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.

Greece: A New Holocaust Monument in Xanthi Fills Greece's Modern History in Stone

Xanthi, Greece. Holocaust Memorial Monument, 2022. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022

Xanthi, Greece. Holocaust Memorial Monument, 2022. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022

Xanthi, Greece. Holocaust Memorial Monument, 2022. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022

Xanthi, Greece. Holocaust Memorial Monument, 2022. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022

Greece: A New Holocaust Monument in Xanthi Fills Greece's Modern History in Stone 

by Samuel D. Gruber

The most recent Holocaust memorial monument in Greece was erected in the northern town of Xanthi to commemorate the 526 local Jews murdered in the Holocaust, and the total destruction of the community. The memorial was sponsored by the Central Board of Jewish Communities of Greece (KIS) and dedicated in February, 2022, in a ceremony organized by KIS in cooperation with the Municipality and the Cultural and Development Center of Thrace (PAKETHRA), and within the framework of the Greek Presidency of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA).

The big boulder sits at the end of some (installed) railroad tracks set in Eleftherias (Liberty) Square, a small park in the center of town. It joins the ranks of other monuments commemorating heroic and tragic events in modern Greek history. 

In 2021 a monument on the other side of the same square dedicated to the Sarakatsani Fighters of 1821 and more monuments are built across the narrow but major Oktovriou Street which runs by the square.

Sarakatsani Fighters of 182

Πηγή : www.paratiritis-news.gr [ https://www-paratiritis--news-gr.translate.goog/koinonia/apokalyptiria-tou-mnimeiou-sarakatsanon-agoniston-tou-1821-stin-xanthi/?_x_tr_sl=el&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc ]

Monument to the Sarakatsani Fighters of 1821 in Eleftherias Square, Xanthi, on Sunday July 11, 2021, at 12:00 noon, as part of the festive events organized by the Sarakatsani Association of Xanthi "The Lepeniotis" for the 200 years since in 2021.

Πηγή : www.paratiritis-news.gr [ https://www-paratiritis--news-gr.translate.goog/koinonia/apokalyptiria-tou-mnimeiou-sarakatsanon-agoniston-tou-1821-stin-xanthi/?_x_tr_sl=el&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc ]

Monument to the Sarakatsani Fighters of 1821 in Eleftherias Square, Xanthi, on Sunday July 11, 2021, at 12:00 noon, as part of the festive events organized by the Sarakatsani Association of Xanthi "The Lepeniotis" for the 200 years since in 2021.

Πηγή : www.paratiritis-news.gr [ https://www-paratiritis--news-gr.translate.goog/koinonia/apokalyptiria-tou-mnimeiou-sarakatsanon-agoniston-tou-1821-stin-xanthi/?_x_tr_sl=el&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc ]

Xanthi, Greece. Holocaust Memorial Monument, 2022. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022

Xanthi, Greece. Holocaust Memorial Monument, 2022. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022

Xanthi, Greece. Holocaust Memorial Monument, 2022. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022

Xanthi, Greece. Holocaust Memorial Monument, 2022. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022

A metal menorah is affixed to the front of the boulder, under which are plaques in four languages - Greek, Hebrew, Ladino and English. The plaques in Greek and Hebrew are on the front and those in Ladino and English on the sides.The English inscription reads:

The City of Xanthi remembers the

Shoah of 6,000,000 Jews, all killed 

at the hands of the Nazis, and 

dedicates this monument to the 

memory of the Jewish Community of  

Xanthi and its 526 members who

were all exterminated during the 

Bulgarian occupation at the

Treblinka extermination camp in

March 1943

The synagogue of Xanthi, built in the 1920s was demolished in 1995.  The Jewish cemetery lies outside of town. 

Xanthi, Greece. Gate of Jewish cemetery. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022

Xanthi, Greece. Jewish cemetery. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022

Other Monuments

Also across the street from the new Holocaust monument is a large marble monument to the Greek Refugees of Eastern Thrace. The refugees crisis, and the culture created by Geeks fleeing Anatolia,  culminated what is now widely referred to as the Greek Genocide, which is defined as the systematic expulsion and killing of hundreds of thousands of Christian ethnic Greeks of Anatolia by the Turks during the tumultuous years of revolution and war that began in 1914 and ended only with the massive population removals and exchanges in 1922-23. For Greeks, especially in the North where a large percentage of today's population descend from Greeks removed from Asia Minor, this cataclysmic event which upended millennia of history, is also called a "Holocaust." 

For obvious reasons, it is clear this Greek "Holocaust" remains central in Macedonian and Thracian identity. For someone familiar with Holocaust monuments elsewhere in the world, however, there is a striking formal and symbolic similarity in the bronze relief figurative groups affixed to this monument and scenes depicted of Jewish refugees and deportees elsewhere. 

Xanthi, Greece. Monument to Greek Refugees of Eastern Thrace. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022

 

Xanthi, Greece. Monument to Greek Refugees of Eastern Thrace, detail. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022

There are many more monuments filling public spaces in central Xanthi. This is true in most of the towns I visited in the region. The importance of the new Holocaust memorial monument is not only in that is recognizes the deportation and murder of the Jewish community of Xanthi, but that it inserts Jewish suffering the Holocaust into a long history of Greek heroism and suffering, acknowledging that the history of Greek Jews is Greek history, too. The destruction of the Jews in Xanthi was an attack on Greece itself. While in some cases this acknowledgment comes way too late, in many places in Greece local Christian communities, including church and government officials rallied to warn, organize, and hide Jews in the face of demands of the occupying German forces.

Xanthi, Greece. Monument for Sarakatsani Fighters of 1821 (2021). Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022

Xanthi, Greece. Monument. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022

Xanthi, Greece. Memorial Monument for Soldiers of World War II and Greek Civil War. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022

 

 

Greece: In Athens, a Little Known Play Area Commemorates Jewish Children

Athens, Greece. Holocaust memorial monument at Pafou Square (1981). Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022.

Athens, Greece. Holocaust memorial monument at Pafou Square (1981). Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022.

Athens, Greece. Pafou Square. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022.

Athens, Greece. Pafou Square. Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022.

Greece: In Athens, a Little Known Play Area Commemorates Jewish Children 

by Samuel D. Gruber

In 1981, Greek Jewish mothers contributed playground equipment to Pafou square in Athens to commemorate 13,000 Greek Jewish children killed by the Nazis. This is not the only Holocaust Memorial in Athens (I'll be writing about at least five others0, but it is the most unexpected.

Pafou Square is not a place that tourists are likely to find and visit, nor are many Athenians likely to wander here. This residential neighborhood of blocky apartments buildings built during Athens' rapid post-World War II expansion is a few stops out from the city center on the the Green Line (#1 Metro line), north of the area of ancient monuments and modern museums.

This is a working and middle class neighborhood, served by public transport. The big streets have plenty of car and pedestrian traffic, but Pafou Square is quiet enclave. It is one-block connector between Michail Voda and Acharnon (streets) a short way from the Aghios Nikolaos metro stop. It is interesting urbanisitically. Within the density of apartment buildings of the area, Pafou was designed with a widened middle. The buildings bend back to open up the space for a small park. In plan, Pafou looks like an 18th-century London garden-park, but in fact, there is little English-style greenery here. The space is mostly paved, though the recreational space is separated from the roadway that runs along the perimeter of the square. 

At the end of the square that is entered from Michail Voda (street) there is a fenced area for ball playing and other games. At the opposite end of the square near the intersection with Acharnon (street) there is a paved plaza,with benches at one end. Along on side is a metal pergola-type structure, whose purpose was unclear to me (perhaps there was once play equipment here?). Across from this is a line of tightly trimmed trees under which is set a low concrete block on its angled top of which is affixed a marble dedicatory and memorial inscription.

Athens, Greece. Holocaust memorial monument at Pafou Square (1981). Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022

Inscription

ТА ΣKΟТΩΣАΝ

ΟΙ NAZI ΣTA KREMATOPIA

НТАΝ 13,000 ΕΛΛНΝΟПΟΥΛА

EBPAIOПАΙΔА

ΓΙΑ ΤΡΥΦΕΡΗ ΚΑΙ ΤΡΑΓΙΚΗ ΘΥΜΗΣΗ ΤΟΥΣ

ΟΙ ΕΛΛΗΝΟΕΒΡΑΙΕΣ ΜΗΤΕΡΕΣ

ΣΥΝΕΒΑΛΑΝ ΣΤΗΝ ΚΑΤΑΣΚΕΥΗ

ΤΩΝ ΠΑΙΧΝΙΔΙΩΝ ΤΟΥ ΠΑΙΔΟΤΟΠΟΥ

 

Translation

They were killed

By the Nazis in the crematoria

They were 13,000 Greek

Jewish children

To their soft and tragic memory

The Greek Jewish mothers

Have contributed to the construction

Of the games in this playground

Athens, Greece. Holocaust memorial monument at Pafou Square (1981). Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022

 

 

Athens, Greece. Holocaust memorial monument at Pafou Square (1981). Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022.

Athens, Greece. Holocaust memorial monument at Pafou Square (1981). Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022

 

 

The memorial plaque was defaced in June 2015 with a Nazi swastika and Nazi SS signs. This was cleaned up, but when I saw the plaque in May of 2022, it was messy, though with none of the graffiti had political purpose. More depressing than the ink doodles on the marble is the overall austerity of the entire square. 

I do not know what play equipment the Jewish mothers provided forty years ago, but there is little to be seen today. The park is mostly a paved space, good enough for kicking around a football, playing tag, or jumping rope, but hardly a space the invites creative play, inspires a child's imagination, or if a fitting memorial to 13,000 murdered children. 

When I think of all the playgrounds I've seen in many countries - and as parent, play areas have been and remain a design problem of special interest - this place makes me sad on many levels. I was there on a hot afternoon, and probably the place is livelier in the evenings when people are out. Still, maybe a project could begin to refurbish Pafou Square.

Athens, Greece. Holocaust memorial monument at Pafou Square (1981). Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022.

 

 

Athens, Greece. Holocaust memorial monument at Pafou Square (1981). Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022.

Athens, Greece. Holocaust memorial monument at Pafou Square (1981). Photo: Samuel Gruber 2022.

 N.B. Thanks to Elias Messinas with help in transcribing and translating the memorial inscription.