YFAAT WEISS
401
Most of the debates, events and dilemmas which engross the German
public in connection with their past are completely alien to Israelis. A
good example of this is provided by the German controversy which
raged eleven years ago about the appropriate way of commemorating
the destruction of European Jewry in Germany. The starting point for
this commemoration was without precedent; there have been few, if any,
cases in which the collective of murderers has chosen to commemorate
its victims. Actually, Western Germany has memorialized the victims of
the Holocaust in every town, and in the concentration camps, for many
years. Such commemorations were completely different in the former
Eastern Germany. There, an antifascist interpretation was the norm,
and it ignored the fact that the Jews were victimized as Jews. The des–
ignated commemoration site, which was approved in principle by Ger–
many's parliament in
2000,
is intended to commemorate all of the Jews
of Europe-not just German Jews-who were murdered by Nazi Ger–
mans. Its planned location is in the center of Berlin, the capital of the
united German Republic, next to the renovated Reichstag building that
now serves as the German parliament-the Bundestag. Its massive pres–
ence is clearly meant to prevent the illusion of any turning back of the
clock to a Greater Germany with Berlin as its capital.
The promoters of the present project drew their inspiration-as has
been emphasized by Professor Eberhard Jackel, an influential leading
Holocaust scholar at Stuttgart University-from the commemoration
site at Yad Vashem. Jackel, by his own account, asked himself during
one of his many visits to Yad Vashem why Germany has no such site.
This very comparison shows the depth of the difference: Yad Vashem
commemorates the Holocaust victims amongst their own people, while
Jackel's initiative arises from a desire to create the presence of the vic–
tims among the children and grandchildren of the murderers. The many
arguments which have raged around this project have reflected the
dilemmas: What is the right degree of abstractness for a site of this kind?
What balance should there be between the emotional effect the site will
create, its pedagogical impact, and the conveying of historical back–
ground? Should the site include only Jewish victims or should it refer to
other victims-such as the Gypsies? Would it be right to invest vast
sums in this site, and how central should it be? To what extent should
its presence loom over an image of the united city? How can such a site
be integrated into the city's vigorous life? How much urban vitality and
tumult will be allowed within it, and how will it be possible to prevent
defacement and Nazi graffiti which will create the opposite effect? This
