Berlin - A city of dynamic remembrance

Berlin is the kind of city where you don’t have to specifically look for historical memorials.  Immediately you understand the relevance of understanding the past, the impact of oppressive regimes, the significance of history on the present-day life of the city, and the engagement of the people.  The entire city demands that you understand, remember, learn and interact with the events of its past on a daily basis.  Layer upon layer of its evolving story is reflected in its cityscape - as reflected in this stylized Cold War era building on Karl Marx Allee,

The famous Kino International building on Karl Marx Allée

wartime ruins (check out the history of the Tachele building - currently an artists' squat http://super.tacheles.de/cms/) and the Berlin Wall relics, as well as more deliberate memorials and learning opportunities. 

At the suggestion of my friend Louis Bickford (http://wagner.nyu.edu/bickford) - who is an expert on memorialization and its significance as a means of victim redress - we kept an eye out for stumbling blocks.  Stumbling blocks are small but poignant individual memorials placed in front of the houses of Jewish Berliners who had been forced to leave or who had been murdered during WWII.  We were walking down the street, and then suddenly noticed the small raised bricks in the sidewalk and realized what they were.  It gave us pause and brought us to a deeper, more visceral understanding of the space we were in.

Stumbling blocks in former East Berlin

 

We also came across an interesting temporary outdoor installation set up in Alexanderplatz.by the Dissidents’ Organization.  It took a full two hours to read this "people's account" of the dynamics behind the fall of the Wall.  It was a nice counterpoint to the DDR Museum which was a bit flat, politically speaking.  This was an example of a alternative narrative existing in a public space to provide another side to the story of the Cold War and its end.  

To me, Berlin is a good example of a community which has made an effort to face up to the responsibility to remember its complex and multi-dimensional history.  Perhaps more importantly, there seems to be room for 'non-official' narratives in artistic and public spaces.  Stories from its past are infused throughout the cityscape.  This form of 'commemoration' is not rigid and forgotten as might happen with a statue in a park; rather, it is dynamic, it is everywhere, and there is context and discussion throughout.  There is a much smaller risk of ignoring the past when it is part of one's daily life.

I think that ideally a commemoration initiative that is part of a reparations package includes an ongoing and multi-participatory 'public education' or consciousness-raising effort that is the shared responsibility of leaders and community members.  Equally important are the physical touchstones and dynamic opportunities created by artists, historians, educators and others that bring us to moments of remembrance - points of time and space where we can reflect on what we have learned about our collective past.

Truth commissions like the one in Canada have a coordinating role for commemorative efforts.  Other commission may have the ability to influence the design of commemoration initiatives.  Berlin is a worthy place to consider....