Language:
German
Year of publication:
2004
Titel der Quelle:
Zeitgeschichte
Angaben zur Quelle:
31,5 (2004) 302-314
Keywords:
Whiteread, Rachel
;
Jews
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Commemoration
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Influence
Abstract:
The Viennese Holocaust memorial, erected at the demand of Simon Wiesenthal after years of debate, was planned as part of a project to turn the whole of the Judenplatz, the center of the medieval Jewish community, into a memorial to the Jews of Vienna and their persecution through the ages. Archaeological excavations unearthed remains of the medieval synagogue, burned down at the time of the expulsion of the Jews in 1420/21. A contemporary tablet on one of the surrounding houses acclaims the expulsion; the Catholic Church has now overcome its resistance and put up a "counter-tablet". The city decided that the memorial itself should be non-representational, since part of a memorial against fascism by Alfred Hrdlicka, showing a Jew forced to scrub the street, had been perceived by Jews as humiliating. The winner of the competition, Rachel Whiteread, designed the memorial as a cube whose surface bears the negative imprint of the backs of the books in a locked library, suggesting the absence of the Jews and their culture while challenging the viewer to respond with his own associations. The monument was dedicated in 2000.
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