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
Kluger believed for many years that he
was gassed at
Public Writing can also change personal history: pp.39-40
http://www.convoi73.org/indexa1.html
Brother: Georg
Schorschi = Austrian nickname for George
(Georgie)
Deported from
p. 82
Historian uses the example of a transport
to
83. but
Kluger 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?
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” ??
1945
Partition of
German
Democratic Republic
1949-1989
http://www.redruth.cornwall.sch.uk/curriculum/History/coldwar-rev/Image16.gif
http://davidspitz.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/checkpoint-charlie-1961.jpg
SED
= Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands
Socialist
Unity Party and Marxist-Leninist ideology
Strict regulation of the population and of permissible
cultural practices.
Censorship
Restrictions
on travel
but
Full
employment
social safety nets
FDJ=
Freie Deutsche Jugend (Free German Youth)
Cultural
Program of the FDJ