Germany's memories

DAVE GORDON

It seems that, every year, there is a dark anniversary in Germany, as the possibilities for marking significant dates between 1933 and 1945 – the years of the Nazi regime – have no end. This year, for example, marks 75 years since the Nazi party took power in Germany; on May 7, it will be 63 years since the Nazis surrendered to Allied forces.

In much the same way, the country has no shortage of memorials and more are forthcoming. Two monuments are about to be built in Berlin, one to commemorate Gypsies who died in the Holocaust and one for homosexuals who were killed in the gas chambers.

The building of the new memorials began last November with the Topography of Terror Centre, at the site of the former Gestapo and SS headquarters. A large exhibit opened at Bergen-Belsen last October and, this summer, a new visitor centre will open in Dachau. Another exhibit, sponsored by Deutsche Bahn, opened in Berlin at the Potsdamer Platz train station: it lays out how the company's predecessor, the Reichsbahn, carried about three million passengers to the death camps. And Berlin is working on a new museum, the Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism, to be finished in three years, where the Nazi party headquarters once stood.

Not all of the building has been focused on the war years. In Munich, a series of buildings, including a Jewish museum and a community centre, opened last year, to celebrate Jewish history and the Jewish present. A synagogue opened there in November 2006, on the anniversary of the 1938 Kristallnacht attacks.

Dr. Robert Krell, a child survivor from Holland, is the founding president of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre and, though he has not visited these new sites in Germany, said there is always a delicate balance involved with building any Holocaust memorial.

How much of the site, for example, should be dedicated to the Shoah itself and how much toward the life and history of Jews in prewar Europe?

"I do not think it's possible to teach the Shoah without teaching the life and history and accomplishments of the Jewish people before the Shoah," he said.

"Holocaust education must somehow impact the students of our time [who are] increasingly removed from those times and, must include the richness of [prewar] society. I don't think we can contemplate the magnitude of the losses, the six million, without knowing about the half million Jews who lived in Germany, who contributed to Germany. They contributed so much to the arts, sciences, economics and we can't talk about the Shoah without noting the void that was created in European culture."

Unfortunately, a kind of commercialization of the Holocaust sites has crept in, noted Krell.

"Every Jew who goes to Auschwitz goes there with a heavy heart. On the one hand, we must not forget it. On the other, for some, it is supporting Polish tourism. If they could get in and out of Auschwitz just to say Kaddish, they would. On the way, you pass shops and playgrounds – a sacrilegious presence – that stand against what that place should be," said Krell. "I don't know how people can deal with these issues and not deal with commercialization and not deal with exploitation."

However, the inevitable risks should not detract from the meaning or deter the further building of the memorials, he said.

"I have to fall on the side of optimism. These places are places of remembrance. What is the alternative? I think the alternative is to forget. The Jewish community bears a burden to keep these sites as honest and true as possible and to complain when something is done that dishonors the memory of the dead."

Frieda Miller, executive director of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, applauds these new monuments in Germany, citing the importance of how some industries today have reflected upon their roles with the Nazis. "Overall, I find all of these as positive developments.... I think Germany should be commended for keeping it in the forefront of their history," she said.

As for the potential interference and influence of inappropriate materials on the sites, she said that there is another way to perceive it.

"To me, it heightens the understanding that this did not happen miles from people. People knew at the time it was part of the community and they went about their daily business. It did not happen in Siberia. It happened in full view of everyone. Do I find those tacky souvenirs offensive? No question," she said.

"'Tourism' isn't such a bad word. If I go there to learn, there's that kind of tourism, like going to a museum. People have complained about Auschwitz. I don't anticipate that this will happen with every memorial site. Some of this you can't help. Auschwitz [Osweicm] is a city, after all."

Dave Gordon is a freelance writer. His website is DaveGordonWrites.com.

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