Tijdschrift: Getuigen tussen geschiedenis en herinnering - Nr. 120 (april 2015): Welke toekomst voor de herinnering aan de Armeense genocide?

INTERVIEW
HERMAN
VAN GOETHEM
“Clearly, this museum
constitutes a work
of collective memory”
PORTFOLIO
BUCHENWALD
A Beech Forest
120
1 / 2015
tussen geschiedenis en herinnering
Testimony between history and memory
Internationaal tijdschrift van de Stichting Auschwitz / auschwitz foundation international quarterly
DOSSIER
WELKE TOEKOMST VOOR
DE HERINNERING AAN DE
ARMEENSE
GENOCIDE?
18 EURO

Inhoudstafel
NR. 120 – APRIL 2015
4 REDACTIONEEL
5 AGENDA
8 KRONIEK
8 Paths of Glory
12 Der Anständige Heinrich Himmler
15 Shell Shock. A Requiem of War
18 Vasily Petrenko fulmineert
in de 13 de symfonie van Sjostakovitsj
19 Collectie ‘Les Musiciens
et la Grande Guerre’
20 The ARC Ensemble committed
to Remembering the Forgotten
22 PORTFOLIO
A BEECH FOREST
34 INTERVIEW
Herman Van Goethem (Kazerne Dossin)
“CLEARLY, THIS MUSEUM
CONSTITUTES A WORK
OF COLLECTIVE MEMORY”
42 DOSSIER
116 VARIA
116 Van ‘ondervonden’ genocide naar
bevestigde etnocide. De Amerikaanse
indianen en de grenzen van definities
Anne Garrait-Bourrier
131 Rechtstreeks getuigen en getuigen
aan de hand van sporen
Désirée Schyns
142 Beyond Memory: Italy and the Holocaust
Interview with Robert Gordon
150 The (self ?)-liberation of the Buchenwald
concentration camp prisoners as viewed
by German historians
Jean-Louis Rouhart
42
UN SUPPLÉMENT
DOSSIER
WHAT FUTURE
IS THERE FOR THE
MEMORY OF THE
ARMENIAN GENOCIDE?
44 Presentation
51 On memory, identity, and genocide
Uğur Ümit Üngör
61 Remembering the Armenian genocide
in contemporary Turkey
Seyhan Bayraktar
71 Een nieuwe golf
Interview met Sila Cehreli
77 Het Armeense bewustzijn
in het Duits-Turkse discours
Michael Hofmann
91 Geheugen, weefsels en de esthetiek
van de verplaatsing
Marie-Aude Baronian
103 Kinships Past, Kinship’s Futures
David Kazanjian
112 Chronology
114 Bibliography
160 WOORDENBOEK OVER GETUIGENIS
EN HERINNERING
l Communicative memory l Passio Perpetuae
et Felicitatis l Perpetrator images
l Survivance l The apostle Thomas, called
“the doubting Thomas” l Tourism and memory
l Transnational memory
l Memorial site: Kommunarka
172 HERINNERINGSLABO
181 BOEKENPLANK
200 NIET TE MISSEN
D’ÂMEA Philippe Mesnard,
head of the editorial board
These last few years I have regularly
been asked, during press or radio interviews, what I
thought about the new wave or waves of anti-Semitism
or judeophobia, as it is called. Statistical studies,
rigorous scholarly research and journalistic inquiry
demonstrate, through sad findings indeed, that AN
ANTI-JEWISH SENTIMENT HAS BECOME MORE
PRESENT IN THE LAST FEW YEARS. Intentional
acts against Jews are on the rise, no longer restrained
to profanation and insults. More partisan discourses
also arise, which take into consideration the previous
numbers and facts, and hardly conceal a satisfaction
that such events occur – moreover, they encourage an
increase in antagonisms.
Yet, on one side as on the other, people remain
focused on current news and are short-sighted, as if
the period from after the war time and until the year
2000 marked a consistent improvement of the situation,
along with an ever-growing moral consciousness
and its idyllic clichés. We could however shift points
of view and propose another vision of anti-Semitism
which, without challenging the truth of specialists, nor
encouraging alarmists, would not hold to the narrow
horizon of our present time but go further into the
landscape of society and, inextricably, of culture. And
to say, then, that there is a significant proportion of
the population which – without it necessarily being
due to a domestic transmission, nor even to a tradition
or an allegiance – has always sustained a hatred
for Jews, like an extra touch of spirit – un supplement
d’âme – to ordinary racism. Some people could have
Redactioneel
everything to be racists. In the end, they distinguish
themselves with an anti-Semitism rooted either in
extreme right or extreme left politics, which through
its anti-Zionism can easily camouflage, encourage or
support an anti-Semitic sentiment, whilst claiming
to be anti-racist.
Well, one must accept that, during the past seventy
years, nothing has changed about such fringes of the
population, its mass remaining basically constant but
no less difficult to locate. Radical groups risen from
Islam perhaps do not make up the most numerous
part, even if they are the most widely covered as they
tend to be the most deadly. Nothing has changed for
these people after the genocide of the Jews, after the
lessons learnt from the great trials of criminals, after
school programs, after pedagogical trips, films, books
and events of all sorts. THERE ARE PERHAPS NEW
ANTI-SEMITISMS, BUT SOME ALSO DO NOT
CHANGE as they are rooted in a Western culture which
not only offers them hospitality, but feeds into them by
perpetuating clichés such as the “rich and hypocritical
Jew” (for this see Phoenix, Christian Petzold’s latest
film, all in all a remarkable work which establishes the
German filmmaker).
This is how, seventy years after the fall of the
greatest enterprise that has ever aimed for the total
destruction of the Jews, the latter still do not have the
assurance of not being the target of criminals or fanatics
who intentionally wish to remove them definitively
and, now, in broad daylight. ❚
Translation: Sarah Voke
2 Getuigen tussen geschiedenis en herinnering – nr. 120 / april 2015 Testimony Between History and Memory – n°120 / April 2015
3

Kroniek
Logbook
PATHS
OF GLORY
FILM Meer dan vijftig jaar geleden al
verscheen deze film, een typevoorbeeld
van het genre ‘aanklacht tegen de
absurditeit van de oorlog’. Hoe actueel is
Kubricks werk vandaag? En is de film nog
even subversief als toen hij net verscheen,
precies op het moment dat in Franse
intellectuele en culturele kringen de oorlog
in Algerije aan de kaak werd gesteld?
© Alle rechten voorbehouden
Nog niet zo lang geleden gold de Eerste Wereldoorlog
in het Franse collectieve geheugen als
het model van een verbitterde maar succesvolle
strijd. Door hun opoffering en hardnekkige
verzet hadden de soldaten het gehaald op het
Duitse leger, dat nauwelijks een paar weken na het
begin van het conflict Parijs had weten te bedreigen.
Je kunt je dus voorstellen hoe terughoudend de militaire
elite in de jaren vijftig, midden in de Algerijnse
oorlog, wel was om dat heldhaftige beeld opnieuw aan
de orde te stellen. Daarom mocht Paths of Glory, waarvan
de première in Brussel plaatsvond, onder druk van
de militaire autoriteiten niet in Frankrijk en andere
Europese landen worden vertoond. De film had inderdaad
niet alleen een antimilitaristische boodschap,
maar vestigde ook de aandacht op een weinig bekend
maar belangrijk fenomeen, namelijk executies om een
voorbeeld te stellen.
De plot begint tijdens het jaar 1916, met de legers in
een patstelling. Generaal Mireau krijgt de opdracht om
de Mierenhoop te heroveren, een strategische positie
die als onneembaar geldt en die de vijand al een jaar
bezet. Hij vertrouwt de taak toe aan kolonel Dax en
die aanvaardt ze ondanks reserves, omdat hij het bevel
over zijn mannen niet wil verliezen. Het offensief mislukt
en het grootste deel van de troepen raakt door het
meedogenloze artillerievuur van de Duitsers niet uit
de loopgraven. Vervolgens veroordeelt de generale staf
drie willekeurige mannen tot de dood om een voorbeeld
te stellen en zo de aandacht af te leiden van hun
ernstige politieke en strategische fout.
De elites verstoppen zich achter een masker van
patriottische deugd, maar verbergen daarmee in werkelijkheid
een totale ongevoeligheid voor het soldatenleven.
De waarden waarop ze zich beroepen – de idee
van een oorlog die de mens verheft door het aanwakkeren
van moed, zelfverloochening en eer – zijn maar een
farce, een vertoog waarmee ze hun enorme cynisme
en moordende carrièrejagerij willen verdoezelen. Ze
hebben helemaal geen weet van het dagelijks leven van
de soldaten, die ten prooi zijn aan ongeziene kwalen (in
het bijzonder psychologische); liever doen ze het lijden
af als lafheid en betichten hen van veinzerij.
Die psychologische dimensie van de oorlog werd
pas laat in een nieuw daglicht gezien. Na afloop van de
Tweede Wereldoorlog werd weinig aandacht geschonken
aan de psychologische nasleep van het geweld.
Tegenwoordig bezet niet langer de heldhaftige strijder
de centrale plaats in het Europese geheugen, maar wel
het gewonde, getraumatiseerde slachtoffer, geconfronteerd
met georganiseerd geweld dat hem overstijgt. Via
die nieuwe collectieve overtuiging mogen de naamlozen
dan wel een langdurige erkenning krijgen, maar
vaak wordt zo een collectieve pleister gelegd op de
wonden uit het verleden en wordt de rol van militaire
en politieke overheden in dat drama niet opnieuw ter
discussie gesteld.
Paths of Glory heeft vandaag aan subversieve kracht
SHELL SHOCK.
A REQUIEM
OF WAR
OPERA Shell Shock was created for the
commemorations of the centenary of
the First World War. Aiming to give an
account of the violence of the conflict,
the composer, Nicolas Lens, chose to
mark the consequences of the moments
experienced on the front lines, among gas
and exploding shells.
If the classic evocations (narratives, testimonies,
photographs) of soldiers who experienced the
trenches and of the Yser plains give an insight
into the nature of the conflict and the intensity of
the suffering that was endured, this Requiem offers
a significant tribute to those who were most deeply
affected by the war – the crippled, the gueules cassées
and the traumatized. The tribute takes the rare form
of an opera here, which includes songs, recitatives, and
choreography. The show gives a challenging account of
the consequences of all modern conflicts, reminding
those who are alive that hell, in time and in space, is
never very far away.
The interpretation of the orchestra and the symphonic
chorus of La Monnaie, directed by Koen Kessels
and assisted by Martino Faggiani, translate the
nature of the hostilities as well as the fear of the men
who faced them. The musical compositions blend with
the laments of the victims, expressing splendidly the
implacable violence of the combat and the tragedies it
generates. Let us thank Claron Mc Fadden, Sara Fulgoni,
Gerald Thompson, Ed Lyon and Mark S. Doss,
soprano, mezzo, tenor and countertenor, respectively, l l l
4 Getuigen tussen geschiedenis en herinnering – nr. 120 / april 2015 Testimony Between History and Memory – n°120 / April 2015
5
© Filip Van Roe / Reporters

a
Portfolio
© Ph. M.
A BEECH FOREST
Avast beech forest covers the Ettersberg hill,
overlooking the city of Weimar. Goethe used
to wander in these woodlands on sunny
days. After the First World War, Weimar
became the centre of the Bauhaus movement and the
birth place of the new German constitution. The historical
“Weimar Republic”, deriving its name from the
famous city, was besmirched, however, when the Nazis
came into power. In July 1937, they opened a concentration
camp on the wooded slope –Buchenwald is
German for beech forest – adding a sinister twist to
this “vacation area”.
Given its sad reputation, it is tempting to associate
the large forest on the Ettersberg to a small birch
meadow – Birkenau in German – in Poland. Both places
seem like two photo negatives of the same subject – the
prints Nazi terror left on the lives of so many, with a
violence that cannot be exposed clear enough. While
Birkenau (Auschwitz II) becomes the Nazi’s most
sophisticated and deadly extermination camp, Buchenwald,
perched on the beautiful hillside, was promoted
to the Reich’s largest concentration camp: 250,000
deportees were imprisoned here; 56,000 died of starvation,
through police torture or medical experiments.
8,000 Soviet POWs were killed one by one, shot in the
neck – reminding us of yet another event, namely the
killing, in a similar way, of part of the 22,000 members
of the Polish elite, mostly military, in the spring of 1940.
Back then, the agents of the NKVD pulled the trigger.
During the war years, the Buchenwald Empire
expanded across the Thuringia territory. It consisted
of 136 satellite camps including Gandersheim, where
Robert Antelme was held prisoner, and Zeitz, where
Imre Kertész was sent. Jorge Semprún was locked up
in the main camp, the same place where Elie Wiesel’s
death march following the evacuation of Auschwitz
stranded.
The camp was liberated by the American troops on
11 April 1945. 1 But the history of the beech forest does
not end on that day.
After the retreat of the Americans, the domain fell
within the authority of the so-called Soviet Occupation
Zone (SBZ: sowjetische Besatzungszone). The old
camp was instantly replaced by a new one. Indeed,
why not use what was already available and, moreover,
fully operational? “Special Camp No.2” was part
of a network of ten Soviet camps and three prisons.
The Speziallager, known for its extremely harsh living
conditions, was hermetically sealed from the outside
world. Functionaries of the Nazi party (NSDAP) were
brought in, as well as suspects and victims of denunciation.
In total, 28,000 prisoners were locked up in the
camp; 7,000 died during the terrible winter of 1946-
1947. In February 1950, shortly after the establishment
of the German Democratic Republic (7 October 1949),
arrangements were made to dissolve the infernal little
planet that was Special Camp No.2.
Parallel to the Nazi camp’s resuscitation into a
Soviet one, the process of its memorialization started.
After the first commemoration on 19 April 1945 (see
photo above), the former Nazi camp became a major
player on the memorial scene. Throughout the forty -
year history of the GDR, it has been the apologetic theatre
of antifascist heroism. There was not a single East
German who was not compelled to identify with the
promoted icon. Later on, in the 1990s, the defoliated
lands of the campsite, once and for all stripped from
the wooden barracks, seemed ready for a new flowering
season. Little by little, commemorative plaques in honour
of the victims of Buchenwald sprung up, whereas
in the communist discourse they did not have a place.
In the new museum, visitors can now discover the history
of the Soviet camp. The camp’s entrance, in fact,
leads onto the mass grave, also memorialized, which
contains the piled-up bodies of the NKVD campaign.
The immense tonsure of the vast and slanted beech
forest, operated by the concentrationary machinery,
is today covered with plaques. ❚
Philippe Mesnard
(Translation: Anneleen Spiessens)
(1) The article of Jean-Louis Rouhart in our “Readings” section
discusses the communist legend of the camp’s self-liberation.
6 Getuigen tussen geschiedenis en herinnering – nr. 120 / april 2015 Testimony Between History and Memory – n°120 / April 2015
7

Interview
Interview
Erected on the banks of the river Dyle, Kazerne Dossin consists of two sister buildings
since 2012. A memorial was installed where the old museum used to be, while a
monumental concrete cube harbours the new museum. It is indeed an impressive
memorial complex. Time to meet its chief curator who, as a university professor, combines
research and memorial practice at the level of society itself.
AInterview led by Philippe Mesnard and Anneleen Spiessens (Translation: Sarah Voke)
on 28 November 2014 in Antwerp with Herman Van Goethem, professor in Law and History
at the University of Antwerp, general director and curator at Kazerne Dossin (Mechlin, Belgium).
❝ CLEARLY, THIS MUSEUM
CONSTITUTES
A WORK OF
COLLECTIVE MEMORY
❞
How did Herman Van Goethem come to be interested
in memory ?
Herman Van Goethem: I studied History and Law
and I always strove to work at the junction of these
disciplines. I have gained a lot from this. I became a
professor very young, at the age of 31, as I was lucky
to be able to follow a professor who was finishing his
career. As far as teaching, I have primarily taught on the
History of Law and Institutions. As far as my research,
which I feel is a real vocation for me, I delved into the
fascinating archives on the political history of Belgium
in the 19 th and 20 th centuries, namely what is termed the
“community problems” of the country, the relations
between Flemish and Francophones, and State reform.
I also took a great interest in sorcery trials. They are
terribly interesting. I also spent time on trials such as
Nicolae Ceaușescu’s, on 25 December 1989.
He was a famous sorcerer…
H.V.G.: Yes. It really was, to refer to René Girard,
a scapegoat trial, a totalitarian trial. The phenomenon
of collective violence, the kind of violence which
takes on the shape of rites, mass rites, is the point I
focused on. In 1994, I published a vast study on King
Leopold III with Jan Velaers (Velaers & Van Goethem
2001); I then edited the war journal of a minister (Van
Goethem 1998). Around year 2000, after the publication
of Lieven Saeren’s book on Antwerp and the persecution
of the Jews (Saerens 2000), I moved toward
questions of law pertaining to the town of Antwerp’s
responsibility during the occupation, as well as the
organization of the raids, the police, etc., I was guided
by questions such as: Where was the burgomaster?
What about the King’s Prosecutor?
I turned toward a thorough investigation of the
administrative collaboration for which there lacked
an historical framework, despite valuable advances
in the research on this subject. It is easy to study the
administration of France during Vichy. Collaboration
was official and anti-Semitism was rooted in the daily
lives of the administration much more than it was in
Belgium, where collaboration was more reserved. Two
l l l
© Ph. M.
8 Getuigen tussen geschiedenis en herinnering – nr. 120 / april 2015 Testimony Between History and Memory – n°120 / April 2015
9

DOSSIER
A Under the direction
of Philippe Mesnard
WHAT FUTURE
IS THERE FOR
THE MEMORY OF THE
ARMENIAN GENOCIDE?
The 1915 genocide of Turkish Armenians still stirs up numerous debates,
controversies, declarations of principle, statements and counter-statements, and
even negation. However, as we speak, ties are being established more and more
openly, bridges are built and bonds strengthened between the Armenian and
Turkish communities. Is reconciliation possible?
© Pascaline Marre
Testimony Between History and Memory – n°120 / April 2015 11

DOSSIER
WELKE TOEKOMST VOOR DE HERINNERING AAN DE ARMEENSE GENOCIDE?
PRESENTATION
100 Years Later…
A memory laboratory between
Armenians and Turks?
At different levels,
a dialogue is making itself heard, not
only between Turkish and Armenian
intellectuals, writers, and artists, but
also between Turkish civil society and
its Armenian component. We tend too
much to associate negation of the Armenian
genocide with Turkish society as a
whole and, consequently, to stigmatize
the latter. It’s surprising we still haven’t
ascertained the extent of the negative
effects caused by stigmatizing a population
or a nation, which generally (and
it’s unfortunately bound to happen)
responds mimetically to the evil image
we make of it.
“All Turks are negationists!” The
harmfulness of such utterances heightens
the feeling of isolation of those it
targets. It exacerbates their paranoiac
potential, and, at the same time, reinforces
the position of those who produce
it. This is less a case of rivalry than of
blockage between sides declared as
opposing and forced into this Manichaean
adversity. But, contrary to the
picture painted too often by the European
media, a trend toward critical
awareness has started in Turkey. Will
the country be given enough leeway
to go forward? To what degree do its
governments suffer from not having
full control of the past? From the outside,
will we be sensitive enough to this
potential so as to encourage it rather
than risk its being snuffed out?
✻
✻ ✻
Fondapol (http://www.fondapol.
org), in partnership with the Fondation
pour la Mémoire de la Shoah, conducted
a wide-ranging poll on the state
of memories of the 20th century, under
the name Future Memories. For this
remarkable initiative, it polled 31,172
young people age 16 to 29, in 24 languages
and in 31 countries. In response
to the question “Do you think we can
speak of genocide regarding the massacre
of the Armenians by the Turks
in 1915?”, 33% of the Turks surveyed
answered “Yes.” The study’s commentary
rightly highlights that this is an
encouraging figure, given the situation.
We could ask ourselves how many
Europeans would have imagined such
a percentage.
We must also add, for those not
aware, that in Turkey we can find an
Armenian community, Armenian
newspapers, as well as citizens of Turkish
origin who support recognition of
past crimes – or who even campaign
for it, despite the regular pressure and
violence some of them may suffer (the
A trend toward critical awareness has
started in Turkey. Will the country be given
enough leeway to go forward? To what
degree do its governments suffer from not
having full control of the past? From the
outside, will we be sensitive enough to this
potential so as to encourage it rather than
risk its being snuffed out?
former from the government, the latter
from ultranationalists). The assassination
of Hrant Dink on 19 January 2007
was a tragic example that helped many
Turkish citizens to fully understand the
historical and political situation.
This realization – or level thereof,
as it varies and does not necessarily
require simple acceptance of the word
“genocide” (Insel & Marian 2009) – is
marked by a clear-cut and harsh split
with Turkey’s successive governments
and largest political parties. These
unanimously refuse to recognize not
only the scale of both the premeditation
and the organization of the massacres
that targeted Armenians of all ages and
of both sexes indifferently, but, as a consequence
thereof, they refuse the label
“genocide”, which is the most serious
one in terms of political crimes. Internationally,
this leads to flagrant opposition
from many Western governments,
which approve of this description in the
media but find themselves in an uncomfortable
position when they include
Turkey, as is often the case, among their
economic and geostrategic partners.
And then there are the communities,
made up of members of the diasporas,
who share affinities and come together.
The process by which the protagonists
of Armenian memory speak out is generally
in relation with such communities.
From the countries where they are
established, they emit many signals, as
the memory of the massacres is embedded
in their memory of exile (Altounian
2014). For example, the aim of the film
The Cut (2014) by the German-Turkish
director Fatih Akın, is to tell us, through
the journey of a father looking for his
daughters who escaped all the way to
the heart of the United States, that the
marks of the crimes committed against
the Armenians in 1915 are borne by and
within an experience that is simultaneously
one of wandering and quest. The
layered, personal and community memory
that arises from this experience provides
the disaster of bloody expulsion
with, if not a framework for enunciation,
a cultural and human foundation for
supporting its transmission.
In the last thirty years or so, this
transmission has been recognized as
a memory in the public space. It has
benefited from circumstances much
more favorable than previously to the
visibility and readability of past violence
against minorities (Mesnard
2014, 99-104). For example, publications,
monuments, museums, exhibitions,
public declarations and events
(meetings, symposiums, debates, conferences),
and the mobilization of the
media provide information on what
happened. The “Armenian genocide”
has now a topicality that previously
existed only among a limited circle. This
weighs heavily in public opinion, and all
the more so because from the end of the
1990s public construction of the memory
of the Armenian genocide has been
carried out in tune with the memory of
the Holocaust, with many of its actors
providing their intellectual support and
their experience to the memory initiatives
of the Armenian diaspora.
The publishing of
this Dossier was
accompanied by a
seminar held on 15 March
at the Royal Academy
of Belgium (Brussels)
and is supplemented by
recordings of its talks,
available at the following
address: http://www.
auschwitz.be/index.
php/fr/videos-479/
construction-de-lamemoire-du-genocidedes-armeniens
12 Getuigen tussen geschiedenis en herinnering – nr. 120 / april 2015 Testimony Between History and Memory – n°120 / April 2015
13

DOSSIER
WHAT FUTURE IS THERE FOR THE MEMORY OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE?
PRESENTATION
1915-2015. No one can ignore
the opportunity represented by this
centenary, even though the commemorations
linked to World War I, the
twentieth anniversary of the Tutsi genocide,
and the seventieth anniversary
of the victory over Nazism all suggest
that the tone of the present is already
deeply imbued with the violence of the
twentieth century. It’s as if the twentyfirst
century, still in its early years, was
forced to declare deep links with the
previous century through these occasions
and, above all, not to cut ties with
them.
So, there we have it: 1915-2015. Testimony
Between History and Memory is
also taking advantage of this centenary
to present a Dossier on... what issues
exactly?
This Dossier has not been designed
to meet expectations for historical
explanations. Many works and events
are going to try to satisfy these. We have
sought to take on a radically different
perspective by dealing with questions of
memory based on their contemporary
We have sought to take on a radically
different perspective by dealing with
questions of memory based on their
contemporary issues, as much in Turkish
society as in transnational arts.
issues, as much in Turkish society as in
transnational arts. And while historians
are mentioned in the following pages, it
is not as representatives of their discipline.
Historiography is a major branch
of knowledge of our era, and we support
the institution. Nonetheless, it is also
true that neither violence nor memory
are its preserve, even though at times
we would easily be led to believe so in
French-speaking countries.
This is why we have invited contributors
from other horizons. Other horizons
because another of our concerns
has been to adopt a multi-perspective
approach by crossing points of view
of different academic, national, and
community origins. In a way, this issue
has sought to be post-commemorative,
so as to open up a new “memory laboratory”
even broader than those that
fuel the column that usually ends our
revue. We call this a “memory laboratory”
because what is emerging in the
positive spiral of relationships between
the Armenian memories coming from
Turkey, the diasporas, or the Republic
of Armenia on the one hand, and
the Turkish national and community
(especially that of immigrant Turks in
Germany) memories on the other represents
exceptional material for discovery,
interpretation, and analysis of
the multiple circulation of pasts. This
material concerns the way the real is
shown and imagined as much as the real
itself, calling up not only multicultural
and postcolonial issues, but also what
Michael Rothberg calls multidirectional
memories (2009; 2014).
Back to our Dossier...
First, Uğur Ümit Üngör, as an archeologist
of memories bequeathed by witnesses
(in the sense of bystanders) to
their children, gives an account of his
work. He touches on an aspect that has
hardly been researched: oral accounts,
which he was able to gather in the field.
His research on what he calls social
memory has become essential reading
on the massacres and their traces in
contemporary Turkish society, whose
image he helps to put in a better light by
detaching it from the governing political
authorities.
The following article, by Seyhan
Bayraktar, in a way takes Uğur Ümit
Üngör’s reflections further, by refocusing
them on the activist issues surrounding
the construction of the memory of
the Armenian genocide in Turkey. This
way, we can better perceive the stances
of progressive Turks and the consequences,
generally considered negative,
of the attacks committed by ASALA
(Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation
of Armenia) in the 1980s. After this
period, during which it was believed that
demands for recognition could be met
via the myth of so-called direct action,
many initiatives for reconciliation were
created, like that of WATS (Workshop
for Armenian/Turkish Scholarship of
the University of Michigan), founded in
2000. These weakened the negationist
discourse, without the need for any law
to penalize it.
Recognition stumbles over the one
word “genocide” and all it implies in
and by its definition. The Turkish governments
have never denied that there
were massacres on a breathtaking
scale. Disagreement occurs regarding
the planning and ideological responsibilities
that the governments from the
1920s to the present have concealed.
This negationism is thus different from
that of the Holocaust or that of the genocide
of the Tutsis. Nonetheless, society
is undergoing changes, even among the
most sensitive branch of senior civil
servants: the judicial authorities. With
this regard, allow me to recount a short,
true story.
Mehmet Aksoy, one of Turkey’s
most famous sculptors, built one of
his monumental works, Monument
for humanity, in Kars, in the north of
Turkey. It showed two human beings
approaching one another in a gesture
of reconciliation. The statue was thirty
meters tall and could be seen from the
other side of the border, in the Repu blic
of Armenia. After a visit to the site, the
Islamist-conservative prime minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan ordered the
destruction of what he considered to be
an insult to the state. Despite mobilization
to save the statue, it was reduced
to dust in 2011. But the artist didn’t give
up; he began legal proceedings against
Erdogan. It was recently reported
(‘Beleidigung bestätigt’, Tageszeitung,
6 March 2015) that he was symbolically
condemned to pay 3500 euros in damages.
This would indicate that things are
changing: the seismograph readings are
jumping about, and it is truly difficult
from the outside to grasp the trends
occurring in Turkish society.
This is why we had to let Sila Cehreli
speak out. Lecturer at Marmara University
(Istanbul), not only is she faced
with all these issues, but she works on
them directly in her work in teaching
and research. Her position and career
are all the more remarkable because she
14 Getuigen tussen geschiedenis en herinnering – nr. 120 / april 2015 Testimony Between History and Memory – n°120 / April 2015
15

DOSSIER
WELKE TOEKOMST VOOR DE HERINNERING AAN DE ARMEENSE GENOCIDE?
PRESENTATION
If memory must indeed
work so that crimes
are recognized on the
scale to which they were
committed, it cannot
stop the passage of
time on one shocking
freeze frame.
has made a name for herself in France as
a pioneer of historiography of the Nazi
death camps in Poland (Cehreli 2013).
She can thus give an account of the situation
in her country from an internal
and external point of view (born in
Germany, specialist of the Holocaust in
France, and focusing her attention on
Turkey’s Armenian community).
Let us look at the arts next. Michael
Hoffmann’s contribution concerns Germany
seen as a multicultural country.
He presents the main works of writer
Zafer Şenocak and filmmaker Fatih
Akın, both Germans of Turkish origin.
Each in his way seeks to get closer to
this other memory – the mark or the
Armenian “ghost” (Marchand & Perrier
2013) – that reminds them not only of
their own identity of origin and of what
haunts its history, but also how that
other genocide, that of the Jews, is dealt
with in terms of memory by the German
society in which they were raised and
whose nationality they possess. Multiple
memory relationships with the
past become even heavier with meaning
when we consider that possible
involvement in the Armenian genocide
by Germany, the historical ally of first
the Ottoman Empire and then Turkey,
is currently being investigated by historians,
in particular journalist Jürgen
Gottschlich (2015).
The question of what can be represented
with regard to these massacres,
which were perpetrated largely during
the forced deportations towards the
Syrian desert, is posed by the fictional
choice adopted by Fatih Akın. Atom
Egoyan had already taken a chance at
it with his Ararat (2002), whose reception
was not equal to the power it had of
asking questions and to the intelligence
of its composition. Ararat’s strength lies
in several frame narratives that present
the issue of transmission, of the impossible
mourning that leads to suicide,
and the realistic attempt – by a film
within a film – to represent the genocide.
Marie-Aude Baronian, a specialist
of Egoyan (Baronian 2013), makes his
film a reference point when presenting
two artists, Gariné Torossian and
Mekhitar Garabedian, and she applies
her concept of “textured memory form”
to them, thereby taking up the ancestral
fabric design culture of the Armenians.
After Hoffmann and Baronian, we
have David Kazanjian, who has also
studied artists’ works to support what
can be interpreted as a hypothesis
on the possibility of creating kinship.
According to him, the term “reconciliation”
is not strong enough and is too
conventional to describe what could
be achieved. How can such kinship be
created? How can we imagine kinship
that can overcome such violence, which
has dragged on due to the intransigence
of a state that categorically refuses the
strongest qualification of the crimes
attributed to it? This kinship would
indeed be unprecedented, even if we
think of post-war Jewish-German relations
(for which, when we look at them
closely, cannot be compared).
Kazanjian does not claim to be alone
in answering the question posed by this
hypothesis. To back it up, he mentions
two outstanding works: “Self-Portrait
as an Ottoman Woman” by Aikatarini
Gegisian and a collaboration between
Nina Katchadourian and Ahmet Ögüt
called “AH-HA”. As with the previous
works commented by Michael Hofmann
and Marie-Aude Baronian, the artists
turn out to be actors less of memory
than of realization. The real, here in
relation with the past, asserts itself as
an event through the artistic event that
becomes its mediator. It thereby avoids
the conventions of official discourse or
even becomes intolerable to it, as in
the previously mentioned story of the
sculptor, prime minster, and judge.
This Dossier grants considerable
importance to image – not just image
as illustration, nor images whose
aim is to shock, nor the imaginable
image. Because whereas we can represent
everything, we can’t imagine
everything. This is the reason why the
photos by Pascaline Marre, which are
neither visual discourses nor clichés,
seemed to us to be the only ones to give
the remains that are still left the feeling
of an “almost nothing” even more terrifying
than if they had all disappeared.
✻
✻ ✻
The ideal of kinship developed by
David Kazanjian reflects the different
approaches of social memory and memory
construction developed respectively
by Uğur Ümit Üngör and Seyhan Bayraktar
in the articles that open this
Dossier. These are non-institutional
memories that seek to be made visible,
but without showing themselves and
even less making a show of themselves.
These memories develop independently
from political authorities (which are
thus free to oppose them), and they also
maintain a distance from memory institutions.
While based on the past, they
are not exclusively focused on it.
If memory must indeed work so that
crimes are recognized on the scale to
which they were committed, it cannot
stop the passage of time on one shocking
freeze frame. That’s why the elements
that come into play with this idea of
kinship (the expression of which we set
great store by), encourage memory to
consider dissolving for and into the (re)
activation of relationships among the
various groups concerned.
This trend goes much further than
the simple and idealistic rediscovery of
the multiculturalism of certain eras of
the Ottoman Empire (as was the case
under the Habsburg reign) and seems
to seek to create new forms of imagined
communities (Anderson 1983) that go
beyond being rooted in a national identity
with the identity politics excesses
that brew there, so that identity as an
aim (or as origin) is replaced by the circulation
of identities such as multiple
languages that hence become places
of exchange, mixture and translation
of a postmonolingual condition (Yildiz
2012). This is how we can discover this
aspect of memory often ignored by its
too headstrong official representations:
this aspect that makes itself a crossing
point or a zone where identities pass
in transit and transmute, and not just
blend, justify themselves, and legitimize
themselves. ❚
Our deep thanks to Michael Rothberg and
Yasemine Yildiz for their help, which gave
impetus and encouragement to the production
of this Dossier.
The photos featured in the dossier are taken
from Pascaline Marre’s project “Fantômes
d’Anatolie” (Phantoms of Anatolia).
www.pascalinemarre.com
BIBLIOGRAPHY
• Altounian, Janine, ‘J’ai senti
physiquement ce que c’était
que d’appartenir à une minorité
discriminée’, Testimony Between
History and Memory 119, 2014,
50-59.
• Anderson, Benedict, Imagined
Communities: Reflections on the
origin and spread of nationalism,
London & New York: Verso, 1983.
• Baronian, Marie-Aude, Cinéma
et mémoire. Sur Atom Egoyan,
preface by Aïda Kazarian,
Brussels: Royal Academy of
Belgium, 2013.
• Cehreli, Sila, Témoignage
du Khurbn. La résistance juive
dans les centres de mise à mort.
Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor,
Treblinka, Paris: Kimé, 2013.
• Insel, Ahmed & Michel Marian,
Dialogue sur le tabou arménien,
interview by Ariane Bozon, Paris:
Liana Levi, 2009.
• Gottschlich, Jürgen, Beihilfe
zum Völkermord. Deutschlands
Rolle bei der Vernichtung der
Armenier, Berlin: Ch Links Verlag,
2015.
• Marchand, Laure & Guillaume
Perrier, La Turquie et le fantôme
arménien. Sur les traces du
génocide, preface by Taner
Akçam, Arles: Actes Sud, 2013.
• Mesnard, Philippe, ‘Mémoire
“en progrès” (II)’, Testimony
Between History and Memory 117,
2014, 93-105.
• Rothberg, Michael,
Multidirectionnal memory.
Remembering the Holocaust in the
Age of decolonisation, Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 2009.
• Rothberg, Michael, ‘Locating
Transnational Memory’, European
Review 22(4), 2014, 652-656.
• Yildiz, Yasemine,
Beyond the Mother Tongue:
The Postmonolingual Condition,
New York: Fordham University
Press, 2012.
16 Getuigen tussen geschiedenis en herinnering – nr. 120 / april 2015 Testimony Between History and Memory – n°120 / April 2015
17

Readings
A Interview with Robert
Gordon by Simona Storchi
(University of Leicester)
_ Robert Gordon.
Beyond Memory:
Italy and the Holocaust
In his new book The Holocaust in Italian Culture (2012), Robert Gordon analyzes
how post-war Italy has confronted, or failed to confront, the Holocaust. Simona
Storchi interviews him about the specificities of Holocaust representation in Italy
and about Italy’s position in the broader field of Holocaust memory.
In the first chapter, you present your book as a survey of Holocaust studies in Italy.
The book, however, seems to be also a more general reflection on Holocaust studies so
far and a contribution to a redefinition of the field. To what extent is the Italian case a
channel for such a reflection and what contribution can it offer?
Robert Gordon: I began research for the book by immersing myself in the wave of
Holocaust studies that gained force in the 1990s and by researching the patterns and
places of Holocaust memory in various countries and cultures over the long post-war
era. As a research field, these works seem to pose a crucial general question: how and
why did the Holocaust emerge over the post-war epoch as a key – perhaps the key
– world-historical event of the 20 th century; how was it confronted and disavowed
in different ways in different places at different times? There were pioneering and
inspiring works on Germany and on Israel, of course; a cluster of important accounts
of France and America as sites of Holocaust memorialization, even – perhaps more
surprisingly – work (such as Tony Kushner’s (1994)) on the role of Holocaust in
post-war British intellectual and political life, in its “liberal imagination”. There
was pioneering scholarly research into Holland, Belgium, Denmark and after 1989,
a parallel wave of communal and scholarly recovery of this history in the countries
behind the fallen Iron Curtain. To some extent, then, when I began my work, Italy
was simply a missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle, a relatively neglected corner of the
Holocaust story and of its legacy in post-war national and cultural histories. As I
carried on to work closely on the Italian material, I became convinced that the Italian
case could become something more than just one more case to tick off in a catalogue
of “national” memory studies, something a little more anomalous, more complex
and thus more important than that. Also, I became convinced that Holocaust studies
needed to move beyond the straightjacket of national case studies.
This was for two principal reasons: one historical and one methodological. Historically,
Italy had laid down the fundamental ideological origins of the Holocaust,
simply because Fascism and the modern
totalitarian state was invented there,
and sustained for two decades with
apparent broad consensus, a model for
Hitler to emulate. But not only Hitler:
indeed, Italy’s real importance perhaps
lies in the more general model Mussolini’s
Fascism built for this ideological
construct, replicated not so much or
not only in Berlin but across occupied
and collaborationist Europe with its
swathe of ambiguous complicities with
the genocides of the 1940s. Italy also,
however, paradoxically stands as a
model for “good” national Holocaust stories: as a nation or a people that helped to
“save” its Jews, to block deportations until 1943 and frustrate them thereafter, to
hide neighbours and indeed strangers, leaving relatively few (“fewer” than 10,000)
victims in the invidious tables of statistics of the dead. This is part historical record
and part pervasive historical myth of the Italians as decent and life-loving where the
Germans were rigid ideologues and “willing executioners”. The Holocaust in Italy is
a field traversed by these two phenomena – Italy as birthplace of Fascism, Italians
as emblems of human decency – neither quite right, both disturbing and disturbed
by standard lines of Holocaust historiography and culture, of Holocaust studies.
To get at the complexity this created, I looked for a sort of symptomatology as a
method: a way of tapping into as many different, eclectic cultural artefacts as I could,
circulating around the Holocaust in Italy, reading them as echoes of that field of
criss-crossing hidden tensions. I tried to make each chapter focus on a different order
of elements in the field: on a particular cluster of years, on an influential individual,
on sites that are focal points for Holocaust memory (a city like Rome or a monument
in a camp), on different kinds of language or metaphors that have circulated around
the Holocaust, on stereotypes and stock images, on links from Italian to international
webs of Holocaust knowledge, and so on. By building up these different elements, I
hoped to capture something of the general shape of Italy’s Holocaust culture.
I would like to pick up on that term – the “shape” of Italy’s Holocaust. You point out
that while in recent years a great deal of research has been devoted to Holocaust legacies,
memories and cultures in such countries as Germany, France, Israel and the United States,
as well as in Eastern Europe, little work of either analysis or synopsis has been produced
in Italy. Why do you think this is the case?
R.G.: It was certainly the case when I began my research that there was very little
acknowledgement of or attention paid to the Holocaust in accounts of modern Italian
history and very little also on Italy in the growing field of Holocaust studies. This
was strange from a cultural point of view and seen from outside Italy, since certain
_ Structure of Risiera di San
Sabba prison camp, Trieste.
© Robert Gordon
18 Getuigen tussen geschiedenis en herinnering – nr. 120 / april 2015 Testimony Between History and Memory – n°120 / April 2015
19

Readings
The (self ?)-liberation
of the Buchenwald
concentration camp
prisoners as viewed by
German historians
© DR
AJean-Louis Rouhart,
Haute École de La Ville
de Liège
If there is one dossier which still today is subject to debate among German historians,
it is the question of the liberation of the Buchenwald national socialist
concentration camp, which took place on 11 April 1945.
For years the dominant thesis, at least in the former GDR, claimed the camp had
been liberated by communist prisoners, until, following the fall of the GDR regime
in 1989 and the German reunification in 1990, historians set about deconstructing
what had evolved into a myth according to them. The new version of the events,
clearly less heroic, was based on the liberation of the camp by American troops,
during which rebellious prisoners consequently played an incidental and anecdotal
role. Beside these two opposed versions, there were, even right after the events,
witnesses and historians with a more moderate view who corrected people’s excess
and who proposed interpretations which seemed closer to the reality of the events.
The following article proposes to examine in greater detail the different versions
of the events as advanced by German historians. It confronts their points of
view in order to better understand the ins and outs of a dossier that was qualified
by a German historian as the “Buchenwald conflict” (Zimmer 1999). The article
certainly does not claim to provide a definitive answer to the question of knowing
if, and in what measure, prisoners at the Buchenwald camp liberated themselves
without the intervention of American armed forces. An in-depth and exhaustive
study would be necessary to collect all essential information. One would have to
include both the extensive primary and secondary literature on the subject whilst
taking into consideration the opinions of all historians on the general question of
the Buchenwald camp. Considering the extent of such a study, nevertheless long
awaited (Neumann 2012, 18), it would clearly go beyond the scope of this paper,
solely dedicated to the analysis of German historiography on the question of the
liberation of the Buchenwald camp.
When we gather testimonies from former communist prisoners who lived the
events, and the interpretations which followed the events by East-German historians,
we fairly easily manage to render the version of the events such as it was
propagated during many years and taught in schools in the GDR. This version was
qualified as the “Miracle of Buchenwald” (“Wunder von Buchenwald”, Fein & Flanner
1987, 239) and can be outlined as follows: as the first American armoured vehicles
approached during the afternoon of 11 April 1945, combat groups (“Kampfgruppen”),
which had been formed by the ILK (Internationales Lagerkomitee, International
Committee of the Camp), would have taken the “tower” or large entrance gate of
the camp (Ibid., 233) by storm, made holes in the electric fences and reached the
miradors by seizing the SS guards who were inside. They would have disarmed the
guards and then raised a white flag atop the tower. Equipped with weapons stolen
from the arsenal of the SS, 1 500 prisoners would have formed a long chain of protection
around the camp and chased the SS who would have fled into the nearby woods,
until, two days later, units of Patton’s army took charge of the camp. According to
this version, American troops would not have liberated the Buchenwald camp. The
political prisoners themselves would have deliberately prepared, then triggered
and carried out the armed revolt (Drobisch 1967, 157). “Das Lager hatte sich selbst
befreit”, he camp liberated itself (Bartel & Trossdorf 1960; Drobisch 1967; Fein &
Flanner 1987; Kühn & Webert 1967; Ritscher 1985, 146).
Until today, the defenders of this theory, some of whom directly witnessed the
events, repeatedly make reference to the war journal of the headquarters of the
_ Final scene in Frank
Beyer’s Nackt unter
Wölfen (1963), based on
the eponymous novel of
Bruno Apitz (1958). The
film tells the story of the
so-called “self-liberation”
of the camp, in accordance
with the GDR’s communist
ideology.
20 Getuigen tussen geschiedenis en herinnering – nr. 120 / april 2015 Testimony Between History and Memory – n°120 / April 2015
21

Dictionary
Woordenboek
over getuigenis en herinnering
Memorial site
KOMMUNARKA
WORDS OF TESTIMONY
AND OF MEMORY
. Because researchers,
professors and professionals
working in the arts, culture or
news are more and more often
needing to use words from
the fields of testimony and of
memory, Testimony Between
History and Memory has set itself
the objective of gathering them
into a dictionary, thus opening
up this experimental space.
One word can take on different
meanings depending on the
language it is used or circulates
in. This is why certain terms of
the dictionary will be approached
in a multilinguistic, or even in a
multicultural way.
. This project will be realized
in two stages. Each term from
an index in progress will be
presented twice. First in the form
of short notices in each edition
of the review, then inviting
developments and a critical
debate, with multiple voices, on
a website that will start running
from the Summer 2015. We will
associate to their short version,
voluntarily incomplete, a few
book titles, however not claiming
to be exhaustive.
COMMUNICATIVE
MEMORY
Memory, in its original sense,
means a cognitive process
internal to each individual.
Its social dimension was revealed
by sociologist Marice Halbwachs in
Les cadres sociaux de la mémoire,
published in 1925. A student of
Bergson and then Durkheim,
Halbwachs was interested in how
memory and society were linked.
With the expression “collective
memory” he designated the individual
memory, as it is sustained by
society, and the memory of society
itself. Yet, as Marc Bloch highlights,
“we are free to pronounce the word
‘collective memory’, but we should
not forget that at least part of the
phenomena we thus label are simply
communication occurrences
among individuals” (73). This
part of communication within the
memorial process only finds its terminological
envelop with Jan Assmann’s
distinction, dating from the
1980s, between two types of collective
memory: “cultural memory”
and “communicative memory”.
In the years 2000, Harald Welzer
worked mainly on communicative
memory, which he distinguishes
from social memory – an essentially
unconscious memory. His
research also takes into account,
as much as possible, the latest
advances in neuroscience.
From the observations of these
various theorists, we can define
communicative memory as the
whole of the representations of the
past or concerning the past, as well
as the mechanisms that (re-)build
these representations, which are
released and shared within a network
of communication by individuals
who witnessed this past.
Thus, communicative memory
lies at an interindividual communication
level; in other words, it lies
essentially at the scale of a group:
family, religion, social class, ethnic
group, village, etc. But it can also
pertain to larger communities, to
national or to “social networks”,
for example. Such communication,
based on everyday practices, now
takes place at a more global scale
thanks to certain means of communication
that tend to substitute
direct contact, such as written or
audiovisual communication broadcast
via the press or the Internet.
This interindividual dimension
allows Aleida and Jan Assmann to
delineate communicative memory
to a period of three or four generations
(80 to 100 years), thereby
defining its historical framework.
Finally, because communica-
Four kilometres from the
ring road to the South West
of Moscow, along the old
Kalouga Road, the former dacha of the
People’s Commissar for Internal Affairs
Yagoda – baptized after the name of the
“Kommunarka” sovkhoz, property of
the NKVD during the Stalinist period
– does not have any road signs nor
indications inside public transportation
to take you in this direction. Visitors
are dependent on locals’ good faith and
sense of direction, most of whom ignore
this place or have only a vague idea of
what it is. The entrance to the site, which
one reaches after walking five hundred
meters through mud or snow, depending
on the season, is announced with a large
blue signpost brandishing an orthodox
cross: “Histori cal monument ‘Special
Kommunarka site’. Mass burial site of
the victims of the 1930-1940 political
repression. Russia’s New Martyr Saints
Church. Saint- Catherine Monastery”.
Turning into the forest, we quickly find
ourselves in front of a green gate upon
which a small plaque reads: “Upon
this land rest thousands of victims
of the 1930-1950 politi cal terror.
Eternal memory!” We shall therefore
not be surprised, after reading these
signposts, to learn that since 1999, this
space formerly administrated by the
FSB (Federal Security Service of the
Russian Federations, inheritor of the
KGB) was placed under the administration
of the Orthodox Church. If a few
buses at the entrance suggest that the
© Ph. M.
site aims to be a tourist attraction, we
immediately notice that they belong to
private companies, rented by pilgrims
who have not necessarily come with a
memorial intention. In fact, there are
not many such pilgrims around the few
monuments. The most imposing monument
commemorates Yakuts victims,
another one Mongolian monasteries, a
third one is erected in memory of Andrei
Filipov, Moscow’s prosecutor, arrested
in November 1937 and shot at this site.
Beside, placed among a clump of trees,
stands a cross surrounded by baskets of
white and red flowers adorned with a red
ribbon on which is inscribed: “From the
government of Moscow.”
l l l
0 Signpost: “Historical
monument ‘Special
Kommunarka site’. Mass
burial site of the victims
of the 1930-1940
political repression.
Russia’s New Martyr
Saints Church. Saint-
Catherine Monastery”.
22 Getuigen tussen geschiedenis en herinnering – nr. 120 / april 2015 Testimony Between History and Memory – n°120 / April 2015
23

Herinneringslabo
België
AFLEVERING 2
OVER FICTIE EN WAARHEID,
BEELD EN VERBEELDING
IN DE HEDENDAAGSE ROMAN OVER
DE EERSTE WERELDOORLOG
Getuigen tussen geschiedenis en herinnering.
Interdisciplinair tijdschrift van de Stichting Auschwitz.
Uitgegeven door het studie- en documentatiecentrum
Auschwitz in Gedachtenis en Éditions Kimé.
Eindredacteur: Henri Goldberg.
Hoofd van de redactie: Philippe Mesnard.
Redactiemedewerkers: Nathalie Peeters,
Anneleen Spiessens.
Contact: contact.testimonyquarterly@gmail.com
Redactiecomité: Frédéric Crahay (België), Nathalie Filloux
(Frankrijk), Janos Frühling (België), Luba Jurgenson
(Frankrijk), Isabelle Galichon (Frankrijk), Herman
Van Goethem (België), Meïr Waintrater (Frankrijk).
Wetenschappelijk comité: Marnix Beyen (België), Sonia
Combe (Frankrijk), Bernard Dan (België), Emmanuelle
Danblon (België), Wim De Vos (België), Carola Hähnel
(Duitsland), Fransiska Louwagie (België), Carlo Saletti
(Italië), Frediano Sessi (Italië), Régine Waintrater (Frankrijk).
Concept en grafisch ontwerp:
Yann Collin/www.wakeupdesign.fr
Druk: Nouvelle Imprimerie Laballery –
58502 Clamecy – N° d’imprimeur 403094
De auteurs zijn volledig verantwoordelijk voor de inhoud
van hun artikels. De teksten worden gepubliceerd in het
Nederlands, Engels of Frans.
Testimony has made every reasonable effort to contact
the rights holders for the images published in the journal.
In the event that any content infringes your rights or
the rights of any third parties, or content is not properly
acknowledged, please contact the editors at contact.
testimonyquarterly@gmail.com.
Voorpagina: Poghosyan Family from Hoghe circa 2011
© The Armenian Genocide Museum Institute /
© Pascaline Marre.
Uitgever: Kimé, Impasse des Peintres 2, 75002 Parijs.
www.editionskime.fr
© Éditions Kimé, Paris, 2014
ISSN 2031-4183 / ISBN 978-2-84174-701-6
vzw Auschwitz in Gedachtenis
Studie- en documentatiecentrum
Huidevettersstraat 65, 1000 Brussel - België
00 32 [0]2.512.79.98
www.auschwitz.be
© Hotel Modern
_ Hotel Modern, Kamp, 2005.
OUR NEXT ISSUE
N°121 – OCTOBER 2015
EXTREME VIOLENCE
ON STAGE
The relation between theatre and Destruction is immemorial
– in fact, it dates back to its origins, both of theatre and
of Destruction. How do the performing arts, with all their
imaginable forms of staging, mutually confront and tackle
the highly contemporary issues of memory, history
and politics that we have to face today? How does theatre
make the collective cruelty visible, not to petrify us, but
to stimulate reflection?
Honderd jaar na de Grote
Oorlog buigen niet alleen historici zich over de vraag
naar de diepere betekenis van het eerste conflict op
wereldschaal. De kolossale proporties van de industriële
oorlog stellen ook de verbeelding van romanschrijvers
van vandaag op de proef. De vraag die zij zich stellen
kan door de geschiedschrijvers niet beantwoord
worden. Het essentiële vraagstuk is namelijk
hoe het écht was, voor de gedoemde zielen die de
maalstroom van de geschiedenis ondergingen. Terwijl
documenten en archieven de oorlog depersonaliseren
en objectiveren, is het de romanschrijvers te doen om
de subjectieve beleving, niet van de oorlog (dat is het
domein van de geschiedschrijving, van beslissingen,
troepenbewegingen en slachtofferaantallen) maar
van iemands oorlog, tegen de achtergrond van de
historische gruwel die genoegzaam bekend is. De
hedendaagse romanschrijvers bevragen zich over, en
l l l
De activiteiten van ons Centrum worden mede
mogelijk gemaakt door:
de Nationale Loterij, de Federatie Wallonië-Brussel,
de FOD - Directie-generaal Oorlogsslachtoffers,
de Commission communautaire française (COCOF),
de Nationale Bank van België, Ethias, de Provincies,
de Gemeenten, en onze vrienden en leden. Wij danken
hen hartelijk voor hun steun.
Met onze partner
www.resmusica.com
SUBSCRIPTIONS
Subscription department
Mémoire d’Auschwitz asbl
65 Rue des Tanneurs
1000 Brussels
00 32 (0)2 512 79 98
info@auschwitz.be
50,00 € for 3 issues
Payments may be made by bank transfer
on the account of “Mémoire d’Auschwitz asbl”
IBAN: BE55 3100 7805 1744
BIC: BBRUBEBB
On the internet : www.auschwitz.be – Publications tab – journal Testimony
Tax exemption: all donations above 40 € entitle you to a tax certificate.
Please mention “donation + certificate” on your bank transfer.
24
Getuigen tussen geschiedenis en herinnering – nr. 120 / april 2015