What Remains: The Post-Holocaust Archive In German Memory Culture

240 Pages·2020·5.912 MB·English

by  Dora Osborne

ith the passing of those who witnessed National
Socialism and the Holocaust, the archive matters as
never before. However, the material that remains
for the work of remembering and commemorating
this period of history is determined by both the
bureaucratic excesses of the Nazi regime and the attempt
to eradicate its victims without trace. This book argues that
memory culture in the Berlin Republic is marked by an archival
turn that reflects this shift from embodied to externalized,
material memory and responds to the particular status of the
archive “after Auschwitz.” What remains in this late phase of
memory culture is the post-Holocaust archive, which at once
ensures and haunts the future of Holocaust memory.
Drawing on the thinking of Freud, Derrida, and Georges Didi-
Huberman, this book traces the political, ethical, and aesthetic
implications of the archival turn in contemporary German
memory culture across different media and genres. In its
discussion of recent memorials, documentary film and theater,
as well as prose narratives, all of which engage with the
material legacy of the Nazi past, it argues that the performance
of “archive work” is not only crucial to contemporary memory
work but also fundamentally challenges it.
O
S
DORA OSBORNE
is Senior Lecturer in German at the University B
O
of St Andrews. R THE POST-HOLOCAUST
N
E
Cover image: Berlin-Dahlem, Document Center: the files and central index of the National Socialist ARCHIVE IN GERMAN
Party, taken over by the American military government in 1947, turned over to the German Federal
Archives (Bundesarchiv) on July 1, 1994. Interior view. Photo 1994 © AKG / Herbert Kraft.
MEMORY CULTURE
Cover design: Frank Gutbrod
DORA OSBORNE
What Remains
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Dialogue and Disjunction:
Studies in Jewish German Literature, Culture, and Thought
Series Editors:
Erin McGlothlin (Washington University in St. Louis)
Brad Prager (University of Missouri)
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What Remains
The Post-Holocaust Archive
in German Memory Culture
Dora Osborne
Rochester, New York
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Copyright © 2020 Dora Osborne
All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation,
no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system,
published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted,
recorded, or reproduced in any form or by any means,
without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
First published 2020
by Camden House
Camden House is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Inc.
668 Mt. Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620, USA
www.camden-house.com
and of Boydell & Brewer Limited
PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK
www.boydellandbrewer.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-64014-052-3
ISBN-10: 1-64014-052-X
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Osborne, Dora, author.
Title: What remains : the post-Holocaust archive in German memory culture /
Dora Osborne.
Description: Rochester : Camden House, [2020] | Series: Dialogue and
Disjunction : Studies in Jewish German Literature, Culture, and Thought |
Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “A study of the
archival turn in contemporary German memory culture, drawing on recent
memorials, documentaries, and prose narratives that engage with the material
legacy of National Socialism and the Holocaust”—Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019036920 | ISBN 9781640140523 (hardcover) | ISBN
9781787446649 (nook edition)
Subjects: LCSH: Holocaust, Jewish (1939–1945)—Germany—Public opinion.
| Collective memory—Germany—Social aspects. | National socialism—
Germany—Public opinion. | Holocaust, Jewish (1939–1945), in motion
pictures. | Archives—Moral and ethical aspects. | Germany—Cultural
policy—21st century. | Germany—Public opinion.
Classification: LCC D804.45.G47 O83 2020 | DDC 940.53/181—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019036920
This publication is printed on acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America.
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To Paul and Emil
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Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: Memory Culture’s Archival Turn 1
1: The Post-Holocaust Archive 18
2: Memorial Projects: Memory Work as Archive Work 44
3: Documentary Film and Theater: The Unfinished Business
of Archive Work 86
4: Prose Narrative: Archive Work and Its Discontents 128
Conclusion 172
Notes 177
Bibliography 201
Index 219
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Illustrations
1. Deportations-Mahnmal am Ort der Synagoge Levetzowstraße
(Deportation Memorial at the Site of the Levetzowstraße
Synagogue, 1988) 47
2. Interior view of the permanent exhibition Wir waren
Nachbarn (We Were Neighbors) 51
3. Exterior view of Zermahlene Geschichte (Crushed History) 62
4. Hanging exhibits. Part of permanent exhibition in basement
area of Thuringia’s Main State Archive in Weimar and a key
element of Zermahlene Geschichte (Crushed History) 64
5. Memorial mosaic outside Duisburg’s main train station 75
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