In 1945 there was no lake here, just a snow covered field and a freshly dug trench. Now it is a flooded gravel pit that has a strange luminous beauty.
Standing here listening to the distant traffic and the rushes moving in the wind I am reading the testimony of Anna Lakatos…
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Beautiful, compelling, thought provoking new work that is unfortunately all too pertinent (again).
Have you read ‘Sites of Memory, Sites of mourning: the Great War in European Cultural History’ by Jay Winter?
Thanks for the feedback, and for the suggestion – I haven’t read it, but will do now. I haven’t done any work on the Great War yet, but we have been thinking of traveling to and along the Western Front to document the traces left in the landscape after nearly 100 years.
Spare a thought why Roz’s project is indeed very topical: Arcelor Mittal, the world’s largest steel company, which gave 19 million pounds of steel for the construction of a monument marking London’s Olympic Games, is refusing to honor its commitment to support the memorialisation of Omarska, a former concentration camp in Bosnia, and an iron ore mine they own today. Two decades after Omarska achieved world notoriety for acts of murder and torture reminiscent of WW2 atrocities that this project is focused on Arcelor Mittal has even restricted access to the site to survivors and their families. See http://www.change.org/petitions/arcelor-mittal-a-uk-based-company-the-largest-steel-producer-in-the-world-give-victims-access-to-omarska-concentration-camp-arcelor-mittal-purchased
Could I also add something to your reading list if this work is not familiar to you already: James E. Young’s seminal work The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning.
There was, apparently, a plan to erect a memorial on the edge of the lake at Varpalota a few years ago, but that fell by the wayside. Refusing to memorialise (or acknowledge) is a sure way to help events of the past slip out of our memories.
Thanks for the book suggestion…I will try and set up a page to post the interesting and growing reading list.