, the aesthetic power of art encourages them to remember the

Holocaust rather than shunt it aside” (Kaplan 2). However, given the aesthetic nature of Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas and the Stolpersteine, I would argue that they are works of art created by Eisenman and Demnig, and perhaps Appelfeld would see it this way as well. But either way, even if the opposite is also true, as long as a memorial is seen and recognized for what it is and why it is there, it causes one to think on that history and be reminded of the past.

The danger comes in when we get used to the memorials, monuments, plaques, etc. being in their place and no longer consciously see them. In this way, it could cause memory to disappear, just

as the critics of memorials fear. However, on the other hand, an argument could also be made that this then turns memorials and monuments and the memory they stand for into a part of everyday life, which might be better than putting it aside into its special place for memory. In this way, it might also not be so bad that people have more banal interactions with them, such as sitting on the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas or eating their lunch there. The

Stolpersteine are very much incorporated into the everyday environments of those who live and visit the cities where they exist; they are so deeply integrated into the city that they are able to go unnoticed. It is likely that if one were to see a Stolperstein for the first time, they would read it and examine it closely. But after the second, third or fourth time, the Stolpersteine may start to blend it with the sidewalk or street and its surroundings. Even if the Stolpersteine go unseen, their victims’ memory is still there.

As successful as these stones of memory seem to be in remembering Holocaust victims in a personal and tangible way, they have also received their own criticism. Their biggest critic is

Charlotte Knobloch, a survivor of the Holocaust who was able to escape the Nazis by hiding with a Christian family. She is now the head of the Jewish community in Munich and Bavaria and has banned the Stolpersteine within the city of Munich. Knobloch is strongly opposed to the

Stolpersteine, due to the way that visitors interact with them – by stepping on them as they come into contact. She sees them being on ground-level as a disgrace; however, Friedrichs-Friedländer sees no better form of remembrance, because “if you want to read the stone, you must bow before the victim” (Friedrichs-Friedländer). However, even though more than 100,000 people signed a petition in favor of the stones, they were still banned, and the city instead created another similar memorial (one that would not be able to be stepped on) which has been growing

since the summer of 2018. In opposition to the banning, Stolpersteine have been continually placed on private property.

Conclusion

Before beginning research on this topic, I was unaware all of the critiques and criticism surrounding not just Holocaust memorials, monuments and museums, but all memorials as a collective whole. In a way it reminds me of when people have differing political views – we can say all we want about what we think is the right or wrong way to view or perceive something, but when it comes down to it, it is simply about the individual and their beliefs. My personal opinion about memorials did not change from doing this research, though it gave me better insight into how others feel about them and why and it made me more aware of the need for them, whether they are built and placed at the sites where the atrocities took place or elsewhere.

They are needed to serve as a place of mourning, a reminder, and a form of education for the present and the future.

The Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas and the Stolpersteine are both successful in bringing to mind the victims whose lives were taken during the Holocaust although done in their different ways. As a non-German, non-European citizen, my opinion and reactions to

Holocaust memorials is quite different from that of those who have a personal connection to it in one form or another. As a tourist and visitor of these memorials, my experience is also different, and this research has most likely changed what that experience will be the next time I visit them.

I know I will start searching the sidewalks and streets for Stolpersteine and will be able to appreciate everything Demnig, Friedrichs-Friedländer, and the community have done and are still doing to preserve a piece of the lives of the Holocaust victims. If my experience visiting the

Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas changes from when I visited it before researching it in depth, I think it would be that I would have a deeper understanding of its history and

everything that went into its creation, especially given that I have also learned more about the history of Berlin and its significance to the Nazi reign.

It is uncertain what will become of the memory of the Holocaust in the future, partly because “memorializing the Holocaust has become highly politicized” (Wollaston 45).

Wollaston reflects on this fact and asks,

Will such [memorial] sites increase or decrease in relevance once survivors are no longer

with us? Perhaps these sites will gradually fade into the background, indistinguishable

from the landscape of which they are a part, with the majority of the population unaware

of what took place there. Or, perhaps, as intended, these memorials and museums will

ensure that the memory of the Holocaust will indeed live on, long after those who

witnessed it have died. (45)

Only time will tell, however, given the continued visits to memorials and the education they provide, I am hopeful that the latter is the case. Germany as a nation was under the shadow of

Hitler for many years even after the war, but its citizens have taken many steps in the direction of coming into the light through its memorials and progress toward reconciliation.29

29 See also: Joachim Fest’s essay Encumbered Remembrance: The Controversy about the Incomparability of National-Socialist Mass Crimes in Forever in the Shadow of Hitler? The Dispute About the Germans’ Understanding of History.

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