Agents of memorialization: Gunter Demnig's Stolpersteine and the individual (re-)creation of a Holocaust landscape in Berlin

Cook, Matthew R.; Riemsdijk, Micheline van

doi:10.1016/j.jhg.2013.09.001

Cited by 17 publications

(8 citation statements)

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“…These memoryscapes remind us that crimes utterly gruesome in nature occurred in mundane places – our experiences of them are punctuated by our everyday routines in places where we shop, work, or walk. Their design and spatial orientation affect how they are interpreted as sites of memory, and influence whether, and how, the public interact with them on a daily basis, and how they ‘sit’ within a wider spectrum of ‘“state‐driven” commemoration’ (Cook and van Riemsdijk , p. 138). Such interactions are not always associated with mobility through – or to – these sites of memory; rather, they can occur through the discursive practices of narrative (re)production.…”

Section: Understanding the Nexus Of Meta‐conceptsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geographies of memory, place and identity: Intersections in remembering war and conflict

2016

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The terms memory, place and identity exemplify the core concerns of geographical inquiry – focusing on linkages between people, place, and culture. In this review, we hone in on the intersections between these three terms in the context of the remembrance of war and conflict. We seek to highlight how memory informs the construction and maintenance of identities (personal, national, and supranational) post‐conflict and post‐war, and how these identities are drawn upon and articulated through place. In doing so, we also explore how investigations of and in memory benefit from methodologies that engage with more‐than‐human and more‐than‐representational approaches. We take this stance because memory is a powerful force invoking experience, emotion, and an awakening of the senses. Its affective capacity moves beyond stoic representations of memory in stone and marble, for example; it can be smelt, touched, felt, imagined, tasted, and heard. Any one of these sensations has the agency to transport us not only to different times but to different places. With this in mind, we use this review to investigate how memory (re)produces and maintains the identity of places, communities, and nations. Understanding the links between memory, identity, and place also leads to a concomitant process of comprehending the influence of a politics of memory in the (re)production of both places and identities.

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Section: Understanding the Nexus Of Meta‐conceptsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geographies of memory, place and identity: Intersections in remembering war and conflict

2016

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“…This scholarship does address the present in terms of challenging orthodox practice's preference for overemphasizing places with positive aesthetic and historical attributes. Examples include advocacy to recognize and preserve "bad places" (Page, 2015), places of civil protest and state terrorism (Page, 2008(Page, , 2013, and places associated with the Holocaust (Cook & Alderman, 2015;Cook & van Riemsdijk, 2014) and World War I (Kapp & Otnes, 2018). While not centered on difficult places, a couple of preservation scholars advocate for policy changes in relation to the history of marginalized groups.…”

Section: Social Justice Equity Diversity and Inclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does intra-disciplinary historic preservation scholarship address the exigent issues of practice? Exploring the character and impact of preservation knowledge production in relation to critical heritage studies, equity, and social justice

Wells

2020

International Journal of Heritage Studies

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This content analysis was based on the analysis of paper, book, and edited book publications that were self-defined as contributing to preservation scholarship. The four primary objectives were to: 1) identify the authors of this group; 2) define what a "scholarly" publication is-only these publications were allowed to form the corpus of "preservation scholarship"; 3) collect every single "scholarly" publication produced by these authors, and 4) perform a content analysis on this preservation scholarship, dividing it into salient categories and themes. In order to identify the authors of preservation scholarship, faculty were selected from National Council for Preservation Education (NCPE) member degree programs who were full-time and on the tenure-track or already tenured with a 50% or more teaching appointment in an historic preservation degree program (undergraduate or graduate). Program web sites, emails, and phone calls to departments were used to identify full-time, tenure-track and tenured faculty with a 50% or more teaching appointment to an historic preservation program. Where departments did not share details on the distribution of faculty teaching responsibilities, the relevant college or university course schedule listing was consulted to identify which courses each preservation faculty member taught across several semesters. Programs housed in institutions that do not use the tenure system, such as Boston Architectural College, Pratt, and Savannah College of Art and Design, were not included.

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“…Microhistory was born out of the dissatisfaction of macrohistory, which is an attempt to capture an historical event through a monument or museum. The efforts to present history at a macro level are usually state-sponsored, state-driven, and state-sanctioned (Cook and van Riemsdijk, 2014). The type of microhistory is considered more personal because the meaning is deeper for the families left behind.…”

Section: From 'Mourning' To 'Commemorating'mentioning

confidence: 99%

Death and One of Its Many Narratives: The Story of the Stolpersteine-Project in Germany

Suganda

2020

IRHS

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Within the contemporary German society, there is an initiative that has been ongoing for over 25 years. This initiative is called the Stolperschwelle which is conducted to commemorate the falling victims of the Nazi. An artist named Gunter Demnig started the whole project in 1992, and in 2017 – with the support of the society – he succeeded to place the 70.000th stumbling stone (in German; Stolpersteine), a 96 mm x 96 mm x 100mm brass plaques in the pavement of the last victim’s address. At first, it was meant to remember the death of the Jewish during the Nazi era, but nowadays the stumbling stones also represent the death of the marginalized groups including the Gipsy, the homosexuals, people with physical disability, and people who are falsely accused because of their religious and political belief. In the Stolpersteine-project, anybody can show their respect for the victims of the Nazi by sponsoring a stumbling stone – its manufacture and its installation for 120 euro – dedicated to one victim. This article analyses how this Stolpersteine-project can be viewed from various perspectives by using socio-cultural, historical, and urban landscape perspectives. The study is conducted using a qualitative approach through literature review. The findings show that the main story evolving around the Stolperstein project is the death of someone, caused by extremely terrible matter. By engaging in the Stolperstein, the modern German society tries to commemorate someone’s death, even someone they do not personally know. The historical perspective looks at the difference of microhistory and macrohistory when it comes to one nation’s history. In the Stolpersteine project, people deal greatly with microhistory. Finally, the urban landscape perspective emphasizes that the construction of space can contribute to reliving the past as well as building a better understanding for a nation’s generation.

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Agents of memorialization: Gunter Demnig's Stolpersteine and the individual (re-)creation of a Holocaust landscape in Berlin

Cited by 17 publications

References 0 publications

Geographies of memory, place and identity: Intersections in remembering war and conflict

Geographies of memory, place and identity: Intersections in remembering war and conflict

Does intra-disciplinary historic preservation scholarship address the exigent issues of practice? Exploring the character and impact of preservation knowledge production in relation to critical heritage studies, equity, and social justice

Death and One of Its Many Narratives: The Story of the Stolpersteine-Project in Germany

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