Memorials And Memory Article Review Examples

In an intuitive investigation, Christiane Wilke seeks to reevaluate the significance of memorials in a multifaceted manner. His pursuit is hinged on getting the answers to three questions which revolve around the impact that memorials should have on us; with the ultimate goal of initiating a conversation around transitional justice and the need to incorporate theories of complex identities while ascribing specific relevance to memorials. His research is aimed at providing relevant evidence about the need to be cautious when setting up memorials because more often, their defined purpose ignores the existence of overlapping and congruent scenarios leading to their installation. Having presented similar papers on the subject and evoking sentiments from commentators, this paper has a benefit of greater insight and refinement.
In providing specific examples, the author has settled on two memorials of Nazi victims in the case study, the Herbert Baum Memorial and the Memorial for the Homosexuals Persecuted under Nazi rule in Berlin, Germany. Tracing the genesis of these two memorials, Wilke attempts to use the Intersectional Theory as developed in the American jurisprudence to argue that a similar ‘collective’ approach should be employed in designating memorials. From the introduction, the article suggests an in depth comparative link between transitional justice, and the establishment of memorials against an emerging school of thought that employs the arguments in intersectional theories. However, the article fails to clearly develop a nexus, thus failing in enunciating a strong link. To that extent, this article is largely exploratory on a possible school of thought when we considering the establishment of memorials and the possible significance that they should hold.
Wilke sets the pace by taking us back to the socialist Germany in the later years of the 19th century to the 1930s when a notable advocate for diversity in sexuality was subjected to assaults. Magnus Hirschfeld, whose campaigns against criminalization of homosexuality was to lead to the burning of books suspected to be of Jewish authorship, is an example of individuals whose complex identities would not allow them to be ascribe to any singular heritage. At the time of his life, Hirschfeld, who was openly gay, used his institutes to advocate for tolerance in a socialist state that was becoming increasingly violent to homosexuals. The relevance of Hirschfeld to this discourse for the author is twofold; he was homosexual and at the same time of Jewish decent. He points out that earlier research on Nazi persecutions were misguided by ostensibly discrete pooling of the victims into Jews and Communists; hence rendering other victims unworthy of recognition.
Without expressly stating, the author uses Hirschfield’s predicaments to lay the foundation for the acrimonious debate that surrounded the creation of the Memorial for the Homosexuals Persecuted under Nazism; and by extension, the complexity that would be encountered if we had to have his name in a single memorial plaque. Would we have him in a Jewish memorial? Amongst those who suffered atrocities due to their sexual orientation? Notably, even the new Yad Vashem Memorial which is considered detailed in the history of anti-Semitism, makes no reference to Hirschfeld.
In a bid to develop his hypothesis about the relevance of intersectional scholarship, the author takes us to the contestation surrounding this monument. He reminds his readers about the reservations held by lesbian support groups that the intended monument would only recognize homosexual men, yet even women suffered in the hands of the Nazi. It emerges that while some women suffered as a result of their sexual orientation, there are other factors that might have influenced their predicament.
The Herbert Baum Memorial is the other memorial that Wilke employs as his case study. Located in Lustgarten, this memorial was inaugurated in 1982. At unveiling, it had a message that reflected an intention to acknowledge the strong ties with the Soviet, but the memorial was not explicit on the actual bravery of the group led by Herbert Baum. The interpretation was that the actions by Baum were communist resistance to the Nazi state. However, in 2000, a more befitting inscription was added. It sought to bring relevance of the actions of Herbert Baum in cognizance of other prevailing factors at the time.
In the end, the author uses these two memorials to draw a link between anti-Semitism, homophobia, and anti-Communism. As the intent is to make past suffering present and relevant, the question is what exactly counts as real suffering worth remembering? He notes that there are prevalent misconceptions about who bore the brunt of Nazi persecution, with most people assuming it was expressly the extermination of the Jews as the main goal; and even recent research geared at establishing the other (Roma, Sinti, and homosexuals) victims often try to mirror their suffering along the predominant Jewish holocaust experience.
In summary, Christiane Wilke’s article is a great eye opener about the unfair and often misguiding strict delineation of groups of the oppressed. The dynamics are too great to be ignored. At the peak of the civil rights movement in the United States, the anti-racist campaigners overlooked the fact that within the race, there are other factors that come into play like age, gender, and social class. The sexists also ignored the subtleties that would emerge when individual experiences were tabulated and the experiences of discrimination would be different for black women and white women.
Having stated that the aim of the article is to demonstrate relevance of the intersection theory to the process of transitional justice (expressed in monuments), the author provides a cursory treatment to this concept in turn failing to succinctly present the relevance in a way that a reader can point and say ‘this is it’. In overall, despite some deficiencies to the extent that the paper is largely exploratory (by trying to advance a school of thought) it provides some insight that may guide future discourse in this area of transitional justice. Memorials need to evoke thoughts that, however, different, allows us to connect the past to the present, in pursuits of a greater future having learnt from the mistakes and triumphs of the past.