gegen das erkalten des erinnerns / against the freezing of memories

Europe, indeed, the whole world, is littered with concentration-camp memorials, information centres, memorial plaques, and other signs that have been set up as a reminder of the atrocities committed by the National Socialists and their numerous willing helpers. In the United States alone, there are around 100 Holocaust memorials. In Germany, there are over 500 of all kinds of memorial facilities commemorating the Nazi victims. Perhaps without these facilities, the deeds of that time would have long since been forgotten. Nevertheless, the memories of what happened are fading everywhere. Almost all of those once affected, victims and perpetrators, have now passed away, and many of us today would rather not be bothered by it.

How should we deal with this? Remembrance can only be present and have an effect in the future if those dealing with the subject succeed in touching us emotionally in such a way that what we hear, read and see causes us to begin to deal intensively with what happened and ask questions: How could so many of our ancestors be so merciless, so inhuman? How could these monstrosities happen? How was this possible, especially in Germany, against the backdrop of the Enlightenment, German Humanism, German Classicism, German Romanticism and the highly developed German culture in general? And as the present unfortunately shows, much of this has since been repeated - even in places where one would no longer have expected it.

Hans Dieter Schaal, born in Ulm in 1943, is an architect, landscape designer, stage designer, exhibition designer and freelance artist. His works, the majority of which have been published by Edition Axel Menges, have found an audience far beyond his home country. Schaal lives and works in a village near Biberach an der Rifl.