Globalization, Universalization, and Forensic Turn: Postcatastrophic Memorial Museums ☆

Abstract

To what extent does a postcatastrophic in situ site oblige us to something? Can memorials at sites of mass crimes do justice to complex historical events and victims to a higher degree than historical museums in capitals––museums that are often criticized for being inaugurated for political demands? I argue that many recently inaugurated museums dealing with atrocities in the 20th century tend to look the same. Yet, there are huge differences with regard to the question if victims are depicted individually or as a collective. Copying the esthetics of Holocaust memorial museums does not reveal whether sensitive questions of collaboration of one’s own collective are confronted or avoided. The chapter examines how universalization and individualization, negative memory, and the forensic turn relate to each other at memorial museums. The focus on material traces of atrocities, especially the search for, exhumation, and identification of bodies, has become a standard approach to the human remains resulting from mass violence around the globe.Can we say that the aesthetics and forms developed by Holocaust memorial museums “travel” to museums in Rwanda and Srebrenica, while the forensic turn “travels” to Sobibór and Treblinka, influenced by the recent genocides? Communist regimes instrumentalized sites like Auschwitz-Birkenau, Terezín, or Jasenovac for their respective politics of history up until 1989, but in how far is every permanent exhibition, including those inaugurated in the last 25 years at the different kinds of sites, an instrumentalization of the past for today’s purposes? This chapter compares developments in post-communist states with those that did not go through this transformation process after 1989. In addition, including Hungary, Poland, and Croatia allows us to reflect on the effect of authoritarian turns on the postcatastrophic topography.