Just Another Blog on The Holocaust.
Throughout the course of history, society has become increasingly more desensitised to the concept of genocide as just another page in history, or topic to be taught in junior year. Now that I am educated in understanding the role of bystanders and complicity through a genocidal lens, I’ve drawn a bittersweet conclusion which allows me to relate myself back to those who were bystanders during wartime as now we, too become bystanders in viewing these atrocities through a prism of time and distance, remaining unmoved and unmoving.
Why is this conclusion bittersweet? Well, as unfortunate as it is that I have realised the part that I have played in becoming complicit in the memory of genocides within history, such as the Holocaust — I am also lucky enough to have the opportunity to be educated and write this blog about recognising the importance of remembering and memorialising mass atrocities within history and how to abstain from the bystander narrative and becoming complicit.
Let’s take a step back.
It is important to remember and memorialise the issues of bystanders and complicity since we do not want to make the same mistake twice. Understanding the role that being complicit can play, for example when we become desensitised, runs the risk of repetition in the worst sense; which can help prevent it.
Remembering and memorialising plays a large role in understanding and appreciating the consequences of the past, and the ongoing endeavour to prevent such atrocities from recurrence. When trauma strikes, sometimes we cope by sweeping it under the rug due to a stark inability to cope with events that make us feel not-so okay. Unfortunately, this is a temporary fix and eventually, the rug is lifted which reveals whatever is underneath, no matter how long it has been there. All acts of Genocide reveal trauma for those involved, whether it was first hand or passed down the generations. Let’s take the Holocaust as a prime example.
The role of remembering and memorialising in understanding and appreciating the past is to reveal the variety of ways in which different cultures commemorate mass atrocities within history, such as genocide (Jacobs, 2011). Memorialising such mass atrocities is historically one of the best ways to remember and respect past traumas as a link between the past and the present, in the hope to reveal that we all must make an effort to remember and play our part in preventing history repeating itself (Berger, 2003).
Whilst this concept is good in theory, it has proven to be much more difficult in practice. Historically, genocide has a political nature which has uncovered difficulties at the time of trauma due to bystanders and complicity; that is, people and governments becoming complicit in the act of war. On top of that, it is revealed that many years after, memorials have been formed in an attempt to remember and hold a tribute to those who suffered, which have instead been voiced and shaped to suit the community in which it stands (Berger, 2003; Jacobs, 2011).
It is important to remember and memorialise the issues of bystanders and complicity in an attempt to understand the consequences of it and of genocide in an attempt to prevent it. A prime example of this is the U.S. representation which has been previously written about as the Americanisation of the Holocaust (Berger, 2003). This aspect dips into what has been named as the bystander narrative, where the U.S. government failed to pursue efforts to assist the Jewish during the Holocaust, despite due opportunity and resources. Not only this, the U.S. built the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) in 1993 as a symbolic reminder of the Holocaust through the American lens. Whilst this is problematic, a dual lesson is offered in that whilst yes, the USHMM represents the atrocities and trauma of genocide and why it should be prevented in the future, but also how important it is to not accept complicit behaviour or become a bystander in such tragic events — for they, too are no better than the perpetrators themselves (Berger, 2003).
Perhaps the latter statement is controversial, for the U.S. did not physically partake in acting out the trauma that Nazi Germany imposed in the inhumane act of genocide, but the bystander narrative reveals three counts in which the U.S. government could have intervened to stop the Jewish suffering at the time (Berger, 2003). I’d like to pull on an aspect of the drowning child analogy here, brought forward by Peter Singer in 1971. If you went for a walk and you saw a child drowning in the pond, would you stop and save the child or would you keep walking? I would like to believe that we would all choose to save the child and that we are not a society built upon complicity in the hope that ‘someone else will save the child’, because ‘it is not my fault, therefore not my responsibility’ — I would like to believe that we are not a society who will standby and let the trauma take place. So why was it any different for the U.S. government during the Holocaust to not intervene? The fact is, it was not — and that is a moral lesson we can take from the USHMM: a lesson against the bystander narrative and becoming complicit, whether that is in daily life or in the act of war (Berger, 2003; Jacobs, 2011).
Bringing it back to the site of memorials and their role to remember and prevent such atrocities reoccurring, we can draw on the Americanisation of the Holocaust as depicted within the USHMM. This memorial site was the first to recognise the Holocaust as part of America’s history; not only for the part the U.S. played (or, did not play) in the Holocaust, but also America as a site of refuge for those fleeing survivors after the war (Young, 2016). The architectural aspect of the USHMM has an abundance of motifs revealing a sense of rawness in its broken and unfinished walls, housing exposed brick and steel (Young, 2016) in an effort to portray an understanding of that which is beyond repair whilst respecting the plead to remember those who suffered, in the form of a memorial.
Although this memorial site is directed through the American lens, it’s founding was a step in the right direction for remembering and memorialising not only the atrocity in a respectful way but also the issue of being a bystander or becoming complicit.
This dual lesson reveals not only the role that remembering and memorialising plays but also why and how it is important to continue to work against becoming desensitised after the fact for otherwise we, too become bystanders in viewing these atrocities through that of a past time; remaining unmoved and unmoving.
References
Berger, R. J. (2003). It ain’t necessarily so: The politics of memory and the bystander narrative in the U.S. holocaust memorial museum. Humanity & Society, 27(1), 6–29. doi:10.1177/016059760302700102
Jacobs, J. (2011). Sacred space and collective memory: Memorializing genocide at sites of terror. Sociology of Religion, 72(2), 154.
Young, J. E. (2016). Memorializing the holocaust. In C. K. Knight, & H. F. Senie (Eds.), (pp. 37–50). Hoboken, NJ, USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. doi:10.1002/9781118475331.ch1
