Kluger lecture three
Last Time:
Environment in
which Kluger lived as a child:
--basic rights
and privileges gradually removed: constriction of Jewish existence
--Kluger’s
civil disobedience: goes to the cinema
--Her willing
exposure to Nazi propaganda (Stürmer, Jud Süss)
--Love of
literature and her early poetry
--Criticism of
her mother
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:
Remember Erwin Kowalke?
Kluger:
“Where there is no grave we are condemned to go on mourning.” (80)
Father: Viktor Klüger umlaut: ü
Klugerbelieved for many years that he was
gassed at Auschwitz: p.39
Public Writing can also change personal
history: pp.39-40
Brother: Georg
Schorschi = Austrian nickname for George
(Georgie)
Deported from Prague to Theresienstadt
and sent postcards
p. 82
Historian uses the example of a transport
to Riga
83. butKluger 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
---Anything else—other reasons for
memorials?
2.
Implement your intentions: How?
What design or sequence of exhibits will DO
what you hope to achieve?
Berlin
faced these questions after German reunification
Peter Eisenman’s design of 2,700 concrete
slabs of varying heights: http://z.about.com/d/architecture/1/7/r/j/berlinmemorial.jpg
Children
playing: http://www.theeuropeans.net/blog/images/Holocaust_Memorial.JPG
From
above: http://www.sacred-destinations.com/germany/images/berlin/memorial-to-jews/aerial-1332ft.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
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. 105-6
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jfny1Fs8fJQ
What is she doing here with this
epilogue?
“perhaps redeemed” ??