Slovakia: What's Wrong with the Bratislava Holocaust Memorial?

[n.b. this was first posted on June 17, 2009]

Slovakia: What's Wrong with the Bratislava Memorial?
by Samuel D. Gruber

(ISJM) My readers know my interest in getting the story straight, and when it comes to Holocaust Monuments and Memorials I have a strong sense that collectively they are not getting or telling the story - straight or otherwise.

The big question is how can one remember what one doesn't know? How can one "not forget" what is never fully discussed or taught? In some recent posts I've discussed some ways that informative narratives can be added to monuments to make them meaningful to everyone who passes by and wants to know.

We all know that monuments - whether to kings, generals, scientists or town fathers - go silent after not too many years. In the case of many purported Holocaust memorials, silence is built into their very design. Their purpose is clear only to a chosen few. With a didactic or narrative text, few people know what these monuments stand for- and those that do know have the excuse to avoid specifics.

This is the case of the Holocaust Memorial in Bratislava, Slovakia, and also its adjacent commemorative synagogue image, erected in 1996 in the Old Town center of Bratislava, on the site of the former Neolog Synagogue which was torn down in the Soviet period (not by the Nazis or their Slovak allies) to make way for a highway.



The monument is a striking piece of sculpture, and its placement, and the adjacent wall size engraved image of the Great Synagogue are very effective ways to enliven an otherwise near-dead space - a former plaza now cut through be a highway. But to the passing resident or visitor, young or old, they say nothing of what they are and why they are there, and they give no details the people and places they are meant to recall.

According to Maros Borsky on the website of the Slovak Jewish Heritage Center:

The Memorial was erected in 1996 by the Slovak Republic to commemorate the memory of 105,000 Holocaust victims from Slovakia. The location was not selected accidentally. The Holocaust memorial was composed as a place of public remembrance, where two layers of history intertwine: the memory of the tragic event and the memory of the former Rybné Square synagogue, still remembered by many Bratislavians, and which can be often found on historical photos hanging in Bratislava cafés. The memorial consists of the black wall with silhouette of the destroyed synagogue and the central sculpture with non-figurative motif and a David Shield on the top, placed on the black granite platform with “zachor” [remember] and “pamätaj” inscriptions. The plot of the former synagogue is owned by the Bratislava Municipality, which leases the site for an annual symbolical fee to the Museum of Jewish Culture, which maintains the memorial.

I was struck on my last visit to Bratislava that none of this information is knowable without going to Maros's website. There is no sign, no plaque, not text at all except "Remember!" in Hebrew and Slovak. In the history of Bratislava there are so many events one can be asked to remember, so which does this recall?

Some might say I'm unfair, since monuments do receive attention when they are the focus of events - such as Yom ha-Shoah or some other Day of Remembrance. Still, what about the rest of the year? A good monument has a job to do, and it should be on the job full time. It's not like a tuxedo or fancy dress only taken out once a year for the Opera.

Some artist friends of mine - including some who have made monuments - have said to me that their work should not be labeled, or constricted by one interpretation. I have no problem with that, the work can be interpreted in any way, or in many ways. But the event it purportedly commemorates is not open to such interpretation. In an age of Holocaust Denial we cannot allow that. Some specifics - the what, who, how and when need to be stated, and stately unequivocally.

I hope that the Museum of Jewish Culture in Bratislava will take heed, and take action. Put up a sign, a plaque, something informative to help people remember.

Germany: Multiple Memorials for Berlin's Munchener Strasse Synagogue

Berlin, Germany. Image of the former Münchener Straße 37 on view in the Bayerischer Platz U-Bahn station. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016

Germany: Multiple Memorials for Berlin's Munchener Strasse Synagogue
by Samuel D. Gruber

In November 2016, I was in Berlin for a few days and had the chance to visit more Jewish and Holocaust-related historical and commemorative sites than usual. I've already posted about the Jewish cemetery on Grosse Hamburger Strasse and the monument and burial section at the Weissensee Cemetery for Jewish soldiers who died in World War I. Here's information on a lesser known commemorative site.

The domed synagogue at Münchener Straße 37 in the Schöneberg section of Berlin, designed by Jewish architect Max Fraenkel (1856-1926), was dedicated in 1910 and was at the center of a heavily Jewish neighborhood around Bayerischer Platz.  It was looted but not burned on Kristallnacht (November 9, 1938), but was subsequently damaged by aerial bombing during the war years, and  torn down in 1956. The synagogue, which was a transitional structure between historicism and modernism, was notable for its large dome, and as one of the more architecturally distinctive buildings in the largely residential neighborhood. The composer Kurt Weill had a job as the synagogue choir conductor for a few months in 1921. 

Today, there is a part of a school building on the synagogue site, but the synagogue is remembered in the neighborhood in various ways. Each memorial corresponds to a particular phase of Berlin's facing the past and acknowledge the Shoah. There is an official abstract street level monument (1960s), a student-built collaborative memorial (1990s) and recently an extensive photo exhibit underground in the nearby U-Bahn station.

At the school, the original synagogue outline is remembered through garden design and in 1994-95 students erected a memorial brick wall on the school grounds to remember local Jews who lived in Berlin-Schöneberg. According to school officials,"the idea was based on the artist Horst Hoheisel from Kassel who gave stimulus on his "memorial from down below" in the framework of the 6th grade teaching lesson "National Socialism".

Berlin, Germany. Löcknitz Primary School on site of the synagogue at Münchener Straße 37. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016.

In front of the school and near the street is a more traditional monument, designed in a cubist style by Gerson Fehrenbach in 1963. It declares: "Hier stand der 1909 erbauten synagoge der jüdischen Gemeinde" (Here stood the Synagogue of the Jewish Community built in 1909).

Berlin, Germany. Monument to destroyed at synagogue at Münchener Straße 37. Gerson Fehrenbach, arch., 1963. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016.

Berlin, Germany. Monument to destroyed at synagogue at Münchener Straße 37. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016.

A plaque beneath gives further information about the fate of the building.  

Hier stand von 1909-1956 eine Synagoge. Sie wurde während der Reichspogromnacht
am 9. Nov. 1938 wegen ihrer Lage in einem
Wohnhaus nicht zerstört.
Nach der Vertreibung und Vernichtung
der jüdischen Mitbürgerinnen und Mitbürger
durch die Nationalsozialisten verlor sie
ihre Funktion und wurde 1956 abgerissen.”

In the nearby U-Bahn station there is a extensive photo exhibition on the history of the neighborhood. Since it was a heavily Jewish district in the interwar period, there is are many images of the synagogue and of prominent Jews who lived nearby. When I visited the station in November 2016, the former synagogue - already destroyed once - was suffering the indignity of having a temporary construction barrier interrupting the view of its full facade.
 

Berlin, Germany. images of the former Münchener Straße 37 on view in the Bayerischer Platz U-Bahn station, with a construction barrier further "destroying" the synagogue today. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016

Berlin, Germany. Image of the memorial wall constricted by local students on the site the former Münchener Straße 37. Photo on view in the Bayerischer Platz U-Bahn station. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016

Berlin, Germany. Image of the memorial wall constricted by local students on the site the former Münchener Straße 37. Photo on view in the Bayerischer Platz U-Bahn station. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016.

Bayerischer Platz neighborhood, including Münchener Straße, is also the location of the noteworthy "Places of Remembrance," (Orte des Erinnerns) project designed by artists Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock and installed in 1993.  The memorial, which consists of 80 signs which flatly state the dates and essence of laws promulgated by the Nazis in the 1930s to curb the rights of Jews.  This project remains one of the most thought provoking Holocaust commemorative installations anywhere - if one takes the time to look.

Berlin, Germany. Bayerischer Platz and "Places of Remembrance," (Orte des Erinnerns) project designed by Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016.

ABerlin, Germany. Bayerischer Platz and "Places of Remembrance," (Orte des Erinnerns) project designed by Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016.

Berlin, Germany. Bayerischer Platz and "Places of Remembrance," (Orte des Erinnerns) project designed by Renata Stih and Frieder Schnock. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2016.

Lithuania: In Search of the Hidden Holocaust Monument of Vilnius

 Vilnius, Lithuania. Flame of Hope. Photo from Foundation for the Arts

Cross posted from Defending History.com

The Hidden Monument of Vilnius
11 February 2012

 

In response to several requests from the United States, DefendingHistory.com this week asked three separate Westerners who found themselves in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, to try to see the “Flame of Hope” monument, by sculptor Leonardo Nierman, in memory of the victims of the Lithuanian Holocaust, located in the heart of the Old Town, in a yard that was in the Vilna Ghetto between September 1941 and the ghetto’s liquidation three years later.

The story of the monument got underway nearly thirty years ago when the idea first came to the person who made it happen, Shelly Rybak Pearson of Florida, USA, who contributed a DH.com comment piece on the subject last December.

The seemingly interminable saga has been the subject of a number of American media outlets, including a feature article in the Palm Beach Post and a television interview for the Miami Herald. For many years, the Lithuanian Embassy in Washington DC and the American Embassy in Vilnius have participated in the conversation concerning the monument. Discussions in different periods have dealt with agreeing a text for the inscription (see box at the end of this article), the venue for the monument, and above all — accessibility of the monument to the general public, Lithuanians and foreign visitors alike.

What is agreed by all sides is that the monument is located in the courtyard of the building that housed one of interwar Vilna’s prime Jewish educational institutions, the Yídishe reál-gimnàzye. During the Holocaust, the building tragically became the headquarters of the Nazi-established Judenrat, or “Jewish authority” within the ghetto. Like the other ghettos in major Lithuanian cities, the Vilna Ghetto continued to incarcerate the shrinking remnant of Lithuanian Jewry for several years after the majority were shot in the summer and fall of 1941, mostly by local perpetrators volunteering to kill the civilian Jewish population for the Nazis, at hundreds of mass grave sites across Lithuania.

Read the entire post here

Kosovo: Pristina Partisans' Monuments

 Kosovo: Pristina Partisans' Monuments

To read about the Partisans' monument in Pristina, Kosovo, see my blog Public Art and Memory.

Pristina, Kosovo. Partisans' Monument, detail of vandalism. Photo: Ivan Ceresnjes

Lithuania: Vilnius Middle School has Walls Made of Broken Matzevot

Vilnius, Lithuania. Uzupis cemetery in 2000. Photos: Samuel D. Gruber (2000)

Vilnius, Lithuania. Uzupis cemetery in 2000. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (2000)

Lithuania: Vilnius Middle School has Walls Made of Broken Matzevot

Eleven years ago I visited the Uzupis Jewish Cemetery in Vilnius (Vilna), Lithuania, or rather what remained of it. In the dark light of winter I climbed the hill of the cemetery to look for traces of gravestones and walls. Where there were approximately 70,000 burials from 1830 through 1948, only a few hundred stones were visible. These were the ones embedded in the hillside. The cemetery had been "liquidated" in the 1960s, when Vilnius was under Society rule. No marker told the story of the site, or the history of the dead.

Over the next few years I worked with the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad, of which I was Research Director, to tell that story. Commission Members Harriet Rotter and Steven Some, led the Commission’s contributions to the project. The result was a wall and a monument dedicated in November 2004.

Vilnius, Lithuania. Uzupis Cemetery. Monument under construction and complete. Photo: Ruth Ellen Gruber

Vilnius, Lithuania. Uzupis Cemetery. Monument under construction and complete. Photo: Ruth Ellen Gruber

Vilnius, Lithuania. Uzupis Cemetery. Monument under construction and complete. Photo: Ruth Ellen Gruber

Over the years I wondered where all the stones had gone. The site was only cleared by the Soviets in the 1960s, but all anyone would say was that the matzevot have been removed for building material.

Now we know where some of the stones ended up.

Dovid Katz's writes on the website defendinghistory.com that thousands of fragments of Uzupis Cemetery gravestones are were used to construct walls on the grounds of the Lazdynai Middle School in Vilnius, built in the early 1970s. He and visited the school last week, and photographer Richard Schofield took pictures, and posted a report.

Sounds of Stone Speak: Jewish Gravestones in the Walls of a Middle School in Vilnius

Vilnius, Lithuania. Gravestone fragment in wall at Lazdynai Middle School. Photo: Robert Schofield

Katz writes in part "The school grounds’ outside walls comprised of the pilfered Jewish gravestones have nothing to do with the structure of the school’s building and removing the stones and finding a culturally respectful home for them would not touch the school building with so much as a hair. Moreover, the walls made from the stones extend well beyond the school’s grounds to surrounding parts of Lazdynai, where a large supply of Jewish gravestones were brought from the cemetery site after the city’s Soviet-era administration destroyed the cemetery."

You can see more of Richard Schofield's photography here.

Latvia: New Plaque at Riga's Old Jewish Cemetery

Riga, Latvia. New plaque at Old Jewish Cemetery. Photo courtesy of U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad (2011)

Riga, Latvia. dedication of new plaque at Old Jewish Cemetery. Choir performing in Yiddish before ceremony. Photo courtesy of U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad (2011)

Riga, Latvia. President of the Jewish Communities of Latvia, Arkady Suharenko and Lee Seeman unveiling new plaque at Old Jewish Cemetery. Photo courtesy of U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad (2011)

Riga, Latvia. Old Jewish Cemetery. This how the site looked when I visited with Commission members Lee Seeman and Gary Lavine in 2003. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (2003).

Latvia: New Plaque at Riga's Old Jewish Cemetery
by Samuel D. Gruber

(ISJM) On June 30, 201 the Jewish Communities of Latvia organized a series of events commemorating the 450th anniversary of the Jewish community in Latvia and to the 70th anniversary of the beginning of the Holocaust. As part of those events, a new explanatory plaque sponsored by the United States Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad was installed at Riga's Old Jewish Cemetery. Commission member Lee Seeman organized the project and raised the funds.

U.AS. Commission Member Lee Seeman and U.S. Ambassador to Latvia, Judith Garber

I am especially pleased to see Lee's continuing commitment to this project and so many others in the region. We visited the site together in 2003 with Meijers Melers, the preeminent expert on Latvian Jewish sites, and saw the relatively new large boulder on site, with a prominent Jewish Star, but there was no text or other information telling what the site was and what had happened to it. Without an informed guide, we would have been entirely in the dark. Lee Seeman persevered and saw to it that future visitors would not be so perplexed.

In all its projects the U.S. Commission has never felt it enough to charge people to "Never Forget." The Commission insists in all its projects that accurate information is provided to the visitor or viewer to better teach them what to remember. Its previous work in Riga, on the Rumbula massacre and mass grave site monument is a good example.

Riga, Latvia. Old Jewish Cemetery. Impressive memorial stone placed on site in 1990s, but with explanatory text. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber (2003).

The plaque is in Latvian and English. I do not yet have photos to post, but here is the English text:

2011
The old Jewish Cemetery
This is Riga's first Jewish cemetery. It was opened in 1725 and burials continued here until the late 1930s. after German forces occupied Riga in 1941, the prayer house and the mortuary were burned down. the cemetery became a mass burial site for over 1000 Jews killed in the streets and houses of the Riga Ghetto. Following World War Two, many of the cemetery's tombstones were removed and used as building material. Others deteriorated. The wall surrounding the cemetery collapsed, and the site left uncared for fell into disrepair. In the 1960s, the site was razed and renamed "The Park of the Communist Brigades." In 1992, the park was renamed "The Old Jewish Cemetery”

Holocaust Memorials: More on Stumbling Blocks (Stolpersteine)

Holocaust Memorials: More on Stumbling Blocks (Stolpersteine)
by Samuel D. Gruber

(ISJM) I have written in the past about the Stolpersteine project ("Stones of the Vanished" or "Stumbling Stones") which began in Germany, and has now spread to many countries. The project, originated in 1994 in Cologne by artist Gunter Demnig, embeds small stones resembling cobbles, in the pavements near houses where Jews lived before their deportation out of Germany, or to their deaths.

There have been many stories in the press about the project - which to my mind is one of the most effective acts of Holocaust remembrance created. It is at the same time obvious and brilliant. It brings the act of memory into everyday life, and it reminds us that unexpected events - including the banal and horrific - can occur, or at least appear to us, at almost any time. We should seek to remember something or someone, from the past, every day.

Here is a link to recent story by Winston Pickett about the Stolpersteine project from the Jewish Chronicle.

Poland: New Memorial with Old Gravestones Erected at Radom Jewish Cemetery

Radom, Poland. New Memorial at Jewish Cemetery. Photos courtesy of FODZ.

Poland: New Memorial with Old Gravestones Erected at Radom Jewish Cemetery

(ISJM) The Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland has announced the upcoming dedication of a new memorial monument at the Jewish cemetery at the central Polish town of Radom. The monument, erected on the cemetery is a raised lapidarium incorporating many of the gravestones scattered on the site and found in other locations. The ceremonial unveiling is planned for November 8, 2010.

The memorial is being built within the framework of the "Tikkun - Repair" project, created by the Polish and Israeli Prison Service with the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland as a partner.

The monument continues a tradition of "gathering of stones" begun with the erection of cemetery memorials by survivors immediately after the Shoah, and then continued in the 1980s and 1990s at places such as Kazimierz Dolny and Wyszków.

Romania: More on Bucharest Holocaust Monument

Bucharest, Romania. Holocaust Memorial. Photos from www.holocaustmemorial.ro

Romania: More on Bucharest Holocaust Monument
by Samuel D. Gruber

(ISJM) Earlier this month I wrote about the pending dedication of the new Holocaust Memorial in Bucharest. Romania: Holocaust Monument to be Dedicated in Bucharest. The inauguration did take place, but the monument remains incomplete.

For more and continuing information about the monument and and to see pictures of the inauguration and the structure click here for the web site about the monument created by Marko Maximilain Katz, Director of MCA Romania -The Center for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism in Romania.

Regrettably, many of the inscriptions which will tell some of the facts about the Holocaust in Romania, and which are the real rationale for the memorial, were not ready for installation.

Bucharest, Romania. Inauguration of Holocaust Memorial, October 8, 2009.
Photos from www.holocaustmemorial.ro

What participants in the formal ceremony and observers (including the Romanian and international press) saw was an architectural framework and an ongoing worksite. We have all experienced time and budget overruns on construction projects. Still, in the case of a much anticipated monument such as the one in Bucharest, we can certainly wonder why the decision was taken to dedicate it before its completion. Was it simply that the government sponsors thought the deadline of the local Holocaust Remembrance day would force the contractors to hurry up? Or were there other reasons? Has rushing the dedication in any way diminished the impact of the monument?

K.K. Brattman, Managing Editor of the Holocaust Survivors and Remembrance Project: "Forget You Not" reacted strongly to the apparent inadequacies of the new monument, perceiving the one inscribed plaque in situ to be the only working that was to be included. This plaque merely indicates the sponsor and the artist, Romanian sculptor (who lives in Germany) Peter Jacobi.

Bucharest, Romania. Holocaust Memorial. Photos from www.holocaustmemorial.ro

In fact, several more historical and commemorative plaques are still to be completed and installed. The texts to these plaques – or something close to the final texts – were apparently included in the program of the inauguration.

I have been in contact with representatives of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the American Jewish Committee and the US Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad, three organizations that actively pressured the Romanian government to create the Wiesel Commission, and then to follow through with many recommendations. They all shared the concerns of Mr. Brattman, but assured me that his concerns would be resolved when the monument was complete, with all the intended text.

One problem causing delay was the Hebrew inscription, which was being engraved in Germany. According to my sources, there were problems, but I don’t know whether these were in the text, the translation or the actual carving of the Hebrew letters. Other source reported that at the time of the dedication, where many things were rushed, there may have been some issues about having the proper translations (it is in Romanian, English and Hebrew) or questions about misspellings, which could require it to be remade.

I can attest from prior experience the difficulty in moving from idea to finished text on a Holocaust monuments. I have folders full of draft texts for monuments in Estonia, Croatia, Poland, Ukraine and elsewhere. Sometimes a single word or number - or the translation of the ta word - can hold up a project for a long long time.

In Bucharest (and in Washington) the general expectation is that all the problems about the final inscriptions should be resolved soon, and the final installation should take place within “a month or two.”

I encourage readers of this blog to report in from Bucharest with information and new pictures when they have occasion to visit the site.

I post here part of the moving speech by Liviu Beres, President of The Association of the Jews from Romania - Victims of the Holocaust, delivered at the unfinished monument on Romania's Holocaust Remembrance Day (the Text of the speech by the President of Romania has not yet been posted in English):

It was my destiny to have lived the best years of a person’s life during a dramatic turning point of history. It was a time when the commandment “Thou shall not kill!” was reversed. A time when the spiral of evil was expanding in Europe and all over the world, when anti-Semitism, hatred and discrimination were dominant and lawlessness became a state of the law.

Its initiators conceived the Holocaust in such a way that it was supposed to have no witnesses or history. As you know, the fate of the war turned against them and there remained many witnesses. Thus, the Holocaust has a history.

One of the witnesses is the person who wrote these lines. I belong to a fading generation: the survivors of the Holocaust.

We all know that, as persons, we move in space and change in time. We can return to the same location in space, but never in time. Only memory remains, with what you were able to keep in mind. For me, memories are often conversations with the dead or with myself, as I was at a time and changed to what I am now.

Sixty-eight years have passed since the freight trains, filled with the Jews who were deported from Bukovina, were running to the Dniester River. They “unloaded” the merchandise at the bank of the river for them to cross to “the other side”. At the same time, after the mass executions of the Jews, which took place in July-August 1941, when the troops entered Bassarabia and Northern Bukovina, the survivors were forced to walk, in convoys, to the same place. Whoever stayed behind was shot. I was part of those convoys when I hadn’t been 14 of age, yet.

Having been looted of their goods, of their rights and especially of their right to live, the Jews were going to an unknown place, which also got a new name: Transnistria.

The extermination policy was set into motion. Tens and hundreds of thousands of people were sentenced to death. Their only fault was that they were born and their parents were Jewish. It is true: no gas chambers were used in the Holocaust perpetrated by Antonescu’s government. People died from bullets, cold, hunger, insanitary conditions and disease (and they made “all the proper conditions” for it to appear). People also suffocated in tightly closed freight trains (the death trains from Iaşi). They were set on fire and blown up while crowded in warehouses. They were hanged (Odessa) and they died because the people around were bad.

In this bleak picture, where the scene is mainly occupied by the victims, perpetrators and indifferent spectators, there were good people as well. They were not many, among those who believed in light, despite the general dark. They risked their own life so as to save others.
The Holocaust is still here, in the memory of the few survivors. It is here with us in its whole horror. It was a cruel reality, a denial of any sense of morality, a denial of humanity. This memorial that we inaugurate now and here was made in honor of the victims of this cruel reality. As a tombstone for the ones who have no grave, the memorial will be a token for all those who want to know what happened. For, if we speak about learning from the Holocaust, it means we should not only tell the truth about the past, but also show how the same mechanisms act today in various societies and in people as well.

The fear of unknown finds its release in the fear and hatred for the “stranger”. Intolerance, fundamentalism, fanaticism, they all get their nutrients and new energy precisely from this “fear”. This is why it is necessary to spread the knowledge about the Holocaust.

By knowing our past, they will be able to act efficiently so that it does not become their future. It is possible that many will start thinking about what life and death is, and especially about what the world is. Even today, there are enough signs that warn about the always active potentiality of evil.

People forget too often that whatever starts with the hatred against the Jews continues with the loathing of all that is different. Mankind, who created tyrannical utopias and suffered from their disasters, can now better understand the consequences of one’s deeds.

This Memorial about people who existed at one time was erected for the people of today and of tomorrow. It is meant to remove indifference, the lack of knowledge about this matter and it should have an important contribution in this sense.

Let me tell you that, despite of all that happened, I still believe that MAN should be the purpose of man, in life.