Title: From Memorials to Bomb Shelters: Navigating the Emotional Landscape of German Memory
Abstract: AbstractThis article addresses the emotional landscape of German memory in the aftermath of the Holocaust and the Nazi past. Different narratives of memory are discussed: the collective, cultural discourse of memory in Germany today; autobiographical memory among Germans and those of German descent; and the impact of history and the role of memory in the clinical situation. Personal experience and its role in the analytic setting is examined within the context of cultural discourses that shape collective and autobiographical memory. The author draws on his experience as a psychoanalyst of German descent, and as a so-called third-generation German. Analytic work with second and third generation Holocaust survivors is discussed. Emphasis is placed on the emotional contexts of memory, and on affect states, such as shame, which challenge and complicate the navigation of history and memory, particularly in analytic interactions. Notes1 By describing all the war dead as victims, the Neue Wache essentially undertakes a leveling of perpetrator and victims, of Nazi soldier and concentration camp victim. On the leveling of perpetrator and victim, Reinhart Koselleck states: “Victimhood in a national monument implies a lack of agency and that all Germans were in some way victims of a hegemonic amorphous regime. Victims in a national monument does not introduce the question of perpetrators but rather induce an institutionalized forgetfulness [sic]” (as quoted in Kattago, Citation2001, p. 139). Kosselleck proposed changing the Kohl administration’s proposed inscription to avoid the leveling of perpetrator and victim, and suggested instead: “The dead: killed in war, murdered, gassed, killed, missing” (as quoted in Kattago, Citation2001, p. 140). Like Koselleck, Bubis saw the memorial as a “leveling down of the victims” (as quoted in Niven, Citation2002, p. 195).2 Goldhagen’s book, Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (1996) addressed the actions of the Nazi regime and the support it received from average Germans (cf. Zank, Citation1998 and for an updated, 2008, version of the article see: http://www.bu.edu/mzank/Michael_Zank/gold.html). For Goldhagen, the question to be asked was how the Holocaust was possible to begin with, and why it had occurred in Germany. His book helped break through the distinction between the Nazi criminal and the normal German, between those who carried out the crimes under the regime, and the average German soldier. Throughout the book, Goldhagen refers to Germans, not Nazis. Although Goldhagen’s thesis that an “eliminationist anti-Semitism” formed an essential part of the German national identity has been questioned by many historians, his conclusions about the involvement and support of ordinary Germans for the Holocaust were not. Indeed, Goldhagen’s book found a wide reception among the German public.3 This theme has been written about in regard to the experiences of the descendants of Holocaust survivors. For a variety of perspectives, see the work of Felman and Laub (Citation1992) and Hoffmann (Citation2004).4 The history of the Jewish community of Hannover has been discussed in multiple sources. My brief overview draws chiefly on Avneri and Daemming (Citation2012).Additional informationNotes on contributorsRoger FrieRoger Frie is Professor of Education, Simon Fraser University; Affiliate Professor of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia; and Supervisor and Faculty, William Alanson White Institute and Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis.
Publication Year: 2014
Publication Date: 2014-10-02
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 8
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