OBJECTS CARRY MEMORIES
In particular, staff members of memorial sites held speeches without audiences and offered livestreams or short video clips. The ritualistic activity of dignitaries (sometimes staff) laying wreaths was broadcasted out to the international community. Memorial sites also launched websites after having asked survivors and relatives to send short video messages to give the online audience the possibility to listen to their words. These were attempts to offer the experience of a commemoration ceremony in the digital world, but it was almost impossible to overcome the experience of distance. Especially in places of former concentration camps, like the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial, today places of pilgrimage, beholding a sense of grief, but are also places where relatives of former prisoners might find comfort, like Thom Kluck, president of the of the Dutch prisoners’ association Stichting Vriendenkring Neuengamme, told us in his feedback.
However, the starting point in 2020 was obviously not the virtual space and its possibilities, instead the analogue format was transferred 1:1 into a digital format in an attempt to reproduce a commemoration. Back then, it was a good idea to be visible in remembering. However, one year later, when the 76th anniversary events had also to be cancelled as well, memorial sites had to come up with new ideas to connect the digital and the analogue space more, while also embracing new, more modern ways of seeing and accessing.
The question remains: How to create closeness and also overcome physical distance? In 2021, the Neuengamme Concentration Camp Memorial also wanted to create something educational and more permanent. So we came up with the idea of creating a special website of “storytelling” – to let survivors and relatives be visible via special objects connected to their very own personal memories. We asked them to send us (photos of) objects which symbolize their memories or are associated with them. Originally, we had the idea to present the objects during an analogue commemoration ceremony. This would have allowed those, who could not travel to Hamburg in person, to be present vicariously through these objects. But objects do not tell the same story to everyone and above that the analogue commemoration could only take place without an audience on-site. So, in the end, we decided to present the stories given to us in the form of objects, in an online reportage. With this multimedia coverage, survivors and relatives are present with their personal memories, thoughts and wishes. We made their stories visible to ensure that their stories will not be forgotten.
How can we celebrate and commemorate “together” when it is currently impossible due to health restrictions connected to the Coronavirus pandemic, to be physically together? Last year, when the meetings and ceremonies on the 75th anniversary of the liberation had to be cancelled in many memorials places, and performing gestures, meetings and talks were impossible, attempts were made to offer a replacement in the digital world.
Dr. Iris Groschek, Neuengamme Memorial
A multimedia storytelling to mark the 76th anniversary of the end of World War II and the liberation of the concentration camps.
Very modern way of storytelling. Congratulations.
Kristof van Mierop, grandson of Roger Vyvey, former Neuengamme prisoner