Autoethnography and Memory/Memorials of Conflict and Crisis

In the winter of 2009, I travel to Berlin to be part of Germany Close Up, a strategic initiative, co-created by the General Consul in New York and the Central Council of Jews in Germany, and now administered by action Reconciliation Service for Peace in cooperation with the New Synagogue Berlin, to “encourage German-Jewish-North American dialogue as well as to strengthen the involvement of the North American Jewish community in transatlantic relations” (germanycloseup.de). For nine days, our group tours modern and historical sites throughout the capitol city, including a visit to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The memorial consists of 2,711 concrete slabs, or stelae, that bare no markings such as name or date. The stelae are cold and smooth to the touch and their size inconsistent; some tower above the head while others barely reach the ankles. The monument is designed to create a sense of groundlessness and disorientation; it aims to represent a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human reason, a seemingly controlled environment in chaos.1* * *In the spring of 2019, upon entering the National Memorial to Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama, that feeling of loss, disorientation, and instability reemerges. As a panel participant of Memory/Memorials of Conflict & Crisis: Autoethnography, Narrative, Performance, and Poetry at the Southern States Communication Associations, I am again experiencing a memorial of immense magnitude within a context of conversations about cultural understanding, social justice, and the process and practices of remembering.The resemblance between the two memorials is unsettling. Not only is the feeling these spaces create one of overwhelming confusion, sadness, anger, and regret, but the comparable physicality of hard lines and sharp corners, cold minimalist materials, and wide-open spaces is striking. The wear and tear of the materials is also notable. In Berlin, harsh winters have caused the gray paint to chip away from the stelae, and the concrete beneath crumbles. In Montgomery, the rain and humidity cause the metal to rust and turn green, also dying the concrete below to brown.The somber performance of visitor is also mirrored between the two sites. A need to demonstrate respect and sadness is integral to the visit. Learning from our past is another vital component in these spaces. In Montgomery, I watch a grandmother explain to two young girls why the people in the statue are wearing chains and how their freedom is also their responsibility to succeed. In Berlin, years after my initial visit, on my second summer teaching a study abroad, I stand near one of the taller stelae and supportively listen to a student mutter in disbelief about what he’s just seen in the museum below. Growing up in India, he was taught nothing about the Holocaust and, at twenty-two, seeing the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis for the first time is overwhelming.These places are powerful. The multi-generational and international experiences of sharing a past and protecting a future is immense. The shock of realizing what people are capable of is horrific. Memory and memorials are as much about the past as they are about our present and future.As similar as the two places are, their differences are also striking. The National Memorial to Peace and Justice is newer and closer, both emotionally and physically. The events it remembers happened in the country where I live. The Monument to the Murdered Jews of Europe happened in a foreign land, and while it did happen to my people, I have no immediate familial connections. Plus, I’ve witnessed first-hand German reparations; I’ve seen the country own up to its history and make significant changes to better its future. As Americans, we may applaud ourselves for standing on the right side of history during World War II; we cannot do the same with our history of slavery and lynching, nor with our current industrial prison complex and systemic racism. We have not owned up to our past, and this can be seen in the debates surrounding the creation of the National Memorial to Peace and Justice. People in America do not want to remember what happened; Montgomery does not want this memorial tarnishing their city. In Berlin, there is no choice but to remember. State-sanctioned monuments and vernacular memorials scatter the landscape. Visitors come to the modern German city just to seek out its traumatic past.In Montgomery, the National Memorial to Peace and Justice is on the outskirts of the city, with a small museum centrally located. In Berlin, the Monument to the Murdered Jews of Europe occupies four and a half acres of prime real estate, nestled among the Brandenburg Gates, the American Embassy, and the entrance to the Tiergarten.The National Memorial to Peace and Justice mixes statues, sculptures, fountains, and gardens. There are lists of names, dates, and locations. No names are anywhere at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The National Memorial to Peace and Justice is the only of its kind; it is a montage of memorial practices. The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe is one of hundreds if not thousands of Holocaust memorials spread around the world, many of which feature names, dates, fountains, gardens, and the like.For me, the most striking difference of all is the names given to these spaces of memory. The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe leaves no room for interpretation or confusion. The language is harsh and abrasive. Murdered Jews. The space owns its past, without question. The National Memorial for Peace and Justice could be about anything or anyone. I can recognize Peace and Justice may be emblems of progress and forgiveness, about the future, but the lack of specificity feels symptomatic of an unwillingness to deal with a difficult past. In the city where Martin Luther King Jr. was a pastor, I think about his words, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that;” I also think about his other words, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” Peace and Justice feel like silence to me. But perhaps Murdered Jews is darkness.How to remember a tragic past is a question without a single answer. This question has long been asked of Germans and, arguably, one long avoided by Americans. Among the panelists who participated in Memory/Memorials of Conflict & Crisis: Autoethnography, Narrative, Performance, and Poetry at the Southern States Communication Associations, we explored questions of remembering through “autoethnography, narrative ethnography, poetry, performance, and site-specific dialectics.” In the following pages, panel leaders and participants share their experiences of memory and their stories from visiting the National Memorial for Peace and Justice

Autoethnography · Citation · Icon · Interlibrary loan · Journaling file system · Library science · Media studies · Social science · Sociology · Computer Science · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration