We both responded to our time visiting Germany's concentration camps differently. Our thoughts are still evolving as we continue in conversation, but here are initial reflections. The first, on Buchenwald, is from Alex. It was inspired by an article he read in the Berlin Film Journal on the life of Rainer Fassbinder written by a friend, Sophia Larigakis. The second, on Dachau, is from Katie.
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The differences between filmic experience and firsthand experience are many. Some are obvious, such as the physical mechanisms through which a scene finds form. Others are harder to define. The limits on emotional influence accessible to each medium, for example, or the criteria by which we determine the authenticity of a captured scene, are not readily expressed.
The overlap between these two forms of experience can help us to understand each at greater depth. This has proven true for me, as I work to reconcile the emotions borne out of my encounter with the Buchenwald concentration camp, in its capacity as a scene of Nazi science and and as a greater exhibition of the holocaust.
German film director, Rainer Fassbinder (1945-1982), often incorporated Third Reich historical motifs into his films. He was, according to biographer Thomas Elsaesser, "not interested in historical films, but in films about history from the perspective of the present." As a filmmaker concerned not with recreating scenes of history, but rather with understanding the place of history within the present - history as an item of and contained within present scenes - Fassbinder’s work mimics the experience of a modern encounter with a physical scene "of" history.
A visit to Buchenwald begins with steps through the camp's central gate tower. One might feel, as I did, the unbearable lightness of passing through an iron frame intended to imprison rather than to welcome. Most of the camp's historical visitors entered the camp's gates and did not exit. My visit involved both and, in its being representative of all modern visits to the camp, changed for this historical gate, freshly painted white, its meaning within the present.
Buchenwald Central Gate Tower. |
The central grounds of the camp, where barracks swarming with thousands once stood, are now empty. Rocks fill in the plots of razed buildings. Rocks also line the path in between these plots. By the time of our arrival, the day had turned grey. Soon, the grey land slipped into the descending clouds, uniting the scenery into a motionless, milky haze. Perhaps on this blank screen, the scenes of history I so wished to see would replay themselves.
Recreated Guard Tower on the Camp's Fence. |
Buchenwald in Grey. |
We walked for hours through the barracks, on the barracks, within the former operating theater and around the camp commander mansion. All are piles of rocks, though there is one emblematic barrack. I turned over stones in hopes of uncovering hidden scenes of the past; I photographed the surroundings trees as they seemed the closest witnesses to the scenes of history for which I had come.
Overgrowth and Rain by the Camp Fence. |
This scene of Nazi science, however, could provide little more than a stage upon which I might direct my imagined visions of the past. I conjured tortured screams and whimpers of starvation; I superimposed images of emaciated prisoners pushing wheelbarrows towards unknown destinations; I closed my eyes as the rain began to fall upon us and imagined myself, clad in stripes, standing in roll call with a horizon no brighter than the present. And, of course, each of these experiences fell short. They were flat and objectifying and dishearteningly removed from the experience of living a moment of political, scientific, and racial horror. They were actually closer to filmic experience and many of my visualizations, in truth, were based on films.
We walked onward through the camp. We stopped at memorials, also made from rock, to the victims of the camp and of the holocaust at large. We walked into an exhibition room to escape the rain and found photos on the wall of Buchenwald life in the eyes of prisoners and guards. In their stillness, the camp and its artifacts, its memorials and photos, became icons of an experience. Though emotionally-stirring, their constitution in the present as items of history, curated and singular experientially, rendered them concerningly cliche.
Elsaesser writes that Fassbinder, among the first generation of Germans willing to engage artistically with the recent past, contended with the question of "how to represent fascism, without appearing to reenact its horrors or yield once more to its fascination" (131). This camp and other scenes of Nazi science in Germany struggle to navigate this challenge as they present history from the perspective of the present. Within the current camp grounds, one cannot find any substantive information on the types of medical experimentation conducted on inmates nor the methods and conclusions from these practices. The rich socio-scientific conversation taking place within universities and political elites about the nature of race and genes finds expression simplistically, blanketed with buzzwords such as Arianism and racism. There is such discomfort stemming from the impossibility of reconstituting the past - a nightmarish proposition in any case - and from the eternal inadequateness of apologies for its consequences, that most scenes of Nazi science have become one-size-fits-all commemorative sites.
I wish I could identify what exactly I left Buchenwald with. Photographs of silent fields, a wet shirt, new material for my imagination. There certainly is more. How to conceive of the past within the present without creating lifeless icons is among my lingering questions. Many of the remaining are still searching for verbal expression.
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Still grappling with images and questions from our experience at Buchenwald the previous day, we embarked on our journey southwards towards Munich. The quiet, cobblestone alleys of the small, French neighborhood of Haidhausen was a strange sight after spending five days in the bustling streets of Berlin. We left this peaceful setting bright and early the next morning, however, and set off for Dachau.
Our Lovely Neighborhood in Munich |
When we stepped off the bus at the memorial site, it was impossible to ignore the stark disparities between what lay before us and the grounds of Buchenwald we had explored just two days prior. Tour groups were shuffling to keep pace with their guides, families were wandering in and out of the information and gift shop buildings, and small children with headsets were running through the open area trying to match the audio explanations to the visual landmarks. In contrast to Buchenwald's desolate landscape, the entrance to the Dachau memorial site could have been mistaken at first glance for an outdoor, contemporary art museum.
Before entering the main grounds, we stopped to explore the remnants of the railway system that was first built in 1933 to transport thousands of political prisoners to the camp. Though spanning a mere ten meters or so, the metal pieces lying on the ground were oddly haunting. It was difficult to push images of overcrowded trainloads of confused men, women, and children out of our heads.
Remnants of Dachau Railway |
We then turned to enter the gate. Transfixed by the nonexistent yet deceptively vivid image of prisoners being hustled through the barred doors by guards, we stepped onto the gravel and looked out. Models of barracks and SS administration buildings were neatly laid out in the scene. Tourists peered through windows and cameras flashed into the distance, but we just stood at the entrance. Even though we were faced with a manicured recreation of a prisoner's first introduction to the camp, I could think only of the suffering that this dread-filled sea of gravel had the misfortune of witnessing.
The second portion of the memorial site could be characterized as a series of mass graves. Each one a numbered, rectangular region of stones, they were aligned as the barracks once were. We walked through the aisles, not simply to get a closer look at the stone representations of the commemorated victims. We envisioned the overflowing wash houses and the horrid smells that had stained the fresh air. Here we were, confidently walking on a beautiful, sunny day through a place that was once home to such deep-seated hopelessness. It was unsettling to say the least.
Mass Graves Lie in the Plots of Former Barracks. |
In this haze of imagination, we soon approached the Jewish and Catholic monuments commemorating those victims. We first entered the menorah-topped pyramid, finding Israeli flags and Hebrew inscriptions covering the walls. Especially moving were a pile of stones, each painted with different country flags, words, and phrases. One bearing the Germanic flag and the Star of David wrote, "We are alive." This dark, cave-like structure differed from the open, cylindrical monument standing to its left. Built of light-colored stones, it held an encased crucifix surrounded by a semicircle of multicolored flowers. An inscription on the wall appeared to the right in remembrance of the victims.
Dachau Convent, established by a survivor. |
As mentioned above in contemplation of our visit to Buchenwald, commemoration of the victims remains at the forefront. Where the medical histories, data on experimentation, and any information on and commemoration of the science that took place at the Dachau concentration camp are absent, memorials to the Protestant, Jewish, Catholic and Russian Orthodox victims stand erect.
Our final destination, however, did not fall in this same category of memorials. We entered the remodeled crematorium on the outskirts of the grounds and no longer needed to strain our imaginations to conceive of the atrocities committed in this single building. A pit formed in my stomach as the large ovens loomed before us. That a single man would spend his day burning hundreds of dead of bodies was all I could think about.
Although Dachau was principally a work camp and not a death camp, gas chambers were built as the demographic transitioned from solely political prisoners to include the disabled, Jewish, and other populations deemed inferior during the Third Reich. Entering one of these gas chambers was not only eerie as I had expected, but also sickening. From the ceiling bearing the fake shower faucets to the large vent near the ground where hot air would have pressed inwards to quicken the effects of the poison, it was all too real. Finally, we exited through the undressing room where prisoners would wait to enter the chamber. A diagram labelled a small window in the wall where an SS soldier would watch for the ten to fifteen minutes during which the gas would envelop the cell and each prisoner’s body.
We sat in silence outside the crematorium for a while. Completely void of metaphor and symbolism, the cold reality of this place really set in.
How can we understand these inhumane acts in scientific terms? Milgram sheds light on the influence of orders from a superior figure in his shock experiments, and Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment suggests the power of the simple designation of prisoner and guard roles. But are these psychological studies enough to satisfactorily explain how the soldiers could watch the smoke rise into the air each day as body after body was burned to ashes?
This site forced us to confront two issues. For one, the memorialization of events, victims, and science risk diminishing their profundity by appearing as exhibitions rather than as sites, themselves. Secondly, we could no longer think only of how the site commemorated Nazi science because our thoughts were flooded with how Nazi science could even have been born in the first place. Both of us carried a pressing yet hopeless need to directly identify the psychological principles behind this incomprehensible question as we passed freely through the gates and exited the camp.
Six hazelnuss gelatos, seventeen hours of busing, countless run-ins with eclectic street artists, and five cities later, we write our final post from the plane. Over the last couple of days in Munich, we had the opportunity to explore additional landmarks of the Third Reich. In Koningsplatz, former SS stronghold, we tried to envision the energy of mass propaganda rallies and the intellectual cultivation of the fascist regime (a few rogue tourists on segways interrupted these thoughts). We stopped in several traditional beer halls to gain perspective on the political salons of pre-war Germany (and may have tried some beer and obatzda to get a more complete picture). Many sites of Third Reich medicine we wished to visit had very little to show for their historical contributions, such as the central Aryanisation office and the University of Munich. Despite this, we were able to visit the Park Cafe--a favorite spot of high-ranking Nazi officials--experience the vibrancy of Marienplatz, admire the beauty of St. Peter's church, and enjoy the scenery of the English Garten.
Marianplatz Artist - Unidentified. |
Fall Has Begun in Munich |
A Walk through the English Garten |
We would very much like to thank our advisor, Nadine Weidman, Anne Harrington, and everyone on the Rosencrantz Discovery Grant committee. This exciting and thought-provoking trip surpassed our expectations. We look forward to sharing and continuing our investigations further.
Thanks for reading!
Katie and Alex (Katdag)