Holocaust Monuments and National Memory : : France and Germany since 1989 / / Peter Carrier.

• VerfasserIn: Carrier, Peter,
• Place / Publishing House: New York; , Oxford : : Berghahn Books, , [2005]; ©2005
• Year of Publication: 2005
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (280 p.)

Since 1989, two sites of memory with respect to the deportation and persecution of Jews in France and Germany during the Second World War have received intense public attention: the Vélo d'Hiver (Winter Velodrome) in Paris and the Monument for the Murdered Jews of Europe or Holocaust Monument in Berlin. Why is this so? Both monuments, the author argues, are unique in the history of memorial projects. Although they are genuine "sites of memory", neither monument celebrates history, but rather serve as platforms for the deliberation, negotiation and promotion of social consensus over the memorial status of war crimes in France and Germany. The debates over these monuments indicate that it is the communication among members of the public via the mass media, rather than qualities inherent in the sites themselves, which transformed these sites into symbols beyond traditional conceptions of heritage and patriotism.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgements -- List of Abbreviations -- Introduction -- Part I Monuments and Collective Memory -- 1 Monuments in History -- 2 History in Monuments -- Part II Paris and Berlin as Sites of Memory of the 1990s -- 3 Paris: the Vél’ d’Hiv’ and the Promise of National Reconciliation 1992–974 -- 4 Berlin: the Monument for the Murdered Jews of Europe and the Promise of Consensus 1988–2000 -- 5 The Institutionalisation of Memory in Public Art and Rhetoric -- Part III Dialogic Monuments between Negotiation and State Intervention -- 6 The National Memorial Paradigm -- 7 The Postnational Memorial Paradigm -- 8 Dialogic Monuments -- Appendix -- Bibliography -- Index