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Re: [OM] IMG: Vienna's Judenplatz

Subject: Re: [OM] IMG: Vienna's Judenplatz
From: Peter Klein <boulanger.croissant@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2017 18:27:20 -0700
Thanks for your comments, Mike. The memorial was designed by a British artist, Rachel Whiteread. It was installed in 2000, a whopping 55 years after the last death camp was liberated. I don't know all the politics behind the monument, only that it was complex and took over 5 years to resolve. Simon Wiesenthal was one of the people who approved the design. I found it stark, a bit ugly and impersonal, evoking "the people of the book," and entirely appropriate. It contrasts with the pink "icing and buttercream" facade of the nearby building that now houses Austria's Constitutional and Administrative Courts. And the statue of Lessing gazes at the monument, which seems to say, "Look what happened when we rejected your ideas."

What bothered me was something more general. Every sign in Austria commemorating something about the period 1938-45 always says "the Nazis" did this or that. "The Nazis" always seems to mean "those other people, not us." It part of the the myth that Austria was the "first victim" of the Nazis rather than a willing collaborator. This slant on history made it possible for Austria to escape the postwar self-examination that Germany had to go through. It's part Austria's national identity, and it may be impossible to seriously re-examine for another generation or two. While I understand this, I don't particularly like it. The stolen art issues may have as much to do with this "not us" attitude as it does with money and strict interpretation of the law.

On the other hand... When we attended the Vienna State Opera, we got some choice "returned" seats, center balcony. There were several octogenerian around us. My first thought was, "I wonder what they did in the war." And then I realized that even the oldest would have been only 15 or 16 when the war ended. Time has passed. What matters now is how much of the old poisons still lurk in the national psyche, waiting to be reactivated.

--Peter


> Enjoying your nice images. The memorial struck me as grossly insincere and > reminded me of the Austrian gov't continued obstruction in returning art > looted by the Nazi's to their rightful heirs. Some things have not changed as
> much as one might think.
>
> http://tinyurl.com/y8n33h27
>
> http://tinyurl.com/y92gujqp
>
> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/23/nazi-looted-painting-auctioned-im-kinsky-bartholomeus-van-der-helst
>
>
> I ran into this information brushing up on Emile Zuckerkandl in case medical > students asked me about the origins of the tubercle of Zukerkandl (which they
> did) while reviewing thyroid anatomy with them.
> Curiously he was wont to have avant-garde guests at his house including Rodin > and Gustav Klimpt. The latter artist painted the portrait featured in the > Woman in Gold . The Zukerkandl family later had to flee Austria to escape the > Nazis. Curiously the grandson of the anatomist (another Emile Zuckerkandl,
> ended up working with Linus Pauling and is well known for the "molecular
> clock.".
> I may need to stay away from errant links these days to avoid being upset.
>
> Mike

If any one place can symbolize the struggle between tolerance and intolerance in Europe, the Judenplatz in Vienna is a worthy candidate. At one end of the square is a statue of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, a key Enlightenment writer and philosopher, and pioneering dramatist of the German-speaking world.
<https://www.flickr.com/photos/24844563@N04/35910082945/in/dateposted-public/>

Lessing's play "Nathan the Wise," set during the Third Crusade, was a plea for religious tolerance. The title character was based on Lessing's lifelong friend Moses Mendelssohn, today considered the spiritual father of liberal Judaism. Other characters are the Sultan Saladin and a Knight Templar. They discuss which of their three religions is the true one. Lessing's answer: "Of this you may be sure: Your father loved you all, and it was his ardent wish that all of you should love one another." This was such a radical idea that the Church banned the play during Lessing's lifetime. In some quarters, it is still a radical idea.

Now let's turn around with our backs to the statue. We see this:
<https://www.flickr.com/photos/24844563@N04/35869709356/in/dateposted-public/>

This is the Holocaust memorial, in the form of a library turned inside-out, dedicated to the more than 65,000 Austrian Jews killed by "the Nazis" between 1938 and 1945.
<https://www.flickr.com/photos/24844563@N04/35910083045/in/dateposted-public/>

[etc...]

--Peter

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