http://www.rabbisacks.org
mcd.org.il/site/wp-content/.../Saving-Auchwitz-article-for-journal-.pdf
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7827534.stm
Hello Everyone:
Wow, I can't believe we're already at 7,109 page views and it's almost the end of January. I'm so humbled and grateful by your support. It's pretty impressive to have that many people reading my work in the little over a year that I've doing this. What it tells me is that there is an audience that wants to know about architecture, historic preservation, urban planning and design. Therefore, I feel it's my job to supply you with something about the world we live in today. Thank you all, I'm feeling confident that we can reach our goal of 10,000 page views by April 1st.
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Hall of Names
Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial
Jerusalem, Israel
en.wikipedia.org |
Today we're going to deal with the very delicate issue of the Holocaust, perpetuated by the National Socialist Party between 1933 and 1945. Specifically, we're going to look at the role memory plays in the preservation of places and artifacts from this black era in history. It is a delicate subject for Jewish and non-Jewish people alike because it brings up a lot of thorny issues that most would like swept under the rug. As the survivors die off, the need to gather their stories becomes more and more urgent. Obscenities such as anti-semitism, ethnic cleansing, and racism still exist in our world. It makes you think, "have we
really learned our lesson from the Holocaust?" In honor of Holocaust Memorial Day, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, the former Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom and religious scholar posted a copy of a speech he gave at the National Holocaust Commemoration Ceremony in Hyde Park, London in May 2011. The title of the speech is "Fragments of Memory." I'd like to use this speech today to talk about why it's important to never forget the dark times in hopes because they are part of our collective human identity.
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The aftermath of Kristallnacht
November 1938
Dortmund, Germany
ushmm.org |
Throughout the history of Europe, time and time again, Jewish communities have been destroyed, synagogues desecrated, people murdered all for being the wrong religion or ethnicity. Yet despite the litany of death and destruction, the European Jewish people have kept the memories of their heritage alive in their minds and through their prayers, even as they were dispersed throughout the world. This is also true of the survivors of the Holocaust, who kept alive the delicate fragments of an ancient people even as the National Socialists attempted to destroy them mind, body, and soul. However, we have cultures, in contemporary society, that either forget the past or are held captive by it. I would posit that attempting to forget the past or being held captive by it is deadly to any society, not because of the fear of repetition but because it is a denial of a part that culture's national identity. One example that comes to mind on this day of Holocaust commemoration is the debate that centered on the preservation of Auschwitz Concentration and Death Camp.
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Auchwitz-Birkenau Memorial
chgs.umn.edu |
The name Auchwitz immediately conjures up images of unspeakable horror. Between 1940 and 1945, four million men, women, and children; young, old, and in-between were systematically starved, beaten, tortured, work to death, or outright killed. Since the end of World War II, the job of conserving the facilities, taking and preserving survivor testimonies, and documentation has fallen to Poland. The Polish Ministry of Culture has funded the preservation of the 155 structures and 300 ruins, kilometers of roads, the barbed wire and fencing, mountains of documents and personal effects of the victims as evidence of the crimes committed there. Amidst all this gathering of evidence, conservation work on the site was sporadically undertaken. In 2003, the Lauder Foundation contributed funds to create a conservation laboratory,
sui genris, to a Holocaust memorial site. In 2010, the Birkenau Camp site came under threat of flooding and the Auschwitz I gate was stolen. There is no doubt in the minds of many that Auschwitz is a site of ultimate evil that even Hollywood, in its wildest imagination, could never conjure up. Time has taken its toll on site, which begs the question, why bother saving it at all?
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Auchwitz-Birkenau Memorial Plaque
en.wikipedia.org |
Why, indeed, bother saving this site of ultimate despair and destruction? This was the question put to historian and author Robert Jan Van Pelt and Wladyslaw Bartozewski, Chairman of the International Auschwitz Council in a debate that took place on January 26, 2009 on the BBC.
Mr. Van Pelt argued that once the last survivor passes away, the camp should be left for nature to reclaim, eventually obliterated from human memory. Dr. Van Pelt, a professor at the School of Architecture, University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, asks "Should the world marshal enormous resources to preserve empty shells as faint shadows?" His answer is yes, as long as there are survivors who wish to return to their place of suffering, thus it is appropriate to preserve whatever is left of the camp. Survivors have shared with Dr. Van Pelt that while they can derive little knowledge from a visit to the camp, it was beneficial for them to return to the place of their nightmares in order to get a sense of closure. However, what would happen when the last survivor dies? Quoting former Buchenwald inmate Jorge Semprun's autobiographical novel,
The Long Voyage (1963), Dr. Van Pelt says, "when there will no longer be any real memory of this, only the memory of memories related by those who will never know...what all this really was." What Jorge Semprun hoped was that the flora and fauna reclaim the site, destroying "this camp constructed by man." Robert Jan Van Pelt further suggests that the best way to honor those who were murdered and those who survived is by sealing it off from the world. letting nature erase it from memory.
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Glass memorial plaque
ukstudentlife.com |
Wladyslaw Bartozewski, Chairman of the International Auschwitz Council, former Polish Foreign Minister, and one-time Auschwitz inmate takes an opposing view. Mr. Bartozewski argued that the camp should be preserved to bear witness to the fate of the four million people incarcerated in this hell on earth. As a former inmate, Mr. Bartozewski rightly believes that the only people uniquely qualified to decide the fate of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial are the hundred of thousands killed in the camp. Mr. Bartozewski states, "The prisoners whom I met as prisoner number 4427, when I was detained in Auschwitz between September 1940 and April 1941, are among them. To some I owe my survival." He, like his fellow survivors, will bear witness to the horrors of Auschwitz-Birkenau that were visited upon many Europeans. Thus, Mr. Bartozewski and the numerous former prisoners fulfill the obligation to bear witness and convey the truth of what happened. However, what happens when there is no one left to give voice to those truths? "The stones will cry out." The ruins of the crematoria and gas chambers, the empty barracks, the infamous Block 11 and Wall of Death with bear witness, thus it is meaningful to save, regardless of the cost. This is the nature of humanity, when no tangible evidence remains, events of the past are erased.
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Memorial stone of Auschwitz prisoners Rzsewsòw, Poland
commons.wikipedia.org |
Yet, we do rehabilitate buildings, preserve works of art and libraries. Mr. Bartozewski cites the example of ancient Graeco-Roman culture. Centuries have past, but the monuments remain. Then why should we let the places of unspeakable atrocities fall into oblivion? The place has become a global symbol of unimaginable suffering and extermination. It is a warning against all forms of obscenities perpetuated against humanity and genocide. I wonder if we've been paying attention to this warning? It was both a death and concentration camp. Following the war, thoughts about demolishing the camp and ploughing up the site were tossed about. The rationale being a place of unimaginable cruelty should blotted out from the earth. This is a natural impulse, when humanity commits evil, he tries to get rid of the evidence. Mr. Bartozewski declares that Auschwitz-Birkenau must forever remain an unhealed wound, which serves to keep humanity from lapsing into moral complacency. He argues that if the memorial is erased, the burden falls to our conscience. "We trample upon the testament of the victims."
My own feelings on the subject of whether or not we should obliterate places of evil are simple, no, we shouldn't. They are part of our collective national identity. It's like a person desperately trying to erase all of his/her negative characteristics. No matter how hard you try, you can't remove every negative personality trait. So what do you do? Embrace it, learn and grow from it. A place like Auschwitz-Birkenau will forever be part of the legacy of humanity, whether it is ultimately reclaimed by nature or remain standing, the memory of the place and the evil committed there will alway be part of our national collective identity.
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