Remembering Urban Trauma: St Petersburg and Nijmegen in the Second World War

Carien Van Eekhout,Kees Oost,Louise David,Marit Leijnse,Niek Van Ansem,Savannah Mellendijk

doi:10.46539/cmj.v1i2.16

Abstract

The issue of the memory of collective trauma has rarely been analyzed in cross-cultural research. Urban trauma, in particular, is a relatively unknown concept. Never before has the memory of urban trauma of the cities of St Petersburg and Nijmegen in relation to the Second World War been compared in the academic realm. This article sets out to create a juxtaposition of St Petersburg and Nijmegen in terms of their Second World War traumas and the way these traumas are represented and commemorated in both cities. The authors examine the meaning-making role that experts play within the remembrance culture of St Petersburg and Nijmegen. A thick description of conducted field research and interviews with experts are used in order to thoroughly compare the experts’ approach to the remembrance cultures. This article aims to compare and translate the way in which different types of memory of trauma relate to the same event. It establishes that although there are distinct differences between the two cities, experts deal with researching the commemoration of trauma in a similar manner. This study reveals uneasy questions, blind spots and taboos of commemorating urban trauma in both Russia and the Netherlands.

Highlights

On May 15th, 1940, the Dutch army surrendered to Nazi Germany, a mere five days after the German invasion of the Netherlands began
One major similarity between St Petersburg and Nijmegen is that the ordeals the cities went through were not proportionally acknowledged on a national level after the war was over
When comparing the data from St Petersburg and Nijmegen, there seems to be another major similarity: both countries have seen a development of remembrance culture from being predominantly military-oriented towards more acknowledgment of civilian suffering during the war

Summary

Introduction

On May 15th, 1940, the Dutch army surrendered to Nazi Germany, a mere five days after the German invasion of the Netherlands began. That was until the 22nd of February 1944, when Nijmegen was bombed by American aircraft; the bombing killed at least 770 people, making it the second deadliest bombing raid in the Netherlands after the 1940 bombing on Rotterdam by German airplanes (Rosendaal, 2014). The liberation of the city came at the cost of approximately 800 citizens’ lives (Rosendaal, 2014). The Soviet metropolis Leningrad (today: St Petersburg) had been liberated by the Red Army after having been besieged by the German Wehrmacht for 872 days. Leningrad's wartime experiences were traumatic from the very beginning: the death toll of the Leningrad blockade reached well over one million victims (Bidlack & Lomagin, 2012)

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