Revisiting the Memory Industry: Robert Thalheim ’ s Am Ende kommen Touristen FRIEDERIKE B. EMONDS U NIVERSITY OF T OLEDO Almost seventy years after the end of WWII, Germany has institutionalized an official culture of remembrance focusing on the memory of the Holocaust. This Erinnerungskultur permeates all aspects of life. In the past two decades Holocaust memorials as well as counter-monuments (Young, Counter- Monument 271), commemorative centers, plaques, stumbling stones («Stolpersteine») 1 in addition to museums and special and permanent exhibits have been established; and former concentration camps have been preserved or restored as educational centers to publicly remember the Holocaust. Similarly, the public memory discourse — shaped by commemorative events, public lectures, intellectual debates, and special educational programs — reinforces the public ceremonies of Holocaust remembrance throughout the year. In addition, German mass media have been prominently featuring interviews, articles and book publications on Holocaust memories, (auto)biographies, and fictionalized accounts (Grass 31 - 32; A. Assmann, «History, Memory» 262; Neumann 337) while more documentaries, talk shows and discussions air on various German television and radio channels (Moltke, Sympathy 180). This media trend coincides with the US and German boom in feature film productions focusing on the Holocaust since the early 1990s (Koepnick 349; Berghahn 300; Ebbrecht 157). 2 In German schools, the Holocaust is a «mandatory, binding subject» for all students age 14 and up, and Holocaust education constitutes an integral part of the history curriculum as well as in subjects such as literature, religion, ethics and civics («German Holocaust Education Report»). Since 1996 Germany officially observes January 27 as its national Holocaust Remembrance Day, marking the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz with a commemorative session in the German parliament. 3 In January 2010, German Bundestag president Norbert Lammert reaffirmed the importance of this day in his introductory remarks: «Für die zweite Demokratie in Deutschland gehört die Auseinandersetzung mit dem Holocaust gewissermaßen zu den Grundlagen unserer Verfassung.» Lammert ’ s proclamation that Holocaust remembrance lies at the core of the German nation state reveals the double-edge of Germany ’ s official remembrance culture with all its monuments, public discourses and educational goals: while on the one hand, his moral reminder to German audiences exposes Germany ’ s top-down approach to Holocaust remembrance, on the other hand his remarks are supposed to demonstrate to the world the democratic strength and therefore trustworthiness of the modern German state. Aleida Assmann pointedly comments on this discrepancy: «Die Medien achten darauf, im Bundestag werden Reden gehalten. Aber es fehlt das Persönliche. Zu Auschwitz haben die Deutschen kaum persönlichen Bezug» (Assmann/ Welzer, «Familienerbe»). Clearly, today there are lingering doubts about the means and intentions of Germany ’ s official Holocaust remembrance culture over the past thirty years. It is certainly not a coincidence that the German government intensified its concerted Holocaust commemoration efforts in the early 1990s, right after Germany ’ s unification, in order to forge a common, overarching German national identity between the two formerly hostile German states. To be sure, the strong ideological differences in each country ’ s official perception of both the National Socialist past as well as the guilt and responsibility for the death and destruction of millions of people in the Holocaust had to clash when trying to find «a shared myth of a common past,» in order to construct a new German national identity (Fulbrook 17). Hence, the overwhelming official demonstration of Germany ’ s Holocaust commemoration in the early 1990s may have served as a «corrective» to East Germany ’ s official rejection of responsibility for the Nazi regime and crimes, and as a means to reeducate the former East German population about the now-unified Germany ’ s guilt and special responsibility for those crimes of their shared past. This kind of imposed and therefore artificial collective memory, intended to achieve stronger cohesion between the two German societies that have only very reluctantly been growing together after a 40-year division, was doomed to fail on both fronts, as it neither aided nor accelerated the social integration process nor contributed to a meaningful Holocaust remembrance. 4 The long and intense debates around the official national Holocaust memorial in Berlin in the early 1990s until its final completion in 2004 is a case in point (Young, «Holocaust Problem» 65 - 68). Holocaust remembrance instrumentalized in the service of post-Wall unification efforts is an ill-fated endeavor as many critics of Germany ’ s «memorymania» have long questioned the purpose and effectiveness of Germany ’ s obsession with Holocaust memorials and monuments, warning that «[t]he more monuments there are, the more the past becomes invisible, 56 Friederike B. Emonds the easier it is to forget» (Huyssen, «Monumental Seduction» 193). Indeed, despite or perhaps because of the dramatic upsurge in public memory culture and its institutionalization in the past two decades, increasing concern and uncertainty about the future of Holocaust remembrance prevails (Huyssen, «Monumental» 192 - 193; Huyssen, «Present» 11 - 14; Urban, «Anti-Semitism» 3 - 4; Assmann/ Welzer, «Familienerbe»). This precariousness grows even more acute in view of the frequent official surveys and opinion polls regarding the importance of Holocaust remembrance and their strikingly contradictory conclusions. Though Dana Giesecke and Harald Welzer, citing a poll among adolescents commissioned by the weekly newspaper Die Zeit in 2010, come to the following conclusion: «Das Erziehungsziel der historischpolitischen Bildung kann also als erreicht betrachtet werden» (22), other polls such as the one in 2012 issued by the magazine Stern points out that 21 % of young people between 18 and 29 didn ’ t know what the term Auschwitz meant («Stern Umfrage»). Likewise, Giesecke and Welzer in the above-mentioned poll reported that «[e]in Drittel war der Auffassung, in der Schule lerne man zu wenig über das Thema» (21), even though Benedikt Haller, First Special Envoy for Anti-Semitism and Holocaust Affairs at the German Foreign Ministry, claimed in 2008 that there is an «over-infusion» of Holocaust education in German school curricula (Haller qtd. in Lefkovitz). Indeed, though the interpretations and conclusions of those opinion polls and surveys seem at best inconsistent and at worst downright contradictory, a closer look reveals a common thread underlying all of their conclusions, namely a deep concern for a meaningful Holocaust remembrance among today ’ s younger generation. This concern is fueled by the recent phenomena of a widespread Holocaust fatigue not only in Germany but also in large parts of the Western world. 5 While revisionism and negationism have continuously threatened responsible Holocaust commemoration since the end of WWII, «Holocaust fatigue» constitutes a «more subtle challenge to the memory» of the Shoah, yet perhaps «more disturbing for its subtlety», as it is particularly displayed by today ’ s younger generation (Shafran). 6 Marianne Hirsch, in her influential article «The Generation of Postmemory» (2008), illuminates the problem of Holocaust fatigue by examining the intergenerational transmission of traumatic experiences, especially that of the Holocaust. She describes «postmemory» as «the relationship of the second generation to powerful, often traumatic, experiences that preceded their births but that were nevertheless transmitted to them so deeply as to seem to constitute memories in their own right» (103). If «postmemory» is the successful result of memory transmission to the later-born generation, then the third generation ’ s fatigue would represent the utter failure in this 57 Revisiting the Memory Industry transmission between the second and third generation. This serious rupture in the chain of responsible memory work could severely threaten the Holocaust ’ s secure and meaningful place in the collective memory of future generations. So, what went wrong? Is the transition between the second and third generation a natural threshold in memory transfer because the event to be remembered lies too far in the past? Or in our particular case, does this ‹ Holocaust fatigue › present an inverse reaction to the enormous top-down efforts put forth by the German government, public discourses, the media and schools to institutionalize the memory of the Holocaust as explained earlier? Before I address these questions, we need to look at another factor that compounds the urgency of this issue. To fully understand the problematic consequences of the younger generation ’ s fatigue one must consider that the generation that witnessed the Holocaust and still has living memory to hand down is getting older and many of its members have already passed away. As Giesecke and Welzer have noted, «Von denen, die heute geboren und im Jahr 2024 Geschichtsunterricht haben werden, hat niemand mehr Großeltern, deren bewusste Lebenszeit in das ‹ Dritte Reich › zurückreicht» (73). With the community of Holocaust survivors dwindling, living communication will fade away and with it the immediate access to the past that is necessary to keep those memories alive. As Avner Shalev, Director of the Holocaust Memorial Yad Vashem in Israel, has observed, «The presence of witnesses - the remnant who survived - ensured a certain moral strength; their absence creates a moral, cultural and educational vacuum.» Clearly, with the demise of the witness generation and the younger generation ’ s fatigue, Holocaust remembrance faces a double challenge in today ’ s society. But I would argue that there is another factor that compounds the current dilemma. Jan Assmann ’ s differentiation of cultural and communicative memory, based on Maurice Halbwachs ’ s theories of collective memory, sheds some light on this multifaceted predicament. In Assmann ’ s model, the transition from communicative memory into cultural memory takes place between 80 - 100 years after the event to be remembered and represents a «moving horizon of 3 - 4 interacting generations» (J. Assmann, «Communicative and Cultural Memory» 117). While communicative memory is based on everyday communication and is intrinsically connected to the living witnesses of such memory, cultural memory draws on institutionalized depots, official ceremonies and formalized rituals to store memories. Assmann explains, «[j]ust as the communicative memory is characterized by its proximity to the everyday, cultural memory is characterized 58 Friederike B. Emonds by its distance from the everyday» (J. Assmann, «Collective Memory and Cultural Identity» 128 - 29). Nearly 70 years after the end of WWII we are approaching the threshold where communicative memory turns into cultural memory. For meaningful Holocaust memory work, the danger of this transition is its complete relegation to «objectivized culture» such as museums, monuments and other cultural institutions (J. Assmann, «Collective Memory and Cultural Identity» 128). As outlined above, this process is already well under way in Germany. In fact, I would argue that the German government ’ s official culture of remembrance in the service of post-Wall unification efforts in the 1990s has accelerated this transition, solidifying Holocaust memories prematurely in cultural memory with the effect that today ’ s third generation in Germany is struggling even more to make a meaningful connection to this past and its relation to their everyday lives and thus is even less prepared to take over the «guardianship of the Holocaust» (Hirsch 103). Therefore, some of the central questions that need to be addressed are: after years of misguided political instrumentalization of Holocaust remembrance, how can members of the so-called «hinge-generation» (Hirsch 103) be compelled to face their task in the generational chain of responsible memory work? How can we facilitate their responsible access to a past they did not experience? How can Holocaust memory work be made meaningful, compelling, and ethically responsible to a generation for whom Auschwitz has no meaning? For whom «Juden nur Zahlen von Toten in Geschichtsbüchern sind» (Thalheim qtd. in Mering 169) and the Holocaust is a mediatized event represented by such movies as Schindler ’ s List (Steven Spielberg, 1993), Life is Beautiful (Roberto Benigni, 1997), or The Pianist (Roman Polanski, 2002)? Pointedly phrased: Is there a future to the remembrance of this past? In his introductory speech at the 2013 Bundestag commemorative session of Holocaust Remembrance Day, Lammert officially called for «neue Formen der Erinnerung» because «[m]it den Zeitzeugen der damaligen Ereignisse schwindet der unmittelbare Zugang zur Vergangenheit («2013»). Though it seems as if Lammert ’ s announcement marks an important turning point in Germany ’ s official culture of remembrance, many historians and cultural critics such as James Young, Elie Wiesel, Aleida Assmann, Volkhard Knigge and Harald Welzer among others have long called for changing the paradigm of Holocaust commemoration in Germany to ensure its future. While Wiesel recommends the formation of a chain, «eine Generation von Zeugen von Zeugen von Zeugen» («Prinz Harry»), to keep the memories of the Holocaust alive, Assmann suggests that video testimonies are particularly valuable in 59 Revisiting the Memory Industry «forging a transgenerational link between faces and voices of victims and those who listen to them» (A. Assmann, «History, Memory» 261). Challenging the effectiveness of video testimonies as «weitgehend uninteressant» because they are lacking the «emotionale Rahmen der face-to-face Interaktion» (74), Giesecke and Welzer propose more actively engaging and experiential strategies of information searches and knowledge transfers, such as «event- und erlebnisorientierte Spielformate im Bereich von computer games, aber auch im Film und im Fernsehen» (115). Such interactive models of memory transfer, they claim, may appeal more to today ’ s third generation, so versatile in computer gaming and media usage, than the «Pathosformeln» and moral claims commonplace in official Holocaust commemoration (97). 7 Without delving deeper into Giesecke and Welzer ’ s innovative memory research, I contend that Robert Thalheim ’ s film Am Ende kommen Touristen (2007) vividly illustrates such an interactive approach in film. In the second part of this study, I argue that the film engages its audience in a dialogue, thereby provoking us to question and reevaluate our own static views and reconsider different perspectives on Holocaust commemoration, means of intergenerational memory transmission, and the memory culture of the Auschwitz memorial site long after the film has ended. Surprisingly, Am Ende kommen Touristen has thus far triggered little discussion abroad. Though highly acclaimed when it opened at the 2007 Cannes film festival and nominated for several honors and awards in Germany, including the Eberhard Fechner Scholarship as part of the Grimme Preise, which it received in 2011, the film hasn ’ t received the attention of international film critics and cultural studies scholars that it deserves. While Tobias Ebbrecht ’ s and Gerd Beyer ’ s excellent analyses offer great insights into the narrative structure and cinematic effects of the film — and I will refer to their respective studies throughout my own analysis — it is Sabine von Mering ’ s interpretation against which I will formulate my own thesis. In her discussion of Am Ende kommen Touristen, Mering maintains that Thalheim solves the problem of the Holocaust memory transfer by «show [ing] that only true empathy with the victims can help overcome [. . .] the dilemma for many Germans today» (168; my emphasis). She further explains «true empathy» or rather she implies that in his movie Thalheim dramatizes that «[e]mpathy [. . .] must be based on real feeling and cannot be obtained through reading or studying alone» (168 f; my emphasis). Focusing on «true empathy» and «real feeling,» Mering ’ s discussion of Thalheim ’ s film conjures up Martin Walser ’ s connection between «Geschichts-Gefühl» and «Geschichts-Mitgefühl,» with which he concludes his speech «Über ein Ge- 60 Friederike B. Emonds schichtsgefühl» delivered in Berlin on May 8, 2002, at that year ’ s anniversary of the end of WWII. Indeed, Am Ende kommen Touristen was produced and opened amidst the widespread, intellectual discussions on the emotional turn in Germany ’ s historical discourse triggered by Walser ’ s provocative speech. His somewhat vague and uncritical notion of «Geschichtsgefühl» — »[m]ein Geschichtsgefühl Deutschland betreffend ist der Bestand aller Erfahrungen, die ich mit Deutschland gemacht habe» — resonated with many historians, philosophers and other intellectuals. 8 Likewise, as Johannes von Moltke convincingly argues in his excellent 2007 study «Sympathy for the Devil: Cinema, History, and the Politics of Emotion,» recent media ranging from TV docudramas (Dresden 2006, ARD) to feature films, such as Sönke Wortmann ’ s Das Wunder von Bern (2003) and Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck ’ s Das Leben der Anderen (2005), reverberate with strong emotional representations of the German past, leading von Moltke to conclude «the media have supplied a stream of historical representations characterized by strong affect and emotion» (18). Does Am Ende kommen Touristen indeed need to be added to that category of films as Mering wants to make us believe? In contrast to Mering ’ s interpretation, I contend that Thalheim ’ s film does not simply appeal to emotions but conveys a much more ambitious agenda. The film ’ s unstable camera work (the scenes are filmed with a 16 mm handheld camera without a tripod), its repeatedly rough editing job (often transitions between scenes are not smoothed out), and the frequent narrative ruptures succeed in making film as a medium visible in the film itself (Bühler 12). Emphasizing its own production, the film resists viewer identification and catharsis and instead triggers critical reflection throughout, especially at the end. So much so that when the film is over, the audience is not done with the film. Consistent with its cinematographic representation, the film ’ s narrative doesn ’ t offer any solutions to the problems raised. Instead, the film instigates a dialogue, not only within the plot but also with its audience. By means of montage, the film juxtaposes multiple, often contested perspectives and contrasting perceptions of Germany ’ s past, its heinous crimes of the Holocaust, and today ’ s official culture of remembrance to keep those memories alive. Within the film ’ s narrative, these divergent viewpoints frequently lead to painful reactions among the characters. However, they also compel the resistant protagonist to identify social injustices and cause him to recognize new ways and possibilities to act in a socially responsible manner beyond traditional patterns of learned behavior. As the film pulls the protagonist out of his comfort zone, it also challenges the viewers with frequent visual irritations and paradoxes, which we struggle in vain to reconcile because they 61 Revisiting the Memory Industry force us into the uncomfortable position of reevaluating or even questioning the effectiveness of the core of our official Holocaust remembrance culture: memorials, witness testimonials, and even Auschwitz itself as perhaps the central most important commemoration site. For the purpose of this study, my film analysis concentrates primarily on the relationship between Stanislaw Krzeminski, the Holocaust survivor still living at the Auschwitz memorial site, and Sven, the young German taking care of him during a year of civil service, before I examine the memory conventions at Auschwitz and its effects on Stanislaw Krzeminski, Sven and the audience. However, I will start with a brief summary of the plot and a close examination of the opening sequence as it refuses an easy entry into the film, thereby setting the tone from the very beginning. Am Ende kommen Touristen takes place in contemporary Os´wie ˛ cim, a small town near Krakow, Poland better known for its gruesome history by its German name Auschwitz. The film narrates Sven ’ s experiences as a young German doing civil service in lieu of military service (Zivildienstleistender). It contrasts Sven ’ s work, caring for the sole Holocaust survivor still living at the memorial site, with his personal life in Os´wie ˛ cim, where he falls in love with the young Polish tourist guide of the Auschwitz memorial site. But Sven is clearly not a hero and only a very reluctant protagonist at best, as he doesn ’ t play along and is rather slow in figuring out the part he is supposed to play. His seeming indifference, expressed by his lack of empathy, responsibility and sensitivity vis-à-vis the fragile 80 year-old survivor Stanislaw Krzeminski in his charge vividly illustrates the third generation ’ s inability to relate to the Holocaust and its lack of commitment to remembering the past. However, Sven is not the only problematic representative of the third generation portrayed in this film: there is Ania, the young Polish tour guide fluent in German, her brother Kryzsztof who works in the local chemical plant, formerly the infamous IG Farben plant (now owned again by a German company), and the German apprentices at the chemical plant. They all have in common that they seem to care less about the gruesome history of Auschwitz than their lives and careers in modern-day Os´wie ˛ cim or beyond. The film sets in with the sounds of an arriving train while the screen is all black, then changes into the opening credits still on black background. When the first scene fades in, the high-angle camera shot shows several parallel train tracks, an old train arriving at the station and numerous rusty, uncoupled train cars to the side. The image is unmistakably modern, but for a split second the viewer is reminded of the familiar pictures of deported Jews arriving in Auschwitz. Yet the film is quick to correct this stereotypical association in the following scenes. After Sven exits the train car with his heavy suitcase, the 62 Friederike B. Emonds train moves out of the picture, revealing the name of the place: we are not in Auschwitz but in modern-day Os´wie ˛ cim. The following scenes unambiguously reinforce the sense of place in the twenty-first century. As Sven is sitting in the moving taxi, the viewer gets to share his viewpoint and Polish pop music, which suddenly sets in. The camera pans over its surroundings: the small river with its pebbled beach, the tall church prominently centered, the city square with its small shops and modern cars. But the taxi drives on, leaving the town center of Os´wie ˛ cim behind as we gradually approach the infamous gates of the former concentration camp Auschwitz. Yet the somewhat nervous anticipation this scene creates is very undramatically undercut when the taxi, instead of driving through the gates as the film causes us to anticipate, slowly turns to the left and stops at the parking lot of the modern education center affiliated with the memorial site. Here again, the film foils the viewer ’ s assumptions, as it does not present us with the typical «Schockbilder» we come to expect in a film ostensibly about Auschwitz (Finger). A mere parking lot as part of the first impression of Auschwitz is rather anticlimactic. In the film, Sven has arrived in modern-day Os´wie ˛ cim, while we, the viewers, still grapple with reconciling the modern pictures of Os´wie ˛ cim with the vast inventory of gruesome historical images of Auschwitz in our collective memory. Indeed, the film ’ s careful camera and editing work in the opening sequence pervasively establishes a sense of place in the present right at the beginning, thereby thwarting our stereotypical expectation of Auschwitz as a place locked in the past. As we can see, before the actual plot begins, Thalheim clearly forces us to critically re-evaluate our preconceived notion of Auschwitz, which Lammert so pointedly encapsulated in the expression, «Auschwitz ist Chiffre, kein Ort» («2006»). But a cipher is not accessible while a place is, the film seems to vividly demonstrate to us. Indeed, while in our collective memory Auschwitz has solidified into a metonymy for the Holocaust as a whole, 9 in real life, as Jacques Derrida emphasized somewhat surprised in 1998, «the town . . . still exists: there are still restaurants in Auschwitz, there is a particular place» (22). And that is precisely what the film insists on: Auschwitz is a real place, albeit under the Polish name Os´wie ˛ cim. While the viewer is struggling to catch up with this premise of the film, so too, as we will see, is its protagonist. Upon his arrival in Os´wie ˛ cim, Sven is immediately confronted with a new language, Polish, which he doesn ’ t speak, the still somewhat strained Polish- German relationship, which he doesn ’ t understand, the legacy of the Holocaust, which he would rather forget, and the reality of the concentration camp Auschwitz and its enormous tourist industry, which is overwhelming 63 Revisiting the Memory Industry for him. By the time he finally reaches his room at the memorial site, he is disheartened by the plainness and anonymity of the place where he is supposed to live. It is clear to him that he has ended up at the extreme opposite of his original assignment, in which he was supposed to work with children in Amsterdam. To make things worse, his relationship with Holocaust survivor Stanislaw Krzeminski — the person he is assigned to take care of — is strained literally from the start. Their first encounter takes place in the shared kitchen when Krzeminski walks in right after Sven — thirsty from his long travels — takes a milk carton out of the refrigerator and drinks it up straight out of the container. As becomes clear, the milk was Krzeminski ’ s to use in his cereal. The ensuing shot-counter-shot sequence reveals Sven as the obvious intruder in the quiet kitchen as he sits at the table rolling a cigarette. Yet ironically, the visual composition of this scene reverses the roles of the two characters. Sven, the intruder, occupies the central space of the room with the kitchen table, so that the old man walking in is left to the margins of his own kitchen. Just as Sven has nonchalantly taken possession of the milk in the refrigerator, he also takes possession of the kitchen space. During this scene, there is no music that could possibly dispel the tension between the two men. As Sven tries to explain his blunder in an incoherent mixture of broken English and stuttering German, Krzeminski very quietly cuts through his jumbled verbiage to inquire if the milk carton was empty. Sven briefly confirms, then hastily moves on to express his joyous surprise of the other man ’ s German skills. The following countershot clearly shows the disdain in Krzeminski ’ s face as he stares incredulously at the new arrival, puts his untouched cereal bowl down and retreats. Bridging the gap between past and present, this seemingly long and uncomfortable scene forces the viewer to reflect upon this all too familiar incident in history at the same place: Sven ’ s careless blunder assumes new meaning considering the place where it happened: Auschwitz. His wrongdoings but even more so the cool nonchalance of his actions, conjure up images of mistreatment and abuse in the former concentration camp. From a cinematographic aspect, this short shot-counter-shot sequence already encapsulates the unlikely relationship between the old Polish survivor and the young German newly arrived in town. Theirs is an improbable bond: the two are connected by one of the most heinous crimes in history but divided by generations. It should be noted at this point, that nowhere in the film do we get any hints about Sven ’ s grandfathers or any other family member during WWII. In fact, the film withholds all information about Sven ’ s family or his past, leaving the protagonist to represent today ’ s third generation of Germans without the baggage of family history. 64 Friederike B. Emonds In the course of the film, Sven ’ s behavior toward the old man becomes more impatient and disrespectful as he seems to perceive Krzeminski as part of the memorial site ’ s inventory. Indeed, Sven simply refuses to get personally involved with Krzeminski ’ s traumatic past as a Holocaust survivor. As a young German, Sven does not want to get constantly reminded of a past he did not live through. No longer does he want to be made to feel guilty or responsible for crimes that he personally did not commit. In fact, Sven is tired of the Holocaust. He wants to forget the past, and live in the present. The film persuasively illustrates Sven ’ s attempt to escape from the past when he moves out of the place he shares with Krzeminski at the Auschwitz memorial site and instead into a room in Ania ’ s apartment in Os´wie ˛ cim. While Krzeminski ’ s presence signifies a constant reminder of the past and hence stirs up feelings of guilt and shame, the young museum guide Ania represents his love interest and promises emotional restitution and possible integration into the everyday lives of the young and modern generation of Os´wie ˛ cim. 10 Sven ’ s resentment is especially typical for the third generation as the close emotional ties to the actual crime, the Holocaust, are replaced by mediated reminders such as museums, films, and memorials. With the memory of the Holocaust fading into the past, this third generation seeks to find a new identity — one that is not fractured by guilt and shame of the past. As in Sven ’ s case, many young people today look to a strong united Europe for a new pan- European identity. This trend is symbolized in the film by Sven ’ s move to Os´wie ˛ cim. Stanislaw Krzeminski, the old Holocaust survivor, for his part, reacts to Sven in a mostly curt and cantankerous manner, refusing to engage in conversation with him though he speaks German fluently. He often addresses Sven in commands and with an air of reproach and self-righteousness that remind viewers of stereotypical Nazi commands reproduced in Hollywood films. He purposefully gives him menial tasks late in the day to extend Sven ’ s workday into his leisure time — tasks, which the latter only grudgingly performs. Krzeminski seems to relish the role reversal, where he is now in a position of power and thus able to command around the young heir of the perpetrators who victimized him. Though Krzeminski talks about his past in the testimonials several times throughout the film, the viewer, in fact, doesn ’ t learn much about him personally. The film doesn ’ t make any references to his religious identity. 11 We only learn that he has spent most of his life in Auschwitz. During National Socialism, he was a Polish inmate, survived the Holocaust and helped built the memorial site after the war. Yet, as we find out in the course of the film, Krzeminski also struggles with his life at the memorial site. In contrast to Sven, 65 Revisiting the Memory Industry Krzeminski does not want to forget the past but consciously lives with the pain of the past in the present. That Krzeminski is unable to work through his traumatic past becomes clear when he stubbornly refuses to live anywhere else but in the modest guesthouse at the Auschwitz memorial site. Something compels him to stay at this place. As we know, his mission at the museum is to recount to the visitors his traumatic experiences during the Holocaust at Auschwitz. But Krzeminski has another, «unofficial» task that at least to him seems just as important as his witness testimonies: he repairs the old suitcases from the museum. As the old man meticulously patches them in his «Werkstatt,» his repair shop, the museum ’ s curators ’ grow more and more unwilling to release the precious authentic memory pieces to him until they finally refuse, claiming that he would do more damage than good. What the curators and the museums officials don ’ t realize is that Krzeminski is bound by an old promise to take care of those suitcases. As a camp inmate, Krzeminski was forced to work at the infamous Auschwitz train station where he had to take the suitcases from the new arrivals. Knowing full well that their owners would most likely not survive the deathly concentration camp, Krzeminski nevertheless promised to safeguard their suitcases. The lingering sense of guilt for his albeit forced part in the Auschwitz machinery as well as his survivor guilt in face of the millions of dead victims here symbolized by the masses of empty suitcases compound his traumatic experiences at Auschwitz. 12 Hence, the preservation of the old suitcases represents Krzeminski ’ s obsessive attempt not only to keep his promise but also to keep the past alive. That is the reason he cannot leave the memorial site. Krzeminski ’ s fixation on living the past in the present and his life goal to never forget obviously clash with Sven ’ s noncommittal attitude of a disengaged present. Their latent animosity, however, escalates into a real standoff when Krzeminski is at a local pub with his friends and Sven has to wait for him to drive him home. As the evening moves on, and Krzeminski is still happily chatting with his friends, Sven interrupts several times to urge him to leave. But Krzeminski ignores him and even makes fun of him, albeit in Polish so that Sven doesn ’ t understand the reason for the other men ’ s laughter. Finally, as it is past his working hours and waiting for Krzeminski is infringing on his own «Feierabend,» Sven simply takes off, leaving the fragile 80-year old Krzeminski to find his way home alone. Indeed, Krzeminski makes it home unscathed — he is by chance picked up along the road late at night by an employee of the Auschwitz museum. When his boss Klaus Herold, the director of the International Youth Meeting Center, finds out about the nightly incident, Sven is severely reprimanded. Herold reminds him that Auschwitz is a sensitive place and 66 Friederike B. Emonds that if anything indeed had happened to the former Auschwitz prisoner on account of his young German caretaker, it would have been a huge scandal. Yet despite the stiff rebuke, Sven is slow in understanding that as a German he has a special responsibility for the Holocaust survivor. On the contrary, Herold ’ s confrontation only confirms and deepens his perception of himself as a victim. Consequently, neither his own transgression nor Herold ’ s lecture cause him to eventually change his attitude. Only when his own disrespectful behavior is mirrored by the bored look and rude questions of his own peers — a group of young German workers who were made to listen to Krzeminski ’ s memories of the camp — does his nonchalant façade of fatigue start to crumble. Ironically, it is not the gruesome stories that eventually change his attitude toward the survivor but the rude reactions of the audience who are doubting the authenticity of his prisoner number tattooed on in his arm. It is as if Sven has to witness Krzeminski ’ s suffering for himself before he can even begin to open up to the old survivor ’ s perspective on the past and his traumatic experiences. The most critical moment in Sven ’ s slow awareness process takes place at Monowice, the site of the former Auschwitz-Monowitz or Auschwitz III concentration camp. 13 This particular site has no visible remains of the concentration camp today. Ironically, it is the events at this site, which contains no authentic signifiers of the past, that open up Sven ’ s eyes to see Krzeminski ’ s pain of the past in the present. Yet the following scenes are not only critical for Sven, but, as we will see, constitute perhaps the most pivotal sequence in the entire film. The opening scene in the sequence depicts camp survivor Stanislaw Krzeminski, Sven, Ania, and a group of German executives from the local chemical plant in Monowice at the dedication of a new memorial erected by the young German apprentices of that chemical plant — a special project that Sven supervised. The beginning of this scene is characterized by nervous anticipation: the relentless sound of the pouring rain and the pitifully soaked speaker and his audience foreshadow the awkwardness of this dreary event. Furthermore, the unsteady hand-held camera contributes to the impression of an «unerfreuliche Pflichterfüllung» as Ebbrecht aptly put it — »einer öffentlichen Geste» rather than meaningful remembrance of the inhuman selection process that took place in Monowitz (177). 14 When Krzeminski starts to retell his experiences, the camera steadies, focuses on him, then pans over the dutifully disturbed faces of his audience only to reveal them as blasé masks. As he continues, the film audience slowly realizes that Krzeminski ’ s testimonial of past events, his description of the SS doctors during the selection process, also very aptly describes his current audience. Krzeminski: «Viele Male habe 67 Revisiting the Memory Industry ich den gelangweilten Blick der Ärzte gesehen. Es war Ihnen unangenehm, uns überhaupt anzusehen. Wir wurden nur beurteilt nach unserer Verwertbarkeit.» At this point, the camera cuts to Krzeminski ’ s audience and shows the bored look on their faces. Once again, it becomes clear that for the attending executives from Germany the whole ceremony is merely a political gesture for transnational business interests. However, even more telling in this scene is the premature and hasty interruption by the German representative of the chemical plant, Andrea Schneider, 15 right at the moment when Krzeminski elaborates on the «Verwertbarkeit,» the usefulness and value, of the forced laborers in the camp. Here again, the film bridges the gap between the past events and the current situation, revealing, as Ebbrecht describes, that «[a]uch in diesem Gedenkritual wird Krzeminski nach seiner Verwertbarkeit beurteilt. Nicht seine Erinnerungen, sondern seine Funktion als Zeitzeuge sind von Interesse» (177). The film confirms this interpretation in the next brief scene, in which Frau Schneider carefully optimizes the constellation of German executives around Krzeminski for a commemorative group photo, moving people to different positions when Krzeminski walks out of the picture. Without hesitation the group photo is taken without him — Krzeminski, the Holocaust survivor, is indeed not needed anymore. Apart from the scathing critique of this kind of official remembrance culture, this sequence very carefully portrays Sven ’ s recognition of Krzeminki ’ s predicament. While the rest of the audience simply goes along with Frau Schneider ’ s rude interruption and her busy photo arrangements, it is Sven who emerges from his sullen indifference as Krzeminski ’ s outspoken advocate. Witnessing Frau Schneider ’ s presumptuousness, Sven recognizes that he has to act. He breaks the silence of this misguided ceremony that the rest of the audience ’ s complicity maintains. He is the only one who speaks up for Krzeminski as he criticizes her rude interruption and severely questions her shallow excuse that Krzeminski ’ s speech was losing its effect. As the film convincingly shows, it is at this point, that Sven finally begins to understand that Krzeminski ’ s suffering is not neatly contained in the past but in fact continues into the present. Engaging with this new and different perspective compels Sven to stand up for his beliefs and defend the old survivor. Yet the ill-fated commemoration constitutes a pivotal moment not only for Sven ’ s awareness process but also for Krzeminski ’ s as he resignedly concedes, «Ein Mann wie ich wird hier nicht gebraucht. [. . .] Zeigen Sie denen Schindlers Liste. Das macht mehr Eindruck.» Krzeminski recognizes that in today ’ s society, historical witnesses have lost their «effect» and with that their central 68 Friederike B. Emonds place in Holocaust remembrance as the younger generation reacts to their testimonials with indifference while officials coopt the witnesses ’ recollections for their own purposes. Thalheim, who performed civil service in Auschwitz in the 1990s, commented on this recent development in real life in a 2007 interview: 16 Früher waren die Zeitzeugen das Zentrum der Begegnung mit diesem Ort. Heute sind die wenigen, die noch leben, sehr alt. Vor fünf Jahren stellte die moderne Museumsleitung, die ein wirklich gutes pädagogisches Konzept hat, die Frage, ob ein ehemaliger Gefangener ohne pädagogische oder historische Ausbildung überhaupt Gruppen durch das Lager führen sollte. Das ist tragisch: Die eigentlichen Zeugen geraten ins Abseits und sind nicht mehr die besten Vermittler ihrer eigenen Geschichte. («Wer dort wohnt») Counter to this trend in real life, however, the film ’ s convincing montage that connects the past events of Krzeminski ’ s testimonial with the present commemoration ceremony emphasizes the importance of witness testimonials not only for Sven ’ s awareness process but also for the viewer, as it reveals how such official ceremonies have deteriorated into empty gestures, which only obscure our understanding of the need for ethically and socially responsible remembrance of the Shoah. Furthermore, Krzeminski ’ s dejected comment that simulated historical experience through film seems to leave a deeper impression on the audience than witness testimonials also serves as a self-reference to the film industry, harking back to von Moltke ’ s earlier critique of the dominance of cinematic affect in Holocaust films. Clearly, the film criticizes the general notion that lasting effect can only be produced by (strong) choreographed melodramatic affect, thereby replacing experiential narration (witness testimonials) as the primary source of Holocaust education. As Griselda Pollock showed in her brilliant article «Holocaust Tourism: Being There, Looking Back and the Ethics of Spatial Memory,» film audiences are often seduced by mediatized reconstructions that convey the feeling of «authenticity» and «truthfulness» when, in fact, their representations of historical events are mercilessly falsified for the benefit of cinematic effect. This trend has impacted the tourist industry in an ironic twist as evidenced in the phenomenon of «Schindler-Tourism» where tourists now visit the sites in Krakow «used in the film [instead of] seeking out [. . .] the actual sites referred to by the film, though not used in the film for purely cinematic reasons» (Pollock 2003). 17 In contrast, Thalheim ’ s film avoids any kind of historical reconstructions and flashbacks. Instead, the film insists on its exclusive focus on present-day life in Os´wie ˛ cim. The viewer experiences the film ’ s intense engagement with the Holocaust past through the constant struggle between Sven and Krze- 69 Revisiting the Memory Industry minski and their opposed perspectives on that past. Interestingly, the conflicts between Sven and Krzeminksi are typically filmed at indoor locations, such as their shared kitchen, the local pub or Krzeminski ’ s repair shop. However, it is important to point out that the film also confronts its audience with contemporary images of ruins and reconstructions of the former Auschwitz complex throughout the story. These visual reminders casually form the backdrop when the story focuses on Sven and Ania, for example, as they ride their bikes along the restored fence of the former concentration camp to go swimming or buy a melon at a fruit stand near an old watch tower of the former camp. When they ride their bikes through a little village nearby, Ania shows him the unrestored Auschwitz II site — concrete ruins on a meadow mark the former extermination camp Birkenau, where up to four million people, mostly Jewish, were killed. Once again, the film confronts its audience with extreme paradoxes, causing irritations in viewers who are left to reconcile the horrible images of the Auschwitz camps — this «Topographie des Grauens» in our collective memory as Christian Buß rightly states — with the cautious and tender love story that develops between Sven and Ania. However, the simultaneous arrangement of the reminders of past atrocities and the unfolding love story does not trivialize the horrible events of the past. The film is very careful not to sentimentalize either story, the memory of the past or the love story, with flashbacks, nondiegetic music, or special effects as Thalheim comments in a 2007 interview with Der Tagesspiegel: «Ich wollte nicht über den Ort Emotionen erzeugen. In jeder Dokumentation kommt die Geigenmusik aus dem Off, dann wird im unscharfen Bild der Stacheldraht gezeigt» («Wer dort wohnt»). Instead, the film asks us to confront this paradox, rather than to resolve it or to smooth it out, and most importantly to live with it: the past as part of our present-day life. Life almost 70 years after Auschwitz in Os´wie ˛ cim, where love stories, humor and laughter, beer drinking and dancing in the local discotheque, swimming in the nearby river take place — all of that is possible. Yet, the film also confronts us with images of the modern-day Auschwitz memorial site though once again in an unexpected way. Since Thalheim — just like Spielberg before him — didn ’ t get permission to film inside the memorial, 18 he shows the nearby Auschwitz site as an efficient tourist attraction equipped with a huge parking lot for tour buses and a souvenir stand — indeed a site that processes over a million tourists per year. Though the audience gains insight into the educational working through («Aufarbeitung») of the Auschwitz experience at the International Youth Meeting Center, viewers are left to wonder how successful Auschwitz can possibly be as a solemn place 70 Friederike B. Emonds of remembrance given that mass tourism has turned the site into a memory industry. 19 Thalheim ’ s portrayal of the commodification of Auschwitz in his film hits a nerve in the current debate about Holocaust tourism as part of the enormous popularity of «dark tourism» or «Gruseltourismus» (Broder, «Auschwitz vergessen? ») — a debate that not only takes place in academic circles, such as in the newly established Institute for Dark Tourism Research (IDTR) in England, but also in literary discussions and texts, for example in Henryk Broder ’ s controversial work Vergesst Auschwitz! (2012) and in Doron Rabinovici ’ s fascinating novel Andernorts (2010). 20 Broder sharply criticizes the current memory culture, which according to him consists mostly of «Wohfühlrituale für die Nachkommen der Täter, die sich selbst darin bestätigen, wie vorbildlich sie mit der Geschichte umgehen» («Auschwitz vergessen? »). Though he admits that Auschwitz should never be forgotten, he insists in the same interview, «Aber heute steht Auschwitz eben auch für Selbstabsolution, eine Wellness-Oase für Vergangenheitsbewältigung.» Broder ’ s as well as Thalheim ’ s critique is directed against the highly perfected memory rituals and conventions at Auschwitz that due to the disproportionate musealization reshape the encounter with Auschwitz into «a memorable visit, rather than a visit of memory» as Pollock aptly puts it (177). Current, established memory conventions relieve the individual of the responsibility of active memory work because he or she can relegate this task to state-supported institutions. History feels safer when we put it into a museum. We can walk away from it. But there is an ethical dilemma as Pollock once again points out: «To go, to tour and to leave, is to defy that demonic logic, to put ‹ Auschwitz › back in a place with an entrance and an exit, to see its impoverished remains as the closed containers of a history that is past and fading» (176). At first glance, this perceived «closure» of the horrible crimes against humanity committed at Auschwitz seems to be implied in the title of Thalheim ’ s film Am Ende kommen Touristen — with its explicit reference to an end. 21 This impression is reinforced when we see Sven at the end of the film with his suitcase at the train station in Os´wie ˛ cim. After a fight with his girl-friend Ania — the last cause for his hasty escape — Sven packs his bags to leave Os´wie ˛ cim for good. However, unlike all the other tourists, Sven does not leave either Os´wie ˛ cim or Auschwitz. Instead, he changes his mind and returns — not to Ania though, who is going to leave Os´wie ˛ cim anyway in a few weeks for a new job in Brussels, but to the memorial site. With his decision to stay and return to the memorial site — a decision this time made on his own — Sven finally faces his responsibilities for the German past he did not 71 Revisiting the Memory Industry experience. As Sven helps a disoriented teacher with his school class to find the right bus from the train station to the memorial site, the film indicates that unlike these students and their teacher, Sven is not going to be a tourist, a mere passive bystander, anymore. It is at this point that the film ends very abruptly, leaving viewers once again struggling to tie up the loose ends, thereby forcing us to continue the dialogue that begins with the film ’ s narrative beyond its end. The lack of closure effectively reflects that the film ’ s narrative cannot provide a quick fix in the form of a happy end, nor is the film as a medium able to offer answers and solutions to the kind of difficult social and ethical life problems it raises. While the film persuasively raises the questions and makes the problems visible, it is up to the viewer now to continue the dialogue that the film started and search for answers and solutions in real life. Nevertheless the film ’ s ending carries a sense of hope. It doesn ’ t go so far as to hint at a possible friendship between the old Polish survivor and the young German or at any notion of atonement. But Sven ’ s decision to return to the memorial site reflects that through his work with Krzeminski, the past that he wanted to forget has become accessible and therefore meaningful to him. And even though Auschwitz, as official memorial site and mass tourist destination as well as historical site of past atrocities in close proximity to present-day life in Os´wie ˛ cim, confronts him with insolvable paradoxes, Sven is now committed to staying. Instead of trying to overcome or smooth out those paradoxes, he is willing to live and engage with them as part of his everyday life in Auschwitz and Os´wie ˛ cim. It is not a promise that the film makes but a sense of hope that the narrative hints at. As Elie Wiesel wisely asserted, «Just as man cannot live without dreams, he cannot live without hope. If dreams reflect the past, hope summons the future» («Hope, Despair and Memory»). As to the viewers, Robert Thalheim ’ s film Am Ende kommen Touristen gives us suggestions on how to overcome the exclusiveness of an institutionalized memory culture. It successfully shows us possibilities in the balancing act of keeping Holocaust memory integrated into our everyday life and committing it to cultural memory. By providing us with a renewed sense of Holocaust memory as part of «living communication» through the active confrontation with incommensurate paradoxes in our present-day life, the film shows us that even in the future, dealing with the past is indeed full of possibilities. 72 Friederike B. Emonds Notes 1 German artist Gunter Demnig ’ s «Stolpersteine» are small memorials installed in the pavement to remember individual victims of the Holocaust. They consist of a small concrete block — about the size of a cobblestone — with a commemorative brass plate mounted on top. Today there are over 32,000 «Stolpersteine» throughout Europe («Stolpersteine»). 2 Given such mass productions in the German media, we are reminded of Eli Wiesel ’ s cautious deliberations: «After all, by what right would we neglect the mass media? By what right would we deny them the possibility of informing, educating, sensitizing the millions of men and women who would normally say, ‹ Hitler, who ’ s he? › But on the other hand, if we allow total freedom to the mass media, don ’ t we risk seeing them profane and trivialize a sacred subject? » (Wiesel, Foreword). 3 In 1996, former German President Roman Herzog officially declared January 27 as Germany ’ s national Day of Remembrance. Nine years later, in 2005, the UN General Assembly designated this day as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. See also the interesting discussion between Aleida Assmann and Harald Welzer about a uniquely German national holiday similar to the 4th of July in the US. In this discussion, Welzer states, «Ich war kürzlich auf einer Fachtagung für Gedenkstätten. Da wurde diskutiert, warum Deutsche keinen vernünftigen Feiertag haben. Der 3. Oktober taugt nicht, weil ihm das sinnliche Moment fehlt, und der 9. November ist ambivalent. Der 27. Januar wurde interessanterweise gar nicht erwähnt. Sogar das Fachpublikum hatte dieses Datum nicht auf der Agenda» («Das ist unser Familienerbe»). 4 More than any other event in the past twenty years, the 2006 Soccer World Cup in Germany achieved an affirmative sense of national identity from the ground up among the German population similar to the 1954 World Cup, in which the West German soccer team emerged as the surprising winner. 5 For example, Jewish educators in New York have worried for some time that Jewish teenagers are seeing the Holocaust as less relevant, or even «overexposed» while in Israel, some Jewish intellectuals suggest «that the Jewish community puts too much emphasis on the Holocaust, thereby running the risk of alienating young people.» See http: / / njjewishnews.com/ njjn.com/ 121307/ njHolocaustFatigue.html 6 See also Elie Wiesel ’ s critique of today ’ s generation ’ s indifference toward the Shoah in the interview «Prinz Harry.» 7 To be fair, the ideas represented here make up only a small portion of Giesecke and Welzer ’ s innovative approaches to memory research that culminate in an all-encompassing, interactive model they call «Haus der menschlichen Möglichkeiten», which they outline as a hands-on humanities equivalent to the science museums where visitors need to make their own decisions and act out different possibilities to solve social problems. 8 This is evidenced for example by the 2004 double issue entitled «Geschichtsgefühl» of the leftist cultural magazine Ästhetik und Kommunikation. 9 Auschwitz was used as a metonymy for the entire Holocaust already in 1955 when Theodor W. Adorno chose Auschwitz and not any other name in his well-known statement that «to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric» (34). For an interesting discussion of Auschwitz as a metaphor, see James Young, Writing and Re-Writing the Holocaust 89 - 94. 73 Revisiting the Memory Industry 10 Interestingly, the promise of savior and absolution embodied by the young Polish woman — the old trope of «das ewig Weibliche» — doesn ’ t get fulfilled. Instead, Ania leaves Sven for a new job in Brussels. This is in part due to Sven ’ s lack of commitment for a shared future. It seems that he is unable to either commit to the future (Ania) or to the past (Krzeminski). 11 Tobias Ebbrecht contends that Krzeminski is not Jewish but that his character is based on the group of Polish inmates who were forced to build the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1941 (171). 12 The suitcases play several important functions in this film. They symbolize that unlike Sven, Krzeminski comes with the baggage of the past. As Gerd Bayer pointed out (127), they also serve to represent the striking absence of Jews in the film — a film ostensibly about Auschwitz, which, as I mentioned before, functions as a metonymy for the entire Holocaust. As Ebbrecht elaborates, the suitcases also come to play an important role in the relationship between Krzeminski and Sven (180 - 81). 13 The former Auschwitz-Monowitz or Auschwitz III concentration camp was a work camp for mostly Jewish prisoners who were used as slave labor for the German chemical plant I. G. Farben. Holocaust survivors Elie Wiesel and Primo Levi were prisoners in this camp. Today there are no visible remains of the Monowitz concentration camp. 14 For an excellent detailed description of this particular sequence see Ebbrecht 176 - 78. 15 As Sabine von Mering points out (167), the character of Andrea Schneider is pointedly played by Lena Stolze who became famous for her portrayals of two leading characters in two films by Michael Verhoeven: Sophie Scholl in Die weiße Rose (1982) and Anja Rosmus in Das unmögliche Mädchen (1990). 16 Thalheim insists that the film is not autobiographical: «Nein, es ist eine fiktive Geschichte, wenn auch inspiriert von der Stimmung, die ich damals im Umgang mit Besuchern und Polen gespürt habe» («Hart Spielberg»). 17 Interestingly, as Pollock points out, «the actual site of the ghetto was also not used in the film; instead, the parts of the town from which Jewish families and communities had been evacuated were substituted, thus actually reversing the movements of history for the sake of the cinematic picturesque» (176). 18 Auschwitz is considered a cemetery. That is the reason why filming is not allowed inside the memorial center. 19 Indeed, most characters in the film are shown to work at the memorial site or the nearby chemical plant. 20 Rabinovici ’ s protagonist Ethan Rosen argues for either side in the debate. While living in Vienna he speaks out for the importance of Auschwitz as memorial site, but while in Israel he attacks Auschwitz as «Disneyland der Vernichtung» (48). Rabinovici ’ s cleverly constructed confrontation of the opposing sides argued by the same character emphasizes the complex relationships between national, generational and identity politics in Holocaust memory work. 21 In a 2011 interview, Thalheim explains that he borrowed the film ’ s title from a poetry volume by the Berlin author Björn Kuhligk, though the poems in that volume have nothing to do with the topic of the film. As Thalheim elaborates on the film ’ s plot, he encapsulates the dilemma that the film deals with: «Auf der einen Seite liegt etwas Befremdliches darin, dass an einem Ort der Verbrechen des Nationalsozialismus heute Touristenbusse vorfahren und sich Leute vor dem Tor ‹ Arbeit macht frei › fotografieren. Auf der anderen Seite ist es eben wichtig, dass dieser Ort besucht wird und nicht in 74 Friederike B. Emonds Vergessenheit gerät und dazu braucht es eine gewisse museale Infrastruktur» («Interview mit dem Team»). Works Cited Adorno, Theodor W. Prisms. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1983. Assmann, Aleida. «History, Memory, and the Genre of Testimony.» Poetics Today 27.2 (2006): 261 - 73. — . «On the (In) Compatibility of Guilt and Suffering in German Memory.» German Life and Letters 59.2 (2006): 27 - 34. Assmann, Aleida, and Harald Welzer. Interview by Stefan Reinecke and Jan Feddersen. «Das ist unser Familienerbe.» taz.de. 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