Actually, at this point, I'm trying to do the virtual equivalent of lighting the envelope on fire, waving it around, throwing it on the table and dancing around it, hooting and hollering and flailing my arms madly. I'm disappointed that my Wikipedia posts have been accepted. I was hoping they would be controversial. The following is my newest addition to the page:
In 1998, German novelist Martin Walser cited the Holocaust Memorial in his public condemnation of Germany's "Holocaust industry." Walser decried the "exploitation of our disgrace for present purposes." He criticized the "monumentalization", and "ceaseless presentation of our shame." "Take all the towns in the world", said Walser. "Check whether in any of these towns there is a memorial of national ignominy. I have never seen such. The Holocaust is not an appropriate subject of a memorial and such memorials should not be constructed..."
I'm starting to worry that I'm the only person in the (English-speaking, Wikipedia-reading) world that gets excited by this subject. It's a humbling thought.
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I freely admit my ignorance of the history of Holocaust memorials, yet I think Walser raises an interesting point. I suppose this depends partly on the purpose of the memorial. Is it to remember the dead? Or is it a public apology ("Hey world, we know Germans did this and we're sorry, so here's a memorial to show you how sorry we are")? Or perhaps a little of both? Maybe I'm just feeling cynical today.
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