The Fallacy of Race and the Shoah

VISUALIZING MEMORY—A LAST DETAIL

VISUALIZING MEMORYA LAST DETAIL I recently returned from a trip to the commemorative events of the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the Flossenburg concentration camp where, 50 years ago, I was freed from Nazi oppression. Prior to the commemoration I returned to Auschwitz.The journeyprompted thoughts about the meaning that this experience has for the world we live in today. As we approach another epoch in the annals of the Shoah,how we view the past and record this event is foremost in the minds of survivors. That which one cannot speak of is doomed to silence. The village of Flossenburg, in 1995. (Photo: Naomi Kramer) 123 Sign above "Cafe Alexandra" indicates the direction to the Memorial Site of Flossenbiirg. A Bavarian resident, 1995. The Red Cross was prepared to cope with "unforeseen disasters" at the commemorative events. (Photos: Naomi Kramer) It is incumbent on survivors to recount their experiences. We are not only obliged to speak for our fellow Jews who perished, but also to bear witness, ensuring that the past is recorded according to our testimony and not interpreted only through the model of Nazi bureaucracy and the perspectives of the perpetrators and collaborators. The suffering of Jews and the thousands of Jews who perished in this camp was largely unrecognized at the commemorative "celebration"organized by the Bavarian Government, which took place on 23 April 1995, in Flossenbiirg,Germany. The loss of the silent witness found in physical remains compels survivors to come forward with our testimony.As I walked through the grounds on which 50 years ago I had been selected to die because I was a Muselmann, a walkingskeleton, I found recently constructed homes where the barracks had once stood. Familiesnow live in former residences of the SS and conduct their lives unaware of the previous inhabitants.All traces of the Messerschmidt factory where Iwas used as slave-labour have vanished. In this factory thousands of inmates died of starvation and as a result of intolerable workingconditions.Labour was a replaceable resource and an indispensable element of the Nazi war economy.The brief three-month life expectancy of a slave was considered a bonus to those who orchestrated the industry of death. The quarry,in which thousands perished as easily replaceable waste products of brutal working conditions, is now owned and operated by the Bavarian government. Much of the same equipment and machinery used by the inmates half a century earlier is still maintained.Here the atrocities of the past are known only to those who bring their memories or knowledge with them. The watchtower used by the SS guards to oversee inmates as they marched from the barracks through the centre of the village to the quarry is today a news kiosk where one can purchase souvenir postcards of Flossenbiirg on which unidentified pictures of the former SS guard tower 124 VISUALIZING MEMORY—A LAST DETAIL are juxtaposed incongruously with photographs of the town chapel. Flossenburgers are sold.The inadequacy of language is painfully obvious in the use of the word "Flossenbiirger."To the survivor, this usage is a desecration of the anguish and hardship suffered there. A survivor at the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Flossenbiirg concentration camp. (Photo:Naomi Kramer) Design debacle: Comme des Garcons draws ire on the Paris rumvoys "Holocaust Fashion." Designer Rei Kawakubo said in her response to World Jewish Congress's demand that the concentration-camp-stylegarb be removed from the label's spring menswear collection that she was"shocked and saddened"the clothes elicited anything other than the aura of "sleep" she intended. (Newsweek, 20 February 1995) 125 A picture postcard sold in Flossenbtirg in 1995. There is no explanation of the photographs on the postcard—the guard tower in the camp is situated below the church, which is next to the memorial chapel and above the view of the town—suggesting that there is a equivalence in the meaning of the images. The postcard could be purchased in the news kiosk. (KFF Archives) The former Appelplatz, where the daily roll call was taken,is now a combination parking lot and children's playground. The laundry and latrines, today a textile factory, were located on the perimeter of this space where men became numbers, faceless presences forced to stand for hours on end, yet refused to surrender their humanity to brutal torturers. The passing of time presents a dilemma to survivors and indeed...