Klugerlongthree
DOING: in retracing her experiences and commenting on
them, Kluger re-situates Holocaust discourse—reviewing the historically
verifiable circumstances, but enabling a different range of response.
I. Viktor and Schorschi:
Father: Viktor Klüger
Kluger (who drops the umlaut
in the
believed for many years that
he was gassed at
Public Writing can also
change personal history: pp.39-40
Brother: Georg
Schorschi = Austrian nickname
for George (Georgie)
Deported from
p. 82
Historian uses the example of
a transport to
83. but she does not share details
In his 70th
year—“buries” her brother in this way—completing her Antigone duty
Intersection of History and
personal history
Historical fact and human
truth
These are personal memories
supplemented and completed by historical research into the transports and
chance encounters with others who knew the details
.
II. Memory and Truth:
What do (Holocaust)
Monuments, Memorials, and Memorial Museums do?
Mass murders of Jews, Roma,
Sinti, Poles, the disabled
Problem of memorializing:
You
are the mayor of a German town who has been given funding for a memorial of
some kind. What do you DO?
1. Decide on your purpose:
Possible purposes
---Honor the dead and remember
them
---Inform the living: Make this information available
---Teach: Never Again--those who cannot learn from history are doomed
to repeat it. Ergo, those who can learn from history can prevent repetition??
---Inspire
humanity in the visitors by showing inhumanity in the proper context
2. Implement your intentions:
How? Who will design? What will accomplish your purpose?
What design or sequence of
exhibits will DO what you hope to
achieve?
settled on Peter Eisenman’s
design of 2,700 concrete slabs of varying heights: http://z.about.com/d/architecture/1/7/r/j/berlinmemorial.jpg
Think about how you would do
this. Or give examples of a well-done monument, memorial, or memorial museum
Kluger on Museums and Monuments:
pp.63-64
***pp. 66. on using the camp
sites for museums
Contrasts with
Hiroshima Children’s
Memorial: http://www.miketilly.com/photos/2003_japan_nz_fiji_ny/photos/jp/030918-hiroshima_sadako.jpg
The ugly building: http://travel.aolcdn.com/travdestguide/Hiroshima-japan_01-360a032507.jpg
Theresienstadt as a place
where people still live
III. Kluger’s museum, her monument, her memorial to
humanity and human goodness:
Doing: The good deed
There is one event and one person about which Kluger is absolutely uncritical and utterly appreciative.
The perpetrator is an enigma,
her motives incomprehensible, and her identity unknown.
Ruth is 12 and the minimum
age is 15.
p.103
p. 105
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jfny1Fs8fJQ
What is she doing here with
this epilogue?
“perhaps redeemed” ??