Abstract
Monuments are generally perceived as stone objects and interpreted on the basis of their plastic form. But how should we interpret a monument that either does not yet exist or that exists only on blueprints or in the heads of its initiators? The aim of this dissertation is to explore the political decision-making process that preceded the erection of monuments, in order to explain the motives and intentions underlying the production of historical meaning in the public sphere in relation to the reception of political symbols. This dissertation draws closely on the observation of political disputes over two monuments in France and Germany in the form of public debates that were carried out essentially in the printed mass media. The first example is the site of the "Vél' d'Hiv'" (Vélodrome d'Hiver: winter cycling stadium) in Paris, which became the focus of a controversy between 1992 and 1995. After the Second World War this site was a central symbolic point of reference for the Jewish community in France, since it had been used to intern Jews from Paris on 16 and 17 July 1942 before their deportation. The public controversy concerned the question whether the French president should hold a commemorative speech in which he would recall not only the rounding up of Jews in the cycling stadium and their deportation, but also acknowledge officially the responsibility of the "French State" for the persecution of Jews during the Second World War. The other example is the Monument for the Murdered Jews of Europe or "Holocaust-Monument" in Berlin. This monument was planned by a citizens' action group in 1988, although the final decision to build it was taken only after three artistic competitions and a ten-year-long public debate over the form, site, dedication and over the decision-making process, as well as a vote in the German parliament in 1999.
The empirical core of this dissertation leads to the conclusion that a monument is a focal point of a complex dialogue between the past and the present - between historical events, producers of monuments and successive generations of observers, who attempt to interpret the past on the basis of historical artefacts. A monument is also a focal point of exchanges between individuals, institutions and political parties in the present. The first phase of this twofold dialogue over monuments, between 1992-95 in France and 1988-1999 in Germany, is the object of this dissertation: public debates preceding the inauguration of the Vél' d'Hiv' and the Holocaust Monument, debates that consisted primarily in speculations about the means of commemorating the Holocaust rather than hermeneutic interpretations of existing monuments. The question raised by both monuments is not what to remember, but how to commemorate the past. |
