Düppel Center:
The Jewish DP Camp in Berlin-Schlachtensee
History of the Displaced Persons Camp
The Search for its Presence
and Questions of Memorialization
5. Questions of Memorialization
Table of Contents:
1. Introduction
2. The Idea
4. The Search
5. Questions of Memorialization
8. The Authors
There is no easy way to know exactly where Schlachtensee once sat. Not only is there no commemorative plaque at the site, but the site itself is unclear, unmarked and the people who live there have no idea they live on the premises of a former DP camp. This raises some questions:
Any observer of Germany in the past twenty years understands that there is a vibrant, detailed and intelligent discussion about Holocaust memory. Has this discussion simply overlooked this place?
In the drive for critical understanding, small but important sites sometimes fall off the radar. The case of Schlachtensee drives home this point. Is there a limit to memorialization? Should Germany make sure to memorialize everything?
And what about those Jews who lived in Schlachtensee, what about their descendants alive today? Even if "the Germans" have not commemorated it, doesn't the Jewish community have an undeniable role in the process of memorialization? Does the responsibility not fall on them?
One cannot overlook the power of Holocaust memorialization in Israel and the United States as well as independent Jewish organizations such as the American Jewish Committee (which actually maintains a very impressive office at Leipziger Platz, in the heart of reunified Berlin). How is it, then, possible that none of these powerful, well financed entities has yet taken action to ensure the continued memory of the Jewish DP Camp in Berlin-Schlachtensee?
© 2008 Joseph Dana, Yoav Sapir and Sophie Zimmer, all rights reserved