Commemorating the Holocaust
A case study of two counter-memorials
Master Thesis Political Science submitted in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of MSc Conflict Resolution and Governance
of the University of Amsterdam in 2016
Anne Hobbel – 11093935
Supervisor: Dr. Anja van Heelsum Second Reader: Dr. Martijn Dekker August 31st, 2016
Abstract
Memorials can be seen as a reconciling force after a conflict has ended. This research examines how, as antipodes of traditional memorials, counter-memorials add to the commemoration of the Holocaust. By using the theory existent about how traditional memorials convey collective memory through its commemorative and educational function, I went to find out in how far counter-memorials did the same or deviated from this theory. In order to do this, I conducted fieldwork at two counter-memorials; Stolpersteine in Middelburg and the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas in Berlin. Despite the Stolpersteine being valued very negatively and the confusion about the meaning of the Denkmal, the experience people have at counter-memorials does show strong similarities to what Holocaust survivors would like people to experience at memorial sites and is certainly different from what people experience at traditional memorials. Therefore, this thesis concludes by stating that counter-memorials certainly add a different dimension to the commemoration of the Holocaust, namely by bringing the historic event into the present and allowing people to form their own ideas about the meaning of the memorial they are looking at.
Table of Contents
1 INTRODUCTION 5
2 THEORY 8
2.1 INTRODUCTION 8
2.2 COLLECTIVE MEMORY 11
2.3 COLLECTIVE MEMORY IN TRADITIONAL MONUMENTS 14
2.4 COUNTER-MEMORIALS 18
2.5 COUNTER-MEMORIALS AND COLLECTIVE MEMORY 19 2.6 DENKMAL FÜR DIE ERMORDETEN JUDEN EUROPAS 22
2.7 STOLPERSTEINE 25 2.8 POSTMEMORY 26 3 METHOD 28 3.1 DESIGN 28 3.2 OPERATIONALIZATION 29 3.3 SAMPLING 31 3.4 RESPONDENTS 31 3.4.1 BERLIN 31 3.4.2 MIDDELBURG 32 3.4.3 HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS 32 3.5 ANALYSIS 33 3.6 ETHICAL REFLECTION 33 4 RESULT CHAPTER DENKMAL FÜR DIE ERMORDETEN JUDEN EUROPAS 34 4.1 COMMEMORATION 34 4.1.1 IMPORTANCE 34 4.1.2 EMOTIONS 35 4.1.3 BEHAVIOUR 36
4.2 EDUCATION AND POLITICS 37
4.2.1 EDUCATIONAL VALUE 37 4.2.2 AWARENESS 38 5 RESULT CHAPTER STOLPERSTEINE 42 5.1 COMMEMORATION 42 5.1.1 IMPORTANCE 43 5.1.2 EMOTIONS 44
5.1.3 BEHAVIOUR 46
5.2 EDUCATION AND POLITICS 47
5.2.1 EDUCATIONAL VALUE 47 5.2.2 AWARENESS 48 6 RESULT CHAPTER INTERVIEWS SURVIVORS 51 6.1 MRS.OLTHUIS-JACOBSON 51 6.2 MS.VAN DER HULLE 53 7 DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 56 7.1 COMPARISON 56 7.2 DISCUSSION 59 7.2.1 THEORY 59 7.2.2 REFLECTION FIELDWORK 60 7.3 GENERALIZATION 62
7.4 SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH 62
7.5 CONCLUSION 63
Forgetting the extermination is part of the extermination itself – Jean Baudrillard
1 Introduction
After a conflict has ended, monuments and memorials are often erected to commemorate the events and the victims of the conflict. Monuments play an important role in the European memory industry. Ever since the seventeenth century monuments convey messages of power, greatness and beauty. The monument has “a commemorative role in triggering certain public memories and values, and is a concept that has come to embody a particular European vision of the world” (Smith 2006, p. 19). In addition to giving people the opportunity to, and guiding people in how to remember and commemorate, these cultural heritage sites can have the power to reconcile after a conflict has ended. UNESCO states that, in post-conflict situations, cultural heritage sites can become “common spaces for dialogue and exchange, reflecting shared values” (2008, p. 27). Therefore, monuments and memorials may play a very important role in post-conflict situations. However, in order for a heritage site to be in fact reconciling, and not cause any more conflicts to arise, many factors have to be taken into account. For example, one has to realize that in a conflict there are victims, perpetrators and observers, who all experience a conflict in a different way. It is therefore especially difficult to represent dark pasts such as the Holocaust, where one has to acknowledge the difficult situation of all the people involved without being disrespectful to any of them (Lennon and Foley 2000, p. 31-32). In addition to through traditional monuments and memorials, dark and difficult pasts are now often commemorated through countermonuments and -memorials. In this thesis, the latter will play a central role.
Monuments and memorials are at the intersection of cultural heritage studies and conflict studies. Two fields of research I am very much interested in. Over the past years this interest has developed into a fascination for the Holocaust and the art that has been made during, after and about this gruesome event. Between 1941 and 1945 the Nazis systematically murdered Jews, the Roma, communists, homosexuals, the disabled, Jehovah’s witnesses, Slavs and Soviet prisoner’s of war. An event we now refer to as the Holocaust or the Shoah. Because of the horrible impact of this event,
there are many monuments and memorials that remind us of the inhumane conducts of the Nazis, to make sure we never forget what happened and learn from the past. Today, there are very few people left who have witnessed the Holocaust first hand, and in the near future there will be no Holocaust survivors to tell about what happened to the Jews and the other groups of people during the Second World War. Although the current generation can still learn from speaking with them, and in some cases also from speaking with 2nd and 3rd generation Holocaust survivors who have experienced the Holocaust through their parents and grandparents, not long from now this will not be the case anymore. What will remain are textual and visual testimonies, history books, traditional monument and memorials, and also counter-memorials.
With this research I want to find out whether counter-memorials are an effective way of commemorating the Holocaust. To this end, I have chosen two case studies: the state-funded Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas (Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe), a memorial covering a space of 19.000 square meter in Berlin, and the citizen initiated art project Stolpersteine, a widespread memorial of bronze stones measuring 10x10x10 cm, each inscribed with the name of one Holocaust victim. Both memorials find its roots in Germany, the former being located in Berlin and the latter being initiated and executed by a German artist. Germany has a conflicted past, think for example of the Second World War and its aftermath, to which we now refer as the Cold War. Because of its conflicted history and the amount of war memorials and other monuments, Germany is an interesting case study.
The country has a considerable amount of both traditional memorials and counter-memorials. It should therefore not come as a surprise that a scholar who studied Holocaust monuments in Germany was the first to coin the term counter-monument. In his article concerning the commemoration of the Holocaust and the Second World War in general, Young argues it might be the disappearance and absence of monuments that represent the feelings regarding Germany’s history best (1992, p. 268). Young (1992) explains that not only the history of Germany is conflicted, but its policy regarding monuments and memorials is conflicted as well:
“But perhaps no single emblem better represents the conflicted, self- abnegating motives for memory in Germany today than the vanishing monument. On the one hand, no one takes their memorials more seriously than the Germans. Competitions are held almost monthly across the "fatherland" for new memorials against war and fascism, or for peace; or to mark a site of destruction,
deportation, or a missing synagogue; or to remember a lost Jewish community. […] Nonetheless, Holocaust memorial-work in Germany today remains a tortured, self-reflective, even paralyzing preoccupation. Every monument, at every turn, is endlessly scrutinized, explicated, and debated. Artistic, ethical, and historical questions occupy design juries to an extent unknown in other countries” (p. 268-269).
Young argues that this conflict in Germany’s memory industry has resulted in many German artists designing alternative memorials. According to Young, these alternatives are “brazen, painfully self-conscious memorial spaces conceived to challenge the very premises of their being” (1992, p. 271); sites he coined as counter-monuments.
Both the Stolpersteine and the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas fit the description of Young’s counter-monuments, as will be explained later on in this thesis. Both memorials have been praised and criticized, but what do the people who have a personal connection to the Holocaust think about these kinds of monuments? If there is no one left to tell us about what happened during the Holocaust, and we turn to other sources, such as these counter-monuments and -memorials, what do they tell us? Do they do justice to the memories of (2nd and 3rd generation) Holocaust survivors, or do they convey a message that is far from what these witnesses want us to know? And what do people who visit these memorials think about the monuments? Do they learn from it? Do they gain an experience? By researching these two sites I want to find out what counter-memorials can contribute to the commemoration of the Holocaust. Is their contribution to the commemoration of the Holocaust different from the contribution of traditional monuments, which are often state-funded and convey a message similar to what government agencies would like to be the collective memory of their people? And if so, is this an additional contribution or does it affect the commemoration of the Holocaust in a negative manner? The research question of this thesis is therefore the following:
As an alternative for traditional memorials, what do counter-memorials contribute to the commemoration of the Holocaust?
2 Theory
2.1 Introduction
A monument or memorial fulfils various functions, which are mainly educational and commemorative in nature. They often commemorate important people, like political leaders and war heroes, but also important local, regional or national events. The events and people it commemorates are often positive in nature; think for example of triumphal arches in Rome, commemorating great leaders or victories in war. Traditional monuments are far less often seen to commemorate traumatic pasts (Krzyżanowska 2015). The theory in this thesis is mainly drawn from the article ‘The discourse of counter-monuments: semiotics of material commemoration in contemporary urban spaces’ by Natalia Krzyżanowska (2015), and also the concepts collective memory, first discussed by Halbwachs and the concept of the Authoritative Heritage Discourse (ADH), first used by Smith in 2006 and the concept of counter-memorials, first coined by Young in 1992. In her article, Krzyżanowska compares counter-monuments with traditional monuments. Because I am using this article as the theoretical backdrop of this thesis, I will also copy the definitions that are used. In her article Krzyżanowska refers to Caves, who describes a monument as follows:
“A construction or an edifice filled with cultural, historical and artistic values. […] Historically, the idea of the monument is closely tied to commemoration (of a victory, a ruling, a new law). In the urban space, monuments have become parts of the city landscape, spatial points of reference or elements founding identity of a place. Monuments can be enriched by educational and political functions […] as well as artistic ones and those centred on commemoration” (2005, p. 318).
Both in the theory and the fieldwork section of this research, the focus will be upon commemorative, educational and political functions of memorials. These three functions are often intertwined and hard to separated from each other. In order to find out whether and how counter-memorials initiate different commemorative and educational processes than traditional memorials do, it is important to first establish how traditional monuments do so. To do this, we have to dive into the field of urban studies: “The artefact-oriented analysis of the urban recognises the semiotic polysemy of the city that, through its material representations, communicates individual and
collective visions, promises and opportunities often stimulated by past- or future-related utopian ideas of commonality” (Krzyżanowska 2015, p. 3). According to urban studies, monuments are loci in the modern city; focal points in a city where a lot of activities find place and many people come together. Together, these loci construct a city’s collective memory, which is essential for the way a community remembers and commemorates its past (Krzyżanowska 2015).
As mentioned before, especially the commemorative, educational and political functions of monuments are important in this research. Coincidently, these three factors are also of importance in the concept which is referred to as collective memory. Collective memory is a concept that began with the ideas of Maurice Halbwachs, but was only really introduced in 1992, many years after his death in 1945.
“Collective memory, Halbwachs shows, is not a given but rather a socially constructed notion. Nor is it some mystical group mind. As Halbwachs specifies in The Collective Memory: "While the collective memory endures and draws strength from its base in a coherent body of people, it is individuals as group members who remember." It follows that there are as many collective memories as there are groups and institutions in a society. Social classes, families, associations, corporations, armies, and trade unions all have distinctive memories that their members have constructed, often over long periods of time. It is, of course individuals who remember, not groups or institutions, but these individuals, being located in a specific group context, draw on that context to remember or recreate the past” (Coser 1992, p. 22).
Thus, collective memory is both personal and collective; because it is personal it has emotive power, which makes it stronger. Collective memory is not something people simply have, but something that is constructed, often by groups who have a lot of power, such as governmental agencies or other elitist groups. Now, it may sound weird if one says that memory is constructed, but it simply means that certain stories are often told, or showed to people through for example works of arts, movies and books. If memory manifests itself in an object, it becomes even stronger; it becomes concrete (Smith 2006). In addition to works of arts, movies and books, collective memory is also created through cultural heritage sites. According to Smith, who put collective memory in the context of cultural heritage studies, Halbwachs argues the following:
“Every group construct and identity for itself through shared memories. For Halbwachs shared or collective memories are socially constructed in the present,
and are collectively legitimized in that they make meaningful common interests and perceptions of collective identity. They work to bind the collective and give it stability and continuity. Collective memory is passed on and shaped in the present by commemorative events, and is reshaped daily through transmission between members of the collective social or cultural group and the language they employ to frame and define those memories. He observes that ‘recollections are …. located …. with the help of landmarks that we always carry within ourselves, for it suffices to look around ourselves, to think about others, and to locate ourselves within the social framework in order to retrieve them (1992:175)” (Smith 2006, p. 59).
In short, landmarks, such as memorials, contain materialized collective memory. Consequently, what or whom a memorial commemorates, or is dedicated to, tells us a lot about the community in which the monument is centred; it tells us about the community’s collective memory.
Memorials are often used by governmental agencies to construct collective memory and to tell the nation’s people which “kinds of ideas, values and identities we are to consider most, embody who we are at best, what we should ourselves strive towards, those to whom we most owe and fundamentally to remind us who we are by signposting points and personalities from our shared national and local histories” (Abousnouga and Machin 2013, p. 1). Collective memory “can be thought of as the non-material aspects of culture that help societies remember their past and their traditions, to build a sense of identity, community and locality in the present.” (Harrison 2010, p. 239). The fact that monuments play an important role in the way a country or city wants to present itself and the construction of collective memory and identity is proven by, for example, the destruction of monuments with the change of a political regime (Krzyżanowska 2015). Think for example of the well-known toppling of the Saddam Hussein statue in Baghdad in 2003, or the ban on statues of Adolf Hitler in Germany; a new regime means that old monuments and memorials which convey old ideas of social memory disappear, and new ones, constructing a different collective memory, will be revealed. Whereas it is generally accepted that traditional monuments convey collective memory, this has not been established for counter-memorials.
Figure 1. Iraqis watching a statue of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein as it is pulled down in Baghdad's al-Fardous square on April 9, 2003 (Mitchell 2013)
In the following paragraph we will look into what collective memory exactly is and how traditional memorials materialize collective memory. After clarifying this, we will dive into the three before mentioned factors that influence this concept; commemoration, education and politics, which will also come back in the result chapters of the fieldwork I undertook as important part of this research. Then counter-memorials will be properly introduced and discussed along the same concepts of commemoration, education and politics. Lastly, some theory about postmemory will be provided to clarify the reasons I had for conducting in-depth interviews with 2nd and 3rd generation Holocaust survivors.
2.2 Collective memory
The concepts of collective memory and commemoration find their roots in memory studies. Memory studies emerged as a field of research in the 1960s. During that initial period of interest in the topic, academics were mainly involved in discourses about the rise of new social movements and decolonization. Over the past three decades, the field of memory studies has become an increasingly researched field within both the social sciences and heritage studies (Smith 2006). Remembering and commemorating plays an important role in the so-called ‘memory industry’, and is especially sparked by the recent anniversaries of important events like the Second World War. An important debate within this field of research concerns “the
authorized ideas of history by a range of ethnic and cultural minorities” (Smith 2006, p. 57). One of the contexts in which this debate is held is that of the testimonial movement and the commemoration of the Holocaust.
It is important to note that this is also where the academic interest in a more specialised field of memory studies started. Jewish scholars played an important role in this development; they were the ones who started writing about the Holocaust and memory, sparking interest in the more specific topic of memory. Before this happened, there were many fields of research that had an interest in memory, although it was never the main interest. Scholars interested in for example oral history, autobiographies and commemorative rituals were also interested in memory, but never researched is as a topic on its own (Moshenska 2010). According to Moshenska “the increasing prominence of memory in these fields has been ascribed to the emergence of post-colonialism; the crises of modernity and post-modernity; the decline of ‘actual’ memory; the decline of historicism; a response to the traumas of two World Wars and the Holocaust; and the emergence of identity politics” (2010, p. 34). Taking pieces of all of these fields of interests has eventually led to the interdisciplinary field of memory studies, in which the newly developing commemoration of the Holocaust thus played a leading role.
Simultaneously with the rise of memory studies, there was also a rise in the installation of monuments and memorials. There are various explanations offered by scholars for the rate at which new memorial sites and monuments were, and still are, erected. Among these newly erected monuments and memorials, there are many sites which commemorate a conflicted past, like for example the Holocaust. One of the proposed reasons for this increase in ambivalent heritage is the rising popularity of ‘dark tourism’. Dark tourism is the phenomenon that tourists visit sites that remind one of “death, disaster and atrocity”, often with getting entertained is the main objective (Lennon and Foley 2002, p. 3). These dark heritage sites often commemorate events, which still make people feel nervous and uncomfortable; they are sites of living memory (Lennon and Foley 2002). Although these sites often remind of tragedies toward which one would expect a respectful attitude, this cannot always be traced back in how these kinds of sites are presented. People who visit these sites only too often see this as a day full of entertainment. In addition, because entertaining is so important at these sites, the educational and commemorative value is often reduced (Uzzell 1989). Nonetheless, this does not take away from the
political message according to Tunbridge and Ashworth: “Entertainment and education are effectively and often inextricably combined to render atrocity one of the most marketable of heritages and one of the most powerful instruments for the transference of political or social messages” (1996, p. 94).
With an increased interest in ‘dark’ heritage, it should not come as a surprise that tourists are flooding sites related to the Holocaust every year. Consequently, a part of the more than one million tourists that visit Auschwitz Birkenau and other sites, such as the Denkmal fur die Ermordeten Juden Europas, that memorialize the Holocaust each year may be coined ‘dark tourists’. However, if we follow the argument of Tunbridge and Ashworth, all of these visitors will not only be commemorating the Holocaust, they will also be exposed to a political and/or social message. This message will be different for every monument, and is dependent on where and when it was erected: “The ways in which the past is actively produced in the present, and the form of this memorialization, relate directly to contemporary moral and ethical perspectives on the past” (Harrison 2013, p. 168). This makes Holocaust monuments and memorial sites into conflicted resources, as the people who are behind the design, production and installation of the monument or site, often governmental agencies, are the ones who have control over what story this monument or memorial will tell and what ideas and values it will convey (Harrison 2013). Consequently, this influences the collective memory that people take away from a visit to a Holocaust monument or memorial.
It is clear that, even though one may not always realize, something complicated happens when someone visits a monument or memorial. Although monuments and memorials may look like static objects, they actively communicate a story to people. This is definitely true in the case of Holocaust memorials. Memories of the Holocaust are very diverse and conflicted. Memory is, unlike history, not based on facts, but based on (personal) experiences. It is subjective, not always reliable and subject to change: “memory is an active cultural process of remembering and of forgetting that is fundamental to our ability to conceive the world” (Smith 2006, p. 58). As explained before, memory can thus be constructed, for example through stories conveyed through objects. Many objects have holocaust memories attached to them; examples are diaries of victims of the Holocaust, museums, which memorialize the Holocaust, and recorded interviews with Holocaust survivors. For this research, material monuments and memorials that commemorate the Holocaust and its victims
are most important. According to Young, these objects memorialize the Holocaust “according to the hue of national ideals, the cast of political dicta” (1993, p. VIII). Basically, he argues, the people who are involved in the design and installation of a memorial decide what this memorial is going to symbolize; a state-funded memorial will be designed according to the political ideas and values of the state’s governmental bodies. Young describes this very well, he explains that
“the “art of public memory” encompasses not just these memorials’ aesthetic contours, or their places in contemporary artistic discourse. It also includes the activity that brought them into being, the constant give and take between memorials and viewers, and finally the responses of viewers to their own world in light of a memorialized past – the consequences of memory” (1993, p. IX).
This is exactly what I want to research, “the give and take between memorials and viewers”. It is important to understand that memorials and monuments do not just come into being. No, they are formed along the lines of cultural and political ideas and values, which they also convey to their visitors. I feel that in traditional monuments the commemorative and educational function is very much influenced by the political ideas and values of the initiators of said monuments, whereas I believe this is not, or to a lesser degree, the case in counter-memorials. Hence, I want to find out what visitors take from a counter-memorial like the Denkmal fur die Ermordete Juden Europas or the Stolpersteine. It is important to research this, as these kind of Holocaust monuments and memorials will inform future generation about this period in history and will control the way in which this event is commemorated in the future. These are the “consequences of memory”.
2.3 Collective memory in traditional monuments
Governmental agencies play an important role in how traditional monuments commemorate and educate. It is at this level in society where it is decided what is commemorated and educated, and what is omitted or purposely ‘forgotten’:
“Traditionally national places of memory were created and understood as glorifying the pasts of ‘a people.’ But such places are also made today to forget: they contain and house disturbing absences and ruptures, tales of violence. Places of memory both remember pasts and encrypt unnamed, yet powerfully felt,
absences - absences that might be considered modernity’s ghosts of the nation” (Till 2005, p. 9).
However, individuals do not always agree with governmental bodies about “the representation of the past, and these contestations are reflected in memorial landscapes” (Cook and Van Riemsdijk 2014, p.140). That these contestations of individuals are reflected in memorial landscapes means that the discontent with state-funded monuments has resulted in the erection of monuments by individuals.
“Representatives of dominant social classes have been most adept at using memory as an instrument of rule. […]. Moreover, it is often the case that memories of ordinary people are appropriated by elites and pressed into the service of conquest and domination. […]. Recent research suggests, however, that less-privileged groups—such as the anti-apartheid leaders before the collapse of white rule in South Africa, or AIDS activists in the USA— are becoming ever more adept at making use of memory to challenge their own subordination” (Hoelscher and Alderman 2004, p. 349)
These individuals find it important to have memorials and monuments that remind of, and teach future generations about, for example, the Holocaust. However, as monuments and memorials are often installed after a process in which mainly the elite is involved, a group that is often the one in power, the message it conveys is also the one that they want to send out to the masses. And, it is save to say, that not always everybody will agree with the version of history that a governmental body presents to the public. Nonetheless, “accounts of the collective memory of any group or society are usually accounts of the memories of some subset of the group, particularly of those with access to the means of cultural production or whose opinions are more highly valued” (Olick 1999, p. 338-339); these groups often tend to be state agencies or other elitist groups. It is important to stress this, as even though monuments and memorials are not as binding as for example laws, they are still able to regulate a community to a certain extent; the masses will want to follow the elite and often adopt their ideas and values, which are conveyed through, for example, memorials (Krzyżanowska 2015). As these government agencies and others in power are aware of this, many memorials have been purposely used to convey collective memory. Now one may think that the message of a monument is completely open to interpretation, however, this is not always the case.
“In most cases, interpretations of monuments are limited to those who “are trusted in the decoding of multi-level meaning relations and enabled to decode the tacit meaning of values and features of the urban space” (Rewers 2009, p. 19). As monuments have traditionally been used to construct collective identities and solidify collective belonging, “a monument may never lay claim to artistic autonomy from its social and historical context” (Carrier 2005, 32). By recalling collectively recognisable images and imaginations, monuments must draw on conventional public knowledge and be easily decodable by an average mass receiver, even if often being complex (e.g. figurative, neoclassical and ornamental) in form” (Krzyżanowska 2015, p. 5-6).
This does not mean that when you put a group of people together and send them to look at a particular monument they will come back telling you the exact same story or having the exact same experience. Nonetheless, a traditional monument works in such a way that visitors often understand the monument in one specific way; the meaning behind the symbolism is very clear. Therefore, monuments are often used to convey a (hi)story, an idea or value, which the initiators or the funders want to become part of a community’s collective memory. Consequently, the events and people that are commemorated at traditional monuments are often part of a nation’s or region’s collective memory.
An important function of memorials is commemoration. Commemoration can be an important tool in constructing social identity and memory: “Apart from strategies of naming (places, squares, streets, etc.) and designing spatial order, commemoration remains the key tool of symbolic power and enacting symbolism and axio-normativity in city spaces” (Krzyżanowska 2015, p. 1). The fact that commemoration at traditional monuments is able to play such an important role in constructing symbolic power, is made possible due to a simple but effective template to which many traditional memorials adhere:
“First, the physical substance of many memorials includes representational content. This requires visitors to engage in passive, prolonged reading of the object from an appropriate distance. Second, commemorative objects and settings provide physical frameworks for theatrical, embodied rituals, such as marches, vigils, and wreath layings, which are designed to help people focus their thoughts and aid their recall of memories” (Stevens 2012, p. 36).
War memorials, commemorating for example the Holocaust, are a good example of traditional monuments where one has to read a text, and which are often the destination of commemorative marches and the location of wreath layings. To understand the meaning of a memorial like this, one does not have to do a lot of ‘decoding’, it is often made perfectly clear by text or a very outspoken design. According to Benton and Curtis, a war memorial is “a place where collective and private memory converge” (2010, p. 44). What or whom a war memorial is erected for decides for a large part what people learn about their past, and also what they commemorate. These war memorials make people feel like they belong to the nation they live in, and are a place where people share their ideas and feelings:
“War memorials offer a test of the working of the authorised heritage discourse (AHD), because they can be seen as a calculated way to promote consensus around a particular set of patriotic values and reinforce a sense of shared identity. In other words, the AHD frames the way we think about and discuss war memorials in the service of nationalist goals. Alternatively, they can be seen as a means for individuals and small groups to express their feelings, or at least take part in a shared social action” (Benton and Curtis 2010, p. 44-45).
The authorised heritage discourse is a concept used for the first time by Laurajane Smith in 2006. It describes perfectly well how collective memory is conveyed through heritage:
“There is a dominant Western discourse about heritage, which I term the ‘authorized heritage discourse’, that works to naturalize a range of assumptions about the nature and meaning of heritage. Although this discourse is inevitably chaning and developing, and varies in different cultural contexts and over time, there is nonetheless a particular focus and emphasis – primarily the attention it gives to ‘things’. This often self-referential discourse simultaneously draws on and naturalizes certain narratives and cultural and social experiences – often linked to ides of nation and nationhood. Embedded in this discourse are a range of assumptions about the innate and immutable cultural values of heritage that are linked to and defined by the concepts of monumentality and aesthetics” (Smith 2006, p. 4).
Smith argues that the AHD can be used to “underpin and validate national narratives”, and that, “heritage is part of the political discourses and strategies deployed by different groups and interest to help them legitimize and assert
cultural, social and economic aspirations” (2006, p. 191-192). Although it is clearly the case that most state-funded traditional memorials are part of the AHD, it is questionable whether this is also true for counter-memorials, either state-funded or initiated by one or more individuals.
2.4 Counter-memorials
Today, scholars are arguing that the modern world is obsessed with memory, which is mostly apparent in “intentional collective acts of not forgetting” (Harrison 2013, p. 167). This idea of not forgetting can be seen all over the world in the shape of memories and memorials. Over the past few decades, many new sites of material memory have popped up all around the world. Material memory comes in many forms and shapes, it can be a cultural landscape, but it can also be an everyday object. Most often, it comes in the form of traditional monuments like for example statues of important people or obelisks to remember important victories. However, over the past few decades there has especially been a rise in non-traditional monuments, often referred to as counter-monuments, or counter-memorials (Harrison 2013). The main question in this research is whether counter-memorials evoke the same kind of commemorative feelings, thoughts and activities as traditional monuments do, or whether people experience something different at counter-memorials. Or rather, put more bluntly, do counter-memorials convey collective memory as well? The working of traditional monuments has been described in the previous paragraphs. Now it is essential to define counter-memorials and see how they supposedly tell a different story than traditional monuments do.
It is difficult to pinpoint characteristics that every counter-memorial possesses, because counter-memorials come in a wide variety. The easiest way to define a counter-memorial may be by comparing it to a traditional monument, as Young already did in 1993:
“Ethically certain of their duty to remember, but aesthetically sceptical of the assumptions underpinning traditional memorial forms, a new generation of contemporary artists and monument makers in Germany is probing the limits of both their artistic media and the very notion of a memorial. They are heirs to a double-edged postwar legacy: a deep distrust of monument forms in light of their
systematic exploitation by the Nazis, and a profound desire to distinguish their generation from that of the killers through memory” (1993, p. 27).
Because the Nazis misused traditional monuments and memorials to propagate their ideas and values to try and influence the German population’s collective memory, contemporary German artists are afraid to design traditional memorials to commemorate the Holocaust. Rather, they try to stay away from the traditional as far as possible. Young’s argumentation was followed by, for example, Stevens, who described counter-memorials as:
“Commemorations of negative, tragic, or shameful events, often sponsored by victims’ groups. As a way of signaling their opposition to the positive events and values that traditional memorials typically represent, countermemorials frequently invert the formal conventions of earlier memorials: countermemorials are often sunken rather than raised, void rather than solid, dark rather than light, dispersed rather than spatially concentrated” (2012, p. 36).
Hence, counter-memorials are hard to define by what they are; rather, they should be defined by what they are not. The point of counter-memorials then seems to be to deviate from traditional monuments and make people think for themselves, rather than inflict certain values and ideas on its visitors. Counter-memorials invite people to make their own memories, rather than traditional memorials, which try to implement the same memory in all its visitors. Resistance is thus an important factor in counter-memorials. When talking about commemoration, this resistance often takes the form commemorating events that are purposely forgotten or omitted by traditional monuments in a city or country (Krzyżanowska 2015). Events that are often omitted by traditional monuments are dark and painful pasts, such as the Holocaust.
2.5 Counter-memorials and collective memory
As has been discussed before, traditional memorials and counter-memorials are very different from each other. It should therefore also not come as a surprise that they commemorate in a different way. Counter-memorials, “searching for new ways and patterns of expression significantly different than in monumental commemorations, aim to allow for commemoration while questioning and resisting the traditional limitations of monumental remembrance” (Krzyżanowska 2015, p. 6).
For example, traditional memorials in the form of war memorials are a good example of how collective memory is conveyed at traditional memorials in the sense that they are easy to interpret and often convey a nationalist message. War memorials in the form of counter-memorials on the other hand are much more ‘vague’. They can often be interpreted in various ways, and it is never defined which interpretation is the right one, or better than another one. Counter-memorials often shed a different light on the past than traditional memorials do. Unlike traditional memorials counter-memorials do not seem to memorialize the Holocaust “according to the hue of national ideals, the cast of political dicta” (Young 1993, p. VIII). Nonetheless, this does not mean that these memorials are non-political. In fact, it can be said that counter-memorials, which are often initiated by groups other than a governmental agency, are an attempt of these groups to change the AHD and a community’s collective memory: “Claims to heritage are never non-political as they are tied to claims to and expressions of power. This power may rest on a group’s or interest’s ability – or inability – to appeal to or claim a special place in authorized cultural narratives” (Smith 2006, p. 192) However, even though counter-memorials are political in nature as well, there is a difference in the political aim of counter-memorials and traditional memorials. Krzyżanowska argues the following:
“Counter-monuments cater for many deficiencies of traditional forms of remembrance. They also respond well to the need for multiple (collective as well as individual, localised as well as displaced) modes of commemoration in contemporary urban loci. At the same time, counter-monuments also allow commemorating highly complex past events and occurrences – such as, for example, the Holocaust – that carry many interpretations and therefore many diverse needs for different types and forms of commemoration.” (2015, p. 2). Krzyżanowska explains that counter-memorials are a great addition to, or maybe even replacement for, traditional monuments, as they allow people to commemorate in their own way, without imposing values or ideas upon them.
Another important question is what we learn from monuments and memorials. As has been discussed before, traditional monuments often dictate nationalist and political ideas according to what political regime is in place at the moment of installation of the monument. Traditional monuments can therefore be seen as instilling collective identity and memory in its viewers. This was the standard until some 65 years ago, when a lot started to change:
“Monuments have also become tools of questioning and critiquing – and not only sustaining and institutionalizing – social order and the (allegedly) universal values at the core of the society. Thereby, the monuments started to fulfil the need to not only re/construct the tacitly accepted social meanings traditionally embodied in monumental commemorations but also to de-construct the axiological fabric of the collectivity. By the same token, monuments started to be used to question the elite-oriented as well as elite-driven nature of public commemoration that, closed within the meanings produced by/for the symbolic elites, remained distant from public understanding and expectation of collective history” (Krzyżanowska 2015, p. 6).
In other words, counter-memorials criticize and question traditional memorials, which are in fact collective memory materialized. By doing so, they try to change the AHD. Counter-memorials are believed to be more open to one’s own interpretation, leaving more to the imagination and allowing viewers to create their own ideas of the past. It is therefore especially interesting to, in the case of the Holocaust, investigate whether future generations, who will not be able to talk to people who have experienced the Holocaust at first hand, learn something from a visit to a counter-memorial.
Whereas traditional monuments are pretty easy to read and ‘decode’, this is often much harder to do with a counter-memorial, as these are often very abstract in nature:
“A broad trend in memorial design has been away from explicit representation and toward the use of more abstract forms, which focus visitors’ attention on the shape and material of the artwork. These two emphases on the publicness and materiality of commemorative artworks converged in minimalism. The public siting and abstraction of this and other recent public memorials have placed great demands on the visual literacy of visitors, potentially hindering recognition of commemorative purpose and suitable behavior.” (Stevens 2012, p. 35).
The abstract nature of counter-memorials often leads to a lot of criticism. People wonder whether an abstract monument is able to do justice to the events of the Holocaust. Some relatives of victims of the Holocaust definitely do not think so: “While contemporary designs are welcomed by the artists and architects, critics and curators, however, they often run up against a wall not only of public bewilderment but also of survivor outrage. For many survivors believe that the searing reality of their experiences demands as literal a memorial expression as possible. “We weren’t
tortured and our families weren’t murdered in the abstract,” the survivors complain, “it was real.”” (Young 1993, p. 9). However, not only people that have such a close connection to the Holocaust hold objections against abstract memorials, like for example the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas in Berlin, as will be discussed in the following paragraph.
2.6 Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas
The Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas in Berlin is not your average memorial. It covers an enormous space and exists out of 2711 stone stelae. The memorial is a good example of a counter-memorial. People are supposed to experience something here, not just read a text or look at a piece of art. In fact, the memorial is meant to deviate from the standard monument and instil a sense of disorientation in anyone who walks through the grid. Peter Eisenman, the architect of the monument says the following about this:
“My architecture means nothing. But the experience is something else. You walk through the Berlin memorial and it has nothing to do with what happened in the camps. It is about walking in that space and you get strange physical sensations such as undulation, tilting, leaning, and you feel perplexity, isolation, disorientation; you never know where you are. It is not about “…oh, I got the meaning, I understand.” It is about not understanding the meaning.” (Eisenman, cited in Belogolovsky 2016)
Creating an experience is the main goal of the memorial. The memorial gives people the opportunity to experience the commemoration of the Holocaust in their own way, rather than using symbols or text to guide the visitor into a premeditated way of commemorating, as traditional memorials do. This way, people are able to construct their own memories of the Holocaust, rather than having memories already constructed for them.
The designer of the memorial is well aware of the fact that his memorial is not a traditional one:
“The extraordinary design by Peter Eisenman, New York architect of international renown, has undergone several revisions and represents a radical confrontation with the traditional concept of a memorial: “The enormity and scale of the horror of the Holocaust is such that any attempt to represent it by
traditional means is inevitably inadequate ... Our memorial attempts to present a new idea of memory as distinct from nostalgia ... We can only know the past today through a manifestation in the present.” (Peter Eisenman, 1998).” (Stiftung Denkmal n.d.).
Eisenman wants people to engage with the memorial. The abstract memorial encourages people to think about what the meaning behind the field of stelae is, it is supposed to make the past come back to live.
Figure 2. Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas, Berlin (Picture by Author, May 2016).
The memorial is an open space. Anyone can enter the memorial. One can sit on the stelae, but is not allowed to stand or walk on them, nor is one allowed to jump from one stele to another. In order to communicate these rules to visitors there are plaques on the floor, which contain visitor information and there will always be several security guards, correcting people who walk or jump on the stelae. Nonetheless, many children, but also adults will stand on, and jump from one stelae to another when they first arrive at the site. Moreover, children will run through the ‘maze’ or play hide and seek; for children the site is a playground. Because the Holocaust memorial in Berlin is not a memorial in a traditional sense, it also means that people behave differently than is expected in a memorial setting.
“To some readers, and to other visitors, it may be shocking that many visitors to a major Holocaust memorial act in ways that seem unmindful of the seriousness
of the Holocaust: climbing on the memorial, striking silly poses for photographs, running and laughing, or drinking alcohol. But such responses do not shock the designer of this memorial, who has distinctive views on how visitors might understand and respond to the artwork, and how such reception might remind visitors of the Holocaust” (Stevens 2012, p. 34).
There was, and still is, a lot of criticism concerning the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas: it took seventeen years of debating before this monument was realized (Dekel 2014). The Holocaust memorial in Berlin was such a hotly debated topic, that there are even articles written focussing solely on the debate that preceded the installation of the memorial. In her article, Gay states the following:
“Monuments normally celebrate the positive or heroic achievements of a nation— this will be the first time that a nation has, as it were, devoted a central monument to its crimes. Alongside the risk of appearing triumphalist is the problem of the exclusivity of the monument, which is dedicated solely to the murdered Jews of Europe rather than other victim groups. Opponents to the monument would moreover like to see the estimated A 27.6 million cost put towards maintaining the “ authentic” sites of memory in Germany, such as the former concentration camps” (2003, p. 154).
This shows how innovative the memorial in Berlin was. People were not used to commemorating traumatic pasts in which they were seen as the perpetrators, and especially not when the memorial commemorating this event was so massive as the one in Berlin is. The untraditional experience, the lack of guidelines regarding interpretation and the criticism it has had to endure, makes that the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas is a textbook example of a counter-memorial. Although initially this memorial was a citizens’ initiative, over time many political parties and governmental agencies got involved in its creation (Stiftung Denkmal, 2016). Whether this fact does affect the purpose of the memorial, namely to give visitors an experience and refrain from influencing their thoughts on the Holocaust by imposing certain values and ideas upon them, remains to be seen.
2.7 Stolpersteine
In her article, Krzyżanowska refers to Stolpersteine as counter-monuments: “The counter-monuments such as the Stolpersteine – which commemorate victims of National Socialism and in particular of the Holocaust – point to how the individual/collective intersection impacts upon the foundations of the contemporary urban genius loci and thereby alters the main codes of remembrance in urban space” (Krzyżanowska 2015, p. 2).
In her view, the fact that the Stolpersteine are such personal monuments, with each remembering only one individual, makes them distinct from traditional monuments. This is confirmed in different scholarly articles. Cook and Van Riemsdijk for example, write that “the Stolpersteine present a human dimension of the Holocaust that is often missing from state-sponsored narratives and representations of the past” (2014, p. 138). It is clear that the Stolpersteine deviate from the standard design of Holocaust memorials.
Figure 3. Stolpersteine in Middelburg (Picture by author, March 2016).
Unlike many traditional memorials, Stolpersteine are not state- or government-funded. The memorial was initiated by the artist Walter Demnig, and is sponsored by the group or individual that is requesting a Stolperstein. Each Stolperstein costs €120,- and is installed by Demnig personally. It is especially the focus on the individual that makes the Stolpersteine so special in the category of Holocaust memorials; in state-funded memorials the personal experience hardly ever
comes into the picture. On the contrary, these state-sponsored memorials talk about numbers, which, in case of the Holocaust, are incomprehensible (Cook and Van Riemsdijk 2014).
As has been discussed before, counter-memorials are often topic of hot debate. This is also true for the Stolpersteine:
“In the early years of the project, when Demnig had sometimes put up his memorials against the express wishes of residents and local councils, the Stolpersteine were often widely and hotly debated. Objectors claimed, for instance, that Stolpersteine were a potential hazard and that they would disrupt the flow of pedestrian traffic, or that they attracted the attention of neo Nazis” (Apel 2014, p. 182).
These are definitely not the only points of critique people have when it comes to Stolpersteine, from my experience with the Stichting Stolpersteine Zeeland, I know that there were several local Jews who were against the installation of Stolpersteine in the province of Zeeland. The reason for this is that some of the Jewish people here feel like they are, literally, once again stepped upon.
Hence, not unlike the Denkmal described in the previous paragraph, the Stolpersteine have many characteristics of a counter-memorial. They deviate strongly from traditional monuments in that they remember individuals rather than a collective, they receive(d) a lot of criticism and they are not funded by a state or a government, but by groups of individuals who are interested in remembering a victim of the Holocaust.
2.8 Postmemory
Lastly, I would like to shortly discuss postmemory. I believe that counter-memorials convey the personal, collective and cultural trauma of the Holocaust survivors in a more pure form than traditional memorials do, because they are not, or to a lesser degree, influenced by elitist groups who want to impose their ideas and values upon the visitors of a memorial. I want to compare the experiences of the people I interviewed at the memorial sites to the expectations Holocaust survivors have regarding the message memorials should convey. This I want to do, in order to find out to what extent these expectations are being met. In order to find out what exactly these expectations are, I interviewed two next generation Holocaust survivors,
who supposedly deal with postmemory. Within the scope of this research, the experiences of these ladies were the closest I could get to the pure memory of Holocaust survivors. In order to put these interviews in context, a short explanation of postmemory is needed.
The first generation Holocaust survivors were, just like those who did not survive, victims of the Nazi regime. Although the second generation did not experience the Holocaust in person, they are, just like their parents, seen as survivors and victims of the Holocaust. Second and sometimes even third generation Holocaust survivors “often suffer from clinical symptoms that can or should be understood in terms of their parents’ Holocaust trauma” (Van Alphen 2006, p. 475). This phenomenon can be explained by the term postmemory.
The term postmemory first appeared in an article by Marianne Hirsh in 1992. In this article she discusses the graphic Holocaust novel Maus, written by 2nd generation Holocaust survivor Art Spiegelman. In the article she makes a distinction between the memory of the Holocaust survivor and post-memory as “that of the child of the [Holocaust] survivor whose life is dominated by memories of what preceded his/her birth” (Hirsch 1992, p. 8). The term postmemory was thus meant to be understood in the context of the Holocaust. However, ever since, it has been applied to children of survivors of other traumatic events as well. Hirsch is well aware of the fact that children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors do not have an actual memory of the event, as they simply were not there to live through it: ““Postmemory” describes the relationship that the “generation after” bears to the personal, collective, and cultural trauma of those who came before -to experiences they “remember” only by means of the stories, images, and behaviors among which they grew up. But these experiences were transmitted to them so deeply and affectively as to seem to constitute memories in their own right” (Hirsch 2016). Children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors thus experience the Holocaust through their parents, who consciously and unconsciously transfer a lot of their traumatic experience to their descendants.
3 Method
3.1 Design
The fieldwork research undertaken for this thesis consists of two case studies, complemented by two in-depth interviews. There are thousands of Holocaust memorials and monuments all over the world, and it is impossible to research each and every one of those, or even a considerable amount of these sites within the limited time and scope of this research. Instead, I have chosen two counter-memorials I personally know very well and feel a personal connection to. In addition, doing two case studies rather than one enhances the external validity of this research.
The first case study I have chosen is an art project, called Stolpersteine. The German artist Gunter Demnig initiated this art project in 1997. Stolpersteine quite literally translates to ‘stumbling stones’. They are small stones, 10x10x10cm, which are generally laid in front of a house in which a victim of the Holocaust has lived before being deported to a concentration camp or having to escape to avoid capture. These stones are meant for all victims of the Holocaust, not only the Jewish victims; “An art project that commemorates the victims of national socialism, keeping alive the memory of all Jews, Roma and Sinti, homosexuals, dissidents, Jehovah’s witnesses and victims of euthanasia who were deported and exterminated” (Stolpersteine n.d). The bronze plaques on top of the stones are usually inscribed with the name of the victim, the date of birth, the date of deportation/escape and the date they are believed to have been murdered, succumbed to disease or to have found death in any other way. These stones are spread throughout Europe, currently there are about 23.000 Stolpersteine, in countries like Germany, The Netherlands, Poland, Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary (Stolpersteine n.d.).
The other case study concerns the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas (Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe). This memorial, which covers 19.000m2, is situated in Berlin and commemorates the European Jews who were killed during the Holocaust. The memorial is a big grid containing 2711 stelae, which measure 2.38 meters in width, 0.98 meters in depth and are varying only in height. The stelae are made out of concrete and arranged in a grid on the piece of land that is unevenly sloped. Other victims of National Socialism, such as the homosexuals and the Sinti and the Roma have their own, smaller, separate monuments in close proximity to the
Holocaust memorial. This memorial is colossal, and, unlike the Stolpersteine, hard to miss. It is located in a prime location, close to major tourist sites such as the Branderburger Tor and the Reichstag. The museum that is situated underneath the grid is visited by hundred thousands of visitors each year, and one can only imagine how many people walk by the monument each year; millions (Stiftung Denkmal n.d.). The two in-depth interviews were held with two people who have a strong personal connection to the Holocaust. These interviews served to get a better understanding of how people with a strong connection to the Holocaust view Holocaust memorials, and in particular the two Holocaust memorials used as case studies in this research. I felt this was necessary as I think that these people experience the memorials very differently and they are the ones that can tell us more about what it is like to experience something like the Holocaust, even if they have not experienced personally but through the memories of their parents and grandparents. This can be partly explained by postmemory. As has been explained, this phenomenon adds an extra dimension to the opinion these respondents have regarding counter-memorials. It is therefore that the information I gathered in these interviews is used as a way of looking at how counter-memorials commemorate the Holocaust and how people with a close connection to this event experience them. Eventually, the information gathered in these interviews is used and compared to the experience of visitors of the Stolpersteine and Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas.
3.2 Operationalization
I approached my fieldwork in an open qualitative manner. I have asked random people about what they knew about the memorial they saw, what it meant to them and what kind of emotions the memorial evoked. I would always begin interviews asking people whether I could ask them something. In case of a positive response, I would tell them I was a student of the University of Amsterdam interested in memorials. If they were still being fine with getting interviewed, I would ask them if I was allowed to record the interview and use the data for my thesis. When I got consent, I always started with asking the following question: Do you know what this memorial is for? Depending on the responses I got I asked further question. The standard questions I tried to ask each interview were:
- Do you know what this memorial is for? What does it commemorate? - What does it tell you about the Holocaust?
- What does this monument do to you? How does it make you feel? - Are there any memories that this memorial evokes?
- What is the meaning of this monument in our current society?
- Does this monument teach younger generations about the Holocaust?
Depending on the flow of the interview, more or less questions were asked. The questions I asked are based on the theory about collective memory, commemoration and education, which has been discussed before. The most important things I was looking for during interviews were opinions about the meaning of the monument, knowledge about the monument, emotions evoked by the monument and political sentiments concerning the monuments.
In general, the interviews were concise. Because street interviews are hard to conduct and responses can be unpredictable, I chose not to push people to give more extensive answers when I felt that the respondent did not really want to talk to me. However, sometimes I felt very comfortable talking to people and these interviews could then take a long time and be very informative.
The two in-depth interviews both took about an hour. The interview with Mrs. Olthuis-Jacobson found place in the Bungehuis in Amsterdam and the interview with Ms. Van der Hulle found place at her home in Zierikzee. During both interviews I asked similar questions. I started both interviews by telling a little bit about myself and what my research was about. Then I asked the respondents to tell me about their background, and especially about their connection to the Holocaust and what influence this had had on their lives. After that I would ask about what they found important in Holocaust memorials and monuments, what they did not like to come across in memorials and monuments and what message these monuments and memorials should convey to future generations. Lastly I asked them specifically about their view on the Stolpersteine and the Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas. I wanted to learn from the respondents what, in their view, is the best way to commemorate the Holocaust. I wanted to know what they find important and what they do not deem important. The data I collected during the interviews was transcribed and coded using MAXQDA.
3.3 Sampling
Due to the nature of my research, I made use of opportunity sampling. In short, this means I spoke to anyone who was available and willing to speak with me during the hours I spent at either one of the monuments. The only condition a respondent had to meet was seeing the monument I wanted to talk about. In addition they had to speak either English or Dutch. In Berlin I spoke to people who were sitting on the monument or people who were standing still inside of the grid. This led to many positive responses. Because the monument in Middelburg is not a destination like the one in Berlin, I had to stop people walking down the street. This led to mixed responses, and often non-response.
3.4 Respondents
3.4.1 Berlin
In Berlin I held 30 interviews. Nevertheless, I spoke to more people, because some of the interviews were with couples, families or a group of friends. Most of the people I spoke to were tourists; only two of the interviews I held were with locals. Many people visit the memorial; its proximity to popular tourist sites such as the Brandeburger Tor, the Tiergarten and the Potsdamer Platz, means that a lot of tourists pass by the site daily. Of course not every tourist that passes the monument pays equal attention to it, but due to the impressive size of it, it does not go unnoticed. Over the years, the information centre, which you can enter from the East side of the monument, has had a steady visitor number of approximately 460.000 each year (Stiftung Denkmal n.d.). This number is probably only a fraction of the couple of million people who must see the monument yearly. Most of the foreign visitors of the information centre are American, followed by the Dutch, Swiss, Austrians, British, Danish, French, Israelis, Spaniards and Italians. Incidentally, most of the people I interviewed had one of these nationalities; only three out of the thirty interviews I had were with people who held a different nationality.
Figure 4. Country of origin foreign visitors (Stiftung Denkmal 2012).
3.4.2 Middelburg
I held 30 interviews in Middelburg as well. All of the interviews were with Dutch people. Some of the people I spoke to were locals, whereas others were tourists. Sometimes they did not specify where they were from. Most of the respondents were older people. This was probably because I visited Middelburg during two regular weekdays, when many people are at work or at school. I also spoke to two shop holders who have Stolpersteine in front of their shop.
3.4.3 Holocaust Survivors
I had an in-depth interview with one 2nd generation holocaust survivor and one 3rd generation Holocaust survivor. The former is the daughter of a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother from Middelburg who were in their early twenties when the war began. The fact that her mother is not Jewish makes that she is not Jewish herself according to the Jewish law. Not being a Jew herself, her mother has been able to smuggle many Jewish children to safe places in Amsterdam and Middelburg, for which she was recognized as Righteous Among the Nations, an honorific to honour non-Jewish people who risked their lives to safe Jewish people during the Holocaust.
The other woman I interviewed is the daughter of a Jewish second generation Holocaust survivor and has a non-Jewish father. This makes her Jewish herself according to the Jewish law. Both respondents lost many family members during the
