Agreed. When Maya Lin designed the Vietnam war memorial, it was after she had spent years surveying every “word” in the world’s architectural vernacular for solemn memorials. Even someone who speaks no English and knows nothing about the memorial wall would still instinctively behave appropriately on approaching it, because its purpose and meaning are intuitively obvious.
The same is not true of Eisenmann’s memorial in Berlin. If it weren’t a memorial to the Holocaust, it would be a parkour training playground. It really should be removed and replaced with something fit for purpose.
Most people seemed aware that it was supposed to be a memorial rather than a playground. Shouldn’t that be enough to discourage juggling and parkour? The Vietnam War Memorial in DC is pretty modernist too but most visitors know not to use it as a skateboard ramp.
I was there not long after it was built, which was before selfies were a thing. The very first thing I noticed was how groups of teens and young adults were running through the rows, climbing on the columns, and in generally laughing and talking excitedly. Yes, it’s abstract, but it’s a full city block and very clearly meant to convey seriousness.
And this in a city that otherwise is very cognizant and respectful of its place in history.
There’s something weird about how it’s perceived. I can’t explain it.
I’ve now thought about this for a while, trying to figure out why exactly this shaming of people masked as satire bothers me. I know now: It’s petty. You know, you comb through photos online of the memorial and then nitpick a few in which the people are a bit too happy or the poses too casual or the angles and expressions too artsy for your taste. And then of course you have to spend yet more time on each individual shame project to make your point again and again.
That’s petty, your time would be much better spend elsewhere.
Also, I’ve been to that memorial twice now. Of course most people contain themselves and keep a solemn face there. Also, there are like custodians there that tell people not to climb on it and keep it together please. However, it’s also true that it’s a very abstract piece of art so you walk in there with you solemn face expecting some grand moment of realization and… oh, you’ve walked out the other end. Sorry, was that it then? Ok…Now what? Maybe, just maybe we’ll take on quick shy guilty photo with no smile on. There, now we all leave.
And then there’s the thought of perspective, too. Yes, the holocaust happened. So have countless other atrocities in human history. And on the other hand, every day babies are born that will possibly learn about some of these, decades, maybe centuries after the fact, in history class, and millions of them will just not get it. There’s a reality check for you. And the world keeps turning, and ‘the holocaust’ will be one chapter in the book, then half, then 2 paragraphs, then one, then one in every other book and so on…heat death of universe, no more books obviously.
Damn, i’m done.
people do not always behave appropriately, or sometimes it is just a cultural disconnect. And I have to agree that the Eisenman memorial does not present much context. Add the elements that the whole of the city was the site of almost surreal horror and death, and political pressure that forbids any sort of memorial for the German dead. People could visit with a broad range of ways to express their feelings and experiences. Maybe the juggler lost a relative who was also a performer, and his juggling at the monument is just expressing that "they cannot get all of us. Here I am showing that they could not stop us, even from juggling. I juggle here to celebrate that the Nazis could not end my family."
But most of them are just narcissists.
I wasn’t juggling any balls then.
However, I don’t really want to condemn the juggler either. Maybe we think that he must be some self-obsessed poseur, but who knows. Maybe he did all this fully willingly because he wanted to transform the darkness with his art and bring happiness into the world.
Yet, maybe he’s a resident of Berlin and as such has a certain right to decide what goes and does not go in his city, which we do not possess.
Or what if the juggler were Jewish, then we’d get into great confusion with our shaming efforts.
I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that you might be the opinion police around here.
Then, ‘we mustn’t let ourselves be desensitized to the horrors’ sounds good on paper, but how pray tell are we going to accomplish that? More history lessons? Hasn’t helped in the past, people still grew up only slightly less dense than their forebears. More memorials? Ought to be quite a number once we’re done. More books? Millions don’t read, won’t care, still do well in life and revel in their ignorance.
Suggesting that people maintain a basic sense of decorum at a memorial to the most monstrous act of mass murder in living memory would be one place to start.
Not at all. I don’t have a good way to phrase what I wanted to say. I will try again: A people who do not build memorials to their own dead are not going to approach such monuments in the same way that other cultures might. Even that phrasing is wrong. It is not really a comment about Nazism, except that the Nazis have changed how modern Germans look at the past, which is that they do not think about it very much.
Did you have stroke when writing this? Or do you want to induce one when reading your post?
The memorial is for our own dead! Many of those that were killed were german citizens. That’s part of the lesson taught here and still relevant today (muslim registry…)
Yeah right and that’s why this and similar memorials where build in every city, all the remembrance days, mandatory school education where the holocaust is shoehorned into every available subject and yada yada…
If the juggler was Jewish, then he’s a chilhul hashem and should have to ask forgiveness from those that he wronged–but he can’t, because they’re dead. Honorable treatment of the dead is a major topic in Judaism, and this sort of lack of respect is pretty high up on the list.
