Official Memory: What´s Cultural Memory?
Cultural Memory: Quickly glancing at “memory” it seems to be something passive, something that is stuck in the past and will not physically reappear. It is something that has happened and is stuck in time, along with people, places, smells and etc. If you take a closer look at “memory though, it reveals that it is dynamic and connects all intellectual and emotional dimensions together. Cultural memory is symbolic. It is a memory that is passed from one person or one generation to the next. It is the heritage embodied within texts, memorials, celebrations, scriptures and other media that serve as a trigger to initiate a meaning, which is linked to something that has happened. Cultural Memory brings back the time of the imaginary happenings,
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it is a collective experience of our past memories and can last a lifetime. Cultural memory is defined as the "outer dimension of human memory" including two different concepts: "memory culture" and "reference to the past". Memory culture is the way that a society guarantees cultural continuity by maintaining its collective knowledge from one generation to the next. While reference to the past, is what we recall happened in the past and is just a quick reference or guideline to a past memory.
Sonja Wegmus: Sonja, the star of the film “The Nasty Girl” is a young girl that wanted to write a story about her town’s Jewish population making a stand against the Nazis. What she discovered was that this lead to some dark secrets. Her discoveries lead her to believe that her whole town was involved in the events that happened during the war one way or another. No one in the town wanted to stop these atrocities because they knew what would happen if they tried to do so; they would either get shot or get thrown in jail at that time. Sonja caused quite and upset in her town, digging around for evidence that backed her theories. She was always shut down or “handled” by the older powerful generational leaders in her town. The older generation was trying to protect the town and hide its secrets so that the younger generation could move on and live their lives with out collective generational guilt. I think Sonja though believed that it is better to learn about their past that it might not happen again. She did everything in her power to show her town that their where corrupt people living among them. Sonja became a town hero, bringing all these atrocities to their attention, but when she was rewarded for them she went crazy believing the town was mocking her and just trying to get her to shut up, so that she might not uncover something else possibly.
Collective Symbolic guilt: Collective symbolic guilt ties into collective memory. Collective memory is where textbook history connects together with popular memories of cultural history. It is a term that is used to refer to a full understanding of historical realization, historical understanding, and cultural expressions. Although I think collective memory and collective symbolic guilt are more than just a combined grouping of personal memories, I think that collective memory is passed down from generation to generation and becomes collective symbolic guilt. Certain memories of cultural pasts affect ones personal memories, since these memories where passed down from one person to the next this memory may become a collective guilty memory. Such as in the film “the murders among us” I think that Mertens felt guilty in a way for what his Captain has done to all the innocent people. Even though Mertens lived inside this memory of the past, it is the memory of his captain’s orders that Mertens carried out, that affected his guilt. In Jan Assmann’s essay “Collective Memory and Cultural Identity” it discusses cultural memory as a means of reconstructing archival memory to, “act as a total horizon,” and then individuals will evaluate that archive and, “put the objectivized meaning into its own perspective, giving it its own relevance”. Collective guilt is a full horizon of all generational guilt. Each memory is passed down, but interpreted differently leaving a person with there own form of symbolic guilt.
Hans Mertens: Hans is a shell-shocked former soldier that lacks the desire to resume work as a physician and to get on with his life. Mertens in the beginning of the film “the murderers among us” is a drunk, and is known as the character that comes home drunk every day. Mertens deals with PTSD, which is a reason that I think he comes home always drunk. Mertens I think is decidedly not one of the murderers among us in the film. Although he was a part of the war and carried out awful orders, he feels guilty of his past and tries to forget them. Hans Mertens looks back at the past where he is a part of guilty party. He decides to take action in the present in order that he might salvage himself and become a better person then he had been in the past. I think that Hans comes to recognize himself as a victim and wants to disassociate himself from the perpetrator (Captain Brückner). I think that his character in the film can assume the moral high ground of a responsible citizen speaking in the name of those who have suffered unjustly. I believe that Mertens views and actions in the past, in the form of traumatic memories, weakens Mertens mental state and also prevents him from finding happiness with Susanne. Only his lover’s last-minute intervention will prevent him from taking revenge on his former tormentor, in which this case also saves their relationship and straightens Mertens out putting him back on a righteous path.
Official Memory: The term official memory refers to the possible ways in which certain historical images, people, and events of national importance are remembered, suggested, and memorialized by performing a set of official customs.
Official Memory is what people have seen and lived, it is the experience that each individual goes through and how he or she remembers their pasts. I think one tries to normalize their past to have an official memory. A person has their memory, but also takes everyone else’s memories of a certain point in time and combines it to make their own official memory. I do not think that official memory is 100 percent an accurate description, or recollection of a point in time. Official memory is part of collective memory and personal memory, but is the most logical understanding of both. I don’t think there needs to be a 100 percent accurate description of a memory or a past. I think that all various phases and memories that people put together will still have an impact on our society and will without a doubt still influence our world to appreciate our …show more content…
history.
Part two of the Midterm
Throughout Germany’s Holocaust history there have many second-generation representatives of Germans seeking to understand Germany’s central role in organizing and implementing the atrocities of the Holocaust. We get a better understanding of this through viewing the film the “Nasty Girl” and reading the book “The Reader”. As the viewer of the film and reader of the book we get a better understanding of the differences of “working upon the past” and “mastering the past” in two different instances.
In the film, “The Nast Girl”, Sonja rejects her towns notion to forget about their past and tries to “work upon the past” to gain a better understanding of her towns involvement with the atrocity being the holocaust.
Sonja was a strong-headed girl who got really involved in her obsession of finding out her towns secrets. She was so deeply involved that she risked her family’s safety to uncover these atrocities.
Sonja who represents a younger generation of Germans has grown uncomfortable with the secrets about German role of responsibility and guilt for the crimes of the Nazi era. Sonja who earnestly worked upon the past rather than quickly working through the past is not complicit in the atrocities committed. Sonja is a figure that realizes that her generation needs to be ok with what has happened in the past and move forward knowing the past is the past and it should stay there.
The film “The nasty girl” challenges the viewer’s opinion toward their difficult, painful past, and urges them to remember the need to confront the horrors of the Holocaust. Through viewing this film the view gains a better understanding of working upon the past through Sonja’s digging through her towns
past.
Sonja does not master the past, as she went crazy toward the end of the film thinking that the town is out to shut her up. She wants to uncover more and does not come to a straight conclusion about her town’s involvement with the atrocities at hand. Although Sonja outs the priest and Herr Zumtobel about their involvement, she still sees the need to come to the whole truth and facts about her town. Through this we see that Sonja “works upon the past” diligently, but does not master it.
Through the novel “The Reader” we gain an understanding of mastering the past, in a sense through the life of Hanna, the perpetrator, and Michaels involvement with her. Although Michael does not reveal Hanna's illiteracy to the court, he liberates her when she passes away by donating her money to the Jewish community. In “The Reader”, Michael initially distances himself from Hanna, because he feels as if his love for a former guard at the Auschwitz concentration camp has tied him to the crimes of the Holocaust. Throughout the novel the reader can see that Michael tried hard to believe that Hanna was a good person and meant well in general through her actions in becoming a guard. Michael’s love for Hanna put him in an awkward position through his “working through the past”.
Michael did not want to interfere with the court trial, because he believed that Hanna could prove she did not know what she got herself into. Although Michael had a romantic relationship, in his eyes, with Hanna, he was able to pull his emotions away from her and let her decide her own fate. Seeing Sonja face the reality of the truth without stopping or caring about the consequences is her way of working upon the past, while Michael did not know whether or not he should get involved with his generation trying to fix the previous generation's mistakes. Whether it was Michaels generations responsibility or not, Michael's numbness was probably baffled on the notion of integrity. He could not grasp the concept of Hanna’s involvement with the atrocities at hand and was unsure of what he should do about it.
The reader can view Hanna's illiteracy within this novel as a central theme. Her illiteracy is eventually used as an "apology" for her guilt about the war crimes she committed as a member of the SS guard. I do not believe that Hanna’s illiteracy acquits her by any means of the crimes she had committed. Illiteracy by definition is the inability to read, but I believe being illiterate does not mean that she has the inability to think or reason. The fact that she was not able to read the offer given to her for a factory job as an alternative to joining Nazis does not excuse her from the ability to think about the future consequences and think about her actions as an SS guard. Not being able to read does not affect her moral compass or conscience, therefore she had the ability to decipher her decisions and make the right choice. Hanna realizes this throughout her trail and therefore does not use the excuse of being illiterate to her advantage. Hanna takes her sentence as a punishment and at the end of her sentence commits suicide. In this sense I think she has mastered the past, as she has come to the conclusion she has done wrong and she served her sentence for the forgiveness of those she harmed. She also has Michael donate money to help the Jewish communities, so that maybe they will remember her for that, instead of the atrocities she had caused.
In this way I believe Hanna tried to "master the past” rather than "working upon it. Working upon the past takes much more effort. It requires an analysis of many factors, both within a society as well as within a person. When working upon the past, an actual conclusion may in fact never be reached. However, at least many steps are taken to decipher the entire issue, rather than simply glancing over it with a single solution.
In principle, “The Reader” and the film “The Nasty Girl” as a representation of post-Holocaust Germany provides some insight into the ideas of guilt and how it is passed on and dealt with. By attempting to master the past, “The Reader” does not create a full and complete representation fitting with the definitions that we have learned in class.
it is a collective experience of our past memories and can last a lifetime. Cultural memory is defined as the "outer dimension of human memory" including two different concepts: "memory culture" and "reference to the past". Memory culture is the way that a society guarantees cultural continuity by maintaining its collective knowledge from one generation to the next. While reference to the past, is what we recall happened in the past and is just a quick reference or guideline to a past memory.
Sonja Wegmus: Sonja, the star of the film “The Nasty Girl” is a young girl that wanted to write a story about her town’s Jewish population making a stand against the Nazis. What she discovered was that this lead to some dark secrets. Her discoveries lead her to believe that her whole town was involved in the events that happened during the war one way or another. No one in the town wanted to stop these atrocities because they knew what would happen if they tried to do so; they would either get shot or get thrown in jail at that time. Sonja caused quite and upset in her town, digging around for evidence that backed her theories. She was always shut down or “handled” by the older powerful generational leaders in her town. The older generation was trying to protect the town and hide its secrets so that the younger generation could move on and live their lives with out collective generational guilt. I think Sonja though believed that it is better to learn about their past that it might not happen again. She did everything in her power to show her town that their where corrupt people living among them. Sonja became a town hero, bringing all these atrocities to their attention, but when she was rewarded for them she went crazy believing the town was mocking her and just trying to get her to shut up, so that she might not uncover something else possibly.
Collective Symbolic guilt: Collective symbolic guilt ties into collective memory. Collective memory is where textbook history connects together with popular memories of cultural history. It is a term that is used to refer to a full understanding of historical realization, historical understanding, and cultural expressions. Although I think collective memory and collective symbolic guilt are more than just a combined grouping of personal memories, I think that collective memory is passed down from generation to generation and becomes collective symbolic guilt. Certain memories of cultural pasts affect ones personal memories, since these memories where passed down from one person to the next this memory may become a collective guilty memory. Such as in the film “the murders among us” I think that Mertens felt guilty in a way for what his Captain has done to all the innocent people. Even though Mertens lived inside this memory of the past, it is the memory of his captain’s orders that Mertens carried out, that affected his guilt. In Jan Assmann’s essay “Collective Memory and Cultural Identity” it discusses cultural memory as a means of reconstructing archival memory to, “act as a total horizon,” and then individuals will evaluate that archive and, “put the objectivized meaning into its own perspective, giving it its own relevance”. Collective guilt is a full horizon of all generational guilt. Each memory is passed down, but interpreted differently leaving a person with there own form of symbolic guilt.
Hans Mertens: Hans is a shell-shocked former soldier that lacks the desire to resume work as a physician and to get on with his life. Mertens in the beginning of the film “the murderers among us” is a drunk, and is known as the character that comes home drunk every day. Mertens deals with PTSD, which is a reason that I think he comes home always drunk. Mertens I think is decidedly not one of the murderers among us in the film. Although he was a part of the war and carried out awful orders, he feels guilty of his past and tries to forget them. Hans Mertens looks back at the past where he is a part of guilty party. He decides to take action in the present in order that he might salvage himself and become a better person then he had been in the past. I think that Hans comes to recognize himself as a victim and wants to disassociate himself from the perpetrator (Captain Brückner). I think that his character in the film can assume the moral high ground of a responsible citizen speaking in the name of those who have suffered unjustly. I believe that Mertens views and actions in the past, in the form of traumatic memories, weakens Mertens mental state and also prevents him from finding happiness with Susanne. Only his lover’s last-minute intervention will prevent him from taking revenge on his former tormentor, in which this case also saves their relationship and straightens Mertens out putting him back on a righteous path.
Official Memory: The term official memory refers to the possible ways in which certain historical images, people, and events of national importance are remembered, suggested, and memorialized by performing a set of official customs.
Official Memory is what people have seen and lived, it is the experience that each individual goes through and how he or she remembers their pasts. I think one tries to normalize their past to have an official memory. A person has their memory, but also takes everyone else’s memories of a certain point in time and combines it to make their own official memory. I do not think that official memory is 100 percent an accurate description, or recollection of a point in time. Official memory is part of collective memory and personal memory, but is the most logical understanding of both. I don’t think there needs to be a 100 percent accurate description of a memory or a past. I think that all various phases and memories that people put together will still have an impact on our society and will without a doubt still influence our world to appreciate our …show more content…
history.
Part two of the Midterm
Throughout Germany’s Holocaust history there have many second-generation representatives of Germans seeking to understand Germany’s central role in organizing and implementing the atrocities of the Holocaust. We get a better understanding of this through viewing the film the “Nasty Girl” and reading the book “The Reader”. As the viewer of the film and reader of the book we get a better understanding of the differences of “working upon the past” and “mastering the past” in two different instances.
In the film, “The Nast Girl”, Sonja rejects her towns notion to forget about their past and tries to “work upon the past” to gain a better understanding of her towns involvement with the atrocity being the holocaust.
Sonja was a strong-headed girl who got really involved in her obsession of finding out her towns secrets. She was so deeply involved that she risked her family’s safety to uncover these atrocities.
Sonja who represents a younger generation of Germans has grown uncomfortable with the secrets about German role of responsibility and guilt for the crimes of the Nazi era. Sonja who earnestly worked upon the past rather than quickly working through the past is not complicit in the atrocities committed. Sonja is a figure that realizes that her generation needs to be ok with what has happened in the past and move forward knowing the past is the past and it should stay there.
The film “The nasty girl” challenges the viewer’s opinion toward their difficult, painful past, and urges them to remember the need to confront the horrors of the Holocaust. Through viewing this film the view gains a better understanding of working upon the past through Sonja’s digging through her towns
past.
Sonja does not master the past, as she went crazy toward the end of the film thinking that the town is out to shut her up. She wants to uncover more and does not come to a straight conclusion about her town’s involvement with the atrocities at hand. Although Sonja outs the priest and Herr Zumtobel about their involvement, she still sees the need to come to the whole truth and facts about her town. Through this we see that Sonja “works upon the past” diligently, but does not master it.
Through the novel “The Reader” we gain an understanding of mastering the past, in a sense through the life of Hanna, the perpetrator, and Michaels involvement with her. Although Michael does not reveal Hanna's illiteracy to the court, he liberates her when she passes away by donating her money to the Jewish community. In “The Reader”, Michael initially distances himself from Hanna, because he feels as if his love for a former guard at the Auschwitz concentration camp has tied him to the crimes of the Holocaust. Throughout the novel the reader can see that Michael tried hard to believe that Hanna was a good person and meant well in general through her actions in becoming a guard. Michael’s love for Hanna put him in an awkward position through his “working through the past”.
Michael did not want to interfere with the court trial, because he believed that Hanna could prove she did not know what she got herself into. Although Michael had a romantic relationship, in his eyes, with Hanna, he was able to pull his emotions away from her and let her decide her own fate. Seeing Sonja face the reality of the truth without stopping or caring about the consequences is her way of working upon the past, while Michael did not know whether or not he should get involved with his generation trying to fix the previous generation's mistakes. Whether it was Michaels generations responsibility or not, Michael's numbness was probably baffled on the notion of integrity. He could not grasp the concept of Hanna’s involvement with the atrocities at hand and was unsure of what he should do about it.
The reader can view Hanna's illiteracy within this novel as a central theme. Her illiteracy is eventually used as an "apology" for her guilt about the war crimes she committed as a member of the SS guard. I do not believe that Hanna’s illiteracy acquits her by any means of the crimes she had committed. Illiteracy by definition is the inability to read, but I believe being illiterate does not mean that she has the inability to think or reason. The fact that she was not able to read the offer given to her for a factory job as an alternative to joining Nazis does not excuse her from the ability to think about the future consequences and think about her actions as an SS guard. Not being able to read does not affect her moral compass or conscience, therefore she had the ability to decipher her decisions and make the right choice. Hanna realizes this throughout her trail and therefore does not use the excuse of being illiterate to her advantage. Hanna takes her sentence as a punishment and at the end of her sentence commits suicide. In this sense I think she has mastered the past, as she has come to the conclusion she has done wrong and she served her sentence for the forgiveness of those she harmed. She also has Michael donate money to help the Jewish communities, so that maybe they will remember her for that, instead of the atrocities she had caused.
In this way I believe Hanna tried to "master the past” rather than "working upon it. Working upon the past takes much more effort. It requires an analysis of many factors, both within a society as well as within a person. When working upon the past, an actual conclusion may in fact never be reached. However, at least many steps are taken to decipher the entire issue, rather than simply glancing over it with a single solution.
In principle, “The Reader” and the film “The Nasty Girl” as a representation of post-Holocaust Germany provides some insight into the ideas of guilt and how it is passed on and dealt with. By attempting to master the past, “The Reader” does not create a full and complete representation fitting with the definitions that we have learned in class.