Fensterblicke auf den Genozid
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Anne D. Peiter
Abstract
Windows with a View to Genocide: On the Relation of Living Rooms and Concentration Camps This paper discusses two texts: First a letter to the local police, in which a neighbor of the Mauthausen concentration camp complains about her view of dead and agonizing people, culminating in a request to commit the killings elsewhere, where they cannot be witnessed. The second text is a fragment from the novel LeGrand Voyage by the “Spanish Red” (Rotspanier) Jorge Semprun. In this fragment, Semprun describes how the protagonist, after his liberation from the Buchenwald concentrations camp, was able to inspect the view that a neighbor to the camp had on its smokestack during the previous years. This paper analyzes the spatial and visual proximity of genocide to “normality” with reference to Irving Goffman’s concept of “frontstage” and “backstage” behavior. Goffman argues that social interaction adheres to implicit rules of “tact;” just like the audience in a theatre avoids taking a peek at backstage, social life in general is ruled by a tacit agreement that certain views are forbidden. In the case of the concentration camps, however, actors who should have performed backstage only ignored these bans. This raises the question as to how spatial proximity and emotional blindness are related. Hanna Arendt’s argument that dictatorships are characterized by arbitrarily inventing ever changing “realities” serves as a starting point here for developing a novel concept called the “extreme groundlessness” of genocides and their notions of space.
Abstract
Windows with a View to Genocide: On the Relation of Living Rooms and Concentration Camps This paper discusses two texts: First a letter to the local police, in which a neighbor of the Mauthausen concentration camp complains about her view of dead and agonizing people, culminating in a request to commit the killings elsewhere, where they cannot be witnessed. The second text is a fragment from the novel LeGrand Voyage by the “Spanish Red” (Rotspanier) Jorge Semprun. In this fragment, Semprun describes how the protagonist, after his liberation from the Buchenwald concentrations camp, was able to inspect the view that a neighbor to the camp had on its smokestack during the previous years. This paper analyzes the spatial and visual proximity of genocide to “normality” with reference to Irving Goffman’s concept of “frontstage” and “backstage” behavior. Goffman argues that social interaction adheres to implicit rules of “tact;” just like the audience in a theatre avoids taking a peek at backstage, social life in general is ruled by a tacit agreement that certain views are forbidden. In the case of the concentration camps, however, actors who should have performed backstage only ignored these bans. This raises the question as to how spatial proximity and emotional blindness are related. Hanna Arendt’s argument that dictatorships are characterized by arbitrarily inventing ever changing “realities” serves as a starting point here for developing a novel concept called the “extreme groundlessness” of genocides and their notions of space.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- Tracing Oblivion: The Collected Works of Yael Atzmony 1
- Tracing Oblivion 15
- Spatial Thinking in Holocaust Studies 31
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Part I: Theoretical-methodological Approaches
- Expanding Geographies of the Holocaust: Refugees and Spatial Histories 49
- Space and Violence as Analytical Categories in Holocaust Research 67
- Why is Landscape Research Important for Holocaust Studies? 79
- How Can We Map the Holocaust? 89
- Daily Experiences of Persecution in the City: Mobilizing Diaries to Study the Holocaust in Urban Settings 111
- Space in Holocaust Film 119
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Part II: Case Studies
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Fleeting Spaces
- Motion, Fluidity, and Virtuality of Space 133
- Multipurposing Jewish Spaces: German Jewry’s Struggles to Provide Places for its Activities in Hostile Surroundings 143
- Remembering Arcadia in Auschwitz: Pastoral Representations of the Death Camps 159
- Domestic Space in the Films of Chantal Akerman and Claude Lanzmann 177
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Institutionalized Spaces
- Institutionalization as a Socio-spatial Process: Norms, Rules, and Behavior 195
- Blocked Pathways: Regional Room for Manoeuvre of the Jews in the Administrative District of Zichenau, 1939–1945 205
- Denkmäler als Raumproduzenten – Der Gedenkkomplex Trascjanec bei Minsk 229
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Border/ing Spaces
- Drawing Lines, Crossing Frontiers, Transgressing Boundaries 249
- Treblinka Geography: Nazi Building, Jewish Breaking, Historical Reconstructing 261
- Fensterblicke auf den Genozid 277
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Spatial Relations
- Overlapping, Overwriting: Syn/Diachronic Spatial Relationships 293
- Wandlungen eines Exil- und Erinnerungsraumes: Shanghai – Hongkou – Tilanqiao 305
- Räumliche Überlagerungen. Erkenntnisse zu den Raumbeziehungen der Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Ravensbrück durch eine zeichnerisch-räumliche Analyse 327
- List of Contributors 353
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- Tracing Oblivion: The Collected Works of Yael Atzmony 1
- Tracing Oblivion 15
- Spatial Thinking in Holocaust Studies 31
-
Part I: Theoretical-methodological Approaches
- Expanding Geographies of the Holocaust: Refugees and Spatial Histories 49
- Space and Violence as Analytical Categories in Holocaust Research 67
- Why is Landscape Research Important for Holocaust Studies? 79
- How Can We Map the Holocaust? 89
- Daily Experiences of Persecution in the City: Mobilizing Diaries to Study the Holocaust in Urban Settings 111
- Space in Holocaust Film 119
-
Part II: Case Studies
-
Fleeting Spaces
- Motion, Fluidity, and Virtuality of Space 133
- Multipurposing Jewish Spaces: German Jewry’s Struggles to Provide Places for its Activities in Hostile Surroundings 143
- Remembering Arcadia in Auschwitz: Pastoral Representations of the Death Camps 159
- Domestic Space in the Films of Chantal Akerman and Claude Lanzmann 177
-
Institutionalized Spaces
- Institutionalization as a Socio-spatial Process: Norms, Rules, and Behavior 195
- Blocked Pathways: Regional Room for Manoeuvre of the Jews in the Administrative District of Zichenau, 1939–1945 205
- Denkmäler als Raumproduzenten – Der Gedenkkomplex Trascjanec bei Minsk 229
-
Border/ing Spaces
- Drawing Lines, Crossing Frontiers, Transgressing Boundaries 249
- Treblinka Geography: Nazi Building, Jewish Breaking, Historical Reconstructing 261
- Fensterblicke auf den Genozid 277
-
Spatial Relations
- Overlapping, Overwriting: Syn/Diachronic Spatial Relationships 293
- Wandlungen eines Exil- und Erinnerungsraumes: Shanghai – Hongkou – Tilanqiao 305
- Räumliche Überlagerungen. Erkenntnisse zu den Raumbeziehungen der Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Ravensbrück durch eine zeichnerisch-räumliche Analyse 327
- List of Contributors 353
