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FROM: Changing Places: Remaking Institutional Buildings Lynda H. Schneekloth, Marcia F. Feuerstein, Barbara A. Campagna, Editors WHITE PINE PRESS, Fredonia, NY, 1992 This book, was based on the Lecture Series and Symposium on "The Adaptive Reuse of Historically Significant Institutional Buildings and Grounds" developed in collaboration with The New York State Advisory Council for the Richardson Complex at the Buffalo Psychiatric Center. The Good and the Evil was presented at that Symposium as the Keynote Address. |
Chapter 7
THE GOOD AND THE EVIL:
THE PRESERVATION OF MONUMENTS WITH
A NEGATIVE SYMBOLIC IMAGE
by Randolph Langenbach
Divided into two parts for
web access.
PART I
For indeed the greatest glory of a
building is not in its stones, or
in its gold. Its glory is in its
Age, and in that deep sense of
voicefulness, of stern watching,
of mysterious sympathy, nay, even
of approval or condemnation, which
we feel in walls that have long
been washed by the passing waves
of humanity....It is in that
golden stain of time that we are
to look for the real light, and
color, and preciousness of
architecture; and it is not until
a building has assumed this
character, till it has been
entrusted with the fame, and
hallowed by the deeds of men, till
its walls have been witnesses of
suffering, and its pillars rise
out of the shadows of death, that
its existence, more lasting as it
is than that of the natural
objects of the world around it,
can be gifted with even so much as
these possess of language and of
life.[i]
John Ruskin
Raise The Titanic?
As Robert Ballard and his crew
guided their cameras over the deep
sea bottom in 1985 in search of
the sunken wreck of the Titanic,
they were crossing through a
barrier in both space and time.
The great ship, which had
disappeared beneath the waves over
60 years ago, carrying more than
1,500 people to their deaths,
suddenly reappeared in the gloom
of the cold deep sea. For over
half a century, the ship for all
intents and purposes did not
exist. It had been
"destroyed." Yet there
it was, long after all the other
great four-stack ocean liners had
gone to the scrap yard - seen
across a gap of over half a
century, allowing us to relive its
tragedy.
While the discovery of the wreck
rekindled a collective memory of a
transforming disaster, it also
served to destroy some fantasies.
Imagination had refused to
acknowledge the possibility that
the ship had broken up as it sank,
despite the suggestion of some
survivors' testimonies. Also,
because of the depth of the sea,
and the cold of the arctic waters,
it was hoped that the woodwork of
the vessel would not have been
consumed by wood-boring marine
creatures. Unfortunately, this was
not the case. The Titanic's famed
finery has almost completely
disappeared, leaving the rusting
steel shell as the repository of
the world's memories of the grand
vessel which, through human
arrogance, carelessness, and
tragic irony was destroyed on its
maiden voyage.
Ballard wanted to photograph the
wreck, not raise it. In his
opinion, the site was a memorial
should not be disturbed. A French
team of explorers disagreed. They
wanted to bring up pieces for
exhibition on the surface, hoping
one day that the entire wreck
could be raised. During the
exploration of the wreck, a debate
raged between opposing views.
Consider what, in fact, this wreck
is. Is it an archeological site,
an historic object, a memorial, or
a grave?
A sunken vessel is an enigma in
the definition of an historical
artifact. Does it
"exist"? While the
shattered wreck is the Titanic, in
an important sense it is also not
the "real" Titanic. The
real Titanic disappeared on that
tragic night over 60 years ago,
and survives not as an artifact,
but transformed into a
collectively shared memory - a
memory not just of the ship
itself, but of a time in history,
of the people who were on the
ship, and of the disaster which
destroyed the ship.
"Titanic" now symbolizes
human arrogance and fallibility,
not the original proud reference
to the Titans of Greek Mythology.
How can these shattered remains
represent such a complex and
symbolic event? If , they could be
raised, what meaning would such an
"historic artifact"
have?
Upon finding the wreck, Ballard
took over 60,000 photographs and
60 hours of videotape of the
vessel. Instead of returning to
the surface with salvaged pieces,
he brought the film. He believed
that to bring actual pieces would
disturb the sanctity of the site.
Photography is an evocative
medium. The images on film become
a kind of reality by interpreting
an event and arresting time.
The emotional impact of the wreck
in the present is largely
dependent upon the preservation of
the photographic images of the
ship before it sank. Few who are
alive today have ever seen the
ship. It is those original
photographic images which stick in
peoples' minds. Yet it is the
artifact of the actual ship - not
the acetate photograph of the
pristine new vessel - which is so
highly charged. The photograph is
like memory. The artifact is
reality. Memory is what gives the
reality meaning, but it is the
reality which provides the basis
for the recall of the event and
stands as a specific symbolic
monument for the future.
Following the discovery, a radio
debate between William S. Buckley
and the president of the Titanic
Historical Society focused on the
issue of raising the Titanic.
Buckley took the position that the
ship was in open marine waters and
that the rights of salvage allowed
access to it. If anyone wanted to
finance it, raise it and put it on
view, why shouldn't it be allowed?
If there was enough interest to
make such an operation profitable,
then it seemed justified. The
Titanic Society president was not
ready to accept the commercial
exploitation of the site, saying
that a careful archaeological
study of the site and the
identification and location of all
of the debris should be completed
before anything is was disturbed.
Both men missed the point. If the
artifact Titanic has any value, it
is a symbolic value. The site is
of no archaeological importance.
The location and nature of the
debris is of little consequence,
because what happened once the
ship disappeared beneath the sea
could not be a significant part of
the historic event which took
place on the surface. The hulk is
old now, but the wreckage provides
little potential historical
evidence of an artistic or a
technological nature. Surviving
plans and photographs are likely
to provide more on that score.
Thus the significance of these
remains is their power to elicit a
deeply emotional response. It is
not just a monument to those who
died, but a monument to the
boldness of building such a
vessel, to its destruction by the
arrogance which labeled it
"unsinkable," and,
finally, to the changed
consciousness of those who lived.
The remains link us to an historic
tragic event which still has the
power to evoke questions about the
meaning of life, of wealth, and of
human fallibility amidst
technological accomplishment as
almost no other event has.[ii]
If the ship could be brought to
the surface, it would make real a
story which is so extraordinary
that it seems a myth. Yet in a
way, Ballard's photographs serve
that purpose even better, because
of the problems of conserving and
displaying such a tremendous
artifact. Impregnated with salt,
when exposed to the air, the ship
would rapidly rust to oblivion,
leaving less of it for future
generations than if it were left
on the bottom of the sea.
The Meaning Of A Monument: The
Importance Of The Emotional
Response
This story illustrates that most
historic artifacts are human
concepts as much as they are
physical reality. The
conservation[iii] of historic
objects, whether buildings,
paintings or jewelry, relies as
much upon what importance and
meaning people ascribe to them, as
on any intrinsic quality they may
have. That is why conservation
itself is such an inexact science,
or not even a "science"
at all. It is rarely recognized
that historic artifacts are often
worth saving not because of their
artistic value or historical
connections per se, but because of
the intangible, powerful emotional
responses which they elicit. This
is particularly true for monuments
connected to negative historical
events.
In 1621 the flagship galleon Wasa
sank on its maiden voyage - even
before it was out of Stockholm
Harbor. The design of the ship,
which was flawed, capsized in the
first gust of wind. Now, 400 years
later, the remains of the
defective vessel survive as the
most complete record of art and
technology of a ship of its era.
Raised from the muddy bottom of
the harbor in 1961, the ship is
now on display - not as a monument
to its sinking, but as an example
of the engineering and
craftsmanship of the era. It
stands for all the ships of the
17th century, not just for that
fatal voyage or even its flawed
design.[iv] James Marston Fitch
illustrates the irony of this in
his explanation: sometimes an
artifact is so pregnant with
historical significance that...no
surrogate, facsimile, or replica
will suffice....Such was the
sentiment in Sweden with the
warship Wasa, a paradigm of
Swedish navel might when it sank
on its maiden voyage in
Stockholm's harbor on a calm day
in 1621....If retrieved and
conserved, it would constitute an
encyclopedia of information on
advanced seventeenth-century navel
technology.[v]
Perhaps one day the Titanic would
be of similar archaeological
interest. All of the great ships
of its era have long since been
scrapped, and the heyday of the
luxury liner has passed. Perhaps
one day the events of that dark
night in 1912 will not carry the
same emotive message. The
survivors will then be gone, and
the site's identity as a grave
will no longer carry the same
demands. Even the most striking
events...must inevitably, for
posterity, fade away into pale
replicas of the original picture,
for each generation losing...some
significance once noted in them,
some quality of enchantment that
was once theirs.[vi]
The Titanic, however, is different
from the Wasa. The historical
impact of the later tragedy was
far greater than that of the Wasa.
Although the Titanic was once a
beautiful ship, it is doubtful
whether the artistic or
technological interest of the
remains will ever outweigh the
symbolism of the event which in
one stroke destroyed the vessel in
its time, but assured that its
shell would outlast that of all
other ships of its era. The
Titanic is a monument to a
negative event. On land it would
share the dilemma of why and how
monuments symbolic of cruel or
tragic events should be preserved.
Historian John Summerson has
stated that decayed and obsolete
structures are preserved because
they are sources of wonder and
interest to the artist and
historian and to those elements in
the contemporary mind to which art
and history minister.[vii]
Monuments to negative events are
rarely preserved because they are
beautiful. They may be of
historical interest, but they
often mean more. They can contain
tremendous symbolic power, and it
is that aspect of their cultural
meaning which must be borne in
mind when decisions are made about
conserving and interpreting such
sites for the future.
The professional and scientific
view of the environment usually
suppresses its meaning, Donald
Appleyard observed in 1978. He
went on to say, Environmental
professionals have not been aware
of the symbolic content of the
environment, or of the symbolic
nature of their own plans and
projects.... Professionals see the
environment as a physical entity,
a functional container,...a
setting for social action or
programs, a pattern of land uses,
a sensuous experience–but
seldom as a social or political
symbol.[viii] This can have a
tremendous effect on how we
interpret historical remains of
any kind, but for negative
monuments, it can lead to neglect
of the principal significance of a
given site.
Buildings and sites with a
negative symbolic image include
prisons, slave houses,
battlefields and insane
asylums.The also include
residential areas once lived in by
a poor and oppressed minority, and
work places symbolic of
exploitation or particularly
disagreeable work, such as mines,
steel mills and other types of
factories.
For the purpose of this paper, we
are not talking about the old
department stores, houses, fire
stations and city halls which give
visual definition and character to
a town, and which make up the
usual complement of "historic
buildings". We are talking
about monuments with a negative
symbolic image.[ix] A
"monument" is not
limited to one object, whether a
statue or a building. A whole city
can be a monument. A symbolic
monument can be an historic
district or a whole city which
represents something larger than
itself. For example, Manchester,
England, is a monument of the
original great city of the
Industrial Revolution.
Sometimes negative symbolism
transcends all other aspects of
historic significance, as in the
case of the concentration camps of
the Third Reich. But more often
negative symbolism is a part of a
more complex and balanced history,
as in slum settlements or factory
towns. In both cases, recognition
of a site's negative symbolism
belongs in the conservation and
interpretation of the site.
In the case of Nazi concentration
camps, the moral and didactic
message supersedes the historical
commentary. The purpose of the
conservation effort is, therefore,
more direct than in the latter
examples. Nevertheless, the
translation of purpose into a
physical plan is often difficult.
In both cases, it is quite
possible to miss the point,
failing to understand, and,
therefore, misinterpret the
symbolic meaning of the preserved
artifact. This can result in the
stripping away of the human
emotional content of a given place
to achieve a particular design
intention or a benign, but empty,
historical interpretation. As
Appleyard observed, imageability
is not merely an aesthetic quality
of the city...but a powerful
attribute of the urban symbol
system. Aesthetics is not an
abstract set of qualities, but
directly linked to the values and
tastes of different population
groups.[x]
Example 1: The Preservation Of The
Setting Of Man's Inhumanity To
Man: The Nazi Death Camps
The most extreme examples of
negative monuments in the West in
modern times are undoubtedly the
sites of the concentration camps
established by the Third Reich.
The camps are so filled with
memories of horror that it is
risky even to discuss them
together with more ordinary
historic settings with negative
connotations. Yet, in spite of
this, the preservation and
interpretation of sites such as
the camps raise important issues
which may more clearly define the
problems and objectives inherent
in the conservation of all
negative monuments.
Many recent films on the Holocaust
have resurrected memories of the
death camps, but few have been as
ambitious or as evocative as
Claude Lanzmann's epic documentary
Shoah.[xi] In that film, Lanzmann
told the story of the death camps
and the Holocaust through the
direct recorded interviews with
both survivors and also some of
the Nazi perpetrators: former
officers and camp guards.
Significantly, Lanzmann chose not
to use historical footage or
photography of the sites of the
crimes chronicled in the film.
Instead, he used footage of the
camp sites as they exist today,
overlaid with the voices of the
inmates retelling their memories.
This choice is significant. There
is a substantial collection of
surviving historic images that
show the camps in the harsh
reality of the time. If Lanzmann
had used those images, however,
the effect would have been very
different. By showing the camps
only as they are today, the
profound truth of the events of 50
years ago seemed clearer.
The photographs of the original
event played a part in the message
of the film; in so much as they
are etched in people's minds by
seeing these photographs at other
times in their lives. As observed
above, historic photographs are
more like memories than artifacts.
Tangible historic artifacts fuel
such memories. Lanzmann exploited
this fact by illustrating his film
with footage from the present day,
thus drawing the viewers into the
reign of terror by forcing them to
"stand on location" and
recall the historic images for
themselves.
Three sites were particularly
featured in the film: Auschwitz,
Birkenau, and Treblinka. All had
been death camps at the time of
the war.[xii] All exist in the
present in completely different
forms. Auschwitz survives with a
substantial collection of its
original buildings intact. The
crematorium, however, was blown up
by the Germans at the end of the
war, and has since been
reconstructed. Birkenau was burned
and blown up by the retreating
German army. The ruins, a sweeping
view of a stark flat landscape
punctuated by a hundreds of
chimneys standing like cenotaphs,
have been left undisturbed. Only
the railroad sidings and the
gatehouse remain intact. Treblinka
was only in existence for two
years before being abandoned. At
that time, the Germans attempted
to erase it without a trace,
clearing the site and rebuilding a
farm house over the graves. Today
at this location, a monument of
standing stones has been erected -
a sculpture which extends and
embraces the entire site of the
camp, recalling its original
physical features in an abstract
way.
All sites are now public
monuments. In only one, Auschwitz,
are the actual buildings of the
camp preserved. One therefore must
ask: Is it suitable to conserve
the actual buildings constructed
to carry out such unspeakable
crimes? Is this a suitable
monument? If so, for whom? Common
to all [holocaust museums] is
"the wish not to
forget," both now and for
generations to come. The nature of
remembrance, however, is highly
complex. What exactly is it that
we want to retain? Is it the
awesome magnitude of the madness,
the incomprehensibility of it
all?[xiii] (Figure 1)
Figure 1: Auschwitz, 1988
(photo (c) Ira Nowinski/Museum of
Jewish History)
Following the war, the Polish
Government made the decision to
establish a national museum at
Auschwitz, and plans also were
made to have a design competition
for a major monument at Auschwitz.
The original barracks contain
exhibits on the history of the
camp, and the former officers'
quarters building has been turned
into a hotel. Plans for a monument
on the site proceeded slowly,
symbolic of the difficulty that
artists had rising to this
challenge. Henry Moore, selected
as a juror, found none of the
solutions very convincing. He
stated that only a great sculptor
– only a new Michealangelo, a
new Rodin – could cope with such
a task.[xiv] He noted that the
jury's strongest doubts in 1959
had mainly to do with the fact
that the plan would involve the
destruction of a part of the camp
barracks. Eventually the monument
was redesigned, in part because
additional new voices were heard
that firmly opposed the tearing
down of the barracks.[xv] Thus it
was decided to preserve the
surviving buildings of the
infamous camp. In addition, in the
case of the crematoria, they went
a step further by deciding to
reconstruct them from the
dynamited remains left by the
retreating Nazi S.S. troops.
Humanities professor Elie Wiesel,
himself a concentration camp
survivor, recently visited
Auschwitz with a group of other
Holocaust survivors. He reported,
“I was afraid – afraid of the
ghosts...afraid to recognize
myself among them – afraid of
not recognizing myself....More
than anything else, I was afraid
of finding myself in a museum.”
For survivors and for
others, a monument like Auschwitz
transcends its specific reality as
an historical site to symbolize
the horror of the Holocaust
itself, but for survivors the
meaning of the concentration camp
site is different than it is for
others. For Wiesel, making this
“altar of ashes which has laid
its curse upon the Century” a
museum would come dangerously
close to trivializing it. He says,
“Auschwitz souvenirs...this
tourist attraction has a strange
effect on former inmates...but
when obscene propagandists are
publishing books to
"prove" that Treblinka
and Auschwitz never existed, what
can be more urgent than attracting
as many visitors as possible to
the place that was Auschwitz...So
be it! Visit the Museum – so
long as it remains unaltered,
authentic.”[xvi]
Authenticity is one of the most
important concepts in preservation
theory. But authenticity in
historic buildings preserved over
extended periods of time is not as
easy to achieve as one might
imagine. Things change and
intervention is always needed to
maintain the artifact. Then we
must ask what is
"authentic"? If the
original materials have weathered
and decayed, is a reproduction in
new materials appropriate when the
decay has little to do with the
"authentic" appearance
in the period being commemorated?
In the case of Auschwitz, this
dilemma is poignantly illustrated
by another visiting survivor,
Kitty Hart: “You see grass, but
I don't see any grass. I see mud,
just a sea of mud...Open my eyes
and see grass. Close my eyes and
see mud...I knew I ought never to
have come back, because it has
proved I've never been away. The
past is more real than the tidy
pretence they have put in its
place. The noises are as loud as
they ever were: the screams, the
shouts, the curses, the lash of
whips and thud of truncheons...
“[xvii]
Would it be authentic to return
the site to mud? Probably not. The
mud under the feet of prisoners
has now become grass under the
feet of visitors. To return to mud
does not make it authentic. What
is authentic are the fences and
the buildings – buildings which
appear in the film footage and
which survive today, buildings
which are recognized by the
survivors from their memories and
by others from the photographs. It
is these fences and buildings that
give substance to the site as a
monument.[xviii]
As an authentic camp that survives
with its buildings intact,
Auschwitz serves as a reality
check. It is, however, only a
portion of the reality. With its
older and more substantial
buildings, it was in some ways
anomalous. The other death camps
had mere huts, most of which were
destroyed following the war. The
ruins of these sites carry the
message in a different way.
Following his visit, Elie Wiesel
said: “To learn more – to feel
more, go to Birkenau!”
Figure 2: Birkenau: ruins of
the crematorium, 1988 (photo (c)
Ira Nowinski/Museum of Jewish
History)
Close to Auschwitz is Birkenau. It
was burned by the S.S. at the end
of the War, leaving only the gate
house standing, itself now a
memorable symbolic image. The
landscape is marked by the
hundreds of chimneys of the former
huts. The gas chambers and
crematorium are only ruins.
(Figure 2) As Kitty Hart said,
“I can't get my bearings with so
many building ruined. I close my
eyes, remember the experience, and
then open my eyes and think that
this is the dream.”[xix] Elie
Wiesel recalled his visit to the
site in 1979, standing together
with a group of survivors next to
the ruins of the gas chambers:
“I stood alongside the former
inmates of Birkenau and Auschwitz,
at the place where we had lost our
families, and I did not know what
to say....It was important to
erase all the years, all the
words, all the images that
separated us from this event, from
this place; it became essential to
rediscover the night in all its
nakedness and truth; we had to
recapture the unknown before it
became known.[xx] He remembers the
arrivals getting off the trains:
transmitted by a thousand lips, a
single order is all that it takes
to divide the crowd: men to one
side, women to the other. Last
words, last looks...I see for the
last time a mother and her small
daughter, eerily silent and
withdrawn, holding hands as if to
reassure each other. I will see
them that way, walking away from
me, to the end of my life.”[xxi]
A third example from the Holocaust
period is Treblinka, which was
deliberately obliterated long
before the end of the War by the
S.S., and where later a monument
was built. “Posterity was not
supposed to learn anything about
this place of horror.”[xxii] All
that was left after the war were
the remains, mined by
poverty-stricken Poles for the
gold and silver left behind. On
this site, a monument designed by
A. Haupt and P. Duszenko was built
in 1964. It consists of thousands
of stones standing erect
surrounding a megalithic tower
with a plaque inscribed: “Never
again.”
The hundreds upon hundreds of
stones that cover the length and
breadth of Treblinka...all of
them, large and small, are
impregnated with the same silence.
From afar, in the twilight, they
can easily be mistaken for Jews,
wrapped in their ritual shawls, at
prayer....The Jews of Warsaw are
beneath the stones of Treblinka,
they are the stones of
Treblinka....People come from all
over the world to look at and
question them. How it was
possible?...I think I must have
read all the books – memoirs,
documents, scholarly essays and
testimonies written on the
subject. I understand it less and
less. I prefer the austere stones
of Treblinka.[xxiii] (Figure 3)
Figure 3: Treblinka: Memorial
designed by Haupt & Dyszenko,
1988. (photo (c) Ira Nowinski/Museum
of Jewish History)
This author's earliest experience
with these sites was not at
Auschwitz, but at Dachau, located
about ten miles north of Munich,
in the summer of 1964, exactly 25
years ago. Most of the camp's
buildings were still extant and
intact at that time. In fact, I
was a shocked to find that the
barracks for the prisoners inside
the camp were being lived in by
East German refugees. (Figure 4)
All of the walls with the barbed
wire were there, breached with a
ragged hole to allow the occupants
to come and go. Nearby just
outside the walls of the camp
itself were the gas chambers and
the crematorium, left intact at
the end of the war. These were
preserved and open to visitors. At
the head of the camp was a
Catholic memorial chapel. The
Jewish Memorial had not yet been
built.[xxiv]
LEFT: Figure 4: Dachau:
barracks occupied by East German
refugees, 1964 (Photo (c) Randolph
Langenbach, 1964)
RIGHT: Figure 5: Dachau: site of
the barracks in (4) in 1968 (photo
(c) Ira Nowinski/Museum of Jewish
History, 1988)
Since my visit, all of the huts in
Dachau have been demolished. Their
sites are covered with a row of
raised gavel beds to mark their
location, each labeled with an
identifying plaque. (Figure 5) In
other words, most of the actual
camp has been razed and a symbolic
memorial has been put in its
place. Unlike Auschwitz in Poland,
where the actual buildings have
been preserved, at this German
site a deliberate decision was
made to convert the real camp into
a symbolic abstraction. Only the
surrounding wall, main eating
hall, and the gas chambers and
crematorium are still intact.
(Figure 6) Ironically, the camp
was totally preserved for as long
as it had a utilitarian purpose,
in spit of its powerful negative
symbolic meaning. When its
symbolic meaning became the only
raison d'etre for the
conservation of the site, the
decision was made to replace the
barracks with abstract markings on
the ground.
Figure 4: Dachau: crematorium,
1964 (Photo (c) Randolph
Langenbach, 1964)
The metamorphosis of Dachau, as
well as the reconstruction of the
crematorium at Auschwitz, when
compared to the preservation of
the surviving buildings at
Auschwitz, demonstrate major
differences in the contemporary
management of places of negative
symbolism. If the buildings are
retained, then as time goes on
they need repair and restoration.
The decision becomes whether to
deliberately let them fall into
ruin or to carefully restore them.
The act of restoring buildings is
commonly an act of attachment,
care, and even affection for the
structures or for what they stand
for. A recent photograph at Dachau
shows that new doors have been
installed on the crematorium. How
can one lovingly restore something
that is a symbolic image of hatred
and evil? In this case, even the
act of restoration would seem to
be anathema. Yet, in order to
preserve the remaining buildings,
restoration is necessary.
There may not be a
"best" way to treat
these sites. In fact, the
experiences of Elie Wiesel show
the validity and power that exists
in all three of the different
approaches: the complete
restoration and preservation of
the buildings, the preservation of
the ruins, or an abstract memorial
on the site. Each visitor, whether
survivor or not, must come to
terms with the meaning of each
place, however interpreted or
revealed. But as Wiesel points
out, it is extremely important
that some of the physical reality
exists in at least a few of the
camps. In this case, no matter how
much is kept, what one sees is a
form of symbolic abstraction.
Maintaining the gas chambers at
Dachau and the barracks at
Auschwitz does provide a basis
from which the ruins at Birkenau
and the landscape markings at
Treblinka can be witnessed and
understood. Without this, the
depth of the experience and the
impact of the rediscovery of what
happened, by those who are not
survivors, would be lessened. No
reading of histories can replace
the impact of standing on the
actual spot where the events took
place. It is akin to a religious
experience. This is possible only
if the site has preserved vestiges
of the actual historical scene in
some meaningful way.
At the same time, once the
museums, gas chambers and
crematorium at Auschwitz are seen,
the stones at Treblinka have a
tremendous impact. Perhaps it is
because at this memorial one
confronts the true magnitude of
the crime. The real buildings
bring the events to a specific
scale that is bound to seem
smaller than the scale of the
Holocaust itself. At Treblinka one
confronts the abstraction of the
murdered people themselves,
marking the immense sweep of the
catastrophe by their shear numbers
laid out in the stillness what
once was the camp.
These camps illustrate the
responsibility we must take in
order to try to understand the
impact and social meaning of the
sites to be preserved. Many of the
survivors do not want the
surviving buildings removed, while
others believe that the physical
reminder should be obliterated and
turned into abstract monuments out
of respect for the dead.
One survivor, for example,
returned to Majdenek 35 years
after the liberation of the camp.
The buildings of the camp still
existed. The Germans had not had a
chance to burn the camp. Her son
did not want her to go. He was
afraid that she would not come
back; that she might kill herself
or have a heart attack. For this
survivor, the return was a deeply
emotional experience – an
experience which in the end helped
heal her wounds. When she entered
the empty barracks and stood where
she last saw her mother, she
recalled her deep loss. Then she
dropped down and pounded on the
floor, shouting, "I beat back
the 'Angel of Death.' I am still
alive! The experience was deeply
painful, but it was also healing.
For this one moment, the physical
remains of the camp were more than
a memorial for the dead. Now mute,
they symbolized the ultimate
victory of life over death. For
the survivors, the camps are a
memorial and a symbol of their own
survival and their hope that the
Holocaust will never happen
again.[xxv] (Figure 7)
Figure 7: Majdenek: interior of
barracks, 1988. (photo
(c) Ira Nowinski/Museum of Jewish
History, 1988)
For others and for future
generations, the remaining
vestiges of these camps bear
witness to an historic reality
which art and literature fail to
fully represent. As Martin Weyl,
director of the Israel Museum in
Jerusalem has said, very few
artists have been able to deal
successfully with this subject
matter, since no artistic creation
has proven more powerful or moving
than the few photographs that have
survived.[xxvi] Wiesel reinforced
this point when he wrote:
Auschwitz is something else,
always something else. It is a
universe outside the universe, a
creation that exists parallel to
creation. Auschwitz lies on the
other side of life and on the
other side of death....Auschwitz
represents the negation and
failure of human progress; it
negates the human design and casts
doubts on its validity. Then it
defeated culture; later it
defeated art because just as no
one could imagine Auschwitz before
Auschwitz, no one can now retell
Auschwitz after Auschwitz.
...Such, then, is the victory of
the executioner: by raising his
crimes to a level beyond the
imagining and understanding of
men, he planned to deprive his
victims of any hope of sharing
their monstrous meaning with
others.[xxvii]
At the time of the Holocaust,
during the time the Jews were
being moved from the
"model" camp at
Terezinstadt to Auschwitz to be
liquidated, one man escaped from
Auschwitz and returned to Terezin
to warn the others and organize a
resistance. No one believed his
story.[xxviii] Not only
afterwards, as Wiesel reports, but
even while the Holocaust was
happening, the magnitude of the
crime was beyond the comprehension
of all except those who witnessed
it, few of whom survived. While
the photographs provide evidence,
it is the buildings, whether
intact or in ruin, which give
credence to these images.
The concentration camps are
powerful symbols and their
preservation is an awesome
responsibility. What emerges from
the shared experiences of visitors
is that all three types of
preservation are valid, and the
power of each is enhanced by the
existence of the others. The
conservation and maintenance of
the few remaining buildings, is
essential to the meaning, not only
of Auschwitz, but also of all of
camps on which buildings have been
obliterated. In addition, the
symbolic significance of these
buildings is immeasurably
strengthened by the existence of
photographs showing each site at
the time of the atrocities. The
photographs and films of the
Holocaust have become a collective
visual memory for the world. They
transform the reality of the sites
into powerful symbolic images.
Example 2: The Architectural
Setting Of National Socialism
The concentration camps are
extreme examples, but they are not
the only monuments of negative
symbolism left from the Third
Reich. Other monuments of National
Socialism raise different issues.
Nürnberg's Zeppellin Field still
exists, together with the remains
of an extensive complex of
structures and landscape dedicated
to marching and military
ceremonies of the Nazi Party. The
Nürnberg rally grounds were
designed by Hitler's architect,
Albert Speer, and were a
characteristic setting for Nazi
activities. Today, these remains
of the blatant expression of Nazi
pomp, militarism and worship of
Hitler are controversial. Should
they be preserved as historical
artifacts or obliterated so that
they may not be interpreted as
idolizing National Socialism
itself?
Figure 8: Nürnberg: Zeppelin
Field, 1988. (photo (c) William
Green, 1988)
Recently the colonnade on the
Zeppelin Field grandstand was
removed. (Figure 8) Deterioration
of the colonnade was the official
explanation. However, this
alteration also strips the
grandstand of its visual power,
making it more anonymous in its
current use as a racetrack.
Despite technical problems may
have existed, it is probably not
simply "maintenance"
which led to demolition. The
colonnade was one of the strongest
architectural images of Speer's
work and it was particularly
symbolic of National Socialism and
the worship of Hitler. The whole
world saw it in the photographs of
the parades, with rows of flags
with swastikas between each pair
of columns. At the end of the war
when the allies entered Nürnberg,
one of their first acts was to
dynamite the large stone swastika
from the roof of this structure,
an act which they also carefully
recorded on film.
The death camps and the Zeppelin
Field remain as monuments of
National Socialism. Both have
extremely negative associations.
The moral message exists in the
remains of both, but the decision
to preserve the Nürnberg Rally
Grounds poses a problem that the
death camps avoid: it might be
interpreted by some as glorifying
the Nazis, thus providing a ready
symbol for Neo-Nazi followers. The
preservation of the camps is
unambiguous in its focus on their
evil, but the Rally Grounds, and
other Nazi government structures
symbolize the distorted power and
pride which formed the context for
what went on in the camps.
Following the war, in both East
and West Germany “the erection
of monuments to concentration camp
victims was considered a
self-evident point of
honor.”[xxix] Naturally such
commemoration did not encompass
the architectural pretensions of
the Nazis. Undoubtedly the
surviving structures in Nürnberg
are important historical
monuments, but the emasculation of
the Zeppellin Field and dynamiting
of some of the other remains of
the Rally Grounds suggest that a
certain symbolic power still
exists in some of these structures
and that their preservation was
not seen as desirable.[xxx]
When the Colonnade was
deteriorated and on the verge of
collapsing, should it have been
restored? Would the restoration
that this required be in itself an
act of idolization of National
Socialism, or would it serve a
genuine, socially useful purpose,
like the memorials at the
concentration camps that is, to
give us a sense of history through
the vestiges of where history took
place?
Go to PART II