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Tmoigner. Entre histoire etmmoire118 (2014)Au nom des victimes. Dictature et terreur d'tat en Argentine, Chili et Uruguay

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Damien Zanone

Memorialist

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Getuigen tussen geschiedenis en herinnering nr. 118 / September 2014 Testimony between history and memory n118 / September 2014186

Dictionary

Woordenboekover getuigenis en herinnering

WORDS OF TESTIMONYAND OF MEMORY

.Because researchers,professors and professionalsworking in the arts, culture ornews are more and more oftenneeding to use words fromthe fields of testimony and ofmemory, Testimony betweenhistory and memoryhas set itselfthe objective of gathering theminto a dictionary, thus openingup this experimental space.One word can take on differentmeanings depending on thelanguage it is used or circulatesin. This is why certain terms ofthe dictionary will be approachedin a multilinguistic, or even in amulticultural way.

.This project will be realizedin two stages.Each term froman index in progress will bepresented twice. First in the formof short notices in each editionof the review, then invitingdevelopments and a criticaldebate, with multiple voices, ona website that will start runningfrom the Autumn 2014. We willassociate to their short version,voluntarily incomplete, a fewbook titles, however not claiming

to be exhaustive.

CASSANDRA

Cassandra, daughter of kingPriam, briefly appears inHomers Iliad. From atopthe high walls of Troy, she shoutsto her compatriots to call themto express their grief after Hectorreturns dead. Her tragic and lyricalpotential is developed later, in thetragedies. As a prophet inspired byApollo (from the AgamemnonbyAeschylus) and through the gooduse of her reason (in many modernversions), she becomes a figure ofinaudible knowledge. Though noone believes her, she announcesthe eradication of her city and thehorrors of the war. A slave deportedto Mycenae and the last witnessof the disaster, she embodies thefall of Troy through the reversalof her situation, her solitude andher tragic end (she is killed byClytemnestra). Ahead of her time,her position as a visionary allowsher even to bear witness to a pastthat is not personal to her. Indeed,in the tradition of Aeschylus, sherecalls the crimes buried at theorigin of the curse of the Atreidswhich the murder of Agamemnonby Clytemnestra and the matricide

by Orestes once again make new.Underlining how the predictionof the future is inseparable fromthe past, so of memory (Romain

THE GREY ZONE

The multilinguistic and multicultural approachof the Dictionary is here illustrated by thesecond occurrence of The grey zone, afterFrediano Sessis paper on La zone grise inn117.

The grey zone is a termcoined by the Italian Holo-caust survivor Primo Levi in

his essay collection The Drownedand the Saved, the last book hecompleted before his death. InThe Grey Zone, the secondchapter and the longest essay inthe book, Levi acknowledges thehuman need to divide the socialfield into us and them, twoclearly distinct and identifiablegroups, but points out that suchbinary thinking is inadequate inthe face of the complexity of lifein the camps. [T]he network ofhuman relationships inside theLagers was not simple, he writes:

it could not be reduced to the twoblocs of victims and persecutors(23). A key facet of Nazi practice,after all, was to attempt to turn

Racine), Cassandra is a figure ofwords that resist being forgotten.

From Aeschylus to ChristaWolf, she functions in the face ofofficial History as a figure hauntedby the transmission of the mem-ory of the defeated. It is particu-larly in the light of the question oftestimony that the foreigner, thebarbarian, measures the so calledcivilisation of the winners. WithAeschylus, in the guise of a gift ofhospitality, Cassandra asks thechorus to transmit her memory,which no one will do in the rest ofthe play or the trilogy. The Trojanpoet is dead The word belongs tothe Greek poet, Giraudouxs pro-tagonist declares in the final lineof The Trojan War Will Not TakePlace. In the face of the epic tra-dition that is an authority amongthe literary canon (the river ofepic poems), Wolf aims to makethe point of view of the defeatedbe heard in a narrative (this tinystream) that distinguishes itselffrom institutionalised genres,desecrates heroic values and ofwhich Cassandra, having becomean eponymous heroine, is the nar-rator.

The identity of this figure, her

own mythological agenda, refers tosome of the very properties of themyth, a profoundly memorial mat-ter in its own right. As an inven-

tive memory (Marcel Detienne),a myth merely exists through itsreception, offering a collectivesymbolizing tool particularly aptto bear witness to violences.

Vronique Lonard-RoquesUniversity Blaise Pascal CELIS EA 1002.

Clermont-Ferrand

(Translation: Sarah Voke)

.Goudot, Marie (ed.), Cassandre,Paris: Autrement, 1999.

.Lonard-Roques, Vronique &Philippe Mesnard (eds.), Cassandre,figure du tmoignage et de transmissionmmorielle, Paris: Kim. Expectedpublication date: 2015.

.Racine, Romain, Cassandre, inPierre Brunel (ed.), Dictionnaire desmythes fminins, Monaco: Rocher,2002.

.Schrer, Ren,Zeus hospitalier.loge de lhospitalit, Paris: ArmandColin, 1993.

.Wolf, Christa, Cassandra, Trans.Jan van Heurck. New York: Farrar,Straus and Giroux, 1984.

victims intoout to explseparates (Lagers) thesecutors (2he considerimportancehe by no mrate the disttwo categomurderers]moral diseatation or a sity; above alrendered (ithe negator

The gremostly by vmise and coppressors with varyinof choice inential treatmone shouldeasy judgmambiguouswho found an infernawho, moretute a monoin many diffwith differeThe exampllow-rankining out routsmoothing Kaposof theracks chiefsprisoners wduties in theoffices, theLabour Serment cells. attention tdosor spec

of prisonerrunning of one would leged. Accor

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DictionaryWoordenboek

authorized to judge these individ-uals, who represent [a]n extremecase of collaboration (34). Judg-ment must also be suspended, heargues, in the perplexing case ofChaim Rumkowski, the contro-versial head o f the Jewish coun-cil in the Lodz ghetto, anotherexemplary occupant of the greyzone whose story Levi discusses atsome length. While Levi primarilyfocuses on privileged Jewish pris-oners in the camps and ghettos, hisconceptualization of the grey zonestretches to include collaboration-ist regimes such as those of VichyFrance and Quisling in Norway andeven a sadistic SS man who brieflycontemplated sparing a young girltaken alive from the gas chamber.It is a reflection, ultimately, onthe ambiguity of human nature ingeneral, and has been appropriatedin many different contexts, fields,and disciplines, ranging from Holo-caust studies to philosophy, theol-ogy, law, feminism, and popularculture.

Stef CrapsGhent University

.Levi, Primo, The Grey Zone,in Id., The Drowned and the Saved,translated from the Italian by RaymondRosenthal, London: Abacus, 1986/1989,22-51.

MEMORIALIST

The memorialist bears wit-ness to his memory. It isexpected of him that heshares an exemplary experienceof contemporary history, an exem-plarity that his voice constructs in

the representation of the relationbetween the particularity of anindividual existence and the gen-erality of collective history. It is a

usual condition of the memorial-ists writing that he lived his ownday in a remarkable way either asa witness or as an actor in decisiveevents, however not necessarily.The exemplarity of his experi-ences is worked into a narrativethat illustrates the problem of therelation of an individual to a group.The memorialist does not appearalone, but connected to his con-temporaries; he thinks about theaspects that have set the dominanttraits of his generation and to theway he embodied them himself.His approach to writing finds itselfat the intercross between collectiveand individual narratives, discov-ering the solidarity between both.In this perspective, he could wishnot to dwell on the private aspectsof his existence (family and senti-mental relationships, deeply per-sonal).

Ever since Memoirs have beenconsidered as a writing form (inFrance, during the 12thcentury),both modes of relating to history

have taken on appearances. We cannamely mention the cardinal deRetz and the Duke of Saint-Simon,the two most well-known memo-rialists of the Ancien Rgime. Thefirst one participated in and gavean account of his first-hand expe-rience of the events of the Fronde;the second was a witness and min-ute observer of the habits and cus-toms of Louis XIVs court. Afterthe revolution, after Rousseau aswell, the memorialists testimonyprogressively gained freedom. Itis as much as an actor than as awitness of history, by showing thepublic scene than by showing what

is deeply personal, to write historythan to illustrate literature, thatChateaubriand writes the Mem-oirs that make him a memorialist of

reference within French tradition.Since then, historical testimoniesno longer have a prescribed compo-sition. History, spelt with a capitalH and reminding of the hatchet(Perec) that it waved during theentire 20thcentury, has finishedsweeping the divisions we had fora long time held onto, by shifting

the relations of the individual tothe group. Each memorialist showsthese relations as a new experiencefor which the exemplary narrativeis yet to be reinvented.

Damien ZanoneUniversit catholique de Louvain,

Louvain-la-Neuve


.Jeannelle, Jean-Louis, crireses mmoires au XXesicle. Dclinet renouveau, Paris: Gallimard, 2008.

.Jeanelle, Jean-Louis, Marc Hersant& Damien Zanone (eds.), Le Sens dupass. Pour une nouvelle approche desMmoires, La Licorne. Revue de langueet de littrature franaises delUniversit de Poitiers104, 2013.

.Zanone, Damien, crire son temps.Les Mmoires en France de 1815 1848,Lyon: Presses universitaires de Lyon,2006.

POSTMEMORY

Postmemory beschrijft derelatie van de volgendegeneratie tot het per-soonlijke, collectieve en cultureletrauma van de vorige generatie ervaringen die zij zich enkel kun-nen herinneren via de verhalen,beelden en praktijken waarmeeze zijn opgegroeid. De overleve-ring van deze ervaringen verliepechter op zon intense en emoti-onele manier, dat het lijkt alsofhet werkelijk herinneringen zijn.Het verband tussen postmemoryen het verleden komt in feite nietvoort uit de herinnering, maar ishet resultaat van verbeelding, pro-jectie en creatie. Wanneer we ver-pletterende herinneringen ervenen opgroeien tussen verhalen dievoorafgaan aan onze geboorte ofons bewustzijn, bestaat de kansdat ons eigen levensverhaal wordtoverschaduwd, of zelfs volledigverdrongen, door dat van onzevoorouders. Dat betekent dat ons

leven, al is het onrechtstreeks,wordt beheerst door traumati-sche fragmenten van gebeurtenis-sen die nog steeds elke narratievereconstructie tarten en elk begripte boven gaan. Die gebeurtenissenmogen dan in het verleden liggen,ze werken door in het heden. Dit is,naar mijn aanvoelen, de structuurvan postmemory en het proces datde generatie ervan kenmerkt.

Postmemory is g een basis omeen bepaalde identiteitte claimen,maar verwijst naar eengeneratio-nelevorm van overdracht en naarde verschillende manieren waaropdie tot stand kan komen. Zelfs in

haar meest intieme momenten ishet gezinsleven verankerd in eencollectieve verbeelding. Die ver-beelding bestaat uit imaginaire

structuren en projecties eigen aaneen generatie, en is ingebed in eenbestaand archief aan verhalen enbeelden, waardoor individuele enfamiliale herinneringen veralge-meend en gedeeld kunnen wor-den. Dan rest de vraag: kunnen wede traumatische ervaringen vananderen overnemenals ervaringendie de onze hadden kunnen zijn, ende gebeurtenissen integreren inons eigen levensverhaal, zonderze te imiteren of onrechtmatig toete eigenen?

Die vraag heeft niet alleenbetrekking op het proces van identi-ficatie, verbeelding en projectie datwe vaststellen bij hen die opgroei-den in een gezin van overlevenden,maar ook bij hen die als mindernauw verwante leden van een gene-ratie of relationeel netwerk eentraumatische erfenis delen en dusook de nieuwsgierigheid, de drang,de frustrerendenoodzaakvoelen omhet traumatische verleden te ken-nen. Het gaat hier echter om tweesoorten processen. Ik zou daaromeen onderscheid willen makentussenfamilialeen geaffilieerdepostmemory, waarbij ik me baseerop het verschil tussen, enerzijds,een intergenerationele verticaleidentificatie tussen kind en ouderbinnen een gezin, en anderzijdsde intragenerationele horizontaleidentificatie onder tijdgenoten, diekan voortvloeien uit de extrapola-tie van het standpunt van dat kind.Geaffilieerde postmemory ontstaatonder tijdgenoten die een connectiehebben met de tweede generatie.Het trauma wordt doorgegevenvia structuren die toegankelijk enkneedbaar zijn, en uiteraard over-

tuigend genoeg zijn om een groteregemeenschap te kunnen opnemenin een organisch web van herinne-ringsoverdracht.

De poshoudt meertraging in dsituering ingen. Ik wil meen lineairetile logica. Ddie nog steplaats inneintellectueldernisme eom te begintegelijkertijen een naunisme en skolonialismeinde van hdiens veroting, terwijlwerd gebrufeminisme ageen twijfelin een tijdpedie ten goeblijven tiernatuurlijk, risme, pokolonie, pMorris opppost werktelement hevlakte van tvoegt er ietmeert ze inridiaans supde ideen oplos en verlietie met het Post-it afvacept zelfstahet in die pkenmerken

Postmeheid en verposts, en b

het citaat enals de andememory hevenwicht o

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REDIGNIFICATION

F rom the Spanish neologism(redignificacion), redign i-fication means the processby which the victim of a violentcrime can overcome this condi-tion and this status in order toattempt regaining control of theirown story. Used and theorisedin Colombia by anthropologists,sociologists and by psychologistsworking with victims of the mostrecent Colombian armed conflicts(1980-2000), redignification is onethe main objectives of the work onmemory undertaken at local andnational levels, both by the asso-ciations of victims, and by publicinstances and institutions, namelythe National Centre of HistoricalMemory (Centro Nacional deMemoria Historica: www.centrodememoriahistorica.gov.co).

In a context of generalised vio-lence, the violations of fundamen-tal rights and the resulting denialof the person cause a feeling of

shame, humiliation and of power-lessness in the face of violenceslegitimized by the discourses ofarmed actors. Memory is meant,here, as a process allowing thecreation of both an individual anda social identity as a response tothis situation. Thus, in Colombia,organizations and institutionsreconstruct the historical memoryof the conflict and aim to convertit into a means of redignificationfor the victims. From exercises aswell as from group and individualremembrance support (expressingand sharing memories), the vic-tims try to construct coherent dis-

courses that are supposed to allowthem to free themselves from whatoppresses them by providing a newinterpretation of the events.

The process of redignificationis supposed to unfold in severalsteps. The narration of their mem-ories brings about a consciousnessof the condition of victim, as well asan understanding of the time spanand the causality of the events.From then, the reconstruction ofcoherent narratives should allowa reinterpretation of past eventsbecause of the attribution of newmeanings, which should stir a pos-itive feeling of indignation. It isfrom this feeling that victims aresupposed to free themselves fromthe shame and the guilt in whichthe acts and speeches of politi-cal criminals locked them. Theyshould thus regain the controlof their stories, of their lives, andrecover a certain amount of self-esteem by affirming themselves asindividuals, be able to claim theirrights to compensation for dam-ages, and they should better beable to decide their future. Finally,the public expression of memoryshould bring about the social and

political recognition of the painendured, which ought to theoret-ically bring closure to the processof redignification.

Marie Ines HartFacultad de Finanzas, Gobierno

y Relaciones Internacionales UniversidadExternado de Colombia


.Bello, Martha Nubia, Identidad,dignidad y desplazamiento forzado.Una lectura psicosocial,in Desplazamiento forzado internoen Colombia: Conflicto,Paz y desarrollo, Bogot: ACNUR-CODHES, 2001.

.Grupo de Memoria Histrica -

CNRR, Memorias en Tiempode Guerra. Repertorio de iniciativas,Botog, 2009.

.Villa, Ijuan David, La memoria

como territorio en disputa y fuente depoder: un camino hacia la dignificacinde las vctimas y la resistencia no

violenta, in ICTJ,Recordar enconflicto: iniciativas no oficiales dememoria en Colombia, Bogot, 2009.

SOLDIERPOET

In most countries at war in 1914-1918, a phenomenon quicklyappeared: soldier literature.

Depending on the country, itswrite rs were cal led crivainscombattants (France and Bel-gium),Frontdichter(Germany) orsoldier-poet (United Kingdom).These names refer to writers who,having experienced the front, man-aged to weave this into literaryworks and organized themselvesto form together an Associationof soldier-poets under the aegis ofJos Germain.

This cultural phenomenondeveloped due to the mobilizationor voluntary engagement of intel-

lectuals in the conflict. Many writ-ers thus found themselves in thearmed forces. Few chose to remainsilent about an experience that wasoften felt as paroxysmal. The booksthey published seemed in this waymarked with the stamp of authentic-ity. Even censored, they respondedto the expectations of the public thatfound in these works an image of thewar that was more realistic than inthe news reports, often assimilatedto brainwashing. Supported bycritics, editors and literary awards,writers who became soldiers, suchas Henri Barbusse, were quicklyjoined by younger authors, sol-

diers who became writers. MauriceGenevoix or Ernst Jnger, amongothers, discovered their vocation inthe trenches.

Poetry, journal writing and warnarratives were the most widelypracticed genres with differ-ences between countries, namelybecause of literary traditions. Warpoetry was therefore more pres-ent in Germany and in the UnitedKingdom than it was in France,even if it was not absent altogether.After the conflict, the form of thenovel drew more and more heav-ily on the experience of the war.Indeed, if the publishing phenom-enon declined after 1918, there wasa notable revival at the turn of the1920s and 1930s with the publica-tion of war novels gaining consid-erable success. In Germany alone,1.2 million copies were sold ofAllQuiet on the Western Front(1929)by Erich Maria Remarque, and thebook was translated into more thanfifty languages.

The texts of the soldier-poetsstirred lively debates relating totheir status. There were namely thedebates that surrounded the pub-lication of the first critical study

of the French corpus, Tmoins (1929), by Jean Norton Cru, a lit-erature historian and himself aformer soldier. According to him,the testimonial function of thesetexts took precedence over allother functions and it was only inthis light that he judged with greatseverity books on war, paying littleattention to the very intentions ofthe authors. Some of them, namelyRoland Dorgels, retorted sharply,by stressing the literary dimensionof their work, which was consid-ered as just as fundamental as atestimony.

Nicolas Beaupr

University Blaise Pascal CHEC Clermont-Ferrand, IUF


.Beaupr, N1914-1918, Pa2013.

.Campa, LaGrande Guerrcombattante eGarnier, 2010

.SchoentjeGrande Guerr

THE

For morthe Rregulaest honoursidered todterm Righappeared revocabulary.

On 19 Athe membefor the creatInstitute inmemory ofheroes of than original

sion, they ecommemorAmong thewho riskedJews. Dueculties the mission howuntil the Eicreation ofcated to thSince then, by a Supremruling on tmonies froconsideredThe nominto present a

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en ruptuur. Toch is postmemorygeen beweging, methode of idee;ik zie het veeleer als een structuurvan inter- en transgenerationeleterugkeer van traumatische ken-nis en belichaamde ervaring. Hetis een gevolg van traumatische her-innering dat zich manifesteert meteen generatie vertraging, in tegen-stelling tot een posttraumatischestressstoornis.

Ik besef dat mijn omschrijvingvan deze structuur van inter- entransgenerationele trauma-over-dracht evenveel vragen oproeptals beantwoordt. Waarom vast-houden aan de term herinnering,memory, om deze transacties tedefiniren? Als postmemory nietbeperkt blijft tot de intieme fami-liale ruimte waar de herinneringwerkelijk wordt belichaamd, viawelke mechanismen kunnen wedie ruimte dan openbreken om ookminder nauw verwante, adoptievegetuigen ofgeaffilieerdetijdgeno-ten bij het proces te betrekken?Waarom is postm emory eigen

aan traumatische herinneringen?Kunnen positieve gebeurtenissenof andere ingrijpende historischemomenten dan niet met eenzelfdeambivalente intensiteit doorgege-ven worden van de ene generatieop de andere? Welke esthetischeen institutionele structuren, welketropen en technieken geven hetbest de psychologie van postme-mory weer, de continuteit en dis-continuteit tussen generaties, deleemtes in de kennis, de angst enbeklemming na het trauma? Enhoe komt het dat visuele media,en fotografie in het bijzonder, zonbijzondere rol zijn gaan spelen?

Marianne HirschColumbia University, New York

(Vertaling: Anneleen Spiessens)

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Righteous. From 1985, however,former Jewish Resistant fightersmobilized to make the title knownin France. On 1 January 2014,France counted 3,760 Righteous.During the initial period, cere-monies awarding medals wererare and most often organized in a

community or an Israeli place, theynow take place nearly systemati-cally in town halls and benefit fromextensive publicity. The nationalAssembly celebrated for the firsttime the saviours in 1995. Duringhis historical speech dating from 16July, the President of the Repub-lic, Jacques Chirac, recognized theRighteous Among the Nations asnew national heroes.

This speech marked the begin-ning of the progressive recoveryof the Israeli honorific category bythe French State. On 10 July 2000,the Parliament thus pronounced16 July as the Day of commemo-

ration of racist and anti-Semiticcrimes committed by the FrenchState and of tribute to the Righteousof France. In January 2007, at

the request of the Foundation forthe Remembrance of the Shoah,Jacques Chirac inaugurated aplaque in the crypt of the Pan-theon to signify the Homage of theNation to the Righteous of France.The grand ceremony received apolitical consensus. While widen-ing the Israeli notion in order toinclude all those who still are, and

who shall forever remain, anony-mous, this commemorative textsucceeds in including those whofrom now are qualified by the termRighteous of France withinnational historical memory.

These new heroes serve thesame rhetorical function as the for-mer Resistant fighters did. Indeed,it is a proven historical fact thatthree quarters of the Jews pres-ent in France in 1940 did not facedeportation. The few thousands ofRighteous recognized by the YadVashem then merely constituted asmall part of the saviours, who werea majority within the French popu-

lation. The second part of this rea-soning has but few historiographicfoundations. If it is certain thatthe records established within the

frame of the procedure of award-ing the Israeli title only list some ofthe individuals that indeed helpedJews, there are very few works byhistorians that explain the reasonsfor the survival of three quarter ofFrench Jews, and they are mostoften incomplete and present gaps.Among the hypotheses consideredtoday by researchers, are the rela-

tive diversity of the French society,the vastness of the territory and itsrural space, the differed occupationof the Southern Zone or further-more the existence of borders withneutral countries, to only cite a few.Here, as is often the case, memoryprecedes history.

Sarah GensburgerCNRS/ISP

(Universit Paris Ouest Nanterre)


.Cabanel, Patrick, Histoire des Justesde France, Paris: Armand Colin, 2012.

.Gensburger, Sarah, Les Justes deFrance. Politiques publiques de lammoire, Paris: Presses de Sciences Po,

2010..Smelin, Jacques, Perscutionset entraides dans la France occupe ,Paris: Seuil, 2013.

THE WRITING OF DISASTER

If the notion of disaster evokesapocalyptic literature as a genreand the tradition of Lamenta-tions (Jeremiah), on the otherhand, these references dont fullypertain to the writing of disasterwhich, as such, goes back to MauriceBlanchot. This writer particularlydeveloped it in his eponymous col-lection, composed of fragments,The Writing of the Disaster(1980)published seven years after TheStep Not Beyond thus creating asort of diptych. Emerging then atthis point in time within the intel-lectual field, this category makesits way into testimonial texts onconcentration camps and on thegenocide.

Disaster cannot be reduced toviewing events as a catac lysm ofHistory, but to make writing itselfa place where disaster manifestsitself as such. More than a writingof survivors, disaster is the placewhere revenants express them-

selves. A ghostly language that hasincorporated the voice of thosewho disappeared. The writing ofthe disaster is where the ashes ofthose who remain without a graveare buried. Testimonial and testa-mentary literature, testamentarybecause it is testimonial.

The notion of disaster is aparticularly complex movementof thinking, because as is oftenthe case with Blanchot, conceptsunfold in paradoxes, or even inaporias. The notion of disasterfirstly challenges our representa-tion of time in so far as it includesat the same time what has alreadytaken place and, also, what is mostnear. Thus, there is neither a pre-cise space, nor a time that can wel-come disaster. But the present isthe time of the return of disaster,that moment when time itself cancome back, but as if pulverized bythe disaster. Thus the apocalypsehas always already occurred evenif it is still yet to come.

The writing of disaster stagesa true poetic, that privileges theform of the fragment, as PrimoLevi already announced in his fewwords of introduction toIf This Isa Man. The form of the fragmentimitates breaking, debris, bursting,it escapes all desire for chronol-ogy, all sense of coming together,

it tells the immeasurability of theloss and its reiteration. It decon-structs the very possibility of everynarrative. In this regard, the workby Charlotte Delbo is particularlysignificant. Through her poetic andfragmented writing, she expressesthe overwhelming change of

language, wconfrontedopposite, asing. To giveevery ash, a anonymousbe the task ter.

It shoulphilosophinferred by Bin its proximpassivity asinOtherwisEssence, inescapes all Disaster isaccording toby Blanchotcisely to a stdetachment

.Celan, Pautranslated froJean-Pierre L2014.

.Delbo, Chne reviendra, P

.Ertel, Rachpersonne ? Polanantissem

.Kofman, SParis: Galile,


_Wall of the Righteous, inauguratedon 14 June 2006. Mmorial de la Shoah,Paris (2014).

P

h.

M.

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Memorial site

DOWNTOWN

MEMORIAL

lPerec, Georges & RobertBober, Rcits dEllis Island,histoires derrance et despoir[Ellis Island, stories ofperegrinations and hope], INA,1979. A book was publishedsimultaneously with the film atLe Sorbier/INA.

lPrazan, Michal,Angel Island, lautrevisage du rveamricain[AngelIsland, the other faceof the Americandream], Arte LesFilms du jour, 2014.

LEARN

MORE

i

We are used to visiting amuseum, going to a memorial,gathering our thoughts beside

a monument or simply going to discoverit, to look at it out of curiosity. We for-get that it is generally placed within anetwork of other sites and as such con-tributes to its meaning. A memorial israised next to a museum; a monumentpreceded both of these by thirty, some-times fifty years, and if it is not an artistwho adds the final touch to the settingthen it is another museum, not f ar away,that opens its doors. This phenomenonis gaining momentum today. It requiresus not to think about these memorialplaces in isolation from each other, but

rather in interaction with each other,and to meditate the very experience

of the journey that leads us there. Anexperience where our footsteps carry ustoward memory, on roads interspersedwith other memories, intervals, turn-ings, forgetting and trivialities, whichcan at times be quite necessary.

Consider going down to the Memo-rial to the Murdered Jews of Europe atthe heart of Berlin. It represents in itselfan entity with a dual history. The historyof the Nazi crime and the history con-cerning its memory after the reunifica-tion (close to fifteen years of discussion

ending in 2005). But we can also raisethe question of its location. In orderto reach it, one must previously havephysically crossed a complex layout ofstructures, levels and passageways fullof history, memory, cultures, and alsoeconomic concerns indifferent to thehistory and to the memory of a city thattoday still bears on many of its walls theimpact of the fights of April 1945. Thelocation of the Memorial to the Mur-dered Jews of Europe is set at the cross-roads of several paths that come and gobetween different sites. On one side, theBrandenburg Gate with its neo-classicalstyle dating from the beginning of the18thcentury. A bit further, along the for-

ested area of the Tiergarten, the domeof the Reichstag solemnly stands for

/Berlin. 2007.

Holocaust Memorial(Denkmal fr dieermordeten JudenEuropas).

.Berlin. 2008. Faade bearing the impactof the April 1945 shootings.

lllP

h.M

.


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the long lines of curious people. On theother side, the Potsdamer Platz emergeslike a mirage in the place of the formerno mans land that long ago separatedthe East from the West. A business cen-tre has sprung up and vast shoppingmalls with walls carpeted by screensimitating Time Square have blossomedin its place. Lets widen the perimeter.We then have the Topography of Terror,the Jewish Museum, and, on the otherside, the German Historical Museum,the Bebelplatz where the historical Nazibook burning ceremony took place andnow where Micha Ullmanns installa-tion is situated (the underground Bib-liotek Memorial 1995).

I had a similar feeling this mayseem paradoxical, or even odd as bothcities are so different when I headedtoward the National 9/11 Memorial in

Manhattan that has recently openedto what is called the public, which Iam a part of. All of this must be under-stood mutatis mutandis, without anyintention of comparing the eventsthese constructions respectively referto. For several months yet I am writ-ing these lines in June 2014 , we willhave to make our way there throughnumerous construction sites. It feels asif we were still at the end of the 1990sat what became not long afterwardsthe aformentioned Potsdamer Platz.Huge cranes boast above our heads, aslarge insects which, perched on gigan-tic wheels, swallow every possible kindof material, some of which have onlyrecently been given a name in orderto raise new temples where the mem-ory of the terror (the 9/11 Museum wasonly to open mid-May) and the power

of business are already and forever near,as the transcendence of capitalism con-versely joins the impossibility natu-rally transcendent of measuring thewrong that was suffered.

And us, visitors, take a sinuous routecarefully overseen by security guards,policemen and guards making sure asmuch so that no one gets lost as thatthe order of our passage, person afterperson, is carried out conscientiouslywhilst respecting a precise ritual. Eachticket is verified and ticked, to be veri-fied again up to three or four times. Oneby one we pass through a turnstile thatscans us from head to toe however notdispensing the next guard from askingus with the simplicity of Americanpoliteness which is disconcerting whenwe come from France if what we havein the inner pocket of our jacket is infact our wallet and if, on the other side,there are in fact some pens. Lets not bemistaken, the role that the security staffis truly fulfilling, is performed perfectlyand thus participates in the dramaturgy

of the memorial. In addition to thistroupe, we also find guides at the dis-position of the public, who tell the storyfor example of a tree that survived theincandescent ashes. They offer adviceand inform the public faultlessly. Werecognize a similar performance fromthe guides dressed in Ranger uniformsthat welcome us at the Ellis IslandMuseum (this island, which has becamepart of our heritage, served betweenthe end of the 19thcentury and until themiddle of the 20thcentury as a place ofexamination to either authorize or notentrance to the most needy of immi-grants onto American soil).

The Plaza of the Memorial is now

open. Paradoxically, the effect is lessimpressive than what I had expected.

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/New York. 2014.9/11 Memorial.

09/The Memorials twin pools, each

4,000 m in size and supposed to sym-bolize the base of both towers, wouldbe more aesthetically striking if it werepossible in situto adopt the same pointof view as the computer generatedimages offered on the Internet. Thus thesubtle position of the fountains, creatinga reflecting absenceeffect, does producethe dizzying sensation that the virtualmodels prepare you for. The conceptand its estimations remain above theirconcrete realization, without exactly

realizing them. It is also in this sensethat there is a form of transcendence, lll

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that the idea cannot coincide with itsreality. A gap that certainly responds tothe necessity of not managing to co ntrol

what took place by framing it within thecollective geometry of memory.

In Berlin, the route between thesteles of the Holocaust monument, noneof which are equal in inclination or insize, forbids the visitor from becominga spectator and from viewing the wholememorial site. In the same way, herein Manhattan, the names of the threethousand victims engraved on the eightedges of the parapets surrounding thepools arent oppressive and naturallywe cannot visually grasp the site in itsentirety, even if we have the feeling thatit is within reach. If there is a sense ofgrandeur, it is because the monumentis continually uplifted by the visitors,

from which emanates, despite the urbanbustle, a sense of calm that propels us

to read the names of the deceased, togo toward the tree that survived, to feelthe air settle at the foot of the new One

World Trade Centre. The structureindeed rises above every skyscraper inNew York at 510 meters high and, finally,makes you feel the quiet reflection ofthe crowd. In this way, the realmonu-ment is the way in which people occupythe space much more than a perfectlyconfigured site, unless it is preciselydesigned to humbly withdraw beforethe commemorative tension created bythe presence of those who have gatheredfor reflection.

Lets make our way out of the 9/11Memorial and go back to the widerdefinition of the memorial site as I out-lined above. At the tip of Downtown,a triangle is delineated and covers in

part, but upside down, the natural tri-angular shape of Lower Manhattan.

Ground Zero as we may have guessed,is the inside tip of the triangle. Beforeembarking for Ellis Island, you will ha veto purchase a ticket for the Statue of Lib-erty andEllis Island, the two other tipsof this triangle which offer a differentreading of the ground we tread upon.Nothing, obviously, in the minds of theorganizers, justifies that we should onlygo to Ellis Island, since we are of coursecurious of the Statue (it is similar to theunmissable triangle Krakow, the saltmines of Wieliczka and Auschwitz).As it is trivially said, one must go allout and see them all. This expression,though very unpleasant to the ears, isperhaps not so stupid. In the minds ofthe agencies, one must not miss any-thing anymore. The visitor expects tobe fully satisfied.

This memory triangle acquires allits significance on the quay at BatteryPark, its greenery bordering the Hud-son. Waiting to embark for LibertyIsland means having patiently walkedfor at least an hour along the memorial

to the American Soldiers who died dur-ing the Second World War (eight hugerectangular steles, four on each side,with a victoriously stylized eagle), FritzKoenigs famous sphere that, after hav-ing been severely damaged during theattacks on the Twin Towers, was placedon these very banks, as well as MacAdams Korean War Memorial. Thismakes quite a few in a relatively smallspace. And if we were to search further,there would be more yet to discover.Thus, without even having placed onefoot on the boat that will take us to EllisIsland, memories of war and of terrorsaturate the few hundred meters wherequeues of visitors stand waiting. Lets go

directly to the island forming the last tipof the triangle, Ellis Island.

Ellis Island has become a cleanand explanatory museum (which wasnot the case in Perec & Bobers film),entirely remodelled, presenting all ofUS history and, at the same time, cele-brating it. The guides perform for free,at times with a dramatic and solemnenthusiasm, at other times with anexaggerated burlesque, the same rolethey would have held a century earlier(I filmed one of them, a real character).Quantities of photos, objects and fac-similes dont manage however to bring

closer together the massive walls of therooms where the immigrants of the oldEurope, confined, awaited their destiny.Finally, the most touching room doesnthave anything else to see beside moni-tors (the placards and relics around theroom remain basically unnoticed), infront of which three or four people, fromthe same family I suppose, sometimesmore, are standing trying to find one ora few names on the computerized lists,or on archive documents that have beenscanned. Here again, it is individuals lets call them individuals rather thanvisitors that give the site its atmos-phere, a glimmer that the scenographyis unable to maintain.

Philippe Mesnard(Translation: Sarah Voke)

0New York. BatteryPark. 2014. In front, TheSphereby Fritz Koenig(1971, originally Groe

Kugelkaryatide), relocatedafter the attack on theTwin Towers. Behindand on the right,Mac Adams Korean WarMemorial (1991).In the background, theOne World Trade Center.

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