A Year of Memorials

Now I'm back to the Holocaust for a couple of posts, but we won't leave popular culture out entirely. This post primarily deals with the real world, and the next one will be about popular culture and the last attempts to capture Nazi war criminals before they are all (dead and) gone. For some background, I pretty much spent the entirety of 2009-2011 reading, writing, and learning about the Holocaust. I took classes, I read books upon books, and a wrote a manuscript on young adult Holocaust literature. You can see some pieces of the last chapter of that book represented here on this blog, and more in The Journal of Hate Studies and (most likely) soon in Children's Literature in Education. (You can read both of these journals online--who doesn't love open access?  Go forth and read someone's article!  It's free and will make you smarter!) It's been an incredibly satisfying project to work on, in part because I believe there is something important at stake when thinking through how young readers are introduced to the concepts of identity, hate, and genocide.

Prison--Terezin, Czech Republic

Beyond the literature, however, how are young adults (among others) asked to interact with the Holocaust?  There are movies, of course, and it seems like SCHINDLER'S LIST (1993) comes up at every turn. Really though, memorials are one main site of interaction between people and genocide. I've been to three Holocaust Memorials/Museums--United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), Terezin Memorial in the Czech Republic, and New England Holocaust Memorial (NEHM) in Boston--within the last year and want to take some time to reflect on the different experiences of each, as I'm still trying to unpack what they meant to me. (I've also been to the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, but that was a decade ago and therefore not as fresh in my mind.)


I've written a bit about my experience at the USHMM here, and it's something that I'm still working through. As I told my husband, I think if I lived in D.C. I'd be there ALL the time trying to work out how I feel about it. (I'd also spend a lot more time in the exhibit for children and young adults: titled Remember the Children: Daniel's Story which has an accompanying book by YA author Carol Matas.) It's a moving experience to be in the museum. I was overwhelmed from the start--which is the goal of the place. It's dimly lit, the corridors are narrow and crowded, there's an overwhelming amount of information, and it includes concentration camp artifacts that aggressively remind visitors of the reality of the history. These artifacts have weight--they weigh you down with their corporeality and in some cases their sheer numbers (the shoes, the scissors, etc.) They are important evidence of the camps and lives lost as well as emotional touchstones, scattered throughout the corridors and image/text of the body of the museum.

USHMM Interior- Main Room (Wikipedia Image)

They, no doubt, make a successful emotional experience. Even the building's architecture contributes to this with the use of light and shadow and spaces for reflection that offer visitors alternating moments of peace and horror. The open, bright space to the right is the main entrance to the museum. It contrasts with the much darker exhibit areas, which are punctuated by light filled bridges (still containing terrible information) and areas of reflection that are full of abstract art (see example below) and benches. These rooms also contain guards, who will make sure that you're doing okay. What a job that must be.

Sol LeWitt's Consequence (USHMM Image)

One of the most unexpected aspects of the museum, for me, was the way it uses artwork by abstract artists. Pieces like LeWitt's, on the left, highlight the power of non-representational art. How often have I been in an art museum and heard the following: "I don't get it." or "I could make that." or "This is art?" Yet after the crush of images, the overwhelming amount of suffering the museum presents visually, non-representational art comes as a relief. LeWitt's Consequence sets up another series of images that could be read as confinement, and certainly along with the title isn't designed to be a "happy" piece.  (The USHMM page describes it as "The rhythmic pattern of squares within squares invites introspection, while the fields of color suggest absence of lives, families, and communities made vacant as a consequence of the Holocaust.") For me it is one that offers relief  while refusing to deny the emotional experience of going through the museum itself. As I said, every aspect of the place is carefully designed to make the most of the emotional journey they are taking you on. (See my blog below on the room of shoes and the train car, as I don't want to be too repetitive here.)   


So how does this huge, detailed museum contrast against other Holocaust memorials? When I went to the Czech Republic and Germany this summer I knew I wanted to visit some Holocaust sites, but at the same time my purpose behind the trip was not "Holocaust Tourism." After doing research and looking at some recent children's/YA lit on the subject I decided on Terezin as the place I wanted to spend a full day exploring, in part due to the critical acclaim Ruth Thomson's book has recently received. (You can see more pictures of the place on my Flickr page.)

Outside Small Fortress--Terezin, Czech Republic

We took a bus from Prague to Terezin (Theresienstadt in German), one which runs every hour or so, primarily shuttling tourists out to the town. We also accidentally got off the bus at the "wrong" stop--most people go to the main museum first and the Small Fortress second, but I'm glad we ended up doing the opposite. Above you can see the approach to the Small Fortress (SF) from the bus stop: rows of graves for those who died here, both named and unnamed. The SF was primarily used as a prison for political prisoners, Jewish resistance members, and others who actively fought the Nazi regime in the Czech Republic. The town of Terezin itself was used as a holding area/camp and propaganda site (more below).

Small Fortress Walls & Moat--Terezin, Czech Republic

Terezin is an unusual camp because it existed as both a fortress and city long before the Nazi takeover of the Czech people. Terezin was an actively functioning city at the time of the Nazi occupation of the Czech Republic, and the city's residents were removed to make way for a crush of Jewish prisoners, held at Terezin until they died of disease/starvation or were deported to death camps. The SF was, in fact, a fortress designed to be used in various smaller conflicts with Germany from the 1700s onward. It was an engineering marvel, although it never really saw much combat action. Still, this made it the perfect location for a Nazi prison, as it was already fortified and enclosed. You can see the two sets of walls and former moat between them to the left. We were there on a lovely day, which of course makes things seem somewhat surreal (as the town of Terezin itself does.)


We happened to get there at the same time a tour in English was beginning, so we tagged along. What I found most interesting about the tour was our guide's insistence that we consider multiple atrocities that went along with the SF.  Of course, the deaths of Jews and political prisoners are memorialized here, some in more representational artwork like the pieces pictured below. These pieces perform a significantly different purpose than those at the USHMM, to evoke the horrors of the deaths rather than offer respite. When our guide led us through the prison itself (see first picture above) he was sure to point out the crowded conditions that literally led to prisoners suffocating--there just wasn't enough air for all the men they crammed in crowded rooms. However, after the war, these same rooms were used to hold German prisoners, in similar conditions to the Czech prisoners of a few months before. Many died from disease and unsanitary conditions and inhumane treatment, just like while the Nazis controlled the space. It was particularly interesting to hear this interrogation of war atrocities from a Czech guide, one who clearly also revered the political prisoners (and Jewish victims) who fought the Nazis and were held at the SF. It serves as a reminder that simply creating a monolithic category of Nazi "monster" to be universally reviled based on their identity alone is not a terribly progressive response to the Holocaust. This is also one of the fundamental challenges of genocide in general--the ability to say "I will treat you in a human(e) way, even as I acknowledge the acts you committed." This, of course, morphs into an important question in Holocaust representation: can we have understanding that doesn't also mean forgiveness? Humane treatment has the potential to feel like weakness or forgiveness, even when it doesn't have to be. 

Sculptures: Stele for Terezin by Celiberti, Shadows of the Executed Prisoners by Hladik , & nameless by Chochole 

The SF Museum and Memorial in Terezin (as well as the town of Terezin, below) were terribly different experiences for me than the USHMM. Part of it, I think, is the free form exploration that the SF encourages. You can walk around the fortress as you desire, finding various pockets of information, artwork, and tours.  This makes it much less a curated emotional journey and more of an exercise in personal curiosity. This is made even more clear when you get to the town of Terezin itself. Terezin was a unique place within the Nazi camp structure--the site of a preexisting town that was taken over and used in propaganda videos for the Red Cross, such as this surviving fragment featuring happy "residents" playing soccer. There's a museum devoted to the victims of Terezin, where a theater shows a short program on the propaganda film, a room full of the names of the children who died at the camp, and a crematoria (which I didn't visit. I have my limits.)  For young visitors, this museum is probably the most informative and emotionally impacting element of the area. It highlights child victims in a way that was clearly compelling for the young adults in the museum, and the short movie (played in a dozen languages throughout the day) gives some background in a brief and interesting way. Yet, beyond that museum, the town that was is a town again, a place where people live, and eat, and shop, and play.

Panorama of the town of Terezin today.

All of these things were happening in town as we waited for the bus to take us back to Prague. It's a place that feels haunted, yet lived in. All the buildings have plaques noting what role they played in the camp, and what they do today. Quite a few are abandoned, such as the church seen here. It's an uncanny version of both a town and a camp, neither/nor and struggling to find its place and move on. It's the fact that it still exists as a town that makes for such a different experience than one finds at more curated Holocaust Memorials.  The museum was well organized, but outside the museum walls there was just so much THERE there (Gertrude Stein shout-out). No one ever lives a life within the walls of the Holocaust Memorial Museum, but people will live out their lives in the sight of the Small Fortress and the crematoria in Terezin, in architecture that is forced to re-present itself as housing and not prison once again.

"New England Holocaust Memorial" by Greenberg on Flickr.com

Like Terezin in one small way, the New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston is a lived space. It's just down the street from the exuberance of Faneuil Hall's street performers and souvenir shops, and sandwiched between Boston City Hall and the Union Oyster House. It occupies a skinny space jam-packed with tourists and city workers. As you can see on the left, it's in a park-like space and while narrow is also tall enough to be noticed among Boston's short skyline. Like the USHMM it asks you to take a particular emotional journey rather than the explorative sense I had in Terezin.  Entering the memorial there are plaques on either side giving some basic information about the Holocaust, one of them reproduces the famous Niemoller quote (one that's been so recently misused and abused).  Each of the towers represents a death camp, and from base to skyline they are full of six million numbers that comprise the dead from the Nazi Regime. What one does at this memorial is walk through the glass columns and experience the architecture, rather than absorb information or explore historical/present spaces. First, there's the name of the camp reperesented by this particular column: Majdanek, Sobibor, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Chelmno, and Belzec. Second, there are steam grates (see below) that both make noise of steam escaping and shine small points of light, evoking stars even when viewed in the daylight.  The walls list some of the six million numbers, offer quotes from survivors, and reflect our own images back at us (also evoking Maya Lin's Vietnam Memorial).

"Steam Grate w/ Stars" by slworking, "Glassy Sky" by Aldwin, and "Shoah" by Bixby all images courtesy of Flickr.com

Like the USHMM, the experience of walking through the columns is designed to provoke an emotional reaction. The noise from the steam grates, for me, was disturbing as one can't help but think of the sound that the gas chambers made at a camp like Auschwitz. The stars clearly reference the yellow patches worn by Jews as they existed in Nazi occupied Europe and the camps. The numbers create an overwhelming sense of loss (although in a troublingly anonymous way). These details, however, don't mean a lot without some context. Unlike the USHMM or Terezin, the memorial in Boston functions in a very limited way for education. Young viewers would need a tour or reading/lesson before attending to understand some of the details the architecture is attempting to evoke.

"New England Holocaust Memorial" by Boyer courtesy of Flickr.com

Finally, the quotes add a certain humanity to the list of nameless victims (it's also really hard to find a list of them online. Guess you'll just have to go yourself). I found this particular memorial to be unexpectedly affecting. I left the sixth tower crying, something that I hadn't anticipated on my meander through Boston on a June day. Again, I feel as though the curated experience is one that prompts this emotional reaction. The architects have thought about how they can best reach us through multiple senses and create an overwhelming experience. I acknowledge the power of this approach, and I understand why it's a compelling choice of those who organize Holocaust memorials (I'd love to go to the memorial in Berlin to see how the experience compares.)  Yet I appreciate the chance to explore that the Terezin memorial and museum offered. While I didn't leave there crying, unlike the USHMM and the NEHM, I left with a sense of reality that's different than what the other memorials can offer.  It's a lived space, and one that most cope with living beyond Nazi occupation, a challenge that's still being worked out by residents and visitors.     

*All photos without attribution (merely title, etc.) are my own and are CC licensed.