Necrocartography: Topographies and topologies of non-sites of memory

Aleksandra Szczepan,Kinga Siewior

doi:10.3897/hmc.1.63418

Abstract

Based on the experience of spatial confusion and inadequacy common during visits to uncommemorated sites of violence, the authors propose expanding the topological reflection in the research on the spatialities of the Holocaust, as well as to introduce topology into the analysis of the everyday experiences of users of the postgenocidal space of Central and Eastern Europe. The research material is composed of hand-drawn maps by Holocaust eyewitnesses – documents created both in the 1960s and in recent years. The authors begin by summarizing the significance of topology for cultural studies, and provides a state-of-the-art reflection on cartography in the context of the Holocaust. They then proceed to interpret several of the maps as particular topological testimonies. The authors conclude by proposing a multi-faceted method of researching these maps, “necrocartography”, oriented by their testimonial, topological and performative aspects.

Highlights

Our point of departure is an autoethnographic experience: the experience of spatial inadequacy at the uncommemorated sites of genocide, so ubiquitous in post-Holocaust Eastern Europe
We would like to summarise the above considerations in the form of a list of conclusions about the practices of the local, “vernacular” mapping of the non-sites of memory, and what maps tell us about the status of the non-site of memory itself and the nature of research practices that we call “necrocartography”
It is both evidence in the matter of the history of a site, as well as an intimate record of the observer’s experience. It may bring back memories of the past (Bełżyce, Mszana), it may sustain memory (Radecznica) or provide a framework in response to specific ideological needs (Szubin). Despite these differences in the role played by local maps, their common features are the abandonment of the “large scale” that recalls the instrumentalisation and distance of the gaze of perpetrators, the effort of conceding the absolute dispersion of violence in this terrain, and the treatment of these lands not as a post-genocidal vacuum, but as a space that has been persistently inhabited, needing to be experienced in the most bodily of ways

Summary

Introduction

Our point of departure is an autoethnographic experience: the experience of spatial inadequacy at the uncommemorated sites of genocide, so ubiquitous in post-Holocaust Eastern Europe. Szczepan & Siewior: Necrocartography: Topographies and topologies of non-sites of memory tiotemporal knots which can be interpreted in terms of relations, a continuous transformation and multiscale historical processes drawn together in one place (Shields 2012).

Results

Conclusion