Absenz und Evidenz

Abstract

The sitios de memoria on sites of former clandestine detention centres and the Gedenkstätten on sites of former Nazi concentration camps are places in which a traumatic past is remembered. They are also marked by a profound duality: they can be places of accusation or places of (self)therapy; places to exhibit the evident or places that open a space for the absent. The article argues that, while Argentine sitios de memoria emphasize the (self)therapy of the affected society, Gedenkstätten focus on the accusation of the perpetrators. It outlines the different sociopolitical constellations under which discourses about the past were established in post-National Socialist societies in Austria and Germany, and in post-dictatorial Argentina, respectively. It also shows how these foundational moments influence the subsequent unfolding and development of memory discourses which in turn are symbolically inscribed in the sites that deal with the commemoration of the past.