Magnolia

My mother immigrated to the US after WWII, my father was a WWII veteran, and my extended family runs the gamut of those on all ideological sides and various geographical locations during this war.  Labeled either Communist, Socialist, Marxist, Nazi, Jewish, Christian, Atheist -- these family members were either killed or missing in action, gassed in concentration camps, survivors, albeit forever scarred, of unspoken atrocities, liberators, perpetrators and so-called ‘bystanders.’  Stories of war and remembrance of war were part and parcel to my oral history from birth.  Causes of war, experiences of war, intercultural misunderstandings and intolerance leading to war, and the resilience to survive war, including the chutzpah to live to tell the tale, have all been one of my life-long fascinations. 

Below are images that I have photographed in Europe and Asia over the past twenty years representing in one way or another, remnants of War and Remembrance.  

BERLIN, GERMANY
My mother’s hometown is Berlin and I have been visiting family since 1978.   Potsdamer Platz was the heart of early twentieth century Berlin nightlife (think of the play/film Cabaret or the novella Goodbye to Berlin upon which the play/film were based). 

However, it’s earlier history is of particular interest. Potsdamer Platz is named after the historically significant city of Potsdam southwest of Berlin.  The Platz marks the spot where the road from Potsdam passed through the Potsdam Gate of the old Berlin wall.  Since the late seventeenth century Potsdam became a place where many fled to for religious freedom, particularly Jews from the Austrian Empire and Huguenots from France, as the Edikt von Potsdam (Tolerance Edict of Potsdam) granted religious freedom and certain rights as citizens. It is believed that this Edict was signed by Frederick William at Potsdamer Platz.

During the Third Reich the modernist architecture and care-free social life of the roaring 20’s was transformed into neoclassical structures and the German nationalist and rabidly anti-Semitic (anti-Government criticism of all kinds) ideology of the Third Reich.  The infamous Kristallnacht pogrom of 9/10 November 1938 was particularly violent in Potsdamer Platz as the many Jewish-owned stores and near-by Synagogues were ransacked, desecrated, and/or destroyed.

Potsdamer Platz was rubble after WWII – and rightly so.  A sort of detoxifying cleansing was in order.  Potsdamer Platz was divided by the construction of the Berlin Wall which began in the middle of the night on August 13, 1961 with barbed wire and hastily assembled fences.  Through 1975 the wall was improved upon to become the ‘iron curtain’ that Churchill prophesiedin his 1946 speech in Missouri.

Image one:  Berliner Mauer, Potsdamer Platz (Iron Curtain) 1978
This photograph shows Potsdamer Platz as the so-called “No Man’s Land” that I first witnessed in 1978.  Graffiti soon became the vehicle for protest against the wall during the cold war and in this photo, you see the word Zerschlagt and part of DDR=KZ.  Zerschlag means smash and DDR=KZ refers to the Deutsche Demokratische Republik, (DDR)  or German Democratic Republic (GDR) in English otherwise known as East Germany and “KZ” or Konzentrationslager meaning concentration camp in English.  Hence the graffiti artist was stating that East Germany was equal to a concentration camp.

Image two: Final Remnant, Potsdamer Platz (Post-Cold War Memorial Wall) 2006
On 9 November 1989 the Berlin Wall was first ‘breached’ at Potsdamer Platz before the Brandenburg Gate and the division between East and West Germany soon ended.  Currently Potsdamer Platz is a bustling business center, one of the largest in the EU.  The piece of the wall in this image that I took while visiting Berlin in 2006 stands in the center of Potsdamer Platz and is the piece of concrete slab that was first breached in 1989.  The graffiti reads An dieser stelle entstand 1989 die erste Lücke in der Berliner mauer which means “Here (at this place) in 1989 appeared the first crack/breach of the Berlin wall.” 

PRAGUE, Czech Republic
My family tree traces our earliest ancestors to fourteenth century Bohemia and my maternal grandfather was born south of Prague, capital of Bohemia.  I come from a family of Bohemians – those unorthodox and antiestablishment artists, writers, musicians, and actors that make for a rich tapestry of ancestors.  The entire city of Prague is actually a memorial to the survival of pogroms and war.  During the first Christian Crusade of 1096, the first recorded Jewish pogrom in Europe took place in Prague when Jews were systematically murdered by the Crusaders.   The remaining Jews were moved into a special quarter of the city and since the twelfth century Jews have been living and dying in Josefov (the Jewish Quarter).  The synagogue there is one of the oldest in all of Europe.  Approximately 850 years later, the Nazi regime planned to make Prague the place to establish a “museum of a lost/extinct race'. It is for this reason that some of the oldest and most valuable Jewish relics confiscated during WWII ended up in Bohemia. 

Image three: Josefov, 1997
This photo is the old Jewish cemetery in Josefov that is reported to enclose over 100,000 people buried/12,000 graves.  There are certainly some of my relatives there.  The gravestones are a sea of waves leaning, overlapping, and blending into one another.  Small pebbles are still left as tributes on the tombstones, a century’s long tradition for Jewish graves.  That this cemetery was not desecrated and destroyed during Kristallnacht and the Holocaust is a testimony to survival and a powerful reminder that war does not have the final say.

DACHAU, GERMANY
One of the most surprising things about the Dachau concentration camp is that it is (and was) in the middle of the city of Dachau.  Established in March 1933, the Dachau concentration camp was the first regular concentration camp to be used and initially the prisoners were primarily German Communists, Social Democrats, trade unionists, and other political opponents of the Nazi regime.  Later there would be Jehovah's Witnesses, Roma (Gypsies), homosexuals, and Jews.  The ovens were added late in the war and the ashes would certainly rain down on houses and businesses nearby.

Image four: Sleeping Quarters, Dachau Memorial Site, 1997
This image is of one of the camp buildings where the prisoners would find rest, little that they received.  Many of the original buildings of the camp remain standing and make up part of the memorial site.

Imagefive: Full Scale of the Human Travesty, Dachau Memorial Museum, 1997
This photo was taken in the Dachau Museum where an entire wall was simply one photograph of prisoners during one of the routine ‘roll calls.’  A visitor stepped into my camera frame and the image immediately caught my eye – the enormity and scale of this historical event.

HIROSHIMA, JAPAN
August 6, 1945 will forever be identified with Hiroshima.  The history is well-known.  What is surprising when you visit Hiroshima is that it is now a bustling business center and beautiful city.  However, the tragic event is forever remembered via a Peace Memorial Park in the middle of the city, covering 122,100 square meters upon which 56 various memorials and museums can be viewed.  It is stunning and apropos that a city which has known the worst that war can bring, rises like the Phoenix, and advocates not for retribution but for peace and elimination of war.

Image six: Memorial Tower to Mobilized Students, 2007
Many students where in Hiroshima the day the A-Bomb was dropped due to the Japanese government’s “Student Labor Service Act.”  This act required students in middle school and higher grades to perform labor service throughout Japan.  There were approximately 8,400 students working in the ‘zone’ on that day.  This tower was funded by donations of the grieving families of these children.  I was struck by the base of the tower and the number of origami “peace” cranes that were left on and around it.

Image seven: Melting Buddhas over Hiroshima, 2007 The Peace Memorial Museum is a difficult one to move through with images of before and after pictures and city models that cause one to pause and wonder at the decision to drop the bomb at all.  This image is of a display of melted items that were recovered after the devastation – primarily images of Buddhas and ritual paraphernalia.  The photograph of the well-known A-Bomb dome is the backdrop.