Post-Conflict Memorialization: Missing Memorials, Absent Bodies Olivette Otele Luisa Gandolfo Yoav Galai

MEMORY POLITICS AND TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE
Post-Conflict
Memorialization
Missing Memorials, Absent Bodies
Edited by
Olivette Otele · Luisa Gandolfo · Yoav Galai
Memory Politics and Transitional Justice
Series Editors
Jasna Dragovic-Soso
Goldsmiths University of London
London, UK
Jelena Subotic
Georgia State University
Atlanta, GA, USA
Tsveta Petrova
Columbia University
New York, NY, USA
The interdisciplinary fields of Memory Studies and Transitional Justice have
largely developed in parallel to one another despite both focusing on efforts
of societies to confront and (re—)appropriate their past. While scholars working
on memory have come mostly from historical, literary, sociological, or anthro-
pological traditions, transitional justice has attracted primarily scholarship from
political science and the law. This series bridges this divide: it promotes work that
combines a deep understanding of the contexts that have allowed for injustice to
occur with an analysis of how legacies of such injustice in political and historical
memory influence contemporary projects of redress, acknowledgment, or new
cycles of denial. The titles in the series are of interest not only to academics and
students but also practitioners in the related fields.
The Memory Politics and Transitional Justice series promotes critical dialogue
among different theoretical and methodological approaches and among scholar-
ship on different regions. The editors welcome submissions from a variety of disci-
plines—including political science, history, sociology, anthropology, and cultural
studies—that confront critical questions at the intersection of memory politics
and transitional justice in national, comparative, and global perspective.
Memory Politics and Transitional Justice Book Series (Palgrave)
Co-editors: Jasna Dragovic-Soso (Goldsmiths, University of London), Jelena
Subotic (Georgia State University), Tsveta Petrova (Columbia University)
Editorial Board
Paige Arthur, New York University Center on International Cooperation
Alejandro Baer, University of Minnesota
Orli Fridman, Singidunum University Belgrade
Carol Gluck, Columbia University
Katherine Hite, Vassar College
Alexander Karn, Colgate University
Jan Kubik, Rutgers University and School of Slavonic and East European Studies,
University College London
Bronwyn Leebaw, University of California, Riverside
Jan-Werner Mueller, Princeton University
Jeffrey Olick, University of Virginia
Kathy Powers, University of New Mexico
Joanna R. Quinn, Western University
Jeremy Sarkin, University of South Africa
Leslie Vinjamuri, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Sarah Wagner, George Washington University
More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14807
Olivette Otele · Luisa Gandolfo · Yoav Galai
Editors
Post-Conflict
Memorialization
Missing Memorials, Absent Bodies
Editors
Olivette Otele Luisa Gandolfo
Colonial History Department of Sociology
University of Bristol University of Aberdeen
Bristol, UK Aberdeen, UK
Yoav Galai
Department of Politics, International
Relations and Philosophy
Royal Holloway
University of London
Egham, UK
Memory Politics and Transitional Justice

ISBN 978-3-030-54886-5 ISBN 978-3-030-54887-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54887-2
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Acknowledgements
Our deepest thanks go to the contributors to this volume: Johanna

Mannergren Selimovic, Andrea Zittlau, Manca Bajec, Omri Ben Yehuda,
Kelsey J. Utne, Eva Willems, Sandra M. Rios Oyola and Alexandra
Kowalski. Your work has brought this volume a profound depth and
through your rich reflections, it has unmasked the absences and drawn
attention to the silences that engulf communities past and present, around
the world. Our thanks also go to our editors, Anca Pusca, Balaji Varad-
haraju and Katelyn Zingg at Palgrave Macmillan, for their patience and
support throughout the writing process. Luisa Gandolfo would like to
thank the Leverhulme Trust and British Academy for funding the project
that preceded this volume, ‘Missing Memorials and Absent Bodies: Nego-
tiating Post-conflict Trauma and Memorialisation’, and Nancy Adler and
Barbara Boender at the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide
Studies, for hosting the symposium in 2016.
v
Contents
1 Introduction: Absence and Trauma in Post-Conflict

Memorialisation 1
Olivette Otele, Luisa Gandolfo, and Yoav Galai
2 Articulating Presence of Absence: Everyday Memory

and the Performance of Silence in Sarajevo 15
Johanna Mannergren Selimovic
3 Mourning in Reluctant Sites of Memory: From

Afrophobia to Cultural Productivity 35
Olivette Otele
4 Dust on Dust: Performing Selk’nam Visions, Tracing

Absent Bodies 55
Andrea Zittlau
5 Absence, Gender, and the Land(Scape) in Palestinian

Art 75
Luisa Gandolfo
6 Monumenting Our Pasts: Monuments, What Are

They Now? 101
Manca Bajec
vii
viii CONTENTS
7 The Resolution of Doubts: Towards Recognition

of the Systematic Abduction of Yemenite Children
in Israel 119
Yoav Galai and Omri Ben Yehuda
8 The Commemorative Continuum of Partition

Violence 151
Kelsey J. Utne
9 Absent Bodies, Present Pasts: Forced Disappearance

as Historical Injustice in the Peruvian Highlands 171
Eva Willems
10 Restoring the Human Dignity of Absent Bodies

in Colombia 195
Sandra M. Rios Oyola
11 The Wandering Memorial: Figures of Ambivalence

in Hungarian Holocaust Memorialization 213
Alexandra Kowalski
12 Afterword: Mourning, Memorialising, and Absence

in the Covid-19 Era 241
Index 253
Notes on Contributors
Manca Bajec is an artist and researcher whose multidisciplinary work

is situated in the realm of sociopolitics. She has presented her work
worldwide including at the Kaunas Biennial, ICA, Beside War Italy,
WARM Sarajevo, the 9/11 Memorial Museum, Columbia University,
New School, Goldsmiths, Royal College of Art and Syracuse. In 2019, she
completed a practice-led Ph.D. at the Royal College of Art. She currently
works as the Managing Editor of the Journal of Visual Culture while
continuing to develop her practice and academic career. Her most recent
work was developed as part of a British Council Residency in Ukraine
and examined outer-space colonialism through a social science fiction
audio play and installation. Manca frequently publishes her work, most
recently in the Theatrum Mundi publication, Uncommon Building: Collec-
tive Excavation of a Fictional Structure and has an upcoming book chapter
in an edited edition for the Memory Studies Series (Palgrave Macmillan)
on the effects of Europeanisation in the Western Balkans. Manca was born
in Slovenia, grew up in Kuwait and currently lives in London.
Omri Ben Yehuda is a scholar of comparative Jewish Literatures. His
work focuses on Jewish literatures in German and Hebrew, Mizrahi and
Israeli literature, Holocaust literature and postcolonial studies. He is a
former Minerva Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for German Philology
in the Free University of Berlin and he is currently co-editing a volume
with Dotan Halevi on Gaza in Israeli history, literature and culture. His
comparative essay on the Holocaust, the Nakba and Mizrahi Trauma was
ix
x NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
published in The Holocaust and the Nakba: A New Grammar of Trauma

and History (Columbia UP, 2019), while his essay on the Mizrahim and
the 1967 War was published in Jadmag (Jadaliyya), and his postcolo-
nial reading of Kafka’s ‘A Hunger Artist’ was published in the Tel Aviver
Jahrbuch für deutsche Geschichte 45 (2017).
Yoav Galai is a Lecturer in Global Political Communication at the
Department of Politics, International Relations and Philosophy at Royal
Holloway, University of London. Previously a photojournalist and an
NGO project manager, Yoav’s work explores narrative politics and visual
politics. Yoav’s forthcoming manuscript with De Gruyter interrogates
transnational constellations of collective memory as a site of international
politics.
Luisa Gandolfo is a Lecturer in Peace and Reconciliation in the Depart-
ment of Sociology at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, and holds a
Ph.D. in Arab and Islamic Studies from the University of Exeter. Luisa’s
research focuses on post-war reconciliation and memory in the Middle
East and North Africa, with a particular focus on Libya, Palestine-Israel,
and Tunisia, and she is the author of Palestinians in Jordan: The Politics of
Identity (2012). In 2014–2015, she was a EURIAS Fellow at the Nether-
lands Institute for Advanced Study in Wassenaar, where she worked on the
project ‘Comparative Discourses of Memory and Trauma in Palestinian
and Israeli Art’.
Alexandra Kowalski teaches social theory, the political sociology of
culture and heritage studies at CEU (Central European University) in
Budapest and Vienna. Her research explores the modern history of power
and culture, with particular focus on the state processes and mechanisms
that constitute cultural wealth and symbolic value. Published in multiple
collective volumes and journals such as Comparative Studies in Society and
History and The Sociological Review, her work explores the scientific and
bureaucratic production of French heritage in the post-war era, the history
of UNESCO, the preservation policy formation in the nineteenth century.
She has also worked and published on everyday culture, sexuality, critical
social theory, TV and nationalism.
Johanna Mannergren Selimovic is an Associate Professor in Peace and
Development Research in the School of Social Sciences at Södertörn
University, and holds a Ph.D. in Peace and Development Research from
University of Gothenburg, in Sweden. Her research is driven by a deep
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xi
curiosity about the makings of ‘everyday peace’ in deeply divided soci-

eties, specifically in relation to politics of memory, gender, and discourses
and practices of transitional justice. Theoretically she engages with narra-
tive theory and methodology. She grounds her work in close ethno-
graphic studies, with fieldwork in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Rwanda and
Jerusalem. She currently heads two research projects on the connec-
tions between memory politics and durable peace (www.peaceandmemo
ry.net) and has published her work in journals such as Political Psychology,
Memory Studies, International Journal of Transitional Justice and Inter-
national Feminist Journal of Politics. She is also co-editor of the Palgrave
Encyclopedia of Peace and Conflict Studies.
Olivette Otele is a Professor of Colonial History and Memory of Slavery
at the University of Bristol, in the United Kingdom, and a Fellow and Vice
President of the Royal Historical Society. She works on race, discrimina-
tion, citizenship, identities of minority ethnic groups in the Global North.
She is the recipient of several major national and international research
grants. She has authored numerous academic and non-academic publi-
cations and is a broadcaster and a social commentator (BBC, Guardian,
BBC History Publications, Radio France International, among others).
Her recent book, entitled African Europeans: An Untold History (Hurst-
OUP), was published in 2020. Her publications include, Does Discrimina-
tion Shape Identity? Identity Politics and Minorities in the English-Speaking
World and in France: Rhetoric and Reality, a special issue of the Journal of
Intercultural Studies, edited by Olivette Otele and Rim Latrache (Rout-
ledge, 2011), and Histoire de l’esclavage britannique: des origines de la
traite transatlantique aux premisses de la colonisation (Editions Michel
Houdiard, 2008).
Sandra M. Rios Oyola is a Colombian sociologist interested in the
study of human dignity, religious peacebuilding, emotions and memory.
Sandra is currently an FNRS Postdoctoral Researcher at the Catholic
University of Louvain, in Belgium, where she researches how transitional
justice helps to restore victims’ human dignity, with a focus on the case
of Colombia’s Truth Commission, Historical Memorialization and Repa-
rations. Sandra’s research is interdisciplinary, and it deals with issues of
law and society, political science and sociology. She engages in locally
based ethnographic observation, as well as digital ethnography, analysis
of testimonies, law and policy. Sandra received her Ph.D. in Sociology
from the University of Aberdeen in 2014, thanks to a scholarship by the
xii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Leverhulme Programme, Compromise after Conflict. She is the author

of the book, Religion and Social Memory amid Conflict: The Massacre of
Bojayá in Colombia (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), and she is the co-editor,
with Natascha Mueller-Hirth, of Time and Temporality in the Study of
Transitional Societies (Routledge, 2018).
Kelsey J. Utne is a History Ph.D. candidate at Cornell University, where
she specializes in the history of commemoration in late colonial and early
postcolonial South Asia. Situated at the intersection of critical heritage
studies and Achille Mbembé’s necropolitics, her dissertation examines the
politics of corpse disposal and the memorialization of death in North India
during the anti-colonial resistance of the 1920s and 1930s. Her research
has been supported by generous grants from Cornell University, the Social
Science Research Council, the American Institute of Indian Studies, and
the Fulbright Programme.
Eva Willems is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Conflict
and Development Studies at Ghent University in Belgium. Eva is
interested in the intersection of transitional justice and citizenship
(re)construction in (post-)conflict societies. Her Ph.D. research focused
on the contestation and appropriation of mechanisms of reparation,
exhumation and memorialization by survivors and ex-combatants in
post-conflict Peru.
Andrea Zittlau is an Assistant Professor at the Department of North
American Studies at the University of Rostock, in Germany. Her mono-
graph, entitled Curious Exotica (2016), explores the display of indige-
nous people, bodies and objects in museum environments. She currently
looks at art and poetry in the context of the Anthropocene and publishes
on activist artists such as Franci Duran and Erica Mott, as well as on
community outreach in prisons and other marginalized settings.
List of Figures
Fig. 4.1 Shoes, Guanaco Skin, Selknam People (Ona). South

American Objects in the American Museum of Natural
History. Wikimedia Commons 59
Fig. 4.2 Photo-album donated to the then president Miguel Juárez
Celman. Världskulturmuseet 008218 62
Fig. 4.3 Children’s drawing after a Selk’nam image. 2016 73
xiii
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: Absence and Trauma

in Post-Conflict Memorialisation
In his poem, B-Movie (1981), Gil Scott-Heron reflected

on the election of Ronald Reagan. He wrote, ‘this country wants
nostalgia. They want to go back as far as they can. Even if it’s only as
far as last week. Not to face now or tomorrow, but to face backwards’
(ibid.). Reagan ran under the slogan ‘Let’s make America great again’,
which was later revived by Donald Trump, albeit truncated into the
shorter ‘MAGA’. As we are increasingly seeing, ‘they’ are still waiting
for a greater future to be imported from the imagined past, and not
only in America. When Reagan was elected, it was a time of crisis, with
O. Otele (B)
University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
e-mail: cx19841@bristol.ac.uk
L. Gandolfo
University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK
e-mail: k.luisa.gandolfo@abdn.ac.uk
Y. Galai
Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, UK
e-mail: yoav.galai@rhul.ac.uk
© The Author(s) 2021 1

O. Otele et al. (eds.), Post-Conflict Memorialization,
Memory Politics and Transitional Justice,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54887-2_1
2 O. OTELE ET AL.
stagflation running amok and a sitting president that wavered in the face
of a hostage crisis. Scott-Heron explained that ‘they looked for people
like John Wayne. But since John Wayne was no longer available, “they”
settled for Ronald Reagan’ (ibid.), a B-movie actor.
We are always in a time of crisis if we compare it to a mythical golden
age of the silver screen, when, as Scott-Heron wryly commented, ‘movies
were in black and white and so was everything else’ (ibid.). However,
what ‘they’ are really after is a rose-tinted memory of a past that never
was, a product that politicians, whether labelled ‘populist’ or not, are
more than happy to supply. Scott-Heron concluded his poem with a
dismal summary of the social backslide that is happening while ‘they’ are
gazing at the past,
And here’s a look at the closing numbers: racism’s up, human rights are
down, peace is shaky, war items are hot - the House claims all ties. Jobs
are down, money is scarce and common sense is at an all-time low with
heavy trading. Movies were looking better than ever and now no one is
looking because, we’re starring in a “B” movie. And we would rather have
John Wayne. (ibid.)
Alistair MacIntyre wrote that, ‘there is no way to give us an understanding

of any society, including our own, except through the stock of stories
which constitute its initial dramatic resources’ (2007, 216). Paul Ricoeur
referred to this process as ‘phronetic’, indicating a ‘familiarity we have
with the types of plot received from our culture’ (1991, 28). Political
projects seek legitimacy by means of phronesis, or by claiming to echo
the familiar stock of the storied past.
However, the stories that are analysed here are not in stock and not
in step with any of the political canons that govern the discourses that
surround them. Often, they move upstream on the raging flow of the
progressive linear narratives that polities are quick to apply after an event
has occurred that they deem hurtful to their self-image (Edkins 2006).
They are incompatible with the prevalent designs of history and memory
and to tell them is to challenge collective memory in the preeminent
modern collective—the nation state.
Nations legitimise their political claims and policies by referring to
their pasts. Collective memory is, then, as Michael Rothberg explains,
following Richard Terdiman (1993): ‘the past made present’ (2009, 3).
Control over the national collective memory is of such importance that
1 INTRODUCTION: ABSENCE AND TRAUMA IN POST-CONFLICT … 3
Ernst Gellner (1983) revised Weber’s famous definition of a state to

suggest that the nation state has monopoly over the legitimate distri-
bution of education. This monopoly, according to Ernst Renan (1990
[1882]), requires extensive maintenance, or a ‘daily plebiscite’. Impor-
tantly, the design of the national collective memory necessitates the
omission of the memory of the violent foundational acts through which
the polity came to be. Renan (1990 [1882], 11) sees it as a given that
‘unity is always effected by means of brutality’. The resulting narrative
that must face the ‘daily plebiscite’ is then not as much a canon-
ised account, but a project that requires constant work on a common
narrative, which Chiara Bottici (2007) defined as ‘political myth’.
On an individual level, this is congruent with what Gramsci (1992,
323) termed the ‘spontaneous philosophy’ of people, as ‘the entire system
of beliefs, superstitions, opinions, ways of seeing things and of acting,
which are collectively bundled together under the name of “folklore”’
and we resist narratives that contradict our ‘spontaneous philosophy’.
James Wertsch explained that members of a society share a ‘deep collective
memory’ that is disseminated via culture in the form of ‘schematic narra-
tive templates’ (2002, 57). These general designs used to frame particular
narratives reflect the common ‘stock of stories’. When a story does not
fit these templates, it is either forced into them or rejected. The idea of
collective memory then, concerns a past made present, often in the service
of political power that may omit or redact shameful episodes, while retro-
jecting political projects into it. It occurs on the level of societal narrative,
as well as in the cultural designs that manifest themselves among indi-
viduals. In Halbwach’s term, collective memory has ‘social frameworks’
(1992), but these are in a state of constant articulation, in which the
borders of the polity are continually redrawn by discursive practices that
delimit what is contained within it.
Often times these claims, and their commemoration, are not only
rejected, but actively denied from taking public form, from presence. For
example, Rabbi Uzi Meshulam spoke about the crime itself and the crime
of the silencing of the crime. Demands for recognition do not mesh with
‘deep collective memory’ (Wertsch 2002, 57), fail the ‘daily plebiscite’
(Renan 1990 [1882], 19) and challenge the ‘spontaneous philosophy’
(Gramsci 1992, 323). In other words, a discursive firewall keeps these
stories at bay and their adherents are greeted with silence, suspicion or
even violence. In addition, demands for evidence are laid on the very
victims by those who hold the archives, marking the absences by doubt.
4 O. OTELE ET AL.
The violent act that is omitted is twice silenced. First in the perpetration
and second in every instance in which the discursive firewall operates to
silence claims. Therefore, employing a narrative lens and rewriting the
missing past, thereby replenishing the ‘stock of stories’ or ‘solving’ the
historical puzzle is insufficient.
1.1 Memory and Trauma

in Post-Conflict Communities
The notions of trauma and recovery are central to post-conflict settings.
Rebuilding communities that have been affected by war, disunions,
various forms of oppressions and deaths, is a challenge that often implies
examining the sources of trauma, and finding individual mechanism for
coping and community healing strategies. That also may involve civil
society including entrepreneurs of memory, coming together to look into
ways to write about difficult experiences and reconcile past and present.
Trauma theories have been the source of a vast literature in Humanities
over the last 30 years, while post-World War II understandings of trauma
have moved from clinical definitions of disorders to a re-evaluation of
trauma beyond mental illnesses. The conception of trauma is largely based
on Freud and Lacan’s analyses of the term. Sigmund Freud (1963) saw
trauma as a source of pain, as neurosis was equated with illness, while
Jacques Lacan largely acknowledged that trauma is common and recur-
rent to human experiences (2004). The notion of trauma that is examined
in Humanities and this volume, combines both Freudian and Lacanian
approaches.
Trauma sources in post-conflict settings are by definition based on
discontent and pain. They are about situations that have led to a sense of
mental dislocation; a feeling of loss and yearning for peace, or mourning
in the case of post-conflict settings. Traumatic events have societal trajec-
tories that have shaped cultural memory in post-conflict settings. Cathy
Caruth (1995) acknowledged Freud’s work in relation to the uncon-
scious mind and the need to bring unsaid and sometimes unknown
pain to the conscious mind. Literature, according to Caruth, could be
one of the pathways to recovery. Caruth examined how the language of
trauma (literature and oral history, among others) brought human histo-
ries to our attention and provided us with tools to understand human
trajectories.
Locating healing in the realm of discourse means retrieving past expe-

riences. It is about placing the key for individual and collective repair in
domains that examine violence to understand what traumatic memories
are. However, Ruth Kevers et al. have argued that collective violence has
been conceptualised in a way that reproduces reductive paradigms, such
as the ‘individualizing, depoliticizing, universalizing, and pathologizing
tendencies of the trauma discourse and its predominant PTSD construct’
(2016, 623). Examining the work of Jedlowski (2001), Misztal (2003),
Olick and Robbins (1998), they highlight the contexts in which ratio-
nality took centre stage, and produced valuable, but sometimes limited
kinds of theories. Indeed, scholars such as Jedlowski and Misztal have
challenged constructing trauma as an individual experience, thus linking
the debate to the question of memory. Memory scholars from Maurice
Halbwachs to Paul Ricoeur, Aleida Assmann, Jan Assmann, and Marianne
Hirsch, have analysed the articulation between individual memory and
collective memory. Traumatic memories are indeed shaped by collective
and social interactions, silences and expectations. All these theories
however, remain in the domain of PTSD-led approaches that favour
external intervention for healing. Kevers et al. note that few scholars have
looked into transcultural trauma, an approach that highlights the need for
multidirectional and cultural avenues to trauma and repair. Nonetheless,
even when the specificity of the social, cultural, and political contexts are
taken into account, and even when ‘indigenous strategies’ (Kevers et al.
2016, 634) are advocated, one may still wonder if this linear approach to
trauma, that centres on healing through a clear path, whereby the subject
moves from past to present, can always be efficient.
Many post-conflict societies are characterised by internal divisions that
can be ideological, religious, and geographical. An approach to trauma
has to take into account the contexts of civil war and profound intra-
community divisions, especially when the antagonism has led to deaths,
and when the sites of conflicts and memory are sites of mourning. South
Africa, Rwanda, and Northern Ireland are among such examples, while
in this volume, our contributors also reflect on Palestine-Israel, Bosnia-
Hercegovina, and Colombia, among others. Articulating trauma in a
context of nation or community building can become a complex task
that pushes victims and perpetrators in directions that they are not always
ready to follow. Even the notion of victim and perpetrator becomes blurry
in specific contexts, thus making any healing process difficult. Brandon
Hamber and Richard A. Wilson demonstrate how mistaking individual
6 O. OTELE ET AL.
trauma for national trauma or how converging a nation-building project

with individual experiences of trauma can have dire impacts on survivors.
They noted that ‘Nations do not have collective psyches that can be
healed, nor do whole nations suffer post-traumatic stress disorder and to
assert otherwise is to psychologize an abstract entity that exists primarily
in the minds of nation-building politicians’ (Hamber and Wilson 2002,
36).
Hamber and Wilson took Truth Commissions as examples and demon-
strated that even when they do consider voices, they are about public
discourses. Those discourses are, one may add, about constructed, and
constructing, public memory, and therefore about continuous debate.
Using that public space to address the question of reparation, however,
can be beneficial to a certain extent as the process brings to the surface a
clearer delineation between the moral and physical realm and between the
victim and the perpetrator. Yet, as Hamber and Wilson also note, repa-
rations can have limits. They may help mourn, but they can never bring
back the lost ones. In the case of families those who have gone missing
or made to disappear, it signifies an acceptance the crimes and the end of
hope. The two researchers underscore the economic dimension of repara-
tions and the way they may alleviate the financial burden that accompanies
loss in many instances of gendered post-conflict settings. They nonethe-
less bring forward the idea that the refusal for reparations and calls for
punishments for the perpetrators should be acknowledged as ‘rituals of
closure’ (Hamber and Wilson 2002, 49).
Graham Dawson, drawing on Susannah Radstone (2007), critiques this
approach, arguing that trauma theorists, such as Caruth, have divided
people into two categories: the ‘normal’ and the ‘pathological’ (2017,
64). The clear distinction ignores the fact that trauma is a ‘continuum’
and the so-called subject may not be aware that he/she has been trauma-
tised. In this equation, two other difficulties emerge and they are linked to
the power dynamic between the patient and the practitioner or the person
who talks and the listener on the one hand, and on the other, to what is
deemed relevant enough to be considered traumatic. In those instances,
memory and time play a crucial role. Using the example of Northern
Ireland, Dawson notes that Alan Young’s ‘architecture of traumatic time’
(1995) troubles the idea that one moves from conflict to post-conflict,
and therefore one can move from trauma to recovery in a linear way.
Some settings are both conflict and post-conflict zones, and these render
recovery and trauma particularly difficult to apprehend. Dawson questions
the idea of ‘moving on’ in those settings. He makes a case for greater
attention to be paid to the history of emotions and its links to the ‘inner
world’ whereby,
The work of reparation is strengthened by the “introjection”, or taking

in, of such capacities where they are encountered in social life. This, as
well as the perception of discrepancies between anticipations derived from
the internal world and the complex realities of the external social world,
enables “something new to happen” within both psychic and social reality.
(2017, 97)
Recovery is therefore about going through processes of healing that are

both collective and individual. Recovery is articulated while uncovering
layers of the past, by telling and sharing one’s story, as well as public and,
sometimes, national acknowledgement of wrongdoings. These strategies
often range from psychological and financial support, to legal forms of
revenge seen in instances such as reparatory justice.
1.2 Absence, Remembrance, and Mourning

A significant contribution of this volume is the authors’ reflections on
absence and its impact on remembrance, memorialisation, and the nego-
tiation of post-conflict trauma. As the authors contemplate absence in
their research, the concept is revealed to be multi-faceted as it (re)emerges
through silence, omission, erasure, and haunting, as well as through the
physical and psychological aches that persist among the ever-mourning.
During the original workshop held at the Institute for War, Holocaust
and Genocide (NIOD) in Amsterdam in 2016, fresh themes emerged,
including the significance of the body and embodiment. Much like
absence, the chapters that follow demonstrate that the body can be
affective in a number of ways. Among the living, the body remembers,
recounts, witnesses, and provides testimonies. Through the living body,
the absent bodies are not forgotten, their fate perhaps unknown, but
their names are commemorated and committed to funerary rituals, where
possible, and the articulation of their biographies provides an opportu-
nity for catharsis, or a temporary release, for those who remain. In other
instances, the embodied experience of remembrance brings with it the
recognition of erasure, and in Chapters 2 and 3, Johanna Mannergren
8 O. OTELE ET AL.
Selimovic, and Olivette Otele, respectively, explore the in-betweenness

that marks the edges of absence.
Opening the volume, Mannergren Selimovic takes us to Sarajevo,
where she contemplates the union of silence and absence in the everyday
of survivors of the siege of the city (1992–1996). The ‘everyday silent
memory work’ that takes place through subtle acts of omission is both
physical and linguistic, and Mannergren Selimovic directs our attention
to the embodied, emplaced, and spoken dimensions of memory work.
The present absences experienced by the survivors of the conflict congre-
gate under the sensation of ‘a sense of’, which Bertelsen and Murphie’s
social body negotiates (2010, 140). For the participants in Mannergren
Selimovic’s study, the public spaces of their neighbourhoods retained
the tension of the conflict, while the sites of loss continued to be
regarded with a reverence that prevented the bereaved from walking on
a stretch of pavement (‘I don’t feel good. My body stops me from going
there’). The subsequent recollections about mealtimes, scarred build-
ings, and the reluctance to talk about the war—except through subtle
references—generates a feeling of memorialisation on the margins, the
memories rarely openly articulated, yet never forgotten. Through her
chapter, Mannergren Selimovic demonstrates the liminality of spatial and
embodied memory work in the post-war city, and her argument, that the
power of silence lies in its capacity to divert contentious conversations or
(re)traumatising recollections, locates silence, omission, and absence on
the cusp of healing.
Before healing can occur, recognition of trauma must take place. While
the survivors of the siege of Sarajevo carry their experience, and articulate
it in ways that traverse possible retraumatisation, the visitors to sites where
past violence, and its legacy, remains untold (or partially revealed) enter a
different in-betweenness. In Olivette Otele’s powerful account of moving
through Penrhyn Castle in North Wales, and Andrea Zittlau’s reflections
(Chapter 4) on the Selk’nam exhibits at the American Museum of Natural
History (AMNH) in New York, the idea of the ‘condensation of time’
suggests not just a temporal compression, but a narrative one, too (Dekel
and Vinitzky-Seroussi 2017, 337). The result, however, is not just ease of
access to a vast scope of history, but rather the question of whose history?
While Penrhyn Castle is a heritage site, and the AMNH a museum,
both connect with Irit Dekel and Vered Vinitzky-Seroussi’s perception
of the museum as a site of ‘distinct moments that bring together partic-
ular clusters of meaning […] around national memory and private lives’
(2017, 337; 338). Despite the intimacy suggested by the private lives
on display, the omitted narratives create less a condensed history, and
more one of historical and cultural amnesia, as Otele demonstrates. The
result brings an added edge to the atmosphere of the site; for Dekel
and Vinitzky-Seroussi, this is the ‘uncanny experience’ brought about
by temporal breakdowns (2017, 338). Otele deconstructs the unsettling
sensation further, in her reflection on black performative presence and
black visitors at sites of trauma and mourning. In this ‘ambiguous setting’,
Otele poses important questions, including ‘to what extent have domi-
nant metanarratives related to the history of transatlantic slavery obscured
Afro-descendants’ presence in these reluctant sites of memory?’ Central
to this analysis is the embodied presence of the black visitor, as well as,
Otele tells us, their absence.
This observation draws attention to the effect of historical amnesia
and the nature of the memory/ies presented at heritage sites and in
museums. Following Astrid Erll’s understanding of memory, that it is a
‘process that connects neurons, people, times, spaces, experiences and
histories’ (2017, 6), then the sites that omit experiences and histories are,
ultimately, failing to facilitate the connections that produce an inclusive
(and historically accurate) narrative of remembrance. Establishing this
connection is, in the context of the Selk’nam exhibits at the ANHM,
complicated further by the location of the shoes that form the display. As
Zittlau explains, locating the shoes in a natural history museum removes
the Selk’nam from human history, and thereafter, obscures the cause
of their demise, as ‘[t]he shoes mark absence, but disguise the making
of absence as a natural cause also, because that particular museum falls
into the genre of natural history, which is presumably detached from
human influences’. The dissonance created by the choice of location
prompts a double-detachment, as the artefacts are removed, first, from
their point of origin, in Tierra del Fuego, an archipelago shared by Chile
and Argentina. Second, their location in natural history dehumanises the
absent bodies who once owned the shoes, and diminishes the link to
colonial violence, and the meaningful conversation that should follow.
Beyond heritage sites, the authors question how to mourn when a
body is missing, and the ways that absence can play a role in mourning
and remembrance, amidst silence and disappearance. There is, moreover,
an additional facet of memory, wherein the act of recall connects to
the physical pain of remembrance. In Gearoid Millar’s consideration of
the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) in Sierra Leone, the
10 O. OTELE ET AL.
prospect of retelling their experiences was expressed through analogies

of pain. For one, the TRC is likened to ‘pouring hot water over your
head’; for another, physical and emotional wounds are experienced with
fresh intensity, ‘when he heard on the radio, the voice of the man who
chopped his hands, it all returned to him. […] the memories of the war
came back to the old Pa, hot and painful, and he hated that man anew’
(Millar 2015, 243). Where loss has been experienced, the absence can
become an enduring ache.
In Simon Robins’ work on the families of those who disappeared
during the Nepalese Civil War (1996–2006), the bodies of the absent
continued to have an impact on those of the living, as the survivors
continued to experience chronic pain and anxiety, which began with
the disappearances (2014, 10). For Robins, the duration of the pain’s
persistence enables the body to become ‘a physical memorial to the
missing, inscribed with the trauma of the past and making absence visible’
(ibid.). As the contributions of Andrea Zittlau (Chapter 4), Manca Bajec
(Chapter 7), and Mannergren Selimovic demonstrate, absence can func-
tion paradoxically, by being invisible, yet tangible. As each author looks
at the material representation of the absent body (or bodies), through
empty chairs that line the streets of Sarajevo (Mannergren Selimovic),
balloons tagged with the names of victims of the Omarska camp in
Bosnia-Hercegovina (Bajec), or Selk’nam shoes that are separated from
their owners (Zittlau), they draw attention to the act of framing the spaces
left behind. In doing so, the material objects that stand in the stead of
the disappeared present, for a moment, a visual acknowledgement of not
only the void left by the individual, but also a reminder (and sometimes
an acknowledgement) of the root of the loss.
So far, these chapters have provided a profound focus on the narra-
tives and rituals that try (and at times, fail) to make sense of, absent
bodies. For the bereaved, the absence of the bodies can reinforce the
violent event of the past, and in Chapters 9 and 10, by Eva Willems and
Sandra M. Rios Oyola, respectively, the living stand less as memorials,
and more as channels through which oppression and disempowerment
unfold. In Willem’s research on the absence of remains and the remains
of absence in the Peruvian Highlands following the Peruvian Civil War
(1980–2000), the dead bodies hold ‘an emancipatory potential for their
relatives in the present and future’. Central to this premise is the act of
burying and reburying, though as Willems cautions, added risks remain,
as the narratives concerning the found bodies can be contested, and
non-recognition (or misrecognition) can equally precipitate harm and/or

oppression. To this can be added two further aspects: the potential for
retraumatisation while reburying and negotiating contested narratives,
and second, the possibility for burial to become a site of control.
In her reflection on burials and funerary rites during the conflict
in Colombia and Guatemala, Rios Oyola argues that, ‘the absence or
prohibition of funerary rituals can be used as a tool for humiliation of
the deceased and of those who survived her’. While the use of the absent
body can be invoked to exact pain on the living, so too, does Rios Oyola
demonstrate the ways that absent bodies disempower survivors, as ‘they
feel that they are not able to carry their duties toward their deceased
relatives’. The emotional turmoil explored by Willems and Rios Oyola
recalls Robins’ discussion of the pain of loss, yet more significantly, they
address the urgent need to understand the diverse experiences of trauma
among survivors of the disappeared. For scholars working on mass graves,
the reluctance of survivors to exhume the graves has been received with
‘shock and even bafflement’ (Rosenblatt 2015, 86). While Adam Rosen-
blatt is clear that forensic teams follow the lead of the communities
involved, their lingering consternation perhaps can be solved by looking
at the complex power dynamics that surround post-conflict mourning
and memorialisation, which are discussed in the chapters in this volume.
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CHAPTER 2
Articulating Presence of Absence: Everyday

Memory and the Performance of Silence
in Sarajevo
Johanna Mannergren Selimovic
2.1 Introduction
On 6 April 2012, Bosnian theatre director Haris Pašović placed 11,541
red plastic chairs in rows along Sarajevo’s main street to commemo-
rate the 20th anniversary of the 1992–96 siege of the city. There was
one chair for each person killed and the seemingly endless line of chairs
that snaked through the city centre acknowledged the loss of individuals
and lifeworlds through war and violence, a loss that for a moment was
made visible and tangible. The art installation, called Sarajevo Red Line,
brought to the fore how the war caused both collective and individual
loss for the city and its inhabitants. The installation was a far cry from
the noisy and politicised remembrance practices that in post-war Bosnia-
Herzegovina is often used to bolster (ethno)nationalist sentiments and
J. Mannergren Selimovic (B)

Södertörn University, Stockholm, Sweden
e-mail: johanna.mannergren.selimovic@sh.se

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54887-2_2
16 J. MANNERGREN SELIMOVIC
divisive politics. For a moment, an intense and silent presence of absence

spoke louder.
This chapter is interested in the tension between lived silences in the
post-war everyday and public commemoration. The concept of presence
of absence is developed in order to capture the complex ways that the
traumatic past is embedded in the present. I argue that presence of
absence is a driving affective force in societies transitioning from conflict.
The concept opens up for an understanding of the role of silence in
the making and restoring of lifeworlds after traumatic atrocity events.
Silence is understood as a productive and expressive articulation of this
presence of absence and the chapter explores silence as a practice and
performance in the everyday of the post-war Bosnian capital. In a second
move the chapter reflects upon how such everyday silent memory work
can be represented through public commemoration. It argues that there
is a gap between commemorative practices at formal sites of acknowledge-
ment and their emphasis on coherent narratives and organised spaces of
mourning, and the ambiguous silences that can contain and express pres-
ence of absence. It looks to the importance of art as an alternative realm
that does not necessarily strive for closure through speech, but rather
embraces a state of suspension that can represent silence as a marker for
loss, mourning and protest.
The chapter begins with an introduction to the concept of presence
of absence and discusses it in relation to practices of silence. It then
engages with some ‘empirical moments’ (Mannergren Selimovic 2020) of
how individuals in Sarajevo live in and through the presence of absence
and discusses their narrative, embodied and emplaced practices of silence.
The discussion brings forth an understanding of silence as a multifaceted
practice defined by complexities and ambivalences, employed to negotiate
the past and present. Taking into consideration Butler’s observation that
‘loss fractures representation itself’ (Butler 2002, 467), I then discuss the
problems of commemoration practices in view of these complex everyday
silences and return to a more thorough analysis of the Red Line installa-
tion. Aesthetic representations of presence of absence may be, the chapter
concludes, a powerful means to articulate everyday memory work of
silence.
2 ARTICULATING PRESENCE OF ABSENCE: EVERYDAY … 17
2.1.1 Conceptualising Presence of Absence

The concept of ‘presence of absence’ is a productive starting point for an
investigation into memory politics after war and violence. It captures a
central node in post-war politics: the tension between the loss in the past,
and the impact of this loss on the present. Absence is present emotionally,
corporeally and cognitively and influences how people live in the world.
The difficult experiences of the past are not ‘dead’, they are full of vitality
and can suddenly burst, or slowly seep, through any temporal and spatial
imaginations of before and after. I have come to see presence of absence as
one of the most powerful affective forces in post-war politics and in order
to understand the relation between memory politics and peace, presence
of absence has to be taken into consideration.
The shifting tensions and interdependence between the concepts of
presence and absence has been a productive theme in philosophy for a
long time. Key philosophers bring forth the paradox of absence/presence,
including Søren Kierkegaard, Jean-Paul Sartre and Jacques Derrida (Bille
et al. 2010, 106ff). Some of the most productive engagements with
the presence/absence notion have emerged in the literature on the
Holocaust, a body of writing that directly or indirectly revolves around
this tension, particularly regarding the enormous loss of individuals and
communities that is carried by survivors, and the transmission of this loss
through generations to the present (Hirsch 2012), and the impossibility
of representation (Agamben 1999; Felman and Laub 1992). Explorations
by Jessica Auchter (2014) and Brent Steele (2012) bring the discus-
sion of the presence/absence paradox (the ‘haunting’ as Auchter writes
building on Derrida’s theorisation, or ‘the scar’ in Steele’s terminology)
into discussions of the political in international relations, arguing that the
missing, forever marking the present, is a central element of state-crafting
and nation-building (see also Edkins 2003).
These writings bring important insights of relevance for memory poli-
tics in the wake of war and violence. First, to look for the presence of
absence one needs to go beyond cognition, disrupting what is consid-
ered visible and rational. To think about the presence of absence is to
bring into our analysis that which is not seen or talked about. We are,
as Auchter (2014, 57) notes, not used to thinking about the political
importance of that which operates beyond visible and traditional polit-
ical realms. The concept of presence of absence thus brings with it some
spatial disturbances in our thinking about memory politics and transitions

from war to peace.
Second, the concept of presence of absence unsettles traditional ways
of understanding time along linear temporalities of past-present-future.
Steele’s metaphor of ‘the scar’ powerfully brings forth the temporal insta-
bility of the ‘presence/absence’ relation, arguing that the scar is both
momentary and permanent; something that is part of several ‘temporal
trajectories’. This makes it so difficult to close a scar or even to conceal it,
Steele argues (2012, 29). Scars work backwards, by not letting us forget
the horrific events of the past, but they are also present as ‘a companion’
in the present (Steele 2012, 30). Freud’s notion of trauma as an unre-
solved event that surfaces in the psyche ‘like an unlaid ghost’ comes to
mind (Freud, cited in Ball 2014).
It is clear that spatial and temporal workings of presence of absence
cannot only be approached from a narrative or cognitive perspective.
It is (also) an affective state of being, as the term reflects ‘a sense of’
the absent people, things or places. Affect has been defined as ‘intensi-
ties’ (Bertelsen and Murphie 2010, 138; Ross 2013, 21) and it has also
been pointed out that a shifting register of affective forces constantly
circulate through the social body (Bertelsen and Murphie 2010, 140).
Such affects are produced in ongoing encounters between material and
social constellations and arise ‘in the midst of in-between-ness’ (Gregg
and Seigworth 2010, 1–2; Sather-Wagstaff 2017). These conceptualisa-
tions touch on anthropology’s long-standing interest regarding practices
around absent bodies or things. Writing from a Maho village in Papua
New Guinea, Debbora Battaglia notes that (s)ocial behaviour, temporal
orders, the social landscape itself are redefined by the invisible agency
of an ‘active absence’ (Battaglia, cited in Bille et al 2010, 12; 344). Such
theories open towards an analysis of the ongoings in the everyday, the ‘in-
between-ness’ that is excessive of formal and ritualised commemoration
practices.
Building on these theoretical insights, I am interested in how the pres-
ence of absence is articulated in the everyday of world-making in the
aftermath of war. The everyday, constituted of events, practices and rela-
tions that form an entangled, granular texture, is a vital site for memory
making. Yet memory politics is often construed as only concerning various
interventions in the official realm that construct certain narratives – be
they excluding or including - and the workings of the micropolitics of
memory are greatly underexplored. In what follows, I will try to address
this gap by investigating how presence of absence is enfolded in narrative,

embodied and material layers of the everyday and articulated through
silence.
2.1.2 Articulations of Silence

In my research among people affected by violence and war, I have often
encountered silences as a strategy to manage post-war existence. I have
come to see that the meaning of silences is ambiguous and shifts over time
and space. While the transitional justice impulse is usually to advocate that
silences need to be broken in order to make the absence visible and identi-
fiable, I here want to also discuss how silences are used as a way to contain
and mark the presence of absence. Silences have to do about power and
agency and from that, it follows that they can be both enabling and
disabling (Mannergren Selimovic 2020). Part of their agential function
concerns the management of knowledge about atrocious events in the
past. Relations and identities are influenced by who knows and who does
not. There are tensions between silence and speaking out, between the
known and the unknown. In this uncertainty silence may have a disabling
effect and actually hide presence of absence through erasure and denial.
For example, the loud and conflictual memory discourses of ethnopolitical
entrepreneurs in Bosnia-Herzegovina contain erasure and denial; silences
that seek to hide and exert power. Such silences can serve to mask new
positions of power and privilege, and fear and oppression may be used
to enforce the omission of certain crimes from the war narrative and the
collective memory in order to have ‘clean’ identities of victimhood. Some
stories may be marginalised or challenged through top-down memory
politics that seeks to construct hegemonic accounts. The denial of some
crimes, in particular sexual violence, hiding and shaming the victims, or
marginalising stories of civilian dignity in order to make a more militaristic
account hegemonic, are all examples of how silences can be disabling.
These are silences that are violent and want to erase presence of absence.
However even in hierarchical structures of dominance there is space
for enabling silence. In peace and transitional justice research, a body of
writings is emerging that investigates silence in post-war contexts not as
a void or absence, but ‘silence as possibility’.1 Far from mechanisms for

forgetting, these silences are productive and expressive. As I will illus-
trate, such silences can enable and protect close relationships and can be
an expression of dignity, and provide a space for mourning, for acknowl-
edgement and resistance. They may make mourning possible and mark
loss when representation seems impossible.
I propose that silences, oscillating between disabling and enabling, are
means to articulate and contain presence of absence. A rich tradition of
scholars and artists working through the trauma of the Holocaust have
probed into the paradox of silence in relation to the presence/absence
tension. The silences carried in and through the bodies of Holocaust
survivors and the way that silence has been a means of survival is achingly
portrayed in several key literary works. Giorgio Agamben connects silence
to ‘the impossibility of bearing witness’ (Agamben 1999, 39). However,
the silence that acknowledges this impossibility is not a void but rather
articulates an ‘active absence’. To trace these silences and see how they
articulate presence of absence, close readings of everyday practices are
needed.
2.1.3 Silences and the Siege of Sarajevo

I will now discuss some practices of silence in Sarajevo, building on
my interaction with interlocutors in my research on memory politics in
Bosnia-Herzegovina. My focus here concerns mundane memories of the
nearly four-year siege, of what it was like to live through the hunger and
danger of those years in which incessant shelling and sniper fire killed
more than 11,000 inhabitants.2 Most adults in present-day Sarajevo carry
memories of how their city transformed from a space of tolerance and
cosmopolitanism to a space of horrific violence, hunger and fear during
the siege, and then emerged post-war as a more segregated and highly
politicised space (Jansen 2013; Kappler 2017). The last decade or so has
seen new shopping centres mushrooming in the city, and many of the
1 See for example: Eastmond and Mannergren Selimovic 2012; Mac Ginty 2014;
Mannergren Selimovic 2020; George and Kent 2017; Kent 2016; Motsemme 2004; Porter
2016.
2 The chapter partly builds upon fieldwork conducted in 2017–2018 for the research
project Peace and the Politics of Memory, funded by the Swedish Foundation for
Humanities and Social Sciences.
destroyed buildings have been repaired. The war is in many ways distant
as you move through the bustling streets, glass-fronted boutiques and
intense cafés in the pedestrian streets. At the same time, there are many
physical markers that tell of the violence, including ruins and war monu-
ments, burial grounds, monuments, as well as sculptures by artists and
museums dedicated to the siege. More inconspicuously, but very much
present in the everyday, is the mundane debris that is floating around the
cityscape, everything from bullet cases sold as keyrings to tourists hunting
for war souvenirs, to sheets of UNHCR plastic used to patch up a shed,
as well as an endless number of chipped marks on buildings from shells
and bullets.
As the narrative of the siege is under constant negotiation, neither is
the meaning of the commemorative places and activities settled (Kappler
2017). The formal memory work around the siege is coloured by the
overall memory politics in post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina, defined by unre-
solved tensions and a deeply divisive political climate driven by politicians
who thrive on politics of fear with an underlying threat of renewed hostil-
ities. Commemoration regarding the war is often used as an arena for a
revisionist rewriting of the past into a tale of ethnonationalism and there
is an increasing militarisation of public commemoration. A brief glance
at the memoryscape in Sarajevo shows a top-down (ethno)nationalistic
appropriation of memories that are more focused on the elite and military
aspects of the war rather than the civilian experience.
For example, at a prominent place in the city, a prestigious commem-
oration space is under development that includes a graveyard for war
‘martyrs’, a museum of military war heroes, and a multimedia space for
large commemoration events. At a community level, monuments over
fallen soldiers from that particular neighbourhood are common and are
often acknowledged with flowers from officials. In this ongoing construc-
tion of the memory of the siege, the citizens’ resistance against war
and their fight for a multicultural cosmopolitan city is often overwritten,
although exhibitions at the War Childhood Museum and the Historical
Museum try to rectify the dominant ethnonationalist narrative by focusing
on citizens’ resilience and the individual and social cost of war.
Yet in the midst of these visible demonstrations of memorialisation,
ordinary people tend to not speak of the war years. In what follows,
I will draw on empirical vignettes that trace how silences are narrated,
embodied, and emplaced in the everyday lives of the citizens of Sara-
jevo. By carefully listening and observing these silences, I have tried
to understand their role not as a void or as a forgetting, but rather
as a performance and a strategy to navigate the contentious post-war

memoryscape and find a productive way to articulate presence of absence.
As noted above, these silences are not only narrative but are also
embodied and emplaced. This became increasingly clear when I spent
time with D., a woman in her early thirties who has lived in Sarajevo her
whole life. The war started when she was nine years old and she lived with
her parents and elder sister in an apartment building on the hills climbing
up from central town—a prime target for the snipers positioned on the
hills of Trebević directly opposite. She still lives in the same building
with her parents. In her family, the war years are seldom mentioned. ‘We
don’t like to speak about it’, D. said with a smile. But when I asked her
to tell me about how she thinks the siege should be remembered and
commemorated, what she does not talk about, and what she is silent
about, she began by recounting a childhood memory, thus somewhat
paradoxically breaking her silence:
Our mum would never allow us to leave the building. It is located on top
of a hill. It is the only apartment building on this hill, all the other houses
are smaller, and my building is the only one with elevator. It has six stories
and I live on the third one. I see the whole city. Trebević is right across.
So, from Trebević you can see our building. It was very dangerous. They
could see us walking down the street, standing in the window. Our mum
did not allow us to leave the building. Of course, she was not working
because of the war, but when there was no water, she would take some
buckets and go to find some water and then she would say: “don’t leave
the house while I am away”.
Sometimes we would go to other flats where friends lived, because there

were lots of kids at the time in the building and we already had other
people coming from other parts of the city fleeing and coming to live
there. And we would get together to play in the hallways in the building.
But sometimes we would leave and go outside. […]
On this day, my mum was coming back and she was carrying some buckets
and we were playing in front of the building. […] She was furious, she
started yelling: “what are you doing? Why did you go outside? Why did
you do this? It is not safe, they are shooting all the time! what are you
doing?” She was so angry and she rushed us in, and I remember hearing
snipers and seeing bullets hit the facade while we were running to enter
the building. It was really, really dangerous and one of the bullets went
right past my mum’s ear. She was nearly injured, but no one was injured.
So, she kind of saved us all because had she not come at that point, we
might have been killed.
(Personal interview, 26 January 2018)
This story, recounted in detail with intense viscerality, contains an exces-

sively affective experience, including her mother nearly getting killed, the
sound of the bullets tearing at the wall, her mother’s anger and fear as she
pushed them in through the door, all tinged with the forbidden adven-
ture of going outside. It is a sharp memory that D. does not talk about
any longer with her family: it is too painful. Or ‘too direct’, she says. Yet
the avoidance of narration does not mean that the shared war experiences
are not present: they are in fact ‘part of our DNA’.
Rather, these memories are evoked by subtle references that seem to act
as code words, as the following example illustrates. D. brings up another
anecdote from the war that concerns the constant struggle to find food.
She says she doesn’t remember the feeling of hunger but remembers how
she was always craving something sweet:
We always had the same thing on the menu. What we got from the neigh-
bourhood. Aid would come to Sarajevo, and then it would be distributed
in the communities. So, each member was entitled to some portions of
rice, some cans or whatever. I remember the ready-made packages from
the army. We, the kids, we loved them! All the kids loved the ready-made
meals because there would always be some candy or chewing gum inside,
something sweet. There would be some real food items, but always the
sweet, so we were always thrilled, to find maybe chocolate, chewing gums.
(ibid.)
Today the family collectively remembers her craving for sweets, and now
and then it will be referred to in family situations, for example when
dessert is served at dinner among relatives and friends: ‘My mum always
repeats the words I used to say: “mum, is there anything sweet to eat?”
And we laugh’. (ibid.)
While D. says that they do not talk in detail about the war experience
anymore, the visceral sensation of food can bring out affect and conjure
up the times they shared during the siege. It is at moments like this that
the temporal ordering of past and present dissolves in an instant. The
hunger, and the dangerous gathering of food and water, is not talked
about but the silence does not mean erasure of these memories. On the
contrary it is in the moment of laughter that it seems possible to reminis-
cence about the war. Without having to verbalise the pain, fear and anger
of the siege and all that was lost, the family can embrace the absence and
share it intersubjectively. Those moments become a restorative space, in
which they can evoke memories and loved ones through silence.
Open conversations about the war beyond family and close friends
carry further complications. D. navigates carefully in order to respect the
dignity of others and their right to remember, although they or their rela-
tives might have been on ‘the other side’ of the conflict. This silence is
also protective of herself, as she tries to avoid verbal confrontations where
her experiences might be questioned or belittled. Sometimes it is more
productive not to speak, and silence paradoxically seems to make commu-
nication possible as part of everyday negotiations around the traces of a
difficult past:
I am not a very quiet person. I don’t have a problem with sharing my

feelings and telling people how I feel, but I tend to avoid getting into
arguments, especially if we have different opinions about the war, especially
when it comes to war criminals and prosecutions. So, I tend not to share
some of my thoughts and opinions because I don’t feel like arguing with
people on different topics. Sometimes talking is frustrating and you have
your own history to cherish. And even if it is painful you cherish your own
personal history. […] We all remember things differently. (ibid.)
Silence can thus be used in situations when speech might be too divi-
sive and threaten fragile systems of coexistence. There is a liminality to
these silences as they oscillate between denial, ignorance, knowledge, and
acknowledgement and respect. When the social fabric has been ripped,
relationships have been fragmented by violence and insecurity enfolded
into the everyday, the work of (re)constructing a lifeworld cannot always
be done through words (Das 2007).
I have also noted that many of my interlocutors bring up their memo-
ries of insecurity and violence by referring to corporeal reactions and
sensations. Thinking about the past brings visceral sensations, for example
D. eating a sweet dessert and remembering the bliss of chocolate during
the war years. Another example of how memories are embodied concerns
M., who is a woman in her early fifties. We were walking down a street
in Sarajevo when I wanted us to cross the road, but she stopped me.
After a moment’s reflection, she explained that her uncle had been killed
there, and that she avoided that place. ‘I never walk on that side of the
street. That is where he was killed. I don’t really consciously think about
it, it is just that I don’t feel good. My body stops me from going there’.
(Informal conversation, 8 August 2017). I see her movements through
the city as an embodied form of silence. In M.’s everyday, she moves
in answer to the layers of memories; at this busy street corner at the
main thoroughfare of Sarajevo, the inscriptions are of death and loss. The
bodily practices of silence connect with the lived peace of the present and
the social fabric of everyday life unfolds in relation to the material registers
of memory. In fact, the city itself is spatially constructed through these
layers of memory as M. and others move along its streets and squares,
marked by the affective force of presence of absence.
Another corporeal reaction was recounted by S., a man in his thir-
ties, whose brother was killed when they were children during the siege.
When a monument that honours the child victims of war was uncovered
in a park in central Sarajevo, he and his mother were invited to the cere-
mony. But, in the middle of the ceremony and ‘a speech by some high-up
bloke’, his mother left abruptly. ‘They could not tell her anything’, her
son now explained. She seemed to have refused the loudness of speech
at the commemoration event, keeping a silence that she did not want to
be replaced by political discourse that tried to use the death of her son
as a trope for the post-war nation-building project. Such a withdrawal
can function as a protest, and silence can thus be an act of resistance of
the kind that Michel de Certeau (1984) helps us notice, an act emerging
from fluid tactics that are not necessarily outspoken or planned. Such a
silent act of resistance is far from mechanisms of forgetting; rather it is
a silence used to uphold presence of absence, and make sure that events
of violence and abuse do not slip into a mononarrative that could erase
the complexity of loss. S. said that ‘it is good that there is a monument
to children and his name is engraved there. But I don’t feel that this
monument is for us’. (Personal interview, 24 January 2018).
Returning to D., and her recounted experience of being a target for
snipers in her house on the hill, it later emerged that she did have a mate-
rial monument of sorts for those times. Just as S. and his mother, D. felt
disturbed by official commemoration and preferred silence as a mode for
remembering. While she said that she felt ‘somewhat afraid’ to think too
much about her ‘lost childhood’, she was also reminded in a way that did
not depend upon divisive speech and an enrolling of her experiences into
official commemoration.
The façade of my building has not been repaired; there are still holes and
marks from that time. I don’t mind them. Maybe I even prefer to have
them because it is like the lines on your face. They show that you have
been through some things, the cargo you have, and if you try to remove
them you are kind of removing your own experience from your life.
I don’t think it is a good idea to hide your experiences or the traces. No,
to just hide them, it is not good. Some people have to be reminded visually
of what has happened […] When you see something with your own eyes
it is different from when people tell you stories. […] Even if it is painful
you can cherish it on your own, just by seeing some reminders. (Personal
interview, 24 January 2018)
The material marks can carry multiple meanings; they can hold her memo-
ries and understandings of what the siege was, something that verbal
conversations often fail to do as they threaten to collapse into an argu-
ment (‘it is different from when people tell you stories’). She wants it
to be possible ‘to cherish it on your own’ without being questioned or
having to navigate a socially treacherous conversation. At the same time,
as the chipped buildings and bullet holes are there in public, they are
evidence that these things did happen, and function as a constant but
silent reminder and acknowledgement of presence of absence.
2.1.4 Commemoration, Art and the Presence of Absence

Now, I turn to the second part of this study and ask how this mundane
memory work of silence can be expressed through commemoration. Is it
possible to represent the presence of absence and its silent articulations
through formal commemoration? As I have already indicated, memorial
practices tend to be loud and a potent tool for nation-building in the
process of (re)constructing the public realm. In Sarajevo as elsewhere,
collective remembrance practices often revolve around narratives of patri-
otism and nationalism. There is a drive to construct delineated subject
positions such as ‘victim’ or ‘perpetrator’ and, as always, remembering
also entails forgetting.3 This means that ‘certain interpretations of the

past (are) silenced so as to enable the acceptance of the narrative by a
broader public’ (Vintizky-Seroussi and Teeger 2010, 1113). Commem-
oration is thus a means to create and sustain a particular social order.
In any narrative about an event, there are aspects that are glossed over in
order to make sense and construct clear subject positions. Paul Connerton
(2011, 41) calls this ‘hegemonic forgetting’. How the past is articu-
lated, what stories and texts circulated, and what lives are deemed ‘right’
to grieve is negotiated at sites of commemoration, and as my empirical
vignettes demonstrate, an uneasy gap opens between how people conduct
silent memory work and formal commemorations. There is little space for
the ambiguities and fine-tuned mechanisms of grief, dignity and coexis-
tence in hegemonic accounts of the past, which often seem driven by an
opposite ambition to close the ambivalence and mask presence of absence.
Jenny Edkins has written about the failures of commemoration in the
face of trauma. In her seminal book, Trauma and the Memory of Politics
(2003), trauma is defined as ‘events that resist meaning’ (Edkins 2003,
37). A response to that which refuses to be categorised is challenging;
her suggestion is to ‘encircle the trauma’. This means to acknowledge
that the traumatic event did indeed happen but that it may be impos-
sible to fully understand the incommunicability of atrocity. To encircle the
trauma also means to acknowledge the impossibility of reassurance in the
face of human fragility (Edkins 2003, 3). Judith Butler develops similar
thoughts and brings forth the idea that ‘loss must be marked and it cannot
be represented; loss fractures representation itself and loss precipitates its
own modes of expression’ (Butler 2004, 467–468). It is at this juncture
of incommunicability that we turn to aesthetic representations, which may
hold a greater possibility to speak to the presence of absence. Artists have
for a long time struggled with trying to approach loss through marking
the voids (Huyssens 2003). The challenge is to also understand these
voids or silences as not empty and devoid of meaning but rather full of
agency and communication. I now turn my gaze once again on the art
installation Sarajevo Red Line, to search for what it is that makes this
artwork such a powerful manifestation of presence of absence.
3 As noted in Renan’s seminal essay from 1882, ‘What is a Nation?’. See also: (Winter
2006; Zehfuss 2006; Connerton 2011).
2.1.5 The Red Line of Sarajevo

The Sarajevo Red Line, part of the commemoration the 20th anniver-
sary of the beginning of the siege, was created by the Bosnian theatre
and film director Haris Pašović, who searched for a way to converse with
those who had been lost and make them the centre of the event.4 The
11,541 red plastic chairs, were arranged into 825 rows and stretched for
800 metres along the main street of the city centre. 643 of them were
small in size, fitting for the children killed. The chairs all faced a stage
where performances of dancing, singing, and poetry readings unfolded
over the course of the day and evening. The installation completely domi-
nated the centre of Sarajevo. Seeing the installation on video (for example
on Youtube), one gets a sense of its dramatic and shocking impact. The
roar of everyday life in these streets fell silent as the blood-red river of
the chairs tore through the city and made the loss tangible. The anony-
mous numbers of the dead seem momentarily possible to grasp. Every
empty chair represents a tear in an intersubjective web of relations, family,
relatives, friends, co-workers, neighbours, acquaintances. And, of course,
the missing strangers, fellow city-dwellers who no longer honk their horn
when you run across the street to the bus; no longer check your food in
the supermarket.
Pašović, who lived through the siege himself, took his ongoing expe-
rience of the presence of absence of those killed in the city as a point of
departure for the installation. He writes,
I often find myself trying to imagine how these individuals would have
lived today were they not killed. Most of them were between 20 and
45 years old. Today they would have been workers, bakers, professors,
engineers, football players. […] They would have had their families; some
would have had grandchildren. What is it that they would have liked? What
is it that they would have admired?
They would have creatively contributed to this city and this country; they
would have had celebrated their birthdays and New Year’s, they would
have had their vacations at the Adriatic Sea, they would have gone skiing
on Mt. Bjelašnica and Mt. Jahorina. (Eastwest Theatre, https://eastwest.
ba/sarajevo-red-line/)
4 The project was organised in cooperation between the City of Sarajevo and East West
Theatre Company, a non-profit cultural institution established in Sarajevo in 2005.
In the video recordings of the installation, one can see how people came
up to the chairs, some touched them, put their hands on them, walked
along the rows. Some cried, others lay down flowers. The chairs formed
a space that could contain the silent articulations of presence of absence.
There were no prescriptions, and no need to talk and break the silence
through polarising narratives: no heroes and no villains. Only bringing
forth the voids and the silences created by violent destruction. Maybe for
a moment at least, the loss was represented. The highly visual, emplaced
and embodied installation did not come with a message to remember in
order to heal, or to understand better. It was simply an acknowledgement
of the enormity of the individual and collective loss. As such it was quiet.
Thus, it was an artistic gesture that remains radically open in its silence.
The installation did contain music and recitations, yet while the perfor-
mances on stage turned to face the chairs, they were not for the living:
Pašović directed them for the dead. The artistic performances were
for those who were no longer there; the living were transformed into
bystanders. Pašović explained that the chairs were arranged as ‘an audi-
ence’ (Eastwest theatre, https://eastwest.ba/sarajevo-red-line/), and as a
result, art became a language that connected the dead and the living, and
communicated the ever-present loss. It also ‘encircled the trauma’ and
offered the survivors an opportunity to be silent, to let art speak beyond
polarising narratives. A sense of temporal unsettling seemed to occur as
the missing were offered songs and poetry. They were silent (the dead are
always silent), but their presence of absence was felt.
2.1.6 Connecting Silence, Aesthetic Representation and Peace

The question of how the presence of absence after war and violence can be
represented is deeply political. Roland Bleiker has noted that the work of
representation is in fact political work, arguing that ‘the inevitable differ-
ence between the represented and its representation is the very location
of politics’, and that to engage aesthetically is to reorder our basic under-
standing of what the political is (Bleiker 2009, 19). My investigation
into the everyday silences of mundane memory work and the difficul-
ties of its public representations suggests that aesthetic interventions can
bring forth representations that intervene in the broader memoryscape
by disturbing a mononarrative of the past and resisting standardised ways
of remembering. Art can reconfigure the political imaginaries of both the
past (the way we remember) and the future, the way we envision where
we go from here with our painful memories.
The art installation Sarajevo Red Line demonstrates how aesthetic
representation can encompass the spatial and temporal disturbances that
are part of the affective phenomenon of presence of absence. As I outlined
at the beginning of this chapter, it is as though the installation, by
bringing forth the presence of absence, disrupted the notion that poli-
tics is ‘rational and visible’ as Auchter noted. The installation managed to
contain and bring forth silences from the margins, thereby challenging
our understanding of the spaces in which memory politics play out.
Further, as we have seen through the work of Edkins (and others), the
definition of traumatic events is that they defy cognition and are hard to
temporally control. They seep back into the present and as a consequence,
what Mueller-Hirth and Rios Oyola (2018, 354) call ‘temporal conflicts’
may occur between ‘local, or lived, temporalities and institutional, or offi-
cial temporalities’. Some of the situated practices of silence that have been
discussed in this chapter certainly stand in ‘temporal conflicts’ with formal
attempts to erase or simplify the past.
This is the critical juncture at which art interventions can make visible
the hidden scars, and create space for uncertainty and liminality that
refuses amnesia, yet abstains from loud commemoration practices. Instead
of masking the fluid and contested status of memory processes, art can
acknowledge that which can never be healed. On this note I would like
to open up for reflections regarding what this artwork does on a greater
scale in the contexts of societies transitioning from war to peace, which is
the underlying theme of this chapter. I propose that artistic engagement
with presence of absence can give space to, and acknowledge, that peace
is ambiguous.
Commemoration activities must engage with, instead of closing off,
the experiences of lived peace with its silent and shifting memory work.
In this sense, the chapter is a contribution to literatures that look at
everyday occurrences and phenomena in order to disclose and understand
how private and intimate social relations are connected to the construc-
tion of inclusive memory politics and a durable peace. Bringing the
strands of this chapter together, it becomes clear that a study of memory,
silence and the presence of absence can deepen our understanding of how
peace is produced in the ongoing frictions between everyday and formal,
individual and collective, memory work.
2.2 Conclusions
The chapter set out to reflect on how difficult loss and pain is remem-
bered in the everyday in communities dealing with the legacy of mass
atrocities and violence. I have suggested that the concept of presence of
absence can help us access the often silent and invisible memory work that
goes on in vernacular contexts. I have investigated silences as a productive
mode for articulating presence of absence and have pointed to multi-
layered and contextual practices of silence as part of (re)construction of
lifeworlds. Silence can be a sign of respect, a tool for navigating precar-
ious social landscapes of ‘friends and foes’. Silence can be provocative
but also empowering. The ambiguity silence allows may be employed
to counteract or undermine positions of privilege, forming part of acts
of resistance. Such silences can be narrative and used to mark private
and public boundaries, organising what ‘comes up’ or not in conversa-
tion within families, or among friends and acquaintances. There are also
what I term ‘embodied silences’, as bodies silently reconfigure the space
around traces of the past. These silences are emplaced through the marks
in the material registers of the city that function as silent reminders of the
presence of absence.
It is clear that multilayered silences, rather than uniform speech, consti-
tute the minute and finely calibrated memory work of the everyday. There
is clearly a gap between this informal memory work and the formal rituals
and spaces of commemoration. The chapter briefly outlined how the
memoryscape in Sarajevo is increasingly militarised and ethnonational-
istic, disregarding of everyday experiences of the siege. I turned to art as
a possible realm for remembering without breaking silences and without
replacing ambiguity with mononarratives. In my analysis of the art instal-
lation Sarajevo Red Lines, I could see that the artwork derived its meaning
from its silence. It managed to speak directly to the post-war experience
of many Sarajevans today, whose present everyday is interfoliated by pres-
ence of absence. Their own strategies, of using multi-layered silence as
a mode for navigation between past and present, were reflected in the
installation.
It seems that art can speak to the desire for liminality that comes from
the impossibility of ‘closure’. Art can be a way of encircling the trauma,
while allowing the ambiguities that silence can contain. Aesthetic repre-
sentations of the presence of absence may thus hold power to contain the
everyday memory work of silence. Silence, used as part of the ‘agentic
work of the imagination’ (Motsemme 2004, 910), articulates presence of

absence and allows it to unsettle temporal and spatial maps. In this state
of uncertainty, inclusive peace may grow.
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CHAPTER 3
Mourning in Reluctant Sites of Memory:

From Afrophobia to Cultural Productivity
Olivette Otele
The term Afrophobia1 that refers to a series of negative behaviours, is the

starting point to investigate how these attitudes influence the way knowl-
edge and memory are produced and consumed at twenty-first-century
sites of memory in Britain. These attitudes go from unease in the pres-
ence of people racialised as black to overt and covert acts of discrimination
against these populations. The history of such behaviours can be traced
back to encounters between people of African and European descent from
the third century onwards.2 The transatlantic slave trade and slavery, for
example, opened the door to the social alienation of African captives in the
Americas. The subjugation at the heart of the social and cultural develop-
ment of an institution known as the plantocracy in the eighteenth century,
1 Afrophobia is defined as negative attitudes towards people of African descent racialised

as black.
2 For the purpose of this article, we will be looking at the experiences of Afro-Europeans
in Britain but Afrophobia is present in other places.
O. Otele (B)
Colonial History, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54887-2_3
36 O. OTELE
led to so-called scientific racism in the nineteenth century. Two centuries

after the abolition of slavery in British and French colonies, the denigra-
tion of black and brown European citizens and those denied citizenship
is particularly evident in the rise of white supremacy in the Global North
and far-right movements in Europe.
This chapter proposes to investigate how various forms of Afrophobia
are apparent at a few sites that attract very specific kinds of tourist popula-
tions in Britain. However, understanding Afrophobia in these settings can
only shed light on one side of the story. Analysing cultural production as
a counter discourse to local and national narratives allows us to appre-
hend aspects of memory and history that may have a profound impact
on questions such as trauma, recovery, identity, discrimination or social
cohesion.
Britain is proud of the large number of majestic country houses that
were built centuries ago, even though some of these places were built
with the dividends of the slave trade (Dresser and Hann 2013), a very
lucrative business that was based on the commodification and exploita-
tion of African captives, as well as on the perdurance of the institution
of slavery for centuries. In this chapter, I will focus on Penrhyn Castle
in North Wales. The Castle as a ‘realm’ of memory, is a place where
the process of mourning, remembering and forgetting are intertwined.
Drawing on the work of Pierre Nora (Nora 1997) about sites/realms
of memory, this article analyses places of remembrance as ‘reluctant sites
of memory’.3 That is to say, settings that reluctantly tell the stories of
the legacies of colonial encounters. These reluctant sites use a series of
apparatus to resist or to diffuse too strong a link between the trauma
of slavery and national or local heritage (Violi 2012). Paradoxically they
tend to benefit from flows of tourists eager to learn more about the local
or national heritage. These settings are trauma sites of memory, but one
might add in absentia, as well as being conscious or unconscious examples
of dark tourism (Dann and Seaton 2002). A few questions are particu-
larly useful guides in this synthesis of reluctant sites of memory. Firstly,
to what extent have dominant metanarratives related to the history of
3 My work on memory led me to reassess Pierre Nora’s term and to attempt to apply
it in various settings relating to the history of the slave trade and slavery. Out of that
assessment was born a 19-month AHRC funded project entitled, People of African Descent
in the 21st Century: Knowledge and Cultural Production in Reluctant Sites of Memory.
3 MOURNING IN RELUCTANT SITES OF MEMORY … 37
transatlantic slavery obscured Afro-descendants’ presence in these reluc-

tant sites of memory? How has the practice of telling one’s story, as well
as certain commemorative practices, resulted in knowledge production
and perhaps cultural heritage definitions that have in turn enriched local
histories and national discourses?
From Marie-Claire Lavabre (2007, 2012), Tzvetan Todorov (1998)
to Pierre Nora and many others, we learnt that memory is a work of
reduction or a compromise between several ‘entrepreneurs of memory’
(Lavabre 2012, 271). Entrepreneurs are chosen leaders who are supposed
to represent the views of the majority group. The compromise mentioned
is allegedly a necessary step towards social cohesion at national and
regional levels. In the process, certain stories which are deemed irrelevant
are left out. In the case of Wales, regional participation in transatlantic
slavery mostly came to light during the bicentenary of the abolition of
slavery in 2007. Prior to the bicentenary, the BBC consulted historian
Chris Evans for the documentary Wales and Slavery: The Untold Story
(2007). Up to that point, very few studies had investigated the history
of slavery from an economic point of view. There were, however, notice-
able and renowned studies about multi-heritage Wales and its links with
Empire. Charlotte Williams’ acclaimed volume, published in 2002, was
about her experience as a mixed heritage child growing up in North
Wales (Williams 2002). Her journey as the daughter of a Guyanese father
and a Welsh-speaking mother led her to try and find out more about
Wales’ links with the Americas and slavery. The second important volume
was born out of the collaboration between Alan Llwyd and Butetown
History and Arts Centre’s director Glenn Jordan (Llwyd and Jordan
2005) The volume remains to this day alongside Williams, Evans and
O’Leary’s edited volume, A tolerant Nation?: Revisiting Ethnic Diversity
in a Devolved Wales, the books that extensively tells the story of the black
presence in Wales since the sixteenth century, as well as the links between
Welsh and imperial subjects, notably populations that settled in what used
to be known as Tiger Bay in Cardiff.
The BBC documentary about Wales and slavery was aimed at detailing
these links but subsequent research mostly delved into economic consid-
erations and left aside the lived experiences of those who did not benefit
from that trade directly. It looked at plantation owners and slave traders
and thus discarded the stories of people of African descent. Welsh links
with slavery became the story of those racialised as white. Stories such as
that of Nathaniel Wells, the son of a Cardiff born planter and an enslaved
38 O. OTELE
woman, also became peripheral (Evans 2002). Written documents about

people of dual heritage or stories about black people in Wales might have
been difficult to recount. The availability of archival material about Welsh-
born planters and other Welsh residents who benefitted from the slave
trade could have explained why they were the focus of most academic
research. Equally interesting was the availability of records about those
planters that allowed historians to trace their roots back to the Caribbean.
These studies established strong links between Wales and slavery, but
seemed to shy away from furthering those links by looking into the trajec-
tories of those racialised as black, who arrived in Wales prior to World
War II. In the process of writing the history of Wales, oral history seems
to have been left aside. This, one could argue, is directly linked to the
way historians have tackled the discipline for centuries. As French scholar
Michel de Certeau put it,
It seems that in the West over the last four centuries, ‘doing history’ is
about writing history. […] an ambiguous practice, a commercial and utopic
one […] that is supposed to be a scientific model. It is not interested in
a hidden ‘truth’ that should be uncovered. It is a symbol between a new
timed and delimitated space and a modus operandi that fabricates scenarios.
(De Certeau 1975)
What de Certeau is referring to, is the need at the time of the bicentenary
to fabricate a new space that proposed to present ‘uncovered’ new history.
The problem was that the mechanisms of erasure that had taken place
and rendered that history invisible, were themselves forgotten during the
uncovering.
It was also as much about Wales and slavery as it was about Wales and
England’s common history. Prior stories about minority ethnic groups
and people of African descent in particular, had held little attention in
the region, but the new ‘space’ that was created, served as the apparatus
needed to set in motion a new ‘untold’ history. In turn that history was to
be widely shared and transmitted. Knowledge produced was to be inte-
grated into the national practices of memorialisation. After all, this was
about the way Britain abolished the slave trade and set about abolishing
slavery in the rest of the world. The story was one of the British values
of decency and humanitarianism. Wales, it seemed, had a chapter in that
book. The books and radio and television programmes that focused on
the economic links, as well as on abolition were to become the new sites
of memory: unavoidable references to understand the history of Wales

and slavery. On the outskirts of this crafted narrative about the 2007
commemoration, stood a different kind of history. It encompassed the
stories of people of African descent and the legacies of Empire inscribed
on their individual and family timeline. Williams and many others had
stories to tell and they were not necessarily drawn from eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century testimonies of enslavement. They were drawn from
long family histories where oral history played a crucial role. These stories
highlighted the fact that telling and teaching an inclusive history of Wales
had a place in counteracting a narrative solely based on English oppres-
sion and on rural Welsh-speaking Wales that had been favoured by Welsh
nationalists in the last part of the twentieth century (Johnes 2015).
The 2007 commemoration emphasised the role played by Welsh aboli-
tionists such as William Williams Pantycelyn, Iolo Morganwg, and many
others. The absence of research about the lived experiences of eighteenth-
and nineteenth-century black Welsh people further reinforced the discon-
nect between past and present. These absences perhaps unintentionally,
contributed to the belief that multicultural Wales was born after the World
Wars (Williams 2012) and specifically with the arrival of African Amer-
ican soldiers who fought during the Second World War. In this context,
the bicentennial commemoration in Cardiff was a defining moment for
Welsh history at many levels. Beyond the recognition of the region’s
involvement in slavery, the commemoration also defined whose history
and which stories were to be considered. This was primarily about planters
and slave traders, who contributed to the Welsh economy. This was not
about the workforce that was mainly located in the West Indies at the
time. The commemoration was about abolitionists who drove the fight
to end that trade and those practices. Referring to commemorations in
general, Geoffrey Cubitt has noted that, ‘heroic as the many possibly
appear in themselves, founding moments are significant, by definition,
mainly through what they are believed to have produced; they can only
truly be celebrated by evoking and defining the communities they have
given rise to’ (Cubitt 2007, 221).
The question that remained when I attended the 2007 commem-
oration in Cardiff led by First Minister Rhodri Morgan was, whose
communities were being celebrated? Morgan applauded abolitionists and
mentioned the ordinary Welsh people who benefitted from the products
and the investments made by wealthy plantation owners in Wales. He
hardly mentioned the lives of those who worked and died in plantations in
40 O. OTELE
the Americas (BBC News 2007). He did, however, broach the subject of
enslavement when he stated that modern slavery should not be forgotten
and should be the target of Wales’ efforts. The lives, contribution, and
work of the individuals and communities of African descent in Wales who
were part of the commemoration were left aside. As Nora has argued,
commemorations are sites of memory and as such they play a crucial role
in regional identity. Coming together and sharing a carefully formulated
narrative was supposed to foster a sense of belonging. In this instance,
it also providing a space to promote Welshness as much as to state one’s
sense of belonging to Britain. The commemoration was the first of its kind
in Wales and indeed in Britain but perhaps too much was expected from
that event. Cubitt argued that beneath the idealised view that commemo-
rations offer a society whose past is stably ordered and stably connected to
its present, a more complex play of exclusions and imposition can usually
be detected (Cubitt 2007). Social, racial, and other forms of cohesion in
Wales could not be achieved through one or even a series of commemo-
rations. Time was needed for all communities across Wales to absorb the
wealth of information about the involvement of the region in the slave
trade, slavery and abolition.
Stories about communities people of African descent and cross-cultural
collaboration existed even if they stayed within the racial and geograph-
ical boundaries of places such as Tiger Bay. Notably renowned, Butetown
History and Arts Centre was at the heart of vibrant and valued activ-
ities that had engaged for decades with a community of researchers
from Cardiff Docklands and beyond. Residents co-founded the Centre
in 1990, and Butetown was one of the most important repositories for
minority ethnic stories. Their archival material ranged from family letters,
sailors discharges, passports and photographs, to audiovisual material such
as interviews and documentaries about Docklands residents and fami-
lies of multiple heritages. The particularly strong emphasis put on the
preservation of residents’ stories, had an equally strong academic support
who also played a key role in promoting these experiences in various
settings. The director and the chair, Glenn Jordan and Chris Weedon,
were both respected and internationally known academics. Unfortunately,
funding proved to be an issue over the years. The Centre relied on
public funds to pay for the premises and other running costs. Volun-
teers, the director, chair and other members of the community worked
tirelessly to keep the doors open. The Centre risked closure in 2016, and
funding and the preservation of archives including digitisation was much
needed. The Centre eventually closed in 2017 and archival material was
deposited at the Heritage and Culture Exchange in Cardiff. Notwith-
standing the Centre’s difficulties, its ethos and journey showed that telling
one’s story shed light on extraordinary stories and the centre provided a
space for communities to mourn, reminisce and bond. Over the years,
Butetown had curated several exhibitions and organised other cultural
activities that ranged from concerts, poetry nights and school workshops
on painting, to writing and other creative activities. In that sense, it was
not different from many cultural centres in the country. However, its
community-led ownership and location on the edge of Cardiff Bay, near
both young professionals and some of the most deprived areas of Bute-
town, had provided it with opportunities to connect with people whose
families have lived close by for decades, and in some cases centuries,
as well as with newly arrived migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. It
also attracted a number of socially conscious white Welsh middle-class
families. The Centre had also ensured that the wealth and diversity of
identities that indeed characterised Tiger Bay, one of the oldest multicul-
tural communities in Britain, made space for people from various religious
denominations.
Butetown History and Arts Centre was for several decades a site of
memory that constantly reinvented its connection with Welsh, British and
global history. It remained community-led until the end and its financial
struggle brought to the surface the question of prioritisation of stories
and histories. One could rightly argue that funding is an issue for most
heritage sites in the country. One could also argue that the local histories
of a minority group could not be prioritised as constructing a regional
narrative is often about the stories of majority group, as we have noted
with the work of compromise and reduction. Welsh regional narratives
have been produced without integrating minority history and the history
of people of African descent. Defining what constituted a minority history
in that context was related to the question of race. It was accepted that
being born in Wales did make a person Welsh. Yet surveys also showed
that the question of race was not put forward (YouGov 2016). Welshness
was a unifying attribute that erased the possibilities of multiple identi-
ties. Bringing about a possible minority story was not deemed relevant to
Welshness. Yet, as David L. Adamson remarked,
Ethnicity is based on the recognition by elements of a social group or

collectivity that there exist certain features or characteristics shared by
42 O. OTELE
all members of that group. The characteristics are employed as criteria

for identifying group membership and constructing a group identity.
The criteria most commonly adopted include language, culture, religion,
common history and residential pattern. Whilst racial characteristics may
not feature visibly in the construction of an ethnic identity there is general
assumption that members of an ethnic group have a common ancestry and
cultural inheritance. (Adamson 1991, 5)
Welsh people are Welsh by language, ancestry and place of birth, but a
person of African descent could not be completely perceived as Welsh
(even if their family had been in Wales for several generations), because
belonging to and resembling the majority group that considered itself
Welsh was an implicit criterion. The absent and yet dominant question of
race was as much an important component as other considerations (Otele
2008). Wales was caught up between the reality of a culturally diverse
society and the discourse of Welshness that relied on specific parameters
where race had no place. Rural Wales, which was not always culturally
diverse was an important criterion in some instances in defining Welshness
(Johnes 2015).
Telling one’s story and having a platform for these stories was not a
strong enough argument for some Welsh historians to incorporate the
history of black Welsh people into mainstream Welsh history. One could
argue that inclusion at all costs could lead to forms of erasure. Minority
stories exist outside grand narratives; they had been shared for generations
by these specific groups. Inclusion in the broader history could mean a
work of reduction that could be detrimental, as it meant the nuances that
characterised these communities’ lived experience ran the risk of being
removed. For example, the history of Afro-Caribbean carnivals in Wales
did not need the acquiescence of the historians of the Welsh working
class in order to continue to exist and to be celebrated by people of Afro-
Caribbean communities. Both these histories have seemingly little to do
with each other and yet they continued to be transmitted and are accepted
(or not) by the communities that produced them. They are all still part of
Welsh history. These stories are also transmitted in ways that are impor-
tant to the preservation of these stories. One can learn about carnivals
for instance by reading books about them but holding a carnival provides
the audience and participants with the means to live and transmit these
stories. Teaching these local stories in school is also an interesting route
to pass on to what is allegedly a shared history of Wales. As Martin Johnes
noted, ‘The extent to which school history lessons actually foster national
identity is not a question for which definitive empirical evidence exists,
but studies in other parts of Britain do indicate it has an influence. It is
thus not unreasonable to suggest that schools must have had some impact
on Welsh national identity’ (Johnes 2015).
Johnes also explained that Welsh history was not always a given as
generations of educators had to work hard to see Welsh history taught
in schools. Competing narratives about the place of Welsh history in
the British curriculum before and after devolution, as well as competing
discourses about what part of Welsh history should be taught, had
rendered the place of black Welsh history difficult to assess. One of the
issues was the category in which the history of people of African descent
in Wales was put. It was black history, and as such did not necessarily
need to be placed within the confines of Welsh history, one could argue.
Black history itself supports a political stance that does not always consider
regional aspirations of belonging (Otele 2016). Black Welsh history inter-
sected with regional Welsh history and was not, however, recognised by
the white Welsh majority as ‘one of theirs’. Multiple identities and a need
to belong to the place that shaped these local histories did add layers to
the debate.
Beside these considerations, a dominant history of Wales rose to promi-
nence in the nineteenth century. It shaped the historiography and blurred
the already troubled waters of the debate about culturally diverse Wales.
Histories competed and the story of the Pennant family presented a
relevant example that showed how embellishing a site that showcased
a family story participated in processed erasure or ‘historical amnesia’.
Presented as an ‘improver’, Lord Penrhyn, or Richard Pennant’s, rise to
politics is presented as an extraordinary achievement in Penrhyn Castle
(The National Trust 2009). The rest of the family is depicted in similar
fashion. It is, however, the part related to Welsh slate and the quarry
that is the most controversial. One is told how the family’s manage-
ment of the quarry was equitable, and Richard Pennant had schools built
and provided employment for the local community. That narrative was
challenged by the work of Judy Ling Wong (1999). The narrative was,
however, nuanced in school textbooks. The GCSE and WJEC history
books did cover the lockdown (1900–1903) between quarrymen and
Lord Penrhyn over wages and working conditions (WJEC /Heinemann
2003/2013). Yet, they did not look at the history of slavery and Wales’
44 O. OTELE
involvement in the slave trade.4 Ling Wong explained how that memory
was still vivid in Wales. Invited to the opening of the Castle by the
National Trust in 1999, the last quarrymen attended the opening and
visibly expressed their anger at the glorifying narrative the Castle was
presenting, ‘although it was the exploitation of enslaved Africans in
Jamaica which provided the profits for the family to establish a quarrying
empire that in turn exploited the men and women of North Wales, their
histories were neither celebrated nor connected’ (Bressey 2009, 393).
Fourteen years after the 2007 commemoration, re-evaluating the way
Welshness is understood in post-colonial settings could provide us with
information about identity, racial and social cohesion in Wales. More
pointedly, understanding how the history of slavery has been narrated in
certain settings could help us grasp the complexity inherent in the notion
of collective memory when it comes to minority ethnic groups, and in this
case, to people of African descent. Specifically looking at Penrhyn Castle
could show us how a dominant discourse can shape sites of remembrance
and how that does or does not contribute to re-shaping regional identity.
The conclusions drawn from the analysis of Penrhyn Castle cannot define
Wales’ policy or politics or identity and remembrance.5 They are however
useful tools to examine questions such as the representation of the past
and its impact on consumers of heritage sites and what could be termed
dark tourism. This example also shows how a heritage site can become a
trauma site depending on the background of the visitor.
As Evans has noted, the Pennant family’s involvement in the slave
trade was relatively limited due to the proximity to two major ports,
namely Bristol and Liverpool. Wales fitted out a small number of vessels
but invested directly in the plantations in the West Indies (Evans 2010).
The Pennant family was, however, a key player in the trade in Wales.
The family’s trajectory is particularly relevant to understanding ‘reluctant
4 They focus instead on the Civil Rights movements in the 1960s in the United States.
5 In 2020, following the killing of African American George Floyd in the United States
and demonstrations organised by the Black Lives Matter movement across Britain, local
groups sent letters of complaints to the Welsh Government about the lack of inclusion of
Black history into the Welsh school curriculum. First Minister of Wales Mark Drakeford,
responded by setting up a Task and Finish Group whose aim was to undertake an audit
about Welsh memorials related to slavery. A report was published in November 2020 the-
slave-trade-and-the-british-empire-an-audit-of-commemoration-in-wales.pdf (http://www.
gov.wales). Another group was set up to work on ways to integrate Black, Asian and
Minority Ethnic histories into the curriculum.
sites’ of memory. The first Pennant (Gifford) emigrated to Jamaica in

1658, and established himself as a planter. His son Edward continued
investing in the slave trade and became Chief Justice in Jamaica. Edward’s
sons eventually moved to London and delegated the family business to
their employees while becoming absentee plantation owners. One of the
Pennants, Samuel, became an alderman and sheriff before becoming a
Lord Mayor in 1749 and passing away the same year. The other sons
acquired properties in Britain. The family-owned Penrhyn Castle as a
result of marriage and inheritance. Although accurate, the information
provided by the National Trust did not try to paint any picture of what
life was like in the West Indies for the Pennants or the enslaved population
(The National Trust 2009). This distance creates a sense of dislocation
between the alleged neutrality and an account of a history that was trau-
matic for Afro-Caribbean communities. The Pennants were not noticeably
different from other traders and merchants. In fact, the information about
their plantation management was in line with the care they took to
preserve their assets. From Sasha Turner’s work, we learn that, ‘Lord
Penrhyn dismissed his overseer after learning how he brutally flogged a
group of women, some of whom were pregnant. The extreme cruelty
towards women, Lord Penrhyn explained, would “discourage [rather]
than encourage breeding women”’ (Turner 2011, 51). While women
were not fully immune from punishment, they received some protection
from their owners who advocated that overseers use greater discretion
when reprimanding prospective mothers (The National Trust 2009).
In 2016, my family and I visited Penrhyn Castle located near the city
of Bangor in North Wales. The visit began with a treasure hunt for the
youngest child. Amicable and professional, the castle employees sent us
off to discover what the intriguing place had to offer. Silently proceeding
through various rooms, we quickly noticed the reverence and admira-
tion from the group that preceded us. The grandeur of the place was
not lost on us either, despite a sense of unease. Prior knowledge about
Penrhyn’s connections with the slave trade could lead the visitor to expect
if not a homage paid in a plaque, at least a mention of those who unwill-
ingly contributed to the castle’s wealth through their work as captives in
the West Indies centuries before. No black visitors were to be found in
the place. Friendly, but unsubtle gazes, followed at times by a series of
questions from a few visitors about which island I was from led me to
believe that my children and I were those missing black visitors. We were
to perform blackness in this suddenly ambiguous setting where history,
46 O. OTELE
heritage, and legacies of colonisation were colliding. Similar interactions

continued at various stages during the visit. They seemed to result in the
same way: a friendly bond and a relief from the enquiring visitors. I was
not from an island and one of my children had a Welsh accent, while the
other had English received pronunciation. We had shown our credentials,
it appeared. We were an Afro-Euro-Welsh family. This allowed the conver-
sation to turn to unsolicited discussions about identity in a few instances.
We were also attributing new meanings to the place through a common
kinesthetics experience. Drawing on Aleksandr R. Luria’s approach to
body memory, we were both as a family as visitors, re-encoding pain and
sensations, adhering to or creating new signifiers and ‘enduring’ pain.
‘Enduring’ opens the door to a world of inner dialogues and refers to
what is,
a term that has a double sense: enduring something means undergoing it

in such a way that one is somehow able to bear what one is suffering
(German aushalten, ertragen), while at the same time, this experience
of withstanding what one is enduring is lasting rather than momentary
(German andauern, fortdauern), demanding persistence and perseverance
(German anhalten, ausdauern). (Behenke 2012, 83)
While that was happening, one could not help but be struck by the
physicality of the various families’ narratives presented in these rooms.
These were stories about people long gone. More specifically, it was
a story about a family’s rise to prominence through colonisation: the
Pennants. The enslaved population had paid a heavy price for these beau-
tiful objects to exist in the castle. Death impregnated the place and
yet no mention was made to the black dead bodies. From the painting
located in the Ebony Room presenting the Virgin and the Child (1450)
bought by Edward, Lord Penrhyn in 1850, to the portrait of Sir Prescott
Garnett Hewett, one of Queen Victoria’s surgeons, located in the India
Room, the site was a celebration of Empire and its eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century goods from across the globe. Queen Victoria had paid
the Pennants a visit in 1859, and she had the opportunity to look at
the exotic plants in the castle’s impressive garden (The National Trust
2009). Most visitors who encountered these memories and memorabilia,
may not have been actively seeking engagement, yet were nonetheless
drawn into the process of re-shaping the collective memory of the place.
They were contributing to the collective and cultural experiences that
constantly engage with aspects of our identity, individual memory and

even national history. As Mieke Bal puts it, ‘Cultural memory recognises
that cultures reproduce and reform themselves and that, in this process,
understandings of the past are transformed’ (Bal et al. 1999, 57).
Other rooms told the story of a family that took pride in acquiring
the finest pieces of arts: from the stain glass in the Medieval Hall to the
gilded bronze candelabra (possibly from Venice) located in the drawing
room. The narrative told was polished, victorious and was illustrated by
aesthetically pleasing objects. One was to celebrate Welsh heritage and
its links with the outer world. Black bodies in absentia and death as a
whole, were erased in a discourse where the visitor was invited to have
a glimpse at the home of a wealthy family. One could not mourn at this
site, since death had not occurred. The very essence of these visits was to
keep that heritage alive and funded through visitors’ fees. Employees had
encouraged many families before ours to become National Trust members
and thus have the opportunity to enjoy other British heritage sites.
Penrhyn Castle is part of the National Trust, a charity set up more
than 120 years ago, that is aimed at preserving some of Britain’s cultural
heritage sites. The decision to preserve these sites has economic, social
and cultural implications. Economically speaking, the National Trust
owns more than 500 historic sites that can be accessed through member-
ship or visitors paying fees. Social and culturally speaking, they are places
where history is performed and presented to the visitor as an authentic
recreation of past lives. These sites were, to use Jan Assmann’s words,
the physical and ‘outer dimension of human memory’ (2011, 120–121).
In other words, they are useful tools that allow society to pass their
history, heritage, and even values to the next generations. The abun-
dant objects in Penrhyn Castle might have seemed superfluous at times
as they rendered certain rooms crammed, but in fact they were cultural
artefacts that contributed to transmitting collective memory. As Stavros
Kamma noted in relation to cultural artefacts and their aim, they ‘include
the potentials of a society to preserve its collective memory from one
generation to another with the use of cultural artefacts, and its capability
to reconstruct a cultural identity from this collective memory’ (Kamma
2009).
While the rooms in the castle evaded links between Penrhyn’s wealth
and the lives and work of people of African descent, that history
has been told and recognised by academics. One may criticise the
48 O. OTELE
National Trust6 for a tunnel vision of a traumatic aspect of British history,

but some acknowledgement of the links between Penrhyn and slavery is
provided through the National Trust booklet guide to Penrhyn Castle.
One page is dedicated to sugar and slavery, while another one is about
the Pennants’ ties to that industry and how they became absentee planta-
tion owners after one generation. The text is aimed at being factual but
the fine line between glorification and neutrality seemed blurred when it
stated, ‘The Pennants were pioneers in developing what was to become a
vastly profitable industry. […] Following the final expulsion of the Spanish
from Jamaica in 1660, English settlers such as the Pennants were free to
concentrate on satisfying the growing European preference for sugar as
a sweetener’ (The National Trust 2009). A few lines mention enslaved
people. ‘Manufactured goods were exported from Britain to West Africa
with which to buy slaves. The slaves were transported from there on the
dreaded “middle passage” to the West Indies’ (The National Trust 2009).
Plantation life, subjugation of black bodies, fear and the dehumanisa-
tion involved, were not mentioned, even though these were the places
that produced those sought-after goods. The ‘dreaded’ passage appeared
to have been a necessary evil to satisfy the European appetite for exotic
products.
The question that springs to mind is how one could counter a domi-
nant narrative that denies people racialised as black any ownership of
what a common history should be. There is no simplistic answer. The
very act of writing one’s testimony can be considered an act of resistance
against a hegemonic discourse, as well as a tool for knowledge produc-
tion (Agulhon et al. 1987). This chapter can be placed in such categories.
Drawing on the work of Della Pollock (2006) on performance ethnog-
raphy, I am arguing that a black presence does trouble the essentialist
narrative presented in Penrhyn Castle. As Pollock notes,
This is an effort in marking: in walking through – from place to place

– possibilities for new work in performance ethnography. Accordingly, I
begin by rehearsing some of what performance has done for ethnography.
Very briefly: 1. It has shifted the object of ethnography to performance,
redefining the cultural field that the ethnographer writes as broadly
6 While this volume is going through its final phase of editing, a debate about the
National Trust’s decision to examine the links between its properties and colonial history
has provoked outrage in various quarters. Colonialism and historic slavery report | National
Trust and Minister summons heritage charities to meeting over empire row (http://www.
civilsociety.co.uk).
composed of radically contingent […]. 2. It has shifted the relation-

ship of the researcher and the ostensibly “researched” (the field and field
subjects), reconfiguring longstanding subject-object relations as coperfor-
mative; beyond anything like documentary interview: as the reciprocal
intervention of each on the other, transforming each in turn. 3. It has
consequently moved the writing in the “writing of culture” into a perfor-
mance frame such that (a) performance ethnography manifests given power
relations in the poeisis of their undoing, and (b) it not only allows for but
requires variously sensuous retellings and ongoing re-creations, in word
and body. (Pollock 2006, 325 [emphasis in the original ])
The absence of any mention or representation of that past was quite

significant and black Welsh communities in many ways were denied access
to a history that would have helped to connect the past and present.
In that sense, the Castle was a reluctant site of memory. The narrative
presented reinforced the idea of a sanitised history that was only accessible
through prior knowledge. Yet, anecdotal as they may seem, and despite
the absence of black visitors, these visits could provide a space to mourn
a traumatic past and to commemorate the history of transatlantic slavery.
Black performative presence or black visitors could become an arsenal that
disrupts cultural amnesia in the Welsh memorial landscape. Black visitors
may well have helped reshape regional certainties about cultural diversity
in Wales.7 As Kamma contended, ‘places like national cultural monuments
and sites which tend to have a vast amount of multicultural visitors every
year are these which tend to necessitate more a meaningful collective
understanding of the past culture within a contemporary setting’ (Kamma
2009).
Further research would need to be conducted about the volume of
visitors from minority ethnic groups and in particular people of African
descent (including those of mixed heritage), in order to see if their lower
numbers (an assumption based on my personal experience) did play a
role in the lack of an inclusive narrative. One cannot help but wonder
how Wales could have evaded the history of slavery in one of the most
renowned heritage sites. The reasons are numerous, yet a few seem to
be directly related to the question of memory, regional identity and the
notion of grand narratives and competing discourses. For a very long time
7 Many Welsh people see the region as first and foremost white and working class Otele
(2008).
50 O. OTELE
Welsh history was linked to the history of the Labour party and links
with the history of Plaid Cymru or the history of industrialisation and the
role of mines in the British economy (Adamson 1991; Morgan 1981).
These political, social and economic histories have provided the region
with opportunities to incorporate the history of Empire and colonisation
within their narratives.
One may however wonder why people of African descent would wish
to visit places where their history was absent especially when they had at
times very successfully recreated places of remembrance that suited their
needs. Elements of answers could be found in Hirsch and Miller’s volume
Rites of Return (2011). The scholars argued that the need at times, to
return to places of trauma (even in absentia) is related to the attempt to
retrieve or find a sense of belonging. It is about ‘an articulation of the
complex interaction between the affects of belonging and the politics of
entitlement in a diasporic world, rethinking and retheorizing the complex
interaction between loss and reclamation, mourning and repair, departure
and return’ (Hirsch and Miller 2011, 5). In the case of Penrhyn Castle, it
is about a different kind of return. It is about claiming a space that could
be perceived as the locus for symbolic trauma: the home of generations of
plantation owners. It is about those who did not personally experience the
trauma of the slave trade and slavery, but whose destinies were touched
by postcolonial legacies. Postmemory is, as Marianne Hirsch puts it,
a powerful form of memory precisely because its connection to its object

or source is mediated not through recollection but through an imaginative
investment and creation. Postmemory characterizes the experience of those
who grow up dominated by narratives that preceded their birth, whose
own belated stories are by the stories of the previous generation, shaped
by traumatic events that can be neither fully understood nor recreated.
(Hirsch 1996, 659)
It is also one might add, the erasure of economic legacies of racial

capitalism. Understood as a place of trauma, yet also a place of mourning,
Penrhyn Castle becomes a site of leisure and reinvention for generations
of visitors. Some might argue that it could even be bordering the slippery
slope of dark tourism.
This chapter argues that the connection between past and present in
that case would transform the walking practices of visitors. Rather than
alluding to the ‘exotic garden’ in a leaflet, the grounds could provide
an opportunity to learn about the history of Empire and the fascination
the Victorians had with collecting all kind of species. In Penrhyn’s case,
the very act of erasing the other’s collective memory by not representing
common history and by finding a way to present a dominant narrative
conforms to/mirrors the locus for ideological battles currently in Britain.
As Ilan Gur-Ze’ev put it, ‘The destruction of the collective memory of the
Other, through the construction of one’s own is a central element in the
formation of national identities. Violence, direct as well as symbolic, plays
thereby a crucial part as collective memories are produced, reproduced,
disseminated and consumed’ (2003, 51 [emphasis in the original ]).
This chapter’s aim was to argue that many reluctant sites of memory
in Britain do not provide space for people of African descent to mourn
the era of transatlantic slavery. One of the questions that begged to
be answered was whether country houses in Britain as a whole, and
Penrhyn Castle in particular, should be about multicultural history and
identity. After all, black Welsh communities have always found places to
remember the past and celebrate African and Afro-Caribbean heritage.
The analysis was as much about shared space as it was about historical
amnesia. Glorifying the past without mentioning the human cost can
leave people of mixed heritage and African descent out of the supposedly
all-inclusive multicultural project that is still dear to Britain. Secondly,
the analysis highlights how places of heritage in Wales suffer from finan-
cial constraints. These are not places which date back to the eighteenth
century and they certainly do not have the financial support of the
English Heritage and the National Trust. These are sites such as Bute-
town History and Art Centre, the Mary Seacole statue unveiled (only) in
2016 in London, and Betty Campbell’s statue, which will be located in
the centre of Cardiff. In 2018, Colonial Countryside: Youth-led History,
a project funded by the Lottery Fund and Arts Council England, was
set up. It was aimed at engaging with primary school pupils in order to
look into English country houses’ colonial pasts. The project gathered
writers and historians. The transformative benefits of such projects on
Black Welsh and on questions of identity and inclusion would be inter-
esting to measure in the future. It seems, however, that being able to
tell one’s story and engaging with contested histories remain important
ways to counteract colonial narratives of oblivion that have for centuries
invariably lead to forms of exclusion. These forms of engagements may
imply going back to these trauma sites and embracing the painful, and
yet potentially liberating, power of body memory that has at times found
ways to bring about healing through movement (Konopatsch and Payne
2012).
52 O. OTELE
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CHAPTER 4
Dust on Dust: Performing Selk’nam Visions,

Tracing Absent Bodies
Andrea Zittlau
In the halls of ethnographic museums, dust creates layers of memory

on the objects that collectors obtained during the nineteenth and early
twentieth century in colonial settings. Narratives of the primitive and the
exotic other have long been covered by, more or less, critical investiga-
tions of the objects’ journeys to the museum and attempts to establish
links to contemporary lives and communities. In current exhibitions, an
arrangement of voices surrounds the objects orchestrating the scientific
descriptions of communities. This discourse does not allow for spaces
devoted to silence and mourning, narratives of trauma and dispossession,
markers of absence, voids, and abysses. And yet every arrangement of
objects is haunted by everything that has been lost in past discourses of
conquest.
The performance scholar Diana Taylor uses Jacques Derrida’s concept
of hauntology that is focused on invisible presence to argue that perfor-
mance creates visibility where there is none. This essay uses the case
A. Zittlau (B)
University of Rostock, Rostock, Germany
e-mail: andrea.zittlau@uni-rostock.de

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54887-2_4
56 A. ZITTLAU
of the Selk’nam, the indigenous people of Tierra del Fuego who were
systematically executed in the early twentieth century to illustrate the
tension between museum exhibition and performance to create histor-
ical consciousness. Material remains of their nineteenth-century quotidian
practices are spread around the world in museums and collections. In a
recent performance project, the group Regreso de los Espiritus marks the
absent bodies of the Selk’nam and draws attention to the dark history of
Chile and the Selk’nam genocide. Rather than arguing with the museum
space and discourse, the group takes the streets as if marking a path to
the future.
4.1 The Shoes

The American Museum of Natural History houses a traditional collection
of objects from the flora and fauna worldwide as well as artefacts made by
those who caught the interest of anthropologists during the nineteenth
century. Its halls—right across from Central Park in Manhattan, New York
City—mimic a journey through space and time. Material is ordered by its
geographic origin. Moving through areas, continents, and space creates
shifts of thoughts but not of a narrative that expresses a nostalgic longing
for the past. Johannes Fabian’s denial of coevalness is vividly at work
within the museum halls (1983, 31). The past is romanticized but not
historized. The exhibited communities (all non-European) are presented
as frozen and unchanging entities that suggest an exotic present as well as
creating the longing for a past that never existed—an imperialist nostalgia
(Rosaldo 1989).
The historic costumes and other artefacts of the exhibited communi-
ties derive mainly from collections of the nineteenth century. They are
someone else’s memory and someone else’s history woven into the narra-
tive of colonial conquest and anthropology. As such, the exhibits suggest
not only a point in history (the time of the collection) but mark the
absence of those who are on display.
The academy has perceived museums as institutions of power that
determine the norm, as manifestations of science’s uncertain order, as
evidence to the world made rational and comprehensible. As Benedict
Anderson, Tony Bennett, and others have argued, the museum devel-
oped as a division of an apparatus of institutional control producing an
economy of cultural power in the nineteenth century (Anderson 1983,
178–185; Bennett 1995, 20–23). It created a much-needed collective
4 DUST ON DUST: PERFORMING SELK’NAM VISIONS … 57
and national consciousness and made an expanding world easily acces-

sible. In many ways, ethnographic and natural history exhibitions replaced
travel experiences by simulating them, thus enforcing exotic encounters
as educational enterprises. The museum presented collected communities
as childlike, primitive, backward, and uncivilized (compared to European
ideas of advancement) and thus confirmed the superiority of the collecting
communities.
As an object-driven institution, the ethnographic museum stores,
presents, and preserves material culture. In current post-, neo- and de-
colonial scenarios, the visually and materially exotic is mass produced and
readily available for example as souvenirs and ethno-aesthetic accessory.1
Ethnographic exhibitions are trapped by strategies of estrangement that
rely inevitably on the dichotomies provoked by the collecting context of
the material. The display of objects has become a familiar trope that in a
way has lost its exotic appeal but not its power of enchantment. Postcolo-
nial approaches to ethnographic museums recover the suppression and
silencing of voices (of the collected) with an attempt of reconciliation.
Scholars uncover the tricky distributions of agency and insist on the
presence of various points of view in exhibitions (Karp and Lavine 2007;
McCarthy 2007). But often, the approach to objects (and their interpre-
tation) is faithful to the concept of ownership (and entitlement)—whose
(version of the) story is illustrated, confirmed, or created with the help of
ethnographic objects? The established chorus of voices cannot hide the
context and time in which these collections emerged and the fact that
the voices we desperately try to recover were silenced intentionally when
the collections emerged. All these approaches are like layers of dust
covering the objects.
The goal in the nineteenth century, when the ethnographic exhibi-
tion developed as a concept, was to collect as many objects (of a very
specific kind) as possible. In fact, originally, exhibitions stressed the quan-
tity instead of the quality of artefacts by crowding glass cases with its
collections that suggested a former state of mankind, a less advanced
society. The quality and value of ethnographic objects raise proportion-
ally to the traces of use found on the objects, thus the more questions are
1 As early as 1976, anthropologist Nelson Graburn pioneered with a collection of essays

that address the marketing and sale of ethnic art on a global level academically. The
phenomenon is, of course, much older and it can be argued that many items that are
found in ethnographic collections have already been manufactured for the mass market.
58 A. ZITTLAU
unanswered (the users and ways of using) the more precious an object is.
As any collection, the museum was constructed with a closure in mind—
to complete its set of artefacts (and to advance all communities). Needless
to say, that this mission was impossible because objects continued to be
produced by communities (especially once the demand by anthropologists
for these objects grew).2 But the imagination was possible because salvage
anthropology conceptualized the communities of its interest as vanishing.
Objects collected were those that had been manufactured by indigenous
people who were thought to disappear in a very near future. Thus, every-
thing collected would be remembrance to that which was soon to be
lost, an archive of saved evidence of humanity’s past. In that sense, the
thought of closure was not absurd because the number of objects would
then indeed be limited. Yet, with every object came its taxonomy that
came with answers rather than questions (Fig. 4.1).
“Shoe of guanaco skin, worn principally in winter, lined with grass”.
Ona, says the label that accompanies the shoes in the above image. This
pair of shoes is located in the South American section of the America
Museum of Natural History which in traditional fashion includes indige-
nous communities as part of nature (as opposed to civilization). Apart
from pottery, basketry, religious and sacred items, clothing was a popular
collector’s object during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. All
items presented a contrast to European ideas of living. Bows and arrows
opposed guns, pottery metal kitchenware, and clothing made from animal
hide was presented as a pre-stage of the cotton garment industry. The
description in the label enforces the visually obvious because the shoes
are clearly identifiable as such and it is also visible that they have been
made from animal skin including the fur and are thus warm and most
likely to be used in cold weather. The fur, placed on the outside of the
shoes contrasts European aesthetics of the time. The taxonomy of the
animal and the people (Ona and guanaco) is the information that may be
not obvious at first glance and yet, apart from the terms no other facts are
provided that would help to understand who walked in these shoes. Ona
objects are distributed in museums around the world. They commonly
include bows and arrows, cradles, and clothing made of guanaco hide
and thus present them as a vision of prehistoric life.
2 See also the essay “Art, Authenticity, and the Baggage of Cultural Encounter” by
Ruth Phillips and Christopher Steiner in which they discuss the manufacture of products
for the anthropologists and the tricky issue of authenticity (1999, 3).
Fig. 4.1 Shoes, Guanaco Skin, Selknam People (Ona). South American Objects
in the American Museum of Natural History. Wikimedia Commons
In the museum, these objects become markers of absence—absence of

the people who wore the shoes and clothes, the people who made the
bows, those who hunted and gathered the material for making them, and
those who hunted with them. They not only mark the absence of knowl-
edge but more importantly the making of absence of that knowledge. As
such, museum objects are important reminders of all the information we
cannot access and never will. They are reminders of the colonial past, of
anthropology’s quest to imagine humanity’s progress and of the way we
construct narratives to fit our own needs.
60 A. ZITTLAU
4.2 Those Who Walked in the Shoes

The Ona,3 or Selk’nam how they would call themselves, were an
indigenous community living in Tierra del Fuego. Even in an essay as
recently published as 2002, the history of the Selk’nam begins with
their encounter with Europeans although they have inhabited Tierra del
Fuego for more than 11,000 years. In an essay entitled “Brief History
of the Selk’nam from the Late Sixteenth Century to the Present”, the
Chilean historian Mateo Martinic acknowledges Ferdinand Magellan as
the “first to discover the existence of human beings on the land bounded
to the South by the transcontinental strait which was later to be called
after its famous discoverer” (2002, 227) employing colonial vocabulary
unfiltered to a colonial situation. His colleague, Luis Alberto Borrero,
likewise begins to tell the story of the Selk’nam in the sixteenth century
but chooses a different focus. His essay, “The Extermination of the
Selk’nam”, does indeed begin with their contact with European explorers
(Borrero 1994, 247). To tell that story, one has to go back to the names
of explorers who set out to expand the maps of Renaissance Europe,
such as the Portuguese nobleman, Ferdinand Magellan, who travelled the
strait that separates the Isla Grande of Tierra del Fuego from continental
Patagonia in 1520 and that was thus named after him as the name Tierra
del Fuego was given on the same expedition in reference to the smoke
on the islands that was seen from the ship (Borrero 1994, 252).
As a matter of fact, smoke was all the explorers saw of the Selk’nam,
the actual encounter did not take place until 1579, when the Spanish
explorer Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa entered their world and forced one
of their people to be a guide to his exploration of the land (Borrero 1994,
252). While this encounter marked the beginning of a difficult relation-
ship, their systematic extermination, however, began three hundred years
later, in 1879, when the Chilean Navy officer Ramon Serrano Montaner
discovered gold on the land inhabited by around 4000 Selk’nam. This was
at a time when European expansion in the Americas (and elsewhere) was
at its peak colliding with the establishment of anthropology as a science
at universities and the spread of missions by the Christian church around
the world due to easier travel conditions. Anthropologists and mission-
aries alike observed the people that resisted their expansion, exhibited,
3 The term Ona was used by the Selk’nam neighbours the Yámana in reference to them.
See: Anne Chapman (1982, 155).
and collected them in museums to defend their erasure by presuming

they were less civilized and thus in need of guidance.
However, the gold rush did not turn out to be as prosperous as
expected; yet this intervention already led to serious conflicts between
the European settlers and the Selk’nam population over mining areas
(Borrero 1994, 253). Conflicts expanded when sheep farming became the
dominant source of income to the European settlers in Tierra del Fuego.
Fences divided the land marking private property, former Selk’nam terri-
tory, to which the Selk’nam did no longer have access to. As a hunter
and gatherer culture, they depended on the free and seasonal move-
ment across the islands to hunt mainly guanaco and birds. Those animals
were driven away by the farmers who also persecuted the Selk’nam who
crossed their fences. However, the Selk’nam had their own logic of the
land that was divided among them and now brought to chaos. Conflicts
among the Selk’nam community arose. “Paradoxically, internecine feuds
became more violent during this final period of hardship and suffering and
many Selk’nam were killed by their own people”, as anthropologist Anne
Chapman reports (1982, 1). They could no longer practice hunting, and
thus were starving and stealing sheep from the farmers, who in turn hired
professional killers to exterminate them (1994, 255).
Among the contracted assassins was the Romanian-born Argentine
engineer Julius Popper, who later designed the modern outline of
the city of Havana. Today he is mainly known for professionalising the
genocide against the Selk’nam. He arrived in Tierra del Fuego in the
1880s, attracted by the gold rush. Since that did not prove successful,
Popper built his own army to professionally hunt Selk’nam people for
frustrated gold miners and sheep farmers. He famously photographed
himself with hunted down and dead Selk’nam, possibly the reason why
he remains in the collective memory connected to the Selk’nam. As
the eccentric character he was, he published photo albums called Tierra
del Fuego: Expedición Popper that include images of the murdered. He
distributed these albums as gifts to officials of the Chilean and Argen-
tinian government (Odone and Palma 2002, 288) and thus produced
evidence of the genocide committed by him and others. In his vision,
his private expedition recalled the fame of Renaissance explorers, discov-
ering and conquering unknown land. The fact that he bragged with
the photographs rather than hiding his crimes, shows his distorted
consciousness, but also the common perception of the Selk’nam (and
other indigenous communities) as inferior.
62 A. ZITTLAU
The image below belongs to the series of images he was eager to

spread. The bare dead body, still holding on to bow and arrows is already
abandoned. The contract killers, Popper’s private army, turn their backs
on the photographer and the dead man which makes them unidentifi-
able—at least in that image. Other images exist that present traditional
group shots of the hunting party. But here, the remains of a Selk’nam
camp make a last attempt to pierce the sky of the image while three of
the four hunters point their guns towards the horizon. Their next shot
must have been fatal already since there is nobody occupying the empty
space of the vast landscape in the photograph.
As painful as these images are due to their casual portrayal of violence,
they are necessary and important documents to the history of Tierre del
Fuego’s indigenous communities (Fig. 4.2).
Popper presented these images at public lectures at the time, which
did not lead to any criticism of the killing procedures (Odone and Palma
Fig. 4.2 Photo-album donated to the then president Miguel Juárez Celman.
Världskulturmuseet 008218
2002, 282).4 However, Popper was aware of his audiences. While on the
one hand he staged himself as the adventurous explorer and enthusiastic
amateur ethnographer, on the other hand, he exposed open hatred for
the indigenous population, creating his own forces to fight against them
depending on whom he spoke to. Amateur ethnographer and missionary
Martin Gusinde calls Popper “a blight of pseudo-civilization”, some-
thing that “poisoned indigenous life and besmirches even nature” (1931,
153).5 However, he also acknowledged the ethnographic information left
by Popper (ibid.).
Popper died unexpectedly in 1897 at the age of 35 in Buenos Aires,
but his death did not conclude the persecution of the Selk’nam since
the killings proved to be a steady business. Farmers and gold miners
would pay for each dead body. To prove the death, body parts were
traded. A head would bring one pound of sterling silver. Since hunters
thought it impractical to carry many heads, a pair of ears would go for
the same price (Gusinde 1931, 160). Those ears were then burned, to
prevent a second use. In many cases, however, the skull was sent to
an ethnographic museum, or a medical anatomical collection, where it
would bring additional money (Gusinde 1931, 160). The Scottish settler,
Alexander MacLennan, optimized the killing practices that he called
“battues”, clearly perceiving the people he killed as animals (Gusinde
1931, 159). The Englishman, Samuel Ishlop, specialized in torturing,
raping, and dismembering his victims, which according to the historian,
Felipe Fernández-Armesto, was widely accepted by the colonial adminis-
trators as “mildly regrettable necessities” (2003, 126). Only because those
two did not document their work, we have little record and awareness of
them.
The farmers who did not want to pay bounty hunters, poisoned a few
sheep with strychnine—a highly toxic chemical normally used as pesti-
cide. The poisoned sheep would be put deliberately close to the Selk’nam
camps outside of the fences (hence it seemed that the sheep had escaped)
4 However, according to missionary and amateur ethnographer Martin Gusinde, Popper

was publically accused of the killing at one point and defended himself with a passionate
speech in which he portrayed himself as a supporter of the Selk’nam (Gusinde 57).
5 My translation. The original reads: “Ein Pesthauch der Pseudozivilisation zog über das
bisher unberührte Land, alles einheimische Leben vergiftend und selbst die leblose Natur
besudelnd”.
64 A. ZITTLAU
and predictably, the Selk’nam would hunt and eat those sheep, and die of
poisoning (Gusinde 1931, 163).
In 1886, a year after Popper had established his Selk’nam hunting
practices, the Argentinan soldier and explorer, Ramon Lista, went on an
official expedition that was commissioned by the Argentinian govern-
ment. In a report to the then president, Miguel Juárez Celman, he
expressed his disgust for the Selk’nam. He reportedly killed many of the
men and raped Selk’nam women, and took those who resisted as pris-
oners (Gusinde 1931, 55). Those who did not die were brought to camps
that had been arranged by the missionaries, as well as by the Chilean
government. While Gusinde, a missionary himself, praises the church for
saving the Selk’nam from the brutality of the settlers, he also states that
there was a clear attempt in the second half of the nineteenth century “by
the white settlers to clean the Isla Grande of the indigenous population”
(1931, 46).6 Gusinde predicts little chances for the Selk’nam to survive
and suggests quick and effective conversions to prevent them from being
hunted down (1931, 46).
Therefore, the Selk’nam were deported to camps erected by the
missions, for example the Salesian Mission that had facilities on Isla
Dawson located on the Pacific Coast. Any resistance to deportation by
the Selk’nam was met with violence by the missionaries (Borrero 1994,
256). But once in the camps, the Selk’nam were concentrated in barracks,
forced to wear European clothing and undergo a training that supposedly
taught them basic European manners and ways of living prohibiting their
own language and cultural practices. Exposed to poor living conditions
and European diseases such as several influenza epidemics, many died in
those camps and those who survived were stripped of their cultural identi-
ties. During the 1930s, the Chilean government deported the Selk’nam to
camps that had been arranged for that purpose at Puntas Arenas (Gusinde
1931, 163). By the 1940s, very few Selk’nam remained; the Salesian
mission, for example, reported only 25 individuals. In the 1960s, French
anthropologist Anne Chapman began her extended interviews with Lola
Kiepja and Ángela Loij who became known as the last Selk’nam and died
in 1974—a year that supposedly marks the end of a people.
6 My translation. The original reads: “Schon hatten nämlich die ersten Versuche der
Weißen eingesetzt, um die Landstriche der Isla Grande von den Indianern zu säubern”.
4.3 Ghosts
When the Austrian amateur ethnologist and Missionary, Martin Gusinde,
took his first trip to Tierra del Fuego in 1918, he found a commu-
nity of barely 270 Selk’nam left to learn from. His book on the
Selk’nam, published in 1931, represents an extensive document of ethno-
graphic writing and a witness to his life with the community. Although
a missionary of the Society of the Divine Word, Gusinde understood
himself as a cultural anthropologist trying to learn from the people he
studied. He had joined the museum of ethnology and prehistory in
Santiago de Chile and had become a professor of anthropology in 1917
at the Catholic University in Santiago de Chile. His trips had been funded
partially by the Chilean Ministry of Education. Gusinde practised partici-
pant observation when it was not yet the norm, even among those within
the field of anthropology, although he preferred the houses of farmers
and missionaries as his accommodation (Quack 2002, 17). His publica-
tion shows a deep and sincere interest in the local rituals and his devotion
to document his experiences. He left approximately 1000 photographs
of the ritual practices of the Selk’nam. Most famously, he documented
the Hain ritual in 1923, to which he devoted around 700 pages of his
book about the Selk’nam world view.7 His photographs of the cere-
mony have become iconic. The Selk’nam painted their bodies during the
ritual in unique ways to represent characters from the Selk’nam universe.
Costumes were carefully fashioned from guanaco skin and bark stuffed
with leaves and grass (Chapman 2002b, 212). Bodies were fully painted
with mesmerizing patterns in black, red, and white.
The ritual was built around the initiation of the young men of the
Selk’nam society, and thus particularly focused on the male community,
with the woman being the audience in multiple ways. Chapman devoted
a large part of her studies to Mesoamerican societies, particularly to those
living in Tierra del Fuego where she interviewed the last two women that
were familiar with the traditional Selk’nam ways of life. In her 1982 book
Drama and Power in a Hunting Society, Chapman explores the Hain
ritual as “the phantom of matriarchy that haunts the patriarchies” (155).
7 In his book, Gusinde calls the Hain kloketen (after the term referring to the boys who
were to be initiated), a term that many after him used for the ceremony. Anne Chapman,
however, clarifies after having talked extensively to those who remained that the ritual was
referred to as Hain after the meeting house in which most of it took place (1982, 157).
66 A. ZITTLAU
Based on the story about the cruel and terrorizing regime of women
headed by the powerful Shaman, Moon Woman, and the eventual over-
throw of that system by men (narrated as a liberating moment in Selk’nam
history), the ritual initiated and celebrated the empowerment of the men
of the Selk’nam society.8 It largely took place in a community space called
“the Hain”, “that was a microcosm of the Selk’nam universe” (Chapman
1982, 149). Every member of the community took part in the months
of the ceremony: “Every individual was related to this complex imagina-
tive edifice and its associated mythological and shamanistic lore through
the ‘skies’ (divisions) and ‘earths’ (territories) with which everyone was
identified as part of their everyday existence” (Chapman 1982, 149).
The main secret of the ceremony was to reveal to the initiated boys that
the spirits were community members in disguise, but to keep that secret
to themselves and not pass it on to the women. The spirits would run
out to scare the women and children and punish and beat those whose
husbands had complained about them previously (Chapman 2002a, 19).
A particularly mean spirit called “Shoort”, would torture boys and women
alike. Chapman compares the ceremony to a (theatre) performance: “The
Hain is comparable to the theatre in our society as a secular performance,
and also on a psychological level in terms of the relationship between
audience and actors, even though in the Hain the audience (the women)
had a far more active role in the performance than in the theatre as we
know it” (1982, 153). It can be argued that contemporary practices of
performance art deconstruct that classical role of the audience and fits
more the idea of Chapman’s performance comparison, than the classical
theatre does.
While Chapman asked her female informants about the ritual, Gusinde
intended to participate and document the Hain in his awareness that it
may be one of the very last times that this ceremony would take place.
In 1923, at a time when only few members of the Selk’nam commu-
nity remained, Gusinde insisted on witnessing the ritual. However, the
ceremony was repeatedly delayed because the available food (guanaco)
was rare but necessary, since the ritual interrupted the daily lives (and
thus food production) of the Selk’nam for months. Gusinde provided
8 The myth of the Hain ceremony has been told and continues to be told in numerous
ways. One example is Los Espiritus Selk’nam. Cuento basado en un mito Selk’nam by
Ana Maria Paveu and Constanza Recart with illustrations by Raquel Echenique (editorial
amanita, 2009).
money and sheep to eventually make the Hain ceremony happen. In

1923, the two young men to be initiated (called “kloketen”) were only
14 and 16 years old. The ceremony normally required participants aged
17–20 years old, but this time, an exception was made. Thus, the cere-
mony took place under special and limited conditions and was most likely
a smaller and tamer version of the actual ritual.
The images of that ceremony continue to fascinate, although they
reveal the same challenges as other photographs of sacred rituals. When
Chapman showed some of the images to her loyal informant Lola, she
became annoyed. She pushed the photographs aside “and refused to look
at others”, saying that “whites should not see them” (Chapman 2002b,
35). Gusinde himself faced the resistance of the elders who opposed to
him photographing the ceremony in 1923, which was another reason for
the extended negotiations before the Hain (Quack 2002, 30). Neverthe-
less, both researchers ignored the request of their indigenous informants
and decided in favour of the archive, even if that would be culturally
insensitive.9
Gusinde’s images and Chapman’s descriptions have become iconic and
connected to the authors, rather than their material and subjects. In fact,
Chapman collaborated with a coffee-table book publisher that focused
on the imagery in 2002. The Taller Experimental Cuerpos Pintados, a
non-profit project interested in painted bodies and their rituals, published
three coffee-table books about the Selk’nam stating that “nobody can
fail to be moved by the beauty and documentary power of Gusinde’s
images” (2002a, 11). The painted bodies have also been appropriated by
the tourist industry, and clothing, postcards, and dolls are produced in the
absence of the actual bodies, as souvenirs from Chile. This phenomenon
becomes interesting when thinking about the souvenir as memory. As
Susan Stewart argues in her book On Longing (1993) about the nature
of the souvenir, it “involves the displacement of attention into the past.
[It]s function is to envelop the present within the past. […] The place of
origin must remain unavailable in order for desire to be generated” (1993,
151). The place of origin, in case of the Selk’nam souvenirs, is not only a
geographical and temporal one that refers to the personal connection of
the souvenir owner. It is most of all a displacement in terms of geography
and time, since the objects refuse to disconnect from the actual historical
9 I have decided against including the images but they can easily be found on the
internet.
68 A. ZITTLAU
reference. And yet, the reference made continues to be fiction—it remains

a reference to a nostalgic past that has been inevitably destroyed by the
settlers. There is no present and no actual memory. The souvenir can
only be attached to a fictional and/or historical narrative that is mani-
fested in a material item—not a memory without material reference but
quite the opposite—a memory connected to material evidence. And yet,
the souvenir is doomed to trivialize its possibilities of historical references
since its main function is to refer to a tourist experience from which the
Selk’nam genocide is entirely absent. The task of keeping the memory
alive is publically attributed to museums and archives whose gift shops
will not continue the educational adventure, but the personalized tourist
one.
4.4 Haunting
Museums such as the American Museum of Natural History or the
Chilean National Museum of Natural History (Museo Nacional de
Historia Natural ) that both exhibit Selk’nam artefacts are haunted
spaces, and thus the perfect setting for conjuring the spirits of the
Selk’nam. The concept of hauntology proves to be useful to investi-
gate this marking of absence. Introduced by Jacques Derrida and Avery
Gordon almost simultaneously in the early 1990s, the theory of haunting
(different from notions of popular ghosts) has become a concept widely
applied in the humanities and elsewhere.10 In Spectres de Marx (1993),
Jacques Derrida introduced the term hauntology (hantologie) a near
homonym (at least in its original French) to ontology. Hauntology ques-
tions the focus on material and manifested forms of being by introducing
the spectre as an omnipresent and yet absent character—an invisible and
influential form of presence. The spectre, Derrida suggests, is in-between:
a state of irritation, confusion, and mystery that we have to learn to live
with. He speaks of the revenant , a repetition, always expected to return
(from the past or from the future) and disturb in unpleasant ways. Thus,
the spectre becomes potentially the remains of that which cannot be
forgotten, which is too easily neglected, and which cannot be erased. The
Selk’nam shoes mark this uncomfortable history in the museum space,
and yet are not narrated as such by the exhibit.
10 A great collection of texts and documentary to the spectral turn is The Spectralities
Reader edited by Maria del Pilar Blanco and Esther Peeren (2013).
Conceptualized as an inevitable threat, Derrida’s spectres (dis)embody

what should not be, they are emotional diagnoses and moral categories
depending on notions of fear of the unknown whose presence (a timeless
existence) is never impossible, whose dark power cannot be denied. At the
heart of Derrida’s hauntology is the inevitability of being seen while not
being able to see the observer, a familiar recipe of power and oppression.
In this context, ethnographic museums are clear-cut power constellations
of collectors and collected. Hauntology threatens the omnipotence of the
collector and presenter of the ethnographic narrative by suggesting that
the objects are not detached neither from their collecting contexts nor
their pre-collecting pasts. The concept questions the superiority of the
collector’s gaze (represented by the display) by introducing its limitations
through a possibility of other presences.
The Selk’nam shoes that are presented in the American Museum of
Natural History are part of a narrative that strengthened the contrast
between constructs such as the primitive and the civilized, and thus justi-
fies colonial practices to exterminate the indigenous population. However,
the history of that genocide cannot be erased by retelling the story differ-
ently. The idea of haunting stresses the fact that the shoes mark that
untold story that continues to haunt contemporary Chilean society. Alas,
the presence of the spectres or revenants need a particular conscious-
ness that is easily described in theory, but is often absent in the average
museum visitor whose is guided by the exhibition tour.
In Ghostly Matters (1997), Avery Gordon does not so much trace the
spectres as she follows the events that create the spectres. Therefore, her
spectres are not the ultimate threats lurking in dark corners of power
systems, but essential aftermaths that resist reconciliation. They are the
lives that remain unsolved and unsolvable—the missing stories. In this
context, ethnographic museums become containers of spectres in which
the haunted and the haunting are the same depending on the point of
view. Traces of the unsolvable and unsolved are everywhere. Nothing is
easily distinguishable. Gordon’s spectres are ambivalent and manifest in
words unspoken. Power is no longer clear-cut, but a troubled misadven-
ture. Norms, (scientific) order, chaos, and control become shadows of
larger things unsolved. Hauntology turns into the questions that have
not been asked.
However, looking at the Selk’nam shoes does not create a presence
of the history, it does not trigger questions (because they are presented
as answers and facts). Their display does not disturb because it is placed
70 A. ZITTLAU
in the familiar discourse of ethnography. In that discourse, a genocide

does not exist. The common narrative holds the indigenous commu-
nity responsible for their disappearance due to their diverse (and termed
primitive by the European settlers) ways of living.
Unlike the display of shoes at the former concentration camp site
Auschwitz that clearly refers to the violence of the Holocaust by marking
the absence of the people who wore them, the shoes in the American
Museum of Natural History do not provoke the sense of disappeared
bodies. The museum exhibit is not automatically haunted by its history.
The shoes mark absence but disguise the making of absence as a
natural cause also because that particular museum falls into the genre of
natural history which is presumably detached from human influences. The
spectres are invisible but present.
Diana Taylor provides a theory for making the spectres visible. In her
book, entitled The Archive and the Repertoire (2003), she understands
performance as a possibility to interact with the spectres—those blind
spots of history. She writes:
Performance makes visible (for an instant, live, now) that which is always
already there: the ghosts, the tropes, the scenarios that structure our
individual and collective life. These specters, made manifest through perfor-
mance, alter future phantoms, future fantasies…The power of seeing
through performance is the recognition that we’ve seen it all before—
the fantasies that shape our sense of self, of community, that organize our
scenarios of interaction, conflict, and resolution. (Taylor 2003, 143)
A performance is a non-static interaction, a unique moment in time that

dissolves the sense of time by its radical interactions beyond time. The
Chilean interdisciplinary collective Regreso de los Espiritus (The Return
of the Spirits), consists of artists, sociologists, and political activists who
commit themselves to connecting past and present. In their performances,
they use the popular imagery of the Hain ceremony to call attention
to the Selk’nam genocide. In a time-consuming process, the performers
paint their bodies inspired by Gusinde’s historical photographs, but not
ethnographically true to them. They use commercial body paint in red,
black, and white and create their own patterns on their skins. Then
they dance on the streets or in performance spaces presenting their own
spontaneous choreographies, creating shadows and shapes that cross the
distance between performer and audience in uncomfortable ways.11 Their

characters recall the spirits that frightened the village during the Hain
ceremony. They are, at the same time, hauntology’s spectres marking the
absence of the people celebrating the Hain.
A strong part of Regreso de los Espiritus’ performances are the histor-
ical references made in form of the names of the exterminators, connected
places, and institutions written on paper, which are then attacked with
red paint that the performers splatter like blood across the paper, the
audience, and the floor. The long list includes, of course, Julius Popper
and Ramon Lista. Popper’s photographs are projected to the wall in a
quick interchange with photographs of the Hain ceremony. Both series
of images present evidence here—one is evidence to the rich and fasci-
nating traditions the other to their extermination. However, as mentioned
above, Gusinde’s pictures present a desperate attempt to document the
traditions that he saw disappearing. His images are already part of the
salvage anthropology discourse that reads the Selk’nam as outdated and
unfit for the encounter with the European settlers. His images work in
many ways just like the shoes displayed in the museum. They are evidence
of a once existing culture but at the same time mark its disappearance—a
process that the photographer (and the collector) were inevitably part of
as bystander-like witnesses who benefited from the act of witnessing. As
objects were sold to museums, the photographs continue to be published
and spread the name of the photographer.
There is a dangerous loop in the context of the taking of the images.
One cannot escape the presence of the photographer due to the historical
setting. The group recognizes that the material available to them which
serves as their inspiration—Gusinde’s and Popper’s images, is the material
they criticize and depend on at the same time. The images find their
ways into their imagery that again plays with the exotic notion of the
painted body in ritual practice. The photographs that derive from their
performances and that travel in exhibitions make a reference to the images
and not to the ceremony of the Hain. There is no reference to initiation,
no male dominance, no reference to the mythological basis of the ritual.
11 The description is based on two performances I witnessed in July 2016 in Santiago

de Chile. One performance was accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation with clear
reference to the genocide. However, the possibility of a presentation and conversation is
not always given in the context of the group’s performances, particularly when they are
taken to the streets as it was the case with the second performance I witnessed.
72 A. ZITTLAU
This way, the disappearance of the Hain and its people are marked more
painfully. Questions are raised and left unanswered.
*
Chapman asks in a poem she devoted to the Selk’nam: “How to write,
in a few lines, of a once powerful people?”, and continues to describe
the tourist setting that lures with exotic visions, rather than troubling
messages:
Banners stamped with their gigures, statuettes in their native head-dress,

postcards showing them as they really were.
A choice for any purse. Souvenirs of the Fuegian Braves.
And the tourist is told: ‘we can’t compete in the national and international
festivals with our own native stuff. Our
Fuegian
Indians didn’t leave us folklore.’
But wait. (2002b, 277–279)
Wait. At least the imagery circulates in many ways. Perhaps trivialized.

Perhaps romanticized. But, as the shoes in the museum, it marks an
absence. The Museum of Natural History in Santiago de Chile includes an
exhibit of the Selk’nam, but it remains within the traditional frame of the
museum setting. Much like the American Museum of Natural History,
Chile’s national museum shows the Selk’nam in romanticized dioramas,
mourning the loss of idealized primitivism while concealing the history of
violence that is a crucial part of colonial settings. In fact, the museum’s
interpretation of the Selk’nam justifies that violence because it determines
the people afit for the ways of lives brought by the settlers. Understand-
ably, Regreso de los Espiritus’ feel that the museum setting is haunted
by its ahistorical approach to the cultural communities it presents. It is an
awkward setting, they say, a setting that they avoid, and yet only there the
dimensions of absence could enfold in their entire complexity because it
is the place in which people would look for the Selk’nam.
The ethnographic museum wrongly suggests a non-performative
setting by giving supposedly universal (and thus static) categories and
definitions. Nevertheless, exhibitions are not representations of scientific
endeavours—they are performances of objects. The objects can produce
meaning only when interacting with each other and the museum space.
Thus, at each occasion of rearranging the objects, the procedures of
making knowledge can be revealed. Let’s have Regresa de los Espiritus
dance in those shoes until the dust falls off (Fig. 4.3).
Fig. 4.3 Children’s

drawing after a Selk’nam
image. 2016
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Popper in Tierra del Fuego (1886–1887). In C. Odone & P. Mason (Eds.),
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CHAPTER 5
Absence, Gender, and the Land(Scape)

in Palestinian Art
Luisa Gandolfo
In Jean Genet’s reflection on an evening passed under the stars in Ajloun,

Jordan, the night sky is viewed through a gaze that sees the Pole Star
as a woman, and her constellation a metaphor for the perceived other-
worldliness of womankind (2003 [1986]). Bringing this metaphor to
earth, Genet’s narrative, inspired by a fisherman’s procession in Lebanon,
draws attention to how nature, from the stars to the sea and the soil,
has been viewed, portrayed, and written about in a gendered manner.
This chapter remains in the region, and considers the ways that Pales-
tine is remembered and represented by female artists on the brink of
displacement, and in exile. The chapter focuses on representations and
recollections of the land and the landscape, starting during the pre-1948
Mandate period and ending in the twenty-first century, and incorporates
the mediums of painting, photography, and audio-visual installations.
L. Gandolfo (B)
University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54887-2_5
76 L. GANDOLFO
While doing so, it adopts Mieke Bal’s understanding of cultural memory,

as the artistic medium ‘mediate[s] between the parties to the traumatizing
scene and between these and the reader or viewer’ (Bal 1999, x), and in
the process ‘links the past to the present and the future’ (ibid., vii). In the
context of this chapter, the ‘traumatizing scene’ is defined by imminent
loss, or the recollection of loss, and in each case, the ongoing absence is
lived through displacement and/or exile.
As each artwork reflects on Palestine, the land’s ‘narratable’ (ibid., x)
absence is articulated in gendered terms, whether covertly through the
gendered readings of the landscape, or overtly through the use of the
maternal body as a visual and physical metaphor for the land. As the
land and landscape are linked to, and represented by, the female form,
this chapter explores the works with three questions in mind. First, as
Andrew Jones notes, ‘the past of places is nearly always remembered by
reference to the body’ (2007, 58); accordingly, when the contemporary
place (or site) is unreachable, how is the past of that place remembered
through the female body? Second, when reading representations of the
Palestinian landscape, how does the female gaze challenge the male gaze
and articulate emotions beyond pleasure and desire (Rose 1993), such as
loss, nostalgia, and grief? Finally, if we revisit the concept of the land
as the fertile mother, how does the female body provide an embodi-
ment of the absent motherland that is disconnected from ‘its historical
connections with heterosexual male power’ (Nash 2008)? Drawing on
the work of Gillian Rose (1993), Catherine Nash (2008), and Rosemary
Betterton (2014), among others, this chapter moves beyond the conver-
sation surrounding the landscape and the female body in European art,
and grounds the analysis in Palestine-Israel and the Palestinian diaspora.
In doing so, it explores narratives of nation and occupation, and the
significance of absence, the land, and landscape in the broader memory
discourse.
5 ABSENCE, GENDER, AND THE LAND(SCAPE) … 77
5.1 Gendering the Land and the Landscape

Since the land and the landscape are closely knotted (linguistically and
physically), it is necessary to untangle the two to understand how art
can present a political, cultural, and emotional response to the absence
of both. The discourse on the dichotomy between the land and the
landscape has, to date, been rooted in geography, art history, and anthro-
pology; when the disciplines are brought together, an interpretation
emerges that traces the visual and the tangible elements of experi-
encing the land and landscape through reading, looking, seeing, and
walking. While each disciplinary approach varies in its tipping point
between the land/~scape, commonalities are perceptible, including the
deep connection held between individuals, communities, and an absent
place. Depending on the context, this connection can be informed by
history, politics, religion, and/or culture. For Susanne Küchler, the land-
scape emerges once the vista becomes measurable and is visually mapped
through landmarks that provide a recognizable aide-mémoire, guided by
a viewer’s grasp of the past and present of the site (1993, 85). As the
viewer’s understanding of the space determines how the landscape is
perceived, the transition from a piece of land to a landscape lies, as Barbara
Bender suggests, with the viewer, as ‘we “perceive” landscapes, we are the
point from which the “seeing” occurs. It is thus an ego-centred landscape,
a perspectival landscape, a landscape of views and vistas’ (1993, 1).
Within this ego-centricity is a fraught journey that unfolds on two
levels: in the viewer who negotiates their personal understanding of the
space, and among the collective, whose interpretations are pooled to
create a shared interpretation of the view. At both stages, an evolving
process of definition occurs that includes ‘a living tapestry of practices,
imaginations, emergences and erasures […] claims concerning distinc-
tions of image and reality, mind and body, subject and object [that] are
disputed and refuted’ (Wylie 2009, 282). The melee that John Wylie
describes captures the dynamic between the viewer and the ~scape, and
he draws attention to the sensations and negotiations that transform the
act of viewing the land/~scape into one that takes place in simultaneous,
yet at times different, ways. In the context of Palestine, the tension esca-
lates as older interpretations of the land and landscape sit alongside newer
narratives, some experienced directly, others passed down through the
generations; some revisited, yet others inaccessible, due to exile or the
sites altering beyond recognition.
78 L. GANDOLFO
The process of becoming a landscape raises further questions: which

views become landscapes? And, is it only by the artist’s hand that a space
moves from one to the other? In this respect, the allegory of the tree
falling in the forest comes to mind—if there is no viewer to see the land-
marks, could a place still shift from being ‘land’ to becoming a ‘landscape’?
In the context of cultural production, John Urry centres the artist in
the transition that occurred in the Lake District during the eighteenth
century, when the ‘[l]and got changed into landscape through artists and
writers “moving” the Lake counties into English culture’ (2007, 81). In
his broader consideration, Urry observes how the Alps and the Caribbean,
as well as the Lakes, shift from sites of foreboding and even ‘terror’ (2007,
78) to places that are desired or romantic. The introduction of positive
emotions in place of trepidation prompts a reflection on the alternative
responses that can transform a site.
For example, where a village might once have stood, in its stead could
emerge the memory of a massacre, as is the case at sites such as Deir
Yassin and Al-Dawayima,1 which prompt an array of emotional responses.
Depending on the viewer, the emotions could include nostalgia for a
bucolic past (Al-Dawayima being located in the countryside), but an
understanding of the region’s history could equally bring sensations of
grief, loss, and sadness. In this respect, Küchler’s aide-mémoire could take
the form of a variety of landmarks, including the remains of a village, the
absence of its inhabitants, the memorials that mark what passed (as well
as the absence of the memorials), or the narratives told (or not told) at,
and about, the site.
Thus far, the focus has been on what the landscape is, and attention
must also be given to what it is not, and by extension, how the land
differs. For Urry, the land is ‘a physical, tangible resource that can be
ploughed, sown, grazed and built upon. Land is a place of work conceived
functionally’ (2007, 77). In this interpretation, the land is practical, and
with this comes a sense of the unsentimental and functional side of nature.
However, while the land might stop short of stimulating the emotional
response elicited by the landscape, the actions done to the land, the ability
1 For a deeper consideration of the events at Deir Yassin and Al-Dawayima, see Sacred
Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land Since 1948, by Meron Benvenisti (Berkeley,
Los Angeles; London: University of California Press) 2000, and Remembering Deir Yassin:
The Future of Israel and Palestine, edited by Daniel McGowan and Marc H. Ellis (New
York: Olive Branch Press) 1998.
to do those actions, and the attachment nurtured while doing those

actions, prompt an emotive narrative. Perhaps a bridge can be found
in Carl O. Sauer’s delineation between the natural landscape and the
cultural landscape, a division that is, he suggests, unified by geographers,
for whom ‘the content of a landscape is found therefore in the physical
qualities of an area that are significant to man and in the forms of his use
of the area, in facts of physical background and facts of human culture’
(2007 [1925], 46). While Sauer’s consideration is gendered (both the
looking and doing on the land is by the male viewer), the possibility of
viewing a landscape as nature and, subsequently, cultural, leads Sauer to
the concept of the ‘cultural landscape’, a vista whose narrative shifts with
time, depending on the culture of the individuals dwelling on, or viewing,
the landscape (2007 [1925], 54).
Within this, the landscape has been discussed more widely by alluding
to the female form, with accounts that include the process of carving
out a landscape from ‘“virgin” nature’ (Olwig 1993, 317); the shaping
of areas vast and small, as ‘the contours of countries and districts are
frequently drawn by using the concepts of motherland or mother tongue’
(Best 1995, 181), and in the context of Palestinian poetry, the land as ‘a
fecund woman who gave birth to revolutionary freedom fighters’ (Salti
2010, 43), and more broadly, ‘land-as-woman’, a space in which ‘pos-
session’, ‘control’, ‘fulfilment’, and/or the ‘consummation of desire’ is
enacted (Layoun 2001, 147). Whether positioned as the mother who
gives birth and welcomes the returning fighters, or the virgin/beloved
to be possessed and desired, the gendering of the land reveals a gaze
shaped by power and culture, as well as the nuances of an individual’s
gaze, whether male or female.
The delineation of the gaze-on-the-land between the male and the
female is helpful and challenging. For its critics, discerning between
the two is polemicizing; for others, the gendering of the land can be
attributed to the writer’s need for ‘a conventional rhetorical device’ (Mills
2005, 75). To this can be added a third perspective, that the gendering of
the gaze-on-the-land provides an insight into the power relations involved
in reading, experiencing, and drawing the landscape. On a subtle level,
the masculine aspects of the land can be ‘invisible’, but still active in their
capacity as ‘the invisible structuring geometries which create the illusion
of infinite spatial depth’ (Olwig 1993, 324). When set against the femi-
nine, Kenneth Olwig’s reading of the gendered land resonates with Julia
Kristeva’s reflection on the ‘paternal metaphor’, which she suggests is,
80 L. GANDOLFO
‘unconscious, crystallized as it is at the threshold of primal repression,

is not yet verbal […] Let’s say it conveys some imagos, some uncon-
scious fantasies, some complexes that are capable of being translated into
the maternal language, or, quite the opposite, that resist any translation
[emphasis in original]’ (Kristeva 2014, 74).
The feminine is, then, visible: her gender written in narratives about
the land, and her symbol substituting a large entity when words or
distance cut between the individual and the land itself. However, the
masculine dimension of the land is not intangible; it can be palpable
and lustful, as Olwig observes in his consideration of Michael Drayton’s
Poly-Olbion (1612; 1622, cited in Olwig 2002), where the (masculine)
wind caresses the (female) land, coursing through the ‘Cluyd Vale’
(2002, 127). Similarly, David Bell and Ruth Holliday’s study of German
and English naturist movements considers the mythopoetic men’s move-
ment, for whom the wilderness is a site of physical and conceptual
re-masculinization, where the ‘Earth Father’ enables participants to ‘once
again become men’ through ‘close, communal contact with nature’
(2001, 135). Both Bell and Holliday’s focus on the ‘re-masculinization’
of the land, and Sara Mills’ interrogation of nineteenth-century women
travellers in Australia and the United States (2005), draw attention to the
multiple ways of viewing and talking about the land. Between those who
caution polemicizing the gaze-on-the-land (Nash 2008) and those who
distinguish (Lentin 2006; Olwig 1993, 2002; Best 1995; Rose 1993), a
middle path can be found through Mills’ recommendation that the gaze
be assessed on an individual basis (2005, 81).
In doing so, ‘rather than analysing the view of landscape as an
individual process, dependent on an individual’s particular aesthetic pref-
erence or poetic skill, we need instead to examine the way that within the
colonial context, certain forms of viewing predominate’ (Mills 2005, 81).
This approach is particularly relevant in the context of Palestine, where the
land has passed through the British Mandate (1920–1948) and continues
to be marked and re-drawn while under occupation (B’Tselem 2018;
ICAHD 2018; UNHCR 2018). In this sense, the loss of the land is an
ongoing experience and the continued displacement of Palestinians adds,
weekly, more accounts to the broader narrative of dispossession. Casting
a look back to the early twentieth century, the gendered land and land-
scape feature in both Palestinian and Israeli cultural narratives, at times
attributing female symbolism, at others, male.2 Following Mills’ sugges-

tion that the significance of the gaze lies in the forms of viewing, the
artistic pieces addressed in this chapter reflect on the gendered gaze on
the land, as much as the gendered power dynamic that shapes experiences
of exile and the occupation.
5.2 The Fading Landscape

As with other art forms, the scope of interpretation in paintings is vast, yet
in this range is the opportunity to tell a story and, in the case of the works
of Sophie Halaby (1905–1998), to capture a landscape in flux, through
the eyes of an artist painting under unstable circumstances. Born in 1905
in Jerusalem, Sophie Halaby left to study in the studios of Paris between
1929 and 1932 (Halaby 2015, 88–89), and in the years that followed,
Halaby returned to Europe twice more, each journey coinciding with an
outbreak of conflict in Palestine (Halaby 2015, 89). The first, in 1948,
drove her family towards East Jerusalem (Boullata 2009, 166; Halaby
2015, 86) and as Kamal Boullata observes, in their haste to flee, the
family left behind all their possessions, perhaps imagining that they would
return home after a few weeks (2009, 166–167). Ultimately, unable to
return, the Halabys moved towards the east side of the city, which was
then under Jordanian jurisdiction (Boullata 2009, 167). For Halaby, the
years leading up to and following 1948 marked the beginning of a fading
landscape, one affected by population movement and displacement, as
villages declined and the vistas grew to encompass the new residents, their
houses, and businesses, a point that was not lost on Halaby, later in life
(‘All the while in Palestine I sketched and drew the original views of Pales-
tine. Nowadays it all changes with their stupid buildings’ [Halaby 2015,
84]). It is notable then, that Halaby’s landscapes have a timeless quality,
the seasons forever under a golden hue, the buildings ever ancient, and
the land devoid of visitors or inhabitants. In The Mount of Olives series
(1954), the landscape comes to the fore, its blend of colours rich enough
to distract the viewer’s eye from the structure to the right of the frame.
Dotted with green trees that stretch towards the horizon, their uniformity
provides numerous receding landmarks and the suggestion that while the
2 See also Boaz Newmann, Land and Desire in Early Zionism (Lebanon: Brandeis),
2007.
82 L. GANDOLFO
house is faded and the occupants unseen, the presence of orchards hints
at a life being lived on the land.
While the vista might shift, Halaby’s landscapes share several common-
alities, including the palette (ranging between lilac/blue for the sky, dark
green/rusty red for trees and shrubs; cream/white for structures, and
golden for the soil and mountains), the gentle curves of the land that
bob towards a distant point, and a silence that while visual, neverthe-
less extends from the canvas to suggest a quiet space, unpunctuated by
planes, cars, or human voices; accompanied perhaps only by the trill of
crickets and the birds flying overhead. By capturing this tranquil land-
scape, Halaby presents two visions: the first an alternative paradise that
is not lush, but ruggedly unspoiled. On the other, her paintings offer a
view that is fading as the landscape becomes unreachable and at points,
forever changed by humankind as new structures rise and fresh roads wind
through the previously uninterrupted ~scape. In each case, the landscape
appears—despite the events unfolding—hospitable, gentle, and warm,
aspects that are conveyed through the lines of her work. Reflecting on
these facets of Halaby’s work, Boullata draws attention to the parts that
can be likened to the human body, and within this, the body in question
could, perhaps, be read as female,
Halaby’s identification with her Mount comes to light as the swelling bare-
ness of the landscape becomes synonymous with the naked body. The
undulating hills, washed with rose tints, earthy dots and shades, assume the
nuances of skin, its freckles and birthmarks, as the brush strokes suggesting
distant trees or scattered bushes resemble the curls of body hair. (2009,
172)
While it could be countered that the ‘naked body’, ‘freckles’, birthmarks’,

and ‘curls of body hair’ could just as much belong to a male landscape,
Boullata’s earlier reference to Halaby’s depiction of a ‘virgin stretch of
land’ (2009, 171) suggests otherwise. Harking to the broader references
in Palestinian poetry, the use of the word ‘virgin’ also connects to the
broader corpus on gender, art, and cultural geography, which genders the
‘virgin’ as female, an ascription that facilitates the realization of nationalist
sentiments on a wider scale.
For Boullata, Halaby’s landscape is viewed through an anthropomor-
phic, gendered lens, and in doing so, he presents the opportunity to read
it as sexualized, the subtle observation of curls of body hair, swells, and
the freckles that dot the skin/landscape, suggesting an intimacy and prox-
imity to the subject. These close observations can be extended to include
love as much as desire, a perspective that evokes Olwig’s reflection on
the painters of the European Renaissance, for whom ‘the generative force
of love […] transformed [the vista] into a gendered, largely female land-
scape scene’ (2002, 133–134). Beyond the Renaissance, the trope of the
virgin landscape invokes emotions that range from desire to protective-
ness, coveting, and mourning. The invocation of the virgin by artists and
viewers works on two levels: first, it portrays a bond between the view and
the artist, as the view is more than an insight into a moment in time, but
also an opportunity to see through the eyes of the artist and sense their
response to what is unfolding in the wider ~scape, beyond the canvas.
In this sense, an awareness of the context of the landscape allows affect
to unfold, as the longing anthropomorphizes the landscape and allows
human emotions to be projected onto nature. Once the land was occu-
pied, the paintings provided a reminder of the past and the transition, as
much as how the changes were received by the artist, who, in this sense,
witnessed the transforming landscape. Second, framing the landscape as
‘virgin’ generates, as Olwig suggests, ‘an “enclosed” topological space’
that has ‘Freudian implications’ (1993, 317). In cases where ‘the virginal’
has been associated with desire (and at times a desire that carries sexual
undertones), it has often been done so in parts. As Kristeva observes, the
virginal body is offered in segments, ‘the ear, the tears, and the breasts’,
while ‘sexuality is reduced to a mere implication’, her sexual organ ‘an
innocent shell’ (1985, 142). More broadly, the sexualisation of the land
and the landscape elicits feelings of belonging, owning, and becoming of
the space, which are linked to desire and longing. However, if the concept
of the virgin-as-the-land provides a convergence for these sentiments, it
also raises questions regarding how the virgin trope is constructed in
each cultural context: whether she is whole, and if not, what do the
absent/inactive parts tell us about how the metaphor is applied?
Perhaps an answer can be found in the work of Tamam Al-Akhal, who
draws on the virgin, as well as the bride, as a representation of the land
and nation. Born in Jaffa in 1935, Al-Akhal and her family were, like the
Halabys, forced to flee their home in 1948, though the Al-Akhals did not
move across the city twice, but went beyond the borders of Palestine and
over the sea, first to Lebanon, and later Egypt, where Al-Akhal studied
art in Cairo (Tibawi 1963, 519). Reflecting on her early pieces, Al-Akhal
considers the possibilities for the body to engage in the act of making
84 L. GANDOLFO
art, and in one example, by using hair as a means of improvisation when

schooling, money, and art tools were hard to come by in the camp.
My intense desire to draw led me to fix one streak of my hair onto a

pencil, and to use the colors of detergents designed to die the old clothes
that my mother used for fixing the faded colors of our clothes […] I drew
our people as they line up to get milk for their children. Then I painted
another painting about the crowdedness that would take place around
filling small containers with water brought by transport cars to Palestinian
refugee camps. I painted these two scenes with a sense of awareness of
what was taking place. (Al-Akhal 2003)
At the time, the young Al-Akhal chronicled the everyday scenes of camp
life, not unlike the early pieces by Ismail Shammout, including his 1951
works, The Little Refugee, Cold and Hunger, Feeding Her Baby Brother,
and Refugee. However, with time, her work became a point of reflection
and Inheritance (1992) and Uprooting (1998) present a window into a
tumultuous time, the scale of the images capturing the trauma of her
subjects. Guided by the memory of her family’s displacement from Jaffa,
Al-Akhal’s pieces are notable for their visceral realism and the various ways
that trauma is represented, at certain times realistic; at others, surreal,
abstract, or symbolic. In the case of the latter, the everyday (a close-up
of a field of poppies or oranges plump on their branches, an evocation
of a tranquil, lost past) is punctuated by the supernatural (flying horses;
apparitions of bereft brides floating above the ground; a child carrying an
out-sized naked man, Sisyphus-like through an empty ~scape). The use of
the fantastical serves a dual function: on the one hand, it creates a barrier
between the real and the unreal, as the surreal proportions and abstract
actions disconnect reality from the viewer. On the other hand, this discon-
nection accentuates the trauma: as opposed to being out-of-proportion,
the over-sized figures and ~scapes represent the overwhelming sensation
of loss, grief, and trepidation.
In The Rift (1999), the viewer is struck by a mélange of emotions:
the landscape, once lush and green, is sandy and barren; unlike Halaby’s
golden vistas, there are no shrubs pushing through, nor a sky to separate
the horizon from the moonscape. The rocks that shape the landscape
differ in their lines, too: where Halaby showed smooth contours, Al-
Akhal brings corners and angles, a terrain jagged and ready to cut. The
break in the landscape arrives at the midpoint, the titular rift a chasm
that holds only darkness. The sense of the unknown that this brings is
the least unsettling aspect of the painting, for on either side is a spectre
of grief and pain. To the right, a bride hovers, the train of her white
dress immaculate yet nebulous, its gauzy fringe grazing inches above the
ground. Her gaze, directed across the rift, is morose. With one hand,
she clutches a bouquet of white flowers, her arm slightly extended, as
though to hand them across the line; the other arm hangs empty, devoid
of purpose. The bride is resplendent in her sadness, an angel looking into
a hellish tableau of exile and dispossession. The view across the rift is
small-scale, but concentrated in its pain: men and women contort, cower,
and hang loosely; some are clothed in rags, others naked, all dishevelled,
starved, and bruised. Behind them floats a window that leads nowhere,
the bars stark against a gloomy sky.
The dichotomy between the bride and the prisoners is more than a
contrast between the intact and the broken, the clean and the dusty, for
what is not explicitly shown is as significant as what is depicted. The bride
is waiting, but she will not be reached so long as the chains and bars
remain, and the rift broadens. The bride is close, but her proximity is
tempered by being both untouchable and unable to touch. The bride is
longing; the prisoners dare not look, but in a gap in the rocks, midway to
the rift is a hand, fingers reaching up to the sky, its body hidden from view.
The rift is large, the chains strong, but, Al-Akhal suggests, the determi-
nation to return to the land remains. In its purest sense, The Rift evokes
a disassociation born of trauma, as well as the sense of futility of being
unable to intervene, while the use of the surreal engages in an alternative
articulation of memory.
While alternative, abstract memory narratives are a frequent device
in literary reflections on trauma, parallels can be drawn with Al-Akhal’s
piece, as ‘traumatic memory usually emerges in visual images or other
sense memories and affects, rather than narrative articulations, indicating
an incomplete and conflicted relation to memory’ (Vickroy 2005, 129).
In this respect, her work equally functions as an extension of Bal’s cultural
memory (1999, x), as the images bridge the trauma of her recollec-
tion and the emotional response of the viewer. While the land as it
is commonly viewed is absent (for there is no soil for the groves to
clutch, here), the embodiment of Palestine as a bride invokes the trope
of the feminized land (Benvenisti 2002, 255–256; Malhi-Sherwell 2001;
86 L. GANDOLFO
Darwish 2008, 205; Al-Qasim [in Jayyusi] 1987, 381–384; Ali 2007, 42–
45), and locates the nation as the one to be longed for, and ultimately,
possessed.
The relevance of The Rift is heightened by the date of production,
1999, 51 years after the Nakba and the Al-Akhal’s displacement from
Jaffa. From this perspective, the legacy of the Nakba and the occupa-
tion that followed are seen from the vantage point of (at the time)
the present, and the spectral form of the bride (as well as the bodies
of the prisoners) corresponds with Andrew Jones’ suggestion that ‘the
past of places is nearly always remembered by reference to the body’
(2007, 58). In this case, Palestine is remembered less through the jagged
peaks in the background, and more so through the bride who presents a
corporeal representation of the nation and the land. However, Mary N.
Layoun (2001) urges a deeper interrogation of the presence of the bride
in national cultural discourse. In her reflection on the film, Wedding in
Galilee (1987), she draws attention to the ‘generative basis’ on which
the bride is linked to the land and the implications of the juxtaposi-
tion of nation with woman, for ‘following mundanely on that trope, the
representation of the fulfilment or consummation of desire is possession
and control of the land-as-woman. The profoundly problematic nature of
this latter equation is conspicuous; increasingly, there are challenges to
its putative naturalness’ (2001, 147). Layoun raises an important point
that extends beyond Wedding in Galilee and connects to Rose’s (1999)
broader consideration of the gendered gaze. Both in terms of concep-
tualizing the land and the framing of the female form in the national
discourse, Layoun and Rose emphasize the chain of cause-and-effect, and
the power of the visual medium in shaping the social implications in the
long-term. Within this power is a further possibility, for the female artistic
gaze to revisit figures, such as the virgin and the mother, and create an
alternative perspective that reimagines both symbols and imbues them
with multiple narratives.
5.3 Absence and the Figure of the Mother
There is a land called Palestine and I am one of her daughters… (Alshaibi

2006, 52)
In Sama Alshaibi’s collection, Birthright (2004–2005), the female form

occupies the frame, at times in its entirety, at others in part: a face gazing
into the lens, or thoughtfully at the floor, a midriff adorned with drawings
and poetry; hands that extend a clutch of Gazan olives towards the viewer.
The images, sepia with scorched edges (shot with Type 55 film), hark
to an indeterminate time, Alshaibi’s dress and the stark background (a
dusty floor, stone walls, and at times, the silhouette of a sun-lit window)
afford the viewer little inkling of whether the images were captured in
2004, 1948, or earlier. The austere timelessness of the surroundings is
no coincidence, however, for the absence of a vista or a vivid background
is replicated in a number of Alshaibi’s works and represents ‘a sense of
alienation’ felt as she moved between countries as a child (Bajaj 2015).
If Al-Akhal’s work charts the direct experience of the events of 1948 and
her flight from Jaffa, then Alshaibi brings an insight into the legacy of
the Nakba, felt by subsequent generations. In the essay that accompanies
Birthright, Alshaibi (2006) describes the dislocation that began with her
maternal grandparents escape from Jaffa to Nablus in 1948 (after hearing
news of the massacre at Deir Yassin), before finally moving to Baghdad.
Once settled in Iraq, Alshaibi’s parents met and married, and moved to
Basra, where Alshaibi was born (Alshaibi 2006, 36).
The years that followed brought further conflict with the Iran–Iraq
War (1980–1988), and the second generation, Alshaibi’s parents, once
again experienced the trauma of conflict and displacement. After fleeing
Iraq, her family moved between countries in the region, and the repeated
dislocation highlighted the complexities of being both a Palestinian and
Iraqi refugee. ‘In each country where we lived, some aspect of our mixed
Iraqi-Palestinian, Shiite-Sunni or American identity [the family lived in
Iowa between 1973 and 1979] was problematic. Every year I started a
new school weary of describing who I was and where I was from’ (Alshaibi
2006, 37). In 1985, the family relocated to the United States, yet in later
interviews, the question, ‘where are you from?’ persisted, as Neelika M.
Jayawardane recollects,
Sama can tell you that there was never one answer for that question. An
inquiry about origins is often innocent, but it is also a question asked of
the perceived other at security checkpoints, by border-keepers. It demands
an easy origin, a pinpoint, a reference through which the inquirer can easily
package the supplicant at the border. (Jayawardane 2014, 156)
88 L. GANDOLFO
The absence of ‘an easy origin’ and the inability to be ‘packaged’ is

palpable in Alshaibi’s work, and it is powerfully addressed through her
exploration of the types of absence, as well as how absence is enacted,
and on whom.
A double dislocation in part, guides the diversity of absences: first,
through the exile of Alshaibi’s grandparents from Palestine; next, by her
parents’ flight from Iraq. In each context, Alshaibi draws on the female
form to negotiate issues of power, agency, war, politics, and exile. In
doing so, her pieces become an active form of memory work, but as
Alshaibi (2006) suggests, the memories are not alive, but rather reani-
mations of past memories. ‘For one exiled and unable to have a living
connection with a homeland, any representations of identity connected
to that homeland are also representations of death; a homeland from
which one has been long “unhoused” means that one’s memory of it
remains mummified’ (2006, 39). The ‘living connection’, in the context
of Alshaibi’s work, emerges through the body—her body—and by doing
so, Alshaibi calls witness to absence and erasure, as well as bears witness
(ibid., 40). In the Birthright collection, Alshaibi gently lifts a pendant
towards the camera. On the black thread dangles Handala, Naji Al Ali’s
refugee child who bears witness to the Nakba and its aftermath, a char-
acter synonymous with the trauma of Palestinian displacement. Behind
the pendant, Alshaibi turns her head to the side, her face obscured,
while the top of a white bustier pops in its clarity along the base of the
image. The female form fills the frame, but the focus is on Handala, the
surrounding figure (Alshaibi’s shoulders, neck, chin, and chest) smoothed
into a blur, and the small pendant is located as the focus of the view-
er’s scrutiny. Whether close- or long-shot, Alshaibi’s images connect
with exile, erasure, and absence in a multi-layered process of memory
work that is perceptible in her other collections, including Between Two
Rivers (2008–2009), the collaborative short film with Ala’ Younis, End of
September (2009–2010), and the short film and photography collection
created with Dena Al-Adeeb, Baghdadi Mem/Wars (2010). Birthright is,
however, notable for its reflection on absence that is not restricted to the
absent land or nation. Rather, Alshaibi draws our attention to ‘the world’s
denial of the Palestinian humanity’ (Alshaibi 2004–2005), a denial that
forms a broader absence of recognition and erasure of sites that works in
tandem with the absence and mourning created by exile.
The realism brought by Alshaibi’s visual presence prompts further

questions regarding the gaze, both in relation to how the artist in exile
conceptualizes the land, as well as how representations of the land posi-
tion (and frame) the female subject. If the contours of Halaby’s work
suggest desire for the female form, and Al-Akhal’s spectral bride exudes
longing and loss, then Birthright interrogates the association between
the land, nurturing, and motherhood. In Target Practice, Alshaibi, at the
time six-months pregnant with her son, stands in a path of sunlight, her
vest stretched midway over her stomach, and her black skirt loose around
her hips. Motionless, Alshaibi stands in the centre of a circle of olives,
four lines extending compass-like in each direction. As the title hints,
she is located in the crosshairs, a target, but also ‘the victim and the
victimizer’, treading ‘the delicate line of perspective’ (Alshaibi 2006, 49).
Although the scene is sparse, the few elements (the olives, her body, the
sunlight) express a paradoxical symbolism that reflects the complexity of
the Palestinian case.
On the one hand, the olives are synonymous with peace, and (in light
of the previously mentioned image) with Gaza. Small, shrivelled, and care-
fully arranged, there is a gentleness in their presence. However, they also
represent crosshairs and by extension the brutality of the occupation that
has, in particular, afflicted Gaza. There is an additional aspect, too, that
can be read in the context of Alshaibi’s works, where she draws on the
circle as a symbol, that ‘is about the recycling of history, repeating and
recreating the same mistakes through time, through one’s life, and yet,
paradoxically, the vision of the perfect form of wholeness’ (Bajaj 2015).
Whether on the ground or drawn on her stomach, curling around verses
of Fadwa Tuqan’s poetry (In My Country’s Embrace; Birthright ), her
pregnant form interrogates the role of woman, the mother-to-be, and
the mother in the narrative on Palestine, distance, and erasure.
Whether representing the nation, a people (‘the body (my body) was
the symbol of a country or people’ [ibid.]), or the conflict, Alshaibi’s
work uses the body to devastating effect, as she becomes an extension of
the broader political and social discourse. As she explains,
The media’s largest triumph is the reduction of the Palestinian persona

into a single crude terrorist ‘body’. This propaganda is perhaps most
palpable in mediate attitudes about mothers whose sons kill in the
cause for nationhood. The perception exists that Palestinian mothers
are suicide-bomber-producing machines […] Freedom fighter, terrorist,
90 L. GANDOLFO
soldier, insurgent, peacekeeper – this conundrum of perception taking place

in my womb was a microcosm, of the agenda of righteousness played out
in modern day politics. (Alshaibi 2006, 46)
To circumvent the media narrative, Alshaibi positions the image of the

mother-to-be as a figure of resistance, as much as a ‘retrospective witness’
who prompts us to remember a land that is steadily being erased by
geography and political rhetoric (Alshaibi 2004–2005). This is particu-
larly significant when considered in the context of motherhood in national
and cultural narratives, which frames the mother as the ‘bearer of mean-
ing’, the figurehead of a collectivity, and a symbol of nature (Mulvey
2015, 7; Lentin 2006, 465; Helphand 2005, 263; Yuval-Davis 1997,
45–46). Within this, the mother, and motherhood, jostles with issues of
agency and action. The challenge lies, as Laura Mulvey suggests, with
the positioning of woman as a ‘bearer of meaning’ who is ‘not [a]
maker of meaning’ (2015, 7). Ronit Lentin shares this perspective in her
consideration of the femina sacra, where woman is placed,
at the mercy of sovereign power […] due to her function as a vehicle of

ethnic cleansing, and to her sexual vulnerability […] becomes femina sacra
at the mercy of sovereign power, she who can be killed, but also impreg-
nated […] The body of woman creates and contains birth-nations and
demarcates territories, and is therefore the basis of nation-states. (Lentin
2006, 465)
While Mulvey (2015) provides a clear argument for the lack of agency
held by woman, Lentin’s reflection contains a deeper subtlety: on the
one hand, woman is ‘at the mercy’ and ‘a vehicle’ to whom actions are
done (‘killed’, ‘impregnated’) (2006, 465). On the other, woman is a
creator, demarcating nations, countries, and areas (Lentin 2006, 465).
However, while there is a degree of power in the role of the creator,
we cannot overlook how the role emerges, particularly if it is a result of
war and/or occupation. In Birthright, Alshaibi presents the viewer with
a mother-to-be who is also a figure of resistance, a decision that assists
the disconnection between Nash’s ‘historical connections with hetero-
sexual male power’ (2008). Instead, Alshaibi positions the pregnant form
as an equal and active protagonist, rather than a passive bearer, in the
Palestinian national narrative.
5.4 Embodying Loss and Exile

In this final section, we move towards an absence that is total. For Halaby
and Al-Akhal, the land and landscapes that they painted were directly
experienced, Palestine being the land of their birth, and for Halaby’s
family, the displacement initially occurred within Jerusalem. Alshaibi, born
in Mosul and raised in the United States, composed Birthright during
her journey to Palestine, the images caught in situ, with an awareness
of the challenges negotiated in order to reach the country, as well as
an understanding of the temporariness of her stay. In several of Mona
Hatoum’s pieces, however, absence is invoked through their locations
and narratives, as her subjects (whether the artist herself, or in Measures
of Distance (1988) her mother) are ‘dislocated’. Both the body and the
trope of dislocation feature in Hatoum’s works, the body seemingly refer-
ring to politics, gender, exile, and/or memory in pieces such as Under
Siege (1982), Jardin Public (1993), Corps Étranger (1994), and Keffieh
(1993–1999). When locating these tropes (politics and gender, among
others), ‘seemingly’ is an important addition, for while the pieces bring
to mind the occupation and gender issues to varying degrees, there is the
risk of ascribing meaning in lieu of the deeper nuances of the piece.
In an interview with Janine Antoni in 1998, Antoni noted the
recurring questions that Hatoum negotiates in interviews regarding
her culture, whether Arab, Palestinian, and/or as a woman. Hatoum’s
response highlighted the spontaneous reaction of the viewer that
precludes the possibility of alternative stories in the pieces. ‘If you come
from an embattled background there is often the expectation that your
work should somehow articulate the struggle or represent the voice of
the people. That’s a tall order […] [and] I find myself often wanting to
contradict those expectations’ (Antoni 1998). Hatoum’s work, like other
artists, requires the viewer to tread a fine line: on the one hand, the viewer
must keep an open mind and embrace the narratives in their uniqueness;
at times addressing regional politics, at others a conflict of another variety.
On the other hand, Hatoum’s pieces are visually, physically, and
emotionally immersive, as she aims for affect first, and meaning second,
I always find it problematic when museums and galleries want to put up

an explanatory text on the wall. It fixes the meaning and limits the reading
of the work and doesn’t allow the viewer to have this very expansive imag-
inative interpretation of their own which reflects on their experience. […]
92 L. GANDOLFO
My work [is] always constructed with the viewer in mind. The viewer is
somehow implicated or even visually or psychologically entrapped in some
of the installations. (Antoni 1998)
The confluence of ‘contradicting expectations’ and ‘visually or psycho-

logically entrapping’ the viewer is achieved in her works through the use
of the body and, more significantly, intimacy. While the use of the body
(and its excretions) is not unusual in art, Hatoum’s pieces are remark-
able for her use of the body in its entirety, at times capturing the naked
form whole; at others, only parts: hair, blood, or the internal organs via
an endoscopy (Corps Étranger). Conversely, the absence of the body in a
piece can be as powerful, as Jaleh Mansoor observes in her consideration
of Interior Landscape (2008), where ‘the body, personal and political, is
missing, leaving a ghostly vestige’ (2010, 58). Through varied degrees
of proximity and intimacy, Hatoum takes the viewer on a multi-layered
journey, one that is narrative driven and linked to the broader themes of
gender, conflict, and/or memory, as well as the liminal boundaries set by
distance, norms, and trust.
When considered in the context of absence, Hatoum negotiates loss
through reflections on dislocation and distance. For Edward Said (2011),
the dislocation in Hatoum’s pieces is organic and intentional; the sensa-
tion travelling from the personal to the public. The result can be
disquieting or paradoxical, for ‘not only does one feel that one cannot
return to the way things were, but there is a sense of just how acceptable
and “normal” these oddly distorted objects have become, just because
they remain very close to what they have left behind’ (Said 2011, 108).
For Hatoum, the geographical dislocation occurred twice: having fled
Palestine to Lebanon after 1948 (where Hatoum was born), her family
was displaced once more during the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990).
Already studying in London in 1975, Hatoum was, in her own words,
‘stranded’, and returned to Palestine in 1996, when she exhibited Present
Tense (1996) at the Anadiel Gallery (now the Al Ma’mal Foundation) in
East Jerusalem (Schulenberg 2014, 11; Antoni 1998).
In her reflection on being ‘stranded’, absence is wrapped in expressions
of ‘tremendous loss’, ‘a sense of dislocation’, ‘a sense of disjunction’, and,
in pieces such as Light Sentence (1992), dislocation emerges through ‘a
sense of instability and restlessness in the work’ (Antoni 1998). Instability,
among other sensations, is represented through installations that include
electricity, barbed wire, and furniture, and while in each the human is
absent, the human presence is felt (an empty crib; electrical wires that
come alive when touched; barbed wire that curtails the movement of the
viewer). In others, the body is the focus, and Measures of Distance unites
the trifecta at the heart of this chapter: gender, the absent land, and the
body.
At first, there is silence, before the darkness gives way to a blue-tinged
scene and lines of writing emerge, overlaying the scene beyond. A dim
light is provided by a lamp and at first, the body framing the left side
of the screen is obscured, the lens closed in on the form. The visual
element emerges slowly, lulling the viewer awake through the smooth
transition. The audio contrasts this: a burst of laughter by Hatoum’s
mother, brings a snap of joy through the grainy vista. As viewers, we
have the sensation of voyeurism as we listen to a conversation between
mother and daughter that is perhaps not meant for our ears, while our
eyes cautiously take in the scene, as though the view is not for us to see.
One and a half minutes on, a new voice enters, overlaying the conversa-
tion. Hatoum softly reads five letters sent by her mother, each responding
to queries sent by Hatoum from London to Beirut in 1981. The contents
of the letters are an emotional journey compressed into 16 minutes,
each sentence concentrated in its affect. The emotions move between
longing (‘How I miss you and long to feast my eyes on your beautiful
face that brightens up my days’ [00:01:42]) and frustration (‘I wish this
bloody war would be over soon, so that you and your sisters can return’
[00:02:24]); entreating (‘why don’t you come back and live here, and
we can make all the photographs and tapes you want’ [00:02:33]) and
self-reflecting (‘[your letters] make me think about myself in a way that
I hadn’t looked at before’ [00:07:49]). Opening with love and regret at
the distance between them, they travel through the individual—a recol-
lection of Hatoum’s transition from ‘the little devil’ to ‘a quiet and shy
little girl’; the peculiarity of the phrase ‘lie back and think of England’
and a woman’s right to enjoy sex—to the collective, as the fourth letter
touches on exile, and the fifth on the violence unfolding in Lebanon and
its impact on daily life (‘the post office was completely destroyed by that
car bomb’ [00:13:30]).
The fourth letter, in which Hatoum’s mother reflects on Palestine,
displacement, and fragmentation, is, like much of the piece, poignant in
its fragmented delivery. As Hatoum reads the letters aloud, she pauses
longer than a sentence’s end would need, at times the hiatus extending
and gaining intensity through the static vibration that is undiminished by
94 L. GANDOLFO
the background conversation, which tries to fill the auditory void. While
the ellipses offer a transition between the letters, Hatoum’s breakages, at
times mid-sentence, introduce fragmentation to her delivery and enable
it to function actively as well as thematically,
Before we ended up in Lebanon, we were living in our own land in a

village with all our family and friends around us, always ready to lend a
hand. We felt happy and secure, and it was paradise compared to where
we are now.
So, if I seem to be always irritable and impatient, it’s because life was very
hard when we left Palestine.
Can you imagine us having to separate from all our loved ones? Leaving
everything behind and starting again from scratch, our family scattered all
over the world? Some of our relatives we never saw again to this day.
I personally felt as if I had been stripped naked of my very soul and I’m
not just talking about the land and property that we left behind, but with
that our identity and our sense of pride in who we are went out of the
window.
*
Yes, of course, I suppose this must have affected you as well, because
being born in exile, in a country that does not want you, is not fun at all.
And, now that you and your sisters have left Lebanon, you’re again living
in another exile, in a culture that is totally different to your own.
So, when you talk about a feeling of fragmentation, and not knowing
where you really belong, well, this has been the painful reality of all our
people.
(Hatoum 1988, [00:10:40–00:13:03])
The disconnection that emerges when the text is transcribed and sepa-
rated emphasizes the ~scapes of Measures of Distance. The land is
mourned as an extension of the body (‘I personally felt as if I had been
stripped naked of my very soul’ [00:11:40]), as much as the sense of self
(‘our identity and our sense of pride’ [00:12:00]). Her naked body, mean-
while, is revealed in fragments that during her reflection on exile decrease
in proximity, but increase in intimacy, as her full form is revealed in the
shower, her arms raised as she pushes her hair back.
Throughout the piece, Hatoum’s gaze connects with the maternal
form from various angles, at times focusing her mother’s back, her
stomach, her breasts, all the while overlaid with text, conversation, and
her own voice. If the multitude of layers seems chaotic, Hatoum’s blend
achieves the opposite, the images and voices folding over one another
into a package of nostalgia, love, and sensuality. On the latter, sensu-
ality, the maternal form interrogates the possibility for an alternative
subject and gaze that challenges the dichotomy of the active/male and
passive/female gaze (Mulvey 2015, 11; Nash 2008, 71–72), as well as
conservative perspectives that question the sensuality of the maternal form
(Betterton 1996, 2014; Kristeva 1985, 2014). That both Hatoum and
her mother were naked during the filming of Measures of Distance brings
not only a female (and familial) gaze, but a naked one, too. In doing so,
Hatoum’s gaze opens the encounter to one that is egalitarian in its corpo-
real intimacy, yet the new boundaries that it draws inadvertently realign
her mother’s body with a different kind of land, one that is possessed by
the male other and framed as ‘property’ that is in flux. In her reflection
on her husband’s response to the project, her mother observes that, ‘It’s
as if you had trespassed on his property and now he feels like there are
some weird exchanges going on between us from which he is excluded’
[00:08:50].
With sensuality comes the possibility of self-reflection and exploration
(‘[your letters] make me think about myself in a way that I hadn’t looked
at before’), but it also raises new possibilities regarding how the body is
valued, read, and used. In the case of value and reading, the maternal
form has been (beyond Hatoum’s piece) metaphorically and symbolically
associated with the land and landscape; the subtext of her body being
associated with ‘property’ and the act of ‘trespass’ build on an older narra-
tive that informs national discourse throughout history. When harnessed,
however, the naked maternal form becomes a source of memory, emotion
(painful and pleasurable), and honest connection, the naked gaze creating
96 L. GANDOLFO
an intimacy between the viewer, the artist, and her subject that evokes Jill
Bennett’s ‘affective contagion’, as the viewer ‘feels rather than simply sees
the event’ (2004, 32). The affective power of Hatoum’s gaze in Measures
of Distance allows the female gaze to go beyond pleasure and desire, as
problematized by Rose at the start of this chapter, and enables the land-
body-mother to become a space of memory, exploration, and familial
and national longing. Similarly, revisiting the concept of the land as the
mother, the female body affords an alternative embodiment of the absent
motherland, one that is disconnected from ‘its historical connections with
heterosexual male power’ (Nash 2008), yet is evocative of the fragmen-
tation that is felt in the absence of the mother and the motherland, as
much as the exile from both (Betterton 1996, 189).
The works considered in this chapter demonstrate the multiple ways

that the female form connects with the land and the landscape, whether
captured on the cusp of immense change or in its lingering aftermath.
From in situ paintings of a shifting political and geographical landscape
to recollections of scenes of trauma; onwards to embodied reconnections
in Palestine, and finally, the convergence of lived memories and the naked
maternal form compiled in the diaspora. Threading through their narra-
tives, the Nakba remains a constant reference point: it is the beginning
of their travails, and the end of the land as it had been. However, Pales-
tine is recalled through the juxtaposition of Bal’s (1999) understanding
of cultural memory, memory in its original sense, and Marianne Hirsch’s
postmemory (1997). The result, in cases where the Nakba has not been
experienced directly, is a cultural postmemory that ‘links the past to the
present and the future’ (Bal 1999, vii), while at the same time being
‘directly connected to the past’, despite being ‘generationally distant’
(Hirsch 1997, 22).
While the three appear to sit comfortably alongside one another, Ernst
Van Alphen’s caution regarding the use of the term ‘memory’, and there-
after ‘postmemory’ when connecting to the past, is worth revisiting. As
Van Alphen observes, ‘The term postmemory risks […] becoming unwit-
tingly symptomatic of the desire of the generation of survivors’ children
to connect to the past of their parents, a desire that remains frustrated.
This desire is so strong because of the radical dis-connection with that
past, because of ‘absent memory’ [emphasis in the original] (2006, 487).
The ‘desire’ to which Van Alphen refers is present in various forms in

the pieces featured, both in the gaze and narrative of each artist, as well
as in the broader readings of land and landscape in Palestine. Despite
this commonality, the artists discussed in this chapter waver from the
need for caution: whether working during or (long) after the Nakba,
the ‘dis-connection’ is not wholly complete, so long as Palestine remains
occupied. In this sense, Palestine is not lost in a distant past: the landscape
might be lined with new roads and barriers, and the hillsides marked
by settlements, but the possibility and the tangibility of return remains
strong.
The diversity of the female gazes also shows that desire can be ‘so
strong’ (Van Alphen 2006, 487), while being re-articulated in a way that
differs from the male-informed understanding of desire and pleasure. At
the same time, the works of Halaby, Al-Akhal, Alshaibi, and Hatoum
offer the possibility of ‘dis-connecting’ not from ‘the past of their parents’
(Van Alphen 2006, 487), but rather from ideas of the motherland being
inextricably tied to ‘historical connections with heterosexual male power’
(Nash 2008). In this way, new connections are fostered that provide alter-
native ways of reading and remembering the land and landscape from
afar. Those connections integrate the female form as an active participant
who is complex, determined, and engaged; no longer a passive trope in
which woman-is-land. The artists and their works studied in this chapter
are but a few of the Palestinian cultural practitioners who draw on the
female form as inspiration (one could also look at Rheim Alkadhi’s Collec-
tive Knotting Together of Hairs (40 Kilometres of the Narrowest Margin)
(2012); Mary Tuma’s Body Extensions (1993); Jumana Abboud’s audio-
visual piece, Holding my Breath (2006), and Iman Al Sayed’s Geometry
and Statistics of Displacement (2015), as continuing paths) and as the
occupation continues, the female form evolves as a symbolic, active figure
in contemporary narratives about the past, present, and future.
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CHAPTER 6
Monumenting Our Pasts: Monuments, What

Are They Now?
Manca Bajec
One will always question a past that is not remembered on plaques, in

stone, on paper, in media. While wind and rain weather the sculptures that
stand to remember our histories, it is the act of consistent re-construction,
of those same stories of the past, that creates a space for surpassing any
doubts of their truth value. Omarska, Kozarac, and Trnopolje are small
villages in close proximity to the city of Prijedor. Prijedor is situated in the
Serb Republic or Republika Srpska (the Serb entity of Bosnia and Herze-
govina). The region appeared in international media in 1992 when a
group of journalists reported on the brutal concentration camps at various
sites in the area. One of the journalists Ed Vulliamy explained, ‘It was said
we had “discovered” Omarska, but this was an inaccurate flattery. Diplo-
mats, politicians, aid workers and intelligence officers had known about
This article was prepared in 2017 as part of a chapter of the author’s doctoral
dissertation.
M. Bajec (B)
Journal of Visual Culture, London, UK

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54887-2_6
102 M. BAJEC
the place for months and kept it secret. All we did was announce and
denounce it to the world’ (1999, 603).
Since the end of the war, the region has remained in a static moment
of denial. Republika Srpska did not have a planned format for recon-
ciliation, as they do not acknowledge the idea of the very existence of
the camps and the events that occurred there. There are no monuments
to the victims of the camps in the region, apart from one in the village
of Kozarac, which remains mostly populated by the Muslim community,
although a large part of the population now resides out of the country
and only return occasionally, leaving the newly rebuilt village practically
abandoned.
There were a number of camps that existed in the region including
Omarska, Keraterm, Trnopolje, and Manjača. Omarska, an iron ore mine
before the war, is located in close proximity to the city of Prijedor and
is most frequently referred to as being the most brutal of the camps.
Before the wars of the 1990s, Omarska was relatively unknown; it is now
notable as one of the only concentration camps of post-Second World
War II Europe. It opened in early 1992, and within the few months of
functioning, Omarska held over 3000 prisoners. It is said that several
thousands of people perished in the region and in the Omarska camp,
although many are still missing and mass graves continue to be discov-
ered. In 2004, ArcelorMittal, one of the world’s largest steel companies
acquired 51% of shares in the company, therefore standing as the majority
owner. ArcelorMittal initially committed to building a monument at the
site of the now functioning mine, but have since done nothing (Schuppli
2012). Instead once a year they allow the victims, their families, and
others who come in solidarity, to enter the camp for three hours, during
which time a ceremony is held, organised by the visitors. The annual
commemoration occurs on August 6th and is preceded by an evening
at the former camp Trnopolje: a school before the war that is now in
ruins. From the evening of August 5th, until the afternoon of August
6th, a form of memorial exists, as a mass of bodies gather, from all parts
of Europe and even the world, to remember together.
This year, this experience, was very different for me, this year I was
towards the end or supposed end, or close to the end of my research,
and felt more aware of what to expect. I planned what I thought was
the best route to get from the little seaside village of Novigrad in Croatia
to Prijedor in Republika Srpska, a 400 kilometre drive. In an attempt to
avoid traffic and to cut my driving time, I drove in a diagonal line from my
departure point to my destination. This decision meant driving through
6 MONUMENTING OUR PASTS: MONUMENTS, WHAT ARE THEY NOW? 103
villages and over hills. I didn’t have a GPS system but a map and was left
with no phone signal for a long stretch of the drive. The beginning of the
trip went smoothly with little traffic and beautiful scenic driving.
Soon after what I thought was almost halfway through my trip, and
almost as soon as I got off the highway, there was little to no signage.
I drove from one village into another, recognising only every other or
third name of the villages on my map. I didn’t come across many people,
as most of the villages seemed abandoned and there weren’t many cars
on the roads either. After a couple of wrong turns and the distraction of
the stunning views, I managed to find a very small, almost hidden, border
crossing. According to some people I spoke with in the following days, it
used to be quite a busy border crossing, as the town close to it was a very
developed industrial town, Velika Kladuša.
The journey seemed never-ending after arriving into Bosnia and Herze-
govina (BiH). I drove past a village that had a river running through it,
and the villagers were gathered on the banks, enjoying the cool waters in
the summer heat. Meanwhile, I was in my overheated car, which at the
point when my air conditioning stopped working, turned into an oven on
wheels. But slowly, I made my way to Prijedor and driving into the town,
I recognised where I was. I made my way to Hotel Prijedor which was
also next to the Motel Prijedor, both close to the river bank. I went inside
each of them and surprisingly they were both full to capacity. I found this
a little strange because this is hardly a tourist town but I was told about a
B&B nearby. I made my way to a café to relax for a moment and call the
B&B. At this point, I had been driving and getting lost for over 8 hours.
I called the B&B and a nice gentleman said they had a room for me and
explained their location. It was only minutes away, so I said I would be
there in about 20 minutes, and slowly finished my coffee while checking
with friends about the evening events. Leaving the café and walking with
my two bags, I looked into a small alley and a man popped his head out
of a door, and said, ‘you must be Manca, welcome’. A little odd but then
again, in such a small town, everyone notices the foreigner wandering
around. I paid e15 cash on the spot, and was shown to a large double
bed with a view of the stunning yet derelict shopping mall on the main
square: a spectacular view, I was quite pleased with myself.
I showered and contacted Four Faces of Omarska, explaining that I’ll
be coming to Trnopolje for the first event. I seemed so sure, getting into
the car again, that I’ll find my way to the former camp. I drove for twenty
minutes on the main road and turned at the sign, and continued down a
road running through Trnopolje. Driving down the road, I was looking
104 M. BAJEC
for the stone eagle monument that I had seen the year before—the only
monument on the site, built in a style similar to 1950s monuments,
it stands in front of the old school, dedicated to Serbian forces. But
I couldn’t recognise anything. I drove very slowly which attracted the
attention of some people in their gardens. I decided to turn around and
try again as I felt I must have missed it. I went up and down the street
twice and finally got the courage to ask a man mowing his lawn whether
this was Trnopolje, and whether the village continues further down. He
replied that it goes further down for more kilometres so I turned back
again and continued driving.
Suddenly, I recognised the little shop, the white building, and stone
eagle. There were only three cars parked in the front-yard of the school so
I parked next to them although I hesitated for a moment when I noticed
people from the little shop staring. I heard noise coming from behind the
building and made my way through a field of tall grass. On a concrete
basketball court stood a white tent, similar to ones at festivals, with long
tables underneath. People were sitting and chatting, and one table was a
make-shift kitchen with a lot of onions being chopped. I recognised my
friends in the crowd and went to say hello. We all stood in amazement,
staring at the back of the school, where large oriental-looking carpets
were being spread out and a projection was being prepared. Everyone was
ready to camp out there for the evening. I assumed I was going to sleep
in the car if necessary. The sky got darker, getting ready for a spectacular
storm, a proper summer storm after a hot day; clouds danced across the
sky and the sunset colours went from pinks and oranges to deep blues and
purples. The sun was setting and in the distance, I could hear the sound
of the prayers from a mosque. I missed that sound, the familiarity of it.
Then the thunder started. The wind blew; more thunder, and all of
a sudden, the sky exploded in buckets of rain and bursts of wind. We
hid under the tents, but the gusts of wind started lifting the tent. The
tallest of men stood on the edges and held the aluminium construction
while the rest of us moved anything valuable to centre of the tent so
it wouldn’t get washed by the rain. The rain continued and there was a
discussion about how to solve the matter of the evening of planned events
and speakers. As soon as the storm calmed to a drizzle, I followed two
friends to take a closer look at the school. Coming to the back steps,
we were greeted by a blonde man in his forties, he was standing inside
the building behind what was once a glass door, but now with no glass
only the aluminium frame remained. He was introduced to me as the
‘Actor’. He smiled and started poking his head through the frame and
said, ‘Look…in the camp…out of the camp’. Everyone laughed! I smiled
but felt I needed some form of approval to laugh. We made our way
back to the tent to find out where the events would now take place. It
was almost dark. S, saw me, smiled and gave me a hug. I met S on my
previous trip. He looked up and said something along the lines of: ‘I hear
it was in Kozarac earlier today, the storm, and now here; tomorrow it’s
supposed to be in Omarska […] storming from camp to camp’. Again,
everyone laughed. I remembered how it rained the last time I was there,
and that when I offered S my umbrella he replied with a smile and said
something like, ‘It stopped raining for me in 1992’.
There were a lot of people, and not enough cars. I yelled out that
I have plenty of space and four youngsters and a dog got into the car
with me. They were very sweet, but completely unsure of what they were
doing there and like most other teenagers, chatting and gossiping while
I was trying to figure out whether I was lost again. We drove to another
village, Kozarac, to the House of Peace (Kuća mira), where the event was
to take place. Dripping in one by one, the living room or social space
became filled with people chatting away and lighting up cigarettes. The
walls were covered with what I assumed were pictures of people that had
died in the region, and images of previous events and people that had
visited. An elderly woman walked in and started hugging people, ran off
again into the kitchen and suddenly I could smell the scent of Bosnian
coffee being brewed on the stove, like my grandparents used to make.
We sat around big tables, when the electricity went off, everyone began
laughing and in a moment candles were lit and we all continued chatting.
Not much later a projector was up and the events started with a panel
discussion and book launch by Four Faces of Omarska. A great discussion
and debate followed the presentation but by that point I was exhausted
and finding it difficult to listen and communicate in a foreign language.
This was followed by another book launch by a woman that I recog-
nised. It took me a couple of minutes, but I remembered that I had met
her at Royal Holloway University some years before, when I was asked to
speak at the 20th Anniversary of Srebrenica. This woman was in the audi-
ence and after the symposium, she stayed for drinks and all I remember
was that she wasn’t very pleased about the event or the presentations. She
began the presentation of her own book and quickly went into a speech
about intruding foreigners and artists coming to Bosnia. Sitting right next
to her, I started to feel incredibly unwanted. I fiddled in my chair. As she
106 M. BAJEC
finished, S stood up and spoke briefly. His exact words I don’t remember,
but he said something like, ‘Today in Trnopolje, as the rain started and
we huddled under the tent, I was approached by two Bosnian women,
they came to me and asked, “S, who are all these foreigners here, what
are all these Serbs doing here?”’. Stood quietly and continued that unfor-
tunately they decided not to join us now and talk together about why
we have decided to gather. He said nothing more, but it was enough for
everyone to remain quiet for some moments. The evening continued and
suddenly Florence Hartmann walked in with Ed Vulliamy. I was pleas-
antly surprised that after so many years the journalists that were among
the first to speak about these camps in western media attend these two
days of commemoration.
By now it was past midnight and I was getting worried I wouldn’t
be able to drive back without getting lost again. My friends decided to
leave so I asked if I could drive behind them, since there was little street
lighting and I was already tired and feeling emotional from the long day.
I woke up to a cloudy and muddy day but at least it wasn’t raining.
I followed some friends and we drove into the procession of cars,
surrounded by police, that inched towards the factory.
This experience felt quite different from the previous time I was there.
I knew what to expect, and yet, parking my car in the long serpent-like
organised queue and walking through the mud, it seemed exactly the
same, as if time had stopped. It probably does so each year for those few
hours.
The Omarska mine complex is constructed of three structures: the red
hangar, the administration building, which we can see in the ITN videos
from 1992 (ITN YouTube video), and the so-called White House, where
I was told the torture and murders took place.
There is a specific dymanic of movements that happens for those
few hours. People walk in and out of those buildings, some looking for
specific places, some recalling stories they remember or had heard from
someone else, and some drifting in silence. One cannot but feel the pain
and anguish watching the faces of those who lost their families there and
the ones that went through an unbelievable living hell and survived. The
same ceremony was taking place that I had seen last time I was there:
white balloons, with the names of the victims hanging on tags from the
string, were filling up the ceilings of the White House. This time there
was an official ceremony, which was interrupted last time because of the
rain. The speakers stood in front of the administration building and spoke
about the gathering, told stories about the victims that died there and
about the necessity of breaking the silence that was caught in the invisible
boundaries of this site. For a moment I felt uncomfortable, hearing
descriptions of torture and death through a microphone/megaphone
was something uncommon and surreal.
There were a couple of speakers from different organisations and one
told the story of an old man who was caught by the army in Više-
grad during the Second World War and was taken to the Mehmed Paša
Sokolović Bridge, where he was stabbed and thrown in the river. The
man survived and continued to live in Višegrad where he regularly saw the
perpetrator that tried to kill him. The story continues into the 1990s wars,
when the old man was caught again by the same perpetrator but this time
his throat is slit before he was thrown into the river to his death. The story
was meant to warn people about keeping quiet and not standing up to
the aggressor. I was slightly surprised as the mood of the ceremony took a
more political direction compared to the subtle, quiet balloon ceremony
I had witnessed before. I stood next to an elderly woman who started
crying loudly when hearing these stories and was soon shushed by some
men in front of us. It was different experience, but not in a way that I
would personally think speaks of a reconciliation but rather of a desperate
need for the breaking of invisible walls of silence that are suffocating the
voices that wish to be heard.
If we observe these moments that take place in this region as remains
of a history and culture, a memory of a time past, what will the remains
of our present be like in the future? What will memorialise this struggle
for history and memory? These commemorative acts, which are mainly
recorded via oral narratives, but also appear in the work of artists, are
completely excluded from the narrative provided by Republika Srpska.
In societies, where narrative plays a key role in the distribution of infor-
mation and knowledge, the nation state described by James V. Wertsch
and Doc M. Billingsley (2011), holds the ability to shape or manipulate
the collective identity of the society. In spaces such as Republika Srpska,
the decision over what history should be acknowledged in the textbooks
used in educational institutions, creates the potential for manipulation
of the masses, in an attempt to create a unified society in the present.
Whether or not we are discussing the collective thought implemented by
Republika Srpska or Bosnia and Herzegovina or whether the discussion
returns to the nostalgic remains of a Yugoslavia, it is important to criti-
cally observe that it is no longer through violence that nation states are
108 M. BAJEC
battling for control of their citizens’ subjectivity, but through the uses
of mnemonic tools; removing these tools in order to attempt to irri-
gate ideas that do not stand within the limits of the nationally agreed
curriculum. This complete suppression of dual or multiple historical narra-
tives creates a divide excluding people that refuse a singular narrative,
therefore immediately presenting themselves as a threat to the state.
The Yugoslav Wars manifested in a problem that had not been seen
on such a scale since the Second World War, an unexpected shift in
a society living in relative peace erupting into an into a explosion of
violence that spread between neighbours and within families. The results
are post-conflict spaces with unresolved ideas of commemoration and
reconciliation, a lack of state supported symbolic repair, and a population
in a state of continuous uncertainty. Furthermore, the building of monu-
ments or markers in the public realm is often not possible. The removal or
denial of these mnemonic tools has left the excluded members of society
in need of alternative methods of memorialisation.
The Yugoslav Wars saw civilians take up arms in addition to the
presence of government-led militarised battle. This led a need for both
local and international criminal court intervention. Since the Nuremberg
and Tokyo Trials, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former
Yugoslavia (ICTY) was the first war crime tribunal established by the
UN. While crimes committed during the Wars were prosecuted both
at the International Court Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)
and regional courts, there was a lack of support to deal with the conse-
quences of civilian-on-civilian brutality. These seemed, to many, to have
had a quality of similar to that of the Dayton Agreement (1995), appar-
ently presenting a unified decision that results in progress, but in reality,
creates long-running Cold War-like symptoms. The ICTY, on the other
hand, could appear as if it might have provided some form of consolation,
but to many it is seen as inefficient and far from aiding with reconcilia-
tion between the different nations involved in the war and the victims of
the crimes. Support in the form of a Truth and Reconciliation Commis-
sion (TRC) had been conceptualised as projects in development since the
1970s as a solution to,
challenges in post-authoritarian societies which cannot be coped with by

means of justice alone. This concerns, in particular, the contradiction
between the political imperative to integrate a society in transition—
victims, perpetrators, bystanders, and profiteers—and the ethical, social,
and juridical imperatives to do justice to victims and to indict perpetrators.

(Langenohl 2008, 48)
While a TRC could have potentially aided in the local reparation

processes, following the dissolution of the first attempt, no other clear
efforts have been made (Ilić 2004). However, in 2008 an initiative called
RECOM was formed. In the description about the initiative, it is noted
as ‘a regional commission for the establishment of facts about war crimes
and other serious violations of human rights committed in the former
Yugoslavia from January 1, 1991 until December 31, 2001’ (RECOM
n.d.). RECOM has called on government officials of former Yugoslav
states to recognise its work and the establishment of facts and evidence it
has collected. According to its website, and as of 2017, 580,000 citizens
of former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) have signed the
petition calling on their governments for recognition of RECOM and its
work.
The accountability gap in the post-conflict process has created a situa-
tion where there is a division amongst the people and their historicisation
of the events that took place during the war. The region surrounding
the city of Prijedor, as previously mentioned, is one of the most apparent
examples of such a space with dissonant heritage, mainly because of the
extent of the atrocities that were committed there, but also because it
has seen a consistent flow of artistic initiatives, NGOs, journalists, and
scholars entering and exiting the space. Could this be an attempt of
‘prescriptive forgetting’, as defined by Paul Connerton (2008)? It is a
situation in which there is, ‘the incapacity to forget on the domestic level,
and the risk of forgetting on the international level’ (Coppieters 2018,
580). Of the groups that have been working in the area, I will focus on
two groups, Four Faces of Omarska and Most Mira. Both these groups
centre their activities towards artistic or multi-disciplinary practices, in this
way almost functioning as collectives, and their projects could be observed
as forms of creative output or even artworks.
The Four Faces of Omarska is a collective that observes ‘the strate-
gies of memorial production from the position of those whose experience
and knowledge have been subjugated, rejected, and excluded from public
memory and public history’ (AICGS 2015). The name, Four Faces of
Omarska, derives from reflections on four layers in the history of this
mining complex: its establishment as an iron mine; its use as a concentra-
tion camp in 1992; ArcelorMittal’s acquisition; its use as a film location
110 M. BAJEC
for the Serbian film, Saint George Slays the Dragon (Sveti Georgije ubiva
aždahu).
One of the founders of the Four Faces of Omarska, Milica Tomić,
was also a member of the Monument Group, which was established in
2002 as a discussion group that focused on questioning forms of memo-
rialisation in Former Yugoslavia and whether the state could assume the
responsibility for building monuments that can represent the victims while
also presenting an insight into their own role in the violence. Four Faces
of Omarska also worked on mapping out relations of power. It was
an attempt to further understand how to build a culture of collective
memorialisation and instigate methods of implementing a unified but
multi-vocal history. As one of the members of Four Faces of Omarska,
Srdjan Hercigonja, explained, it is about the methodology of production,
non-production, about members of the group taking on different roles
and weaving a transdisciplinary way of thinking.
The group (Four Faces of Omarska) applies artistic strategies, behaving
almost as the agent through which ideas can be implemented. Coming
into the space as outsiders from the victorious nation, Serbia, that is glori-
fied in Republika Srpska, the members of the group initially had certain
privileges. In this way, they were able to perform a role that others could
not, taking on the idea of soft-power and instead using it for its own
purposes. Through the use of artistic strategies and appropriating state
strategies in order to create the desired political outcome, this group
creates a form of appropriation of soft-power: appropriating the roles
that the State should have set into place, but instead using their position
to present their own ideological positions. The group does not create
or function as a collective whose primary or even secondary role would
include production, they behave more as supporters of local initiatives.
What follows is an excerpt from a recent discussion with Hercigonja (SH).
SH: Basically, in our approach in Omarska, we never actually advo-

cated for a monument, but we asked the question of what
a monument would actually do: would it solve the problem,
would it reconcile the different social or ethnic groups? Of
course not, so there must be something more to be done than
a monument. The monument is needed in our opinion because
there is a need for the victims to have an object…literally an
object, something that is touchable, tangible. As a proof that in
that locality, in this place, they suffered and that something bad
happened. This was the case with the White House, in which
people are literally touching the walls, grabbing, and in need of
a physical object to prove that something happened there. There
is a need from everyone who is involved for something like that.
For me, it is very interesting that we were the first Serbs
that came to the commemoration in Omarska in 2010. But it
is also interesting that as an artistic collective we never produced
anything and we did not aim to produce any kind of art. It was
our very presence that was productive in a way as it opened a
political space for locals to get involved and for other people
from Serbia to come, because no one had come before us. It
was an ice-breaker. It wasn’t easy. The most difficult part was
that we had to adopt an identity that was forced upon us and
we accepted it despite enormous difficulties because we realised
that was needed in order to gain a greater social acceptance or
greater social inclusion, so that everyone could work together
not just as a polarised organisation.
MB: Do you produce, in a sense—just not in the form of objects?

SH: Yes, we have these so-called working groups where we discuss
media, memory, trauma, memorials, human rights, different
artistic practices in relation to post-conflict, post-war, post-
Yugoslav spaces and so on, and we do consider it as a form
of performance, one which is open for everybody to participate
in, so it is not only us, we do not moderate but we just give a
space for the audience and public to participate.
MB: Would you say that your presence in the space, once a year, is a
form of performance?
SH: Yes, the ritual of coming. This year it will be the 8th year and
that in itself is a form of production and also of performance.
MB: People coming to the space, of many different generations,
associate memorialisation and commemoration with a tangible
object and with the tradition of building monuments. But for
one moment in a year there is a physicality, a physical mass of
112 M. BAJEC
people in that one space, that create a physical object, formed

of people?
SH: Yes, for three hours the memorial exists, always at the same time
from 10.00 to 13.00.
MB: So, the memorial exists once a year for 3 hours?
SH: I was thinking about it in terms of a social sculpture but also in
terms of what a memorial typically looks like. Every year panels
are put in the same place, people move from one building to
another, speeches take place. For me, it is interesting to think
about what kind of monument it becomes. I imagine that the
place becomes a completely politically independent space, so
these three hours it is not part of Republika Srpska, it is not
part of the municipality or the city of Prijedor. It’s a form of
ex-territoriality?
But our position there is always tricky since we come and go.
In Bosnia, the situation is fragile but I don’t mean that things
shouldn’t be done because it can raise tensions or instability.
No, that is a production of fear created by the government.
Something really does have to happen but as with artistic prac-
tices and scientific research that there is a sense of responsibility,
social responsibility towards the people you are working with
who are also your partners in your work.
We behave as agents.
MB: So, it is like a fluid space?

SH: Yes. It is not like we have a firm definition, there is no right or
wrong.
We are never organisers of any events however we participate
by attending and we always support petitions.
There is no past or present in that sense when exploring
Omarska that’s why we use the term ‘four faces’, the idea is also
to examine how these periods overlap between each other like
socialism, war and concentration camps and the capitalism. Also
questioning whether it was possible to transform Bosnia from
socialism to capitalism without a war…without these concen-
tration camps? Would privatisation have been possible without
a war, having in mind we all had social property?
Looking at Most Mira, we can observe a different approach. It was

created, as the founder Kemal Pervanić explained, as a mode of interacting
with methods of reconciliation. ‘We are not there yet, even though we
started our first reconciliation project three years ago’, he explained. The
project started in this absence of official efforts of symbolic repair. People
were not given an opportunity to communicate openly about the events
that occurred during the wars and there was, and still is, a lack of an
official acceptance of the existence of the camps. The work that Most Mira
conducts deals with reconciliation in a way of presenting opportunities for
the community to work together. As talking about the events of the war
was too uncomfortable, bringing together the community, especially the
younger generations, through activities became a method of generating
interaction. ‘We use arts and culture as our tools for reconciliation’, Kemal
explained, and when I asked him to define ‘reconciliation’ he continued,
‘Reconciliation is something you don’t try to define, it can change from
one day to the next, it’s about bringing people together, you try one thing
and you see what doesn’t work and see why and then try something else’.
Pervanić related how crushing the experience of trying to work in the
area is, as change is something that does not happen overnight, and there
are no immediate results.
You have to accept that ten years later there are still no results, and people
often get crushed by their expectations. You want something good to
happen but you cannot afford to be disappointed, you have to keep trying.
When there is a crisis, you have to double your efforts. And, that is my
approach: it is observational, you follow what is happening and then you
decide what the appropriate course of action is. You cannot plan too much
because of the constant instability and people’s uncertainties – the lack of
trust is due to the many failed initiatives by foreign and local NGOs. But,
I believe that small victories will accumulate into something big.
When I asked about Truth Commissions and whether that would have
been something suitable in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kemal
replied that, it would mean that the state would have to support it, and
even televise it, and while that would be great, it was not something
that was possible. Instead, the discussions happen behind closed doors,
and as Kemal stressed, the longer that it takes to address the problem in
public, the more likely it is that the next generations will become new
114 M. BAJEC
victims. This lack of a public debate or discourse leads people to patch-

work history with personal stories, which tend to perpetuate myths and
create new ones, therefore widening the gap and moving further away
from a collective history and memorialisation.
Most Mira are currently preparing to build a Youth Peace Centre,
in one of the local villages, that will offer spaces for people to work
together (Most Mira, n.d). Through the process of preparing and running
Most Mira, Kemal has already begun to create bridges between the two
communities, involving young professionals from the two different ethnic
groups to work together. It is with the act of introducing them to
each other as colleagues that have common interests, that the potential
of discussion of the political past becomes a possibility. This adapta-
tion of strategies to construe ideologies has become the only method
of functioning in the area. In doing so, it tests the boundaries of local
governments by using the support systems of the ‘foreign’ hero, in order
to implement certain ideas that the local suppressed community would
not be allowed to put forward themselves.
Could these methods be proposed as counter-monuments, as non-
monumental moments that are not structures that stand as aestheticised
objects, but rather present themselves in an ever-changing form that
adapts? Perhaps through these forms, almost as a chameleon or shape-
shifter, it avoids destruction; almost becoming the absolute appropriation
of soft-power. Or, as Hercigonja explained, ‘There is production of alter-
native knowledge which art gives you and provides opportunities for
many things within a marginalised space’.
In this way, Omarska inevitably becomes a monument in itself,
whether or not it is recognised officially. ArcelorMittal has throughout
remained unscathed by the less than flattering press it receives occasion-
ally. Very little coverage exists of the yearly event at the mine. However,
in 2012, the multi-billion-pound company made a large investment
in financing the Olympic Orbit, designed by artist Anish Kapoor as
Britain’s tallest permanent public art sculpture to remain after the 2012
London Olympics. The structure was selected as the winning design
for a commission for an Olympic Tower. The Orbit was to stand as
a proud emblem of the London Olympic Games. The ArcelorMittal
Orbit is named after its main sponsor, the world’s largest steel company
(ArcelorMittal, n.d.). The project cost £22.7 million with £19.6 million
coming from the company itself (Schuppli 2012). In a statement from
June 29, 2011, ArcelorMittal explains that the 2200 tons of steel used in
the structure of the Orbit come from all parts of the world, in order to
reflect on the notion of Olympic spirit (Schuppli 2012).
On 14th April 2012, Mladen Jelača, Director of ArcelorMittal Prijedor
confirmed to Eyal Weizman (Forensic Architecture) and Milica Tomić
(Monument Group; Four Faces of Omarska), that the iron ore mined
at the Omarska mine has been used in the fabrication of the Arcelor-
Mittal Orbit. ArcelorMittal later denied all claims of this. On 2nd July,
2012, the Forensic Architecture Research Center along with the group
Four Faces of Omarska, some survivors of Omarska, and Ed Vulliamy,
hosted a press conference where they (re)named the ArcelorMittal Orbit
as the Omarska Memorial in Exile (Wright 2012). Since its construction,
the ArcelorMittal Orbit has been heavily criticised by the Labour Party
because of undeniable financial losses (Café 2017; Crerar 2015). Despite
the fact that the tower was financed in the majority by ArcelorMittal, £3.1
million pounds of tax-payer money went towards the costs of building the
attraction that cannot seem to charm neither Londoners nor tourists into
paying the admission fee. According to an article in The Guardian (Gani
2015), the tower is losing as much as a £10,000 per week. The same
article mentions plans to turn the tower into the world’s longest slide.
On 24 June 2016, the slide designed by Carsten Höller, opened to
the public (Edmonds 2016). In an article by in The Daily Telegraph,
Anish Kapoor is quoted to have warned the then Mayor of London, Boris
Johnson, against turning his sculpture into an amusement park (Furness
2016). However, according to the same article, it was Kapoor’s idea to
invite Höller, in order to in some way preserve the idea of the tower
remaining a public artwork. There is little news of the current state of
ticket sales for the amusement park experience.
The very particular situation of the large investment of the company
and its name branding, has been for the most part forgotten in terms
of the company’s relationship to their ownership of the mine/former
concentration camp in Republika Srpska. For the most part, it remains a
Memorial in Exile, a placeholder, for the memorial that is seemingly never
to be built in Omarska. Neither of the artists involved in the building of,
or intervention in, the Orbit have publicly commented about the history
relating to the sponsorship. In recent years, we have seen artistic resis-
tance to sponsors who have questionable involvement in socio-political
and ecological matters. In this case, this was something that neither
artist chose to speak up about despite Kapoor’s desire to portray himself
as a political artist speaking out about human rights abuse and, most
116 M. BAJEC
recently, the refugee crisis (Brown 2015). The two artistic interventions
do, however, shed some light on the potential for artistic action. The
ArcelorMittal Orbit remains (to some) the Memorial in Exile: the memo-
rial that ArcelorMittal never built, but is appropriated through the action
of claiming and renaming.
References
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of-Omarska.pdf.
ArcelorMittal. (n.d.). Culture. Accessed 12 Sept 2018. Via https://corporate.arc
elormittal.com/about-us/culture.
Brown, M. (2015, September 17). Ai Weiwei and Anish Kapoor Lead London
Walk of Compassion for Refugees. The Guardian. Accessed 12 Sept 2018.
Via https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/sep/17/ai-weiwei-anish-
kapoor-london-walk-refugees.
Café, R. (2017, July 27). Olympic Park Tower ‘Saddled with Debt That Will
Never Be Repaid’. BBC News. Accessed 12 Sept 2018. Via https://www.bbc.
co.uk/news/uk-england-london-40728541.
Connerton, P. (2008). Seven Tyes of Forgetting. Memory Studies, 59. Last
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1/1/59.
Coppieters, B. (2018). Three Types of Forgetting: On Contested States in
Europe. Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, 20, 578–598.
Crerar, P. (2015, October 20). ArcelorMittal Orbit Tower “Losing £10,000
Each Week”. Evening Standard. Accessed 12 Sept 2018. Via https://
www.standard.co.uk/news/london/obit-tower-losing-10000-each-week-a30
94971.html.
Edmonds, L. (2016, June 23). Olympic Park Slide: What It’s Like to
Ride the ArcelorMittal Orbit. Evening Standard. Accessed 12 Sept 2018.
Via https://www.standard.co.uk/goingout/great-days-out/what-its-like-to-
ride-the-olympic-slide-a3278826.html.
Furness, H. (2016, March 26). Anish Kapoor: Boris ‘Foisted’ New
Slide on My Sculpture. The Daily Telegraph. Accessed 12 Sept 2018.
Via http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/26/anish-kapoor-boris-foi
sted-new-slide-on-my-sculpture/.
Gani, A. (2015, October 20). Olympic Park’s Orbit Tower Costing Taxpayer
£10,000 a Week. The Guardian. Accessed 12 Sept 2018. Via https://www.
theguardian.com/sport/2015/oct/20/olympic-parks-orbit-tower-costing-
taxpayer-10000-a-week.
Ilić, D. (2004, April 23). The Yugoslav Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Eurozine. Accessed 13 Sept 2018. Via https://www.eurozine.com/the-yug
oslav-truth-and-reconciliation-commission/.
ITN, Penny Marshall and The Observer, Ed Vulliamy in Omarska and Trnopolje.
Via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6-ZDvwPxk8.
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Nünning (Eds.), The Invention of Cultural Memory. New York: Walter De
Gruyter.
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tmiraproject.org/what-we-do.
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link/about-recom/what-is-recom/.
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Responsibility. Open Democracy. Accessed 12 Sept 2018. Via https://www.
opendemocracy.net/en/memorial-in-exile-in-londons-olympics-orbits-of-res
ponsibility/.
Vulliamy, E. (1999). “Neutrality” and the Absence of Reckoning: A Journalist’s
Account. Journal of International Affairs, 52, 603–620.
Wertsch, J. V., & Billingsley, D. M. (2011). The Role of Narratives in Commem-
oration: Remembering as Mediated Action. In H. Anheier & Y. R. Isar
(Eds.), The Cultures and Globalization Series: Heritage, Memory and Identity.
London: Sage.
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13 Sept 2018. Via https://vimeo.com/47299561.
CHAPTER 7
The Resolution of Doubts: Towards

Recognition of the Systematic Abduction
of Yemenite Children in Israel
Yoav Galai and Omri Ben Yehuda
On 10 May 1994, a month-long stand-off in the Israeli town of Yehud

ended when a police sniper shot and killed an armed man and the police
stormed the barricaded compound. This was not the first time that Israeli
security forces faced an armed group in a stand-off. However, this was the
first time that the group was Jewish. However, the besieged compound
was less of a garrison than it was a site of protest. It was the private home
of Rabbi Uzi Meshulam, where he and several dozens of his followers
barricaded themselves and refused to come out. The gates were adorned
with posters and artful displays made for onlookers and for the media,
which reported on the happenings daily. Provisions were brought inside
Y. Galai
Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, England, UK
e-mail: Yoav.Galai@rhul.ac.uk
O. Ben Yehuda (B)
EUME, Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin, Germany

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54887-2_7
120 Y. GALAI AND O. BEN YEHUDA
by sympathetic members of the public and the fabric of life around the
Rabbi’s home gave no sign of the violence to come.
This was more a media event than it was a hostage situation that
was meant to advance the call for an independent State Commission
of Inquiry to investigate a matter of grave importance to the Yemenite
Jewish community, of which Meshulam was a prominent leader. It
concerned what was euphemistically called ‘The Yemenite Children affair’:
a long-standing claim from members of the Yemeni community that a
campaign regarding the abduction of the children of Yemenite immigrants
was orchestrated by the state in its early years. This claim was often raised
by the families and dismissed by the state, and at the time it was under
investigation by a second committee of inquiry, which like the previous
one, seemed to endlessly drag its procedures.
The term ‘affair’ lends a neutral value to this traumatic episode, which
concerns the systematic abduction of infants and children. In the early
years of the state, a time of mass immigration, children of mostly Yemenite
immigrants were taken from the temporary camps in which they were
housed or the hospitals to which they were brought to receive treat-
ment. Parents were often told that their children must be left to receive
care and soon after, they were told that the children had died. No
bodies were shown to the parents and burials were said to have already
taken place, in defiance of Jewish tradition, of which Yemenite Jews were
ardent followers. The frequency of such cases is well-documented in the
testimonies of parents and siblings, while some documented botched
attempts, in which the children who were declared dead were found by
their parents after they had been given for adoption, clash with the vehe-
ment denials of the crime by the state. After the incident in Yehud, a third
commission of inquiry into the abduction of children was set up, which
similarly found no wrongdoing by the state and embargoed its evidence.
Meshulam was incarcerated for five years and later retired from public life.
However, Meshulam’s death in 2013 reignited public interest in the
abductions and advocacy pertaining to the traumatic episode. As we will
later show, this time, families and activists achieved recognition from
Israeli officials of the validity of the claims of the victims’ families. The
government has even entered negotiations with family representatives
about taking official responsibility and providing redress. The figure of
Meshulam therefore encapsulates a transition in the place of the abduc-
tion trauma in Israel. As we will show, he was ridiculed, vilified, and jailed
as a terrorist, but his actions inspired victims to come forward. He was
7 THE RESOLUTION OF DOUBTS: TOWARDS RECOGNITION … 121
released from prison under terms that prohibited his public activism, but
his death sparked a new round of activism. Most recently, the date of his
death was marked in the Israeli parliament as an official Memorial Day
dedicated to the abductions he fought to bring to light, and importantly,
under the very terms that he introduced.
In what follows, we intend to unravel how that which was held
‘marginal’, ‘subversive’, ‘eccentric’, and in all forms ‘outcast’, has become
affirmative, even national, and has reached the point of consensus among
Israelis. But, more important than the memory of Meshulam, is the reha-
bilitation of the voices of the victims that he represented. The ‘Yemenite
Children Affair’ is a story of the families and communities that found
acknowledgement, only in the mid-2010s, as part of a global move-
ment that works to assist subalterns’ ability to speak (using here Gayatri
Charkravorty Spivak’s [1998] classic term) and it was their testimonies
that brought about change.
Both state authorities and historians in Israel regularly discount witness
testimonies and prefer to rely on documents as the grounds for histor-
ical claims and knowledge. However, victims, and especially those of
former colonial regimes, challenge in their stories the teleological histor-
ical and social narrative frameworks that make up official historiography
and sociography (Ram 1995). Conversely, the interaction between the
testimonies and the official version jeopardises the former’s subversive
potential if the claims are accepted only after they are reshaped so
that they comply with terms of the prevalent and teleological narrative
templates that make up the national story (Galai 2017).
Recognising that scant material on the subject is available in English,
this chapter attempts to present to the reader the history and the
recent developments of this traumatic episode and the ways in which its
inclusion in the national canon was negotiated, with a particular focus
on the most recent development—the special committee that operated
between February 2017 and December 2018. We begin by returning to
Meshulam’s advocacy to argue that the dismissive attitude towards the
community leader also enables the dismissal of the accusations of the fami-
lies, before aligning it with interethnic relations in Israel in general. We
then proceed to tell the history of desultory attempts to investigate the
abductions until the most recent episode began with a full admission from
the highest echelons of the Israeli state, only to quickly dissipate after a
failed negotiation with the government. We adopt the reflections of MK
Jamal Zahalka who addressed the committee early on, that the abduc-
tions can be integrated into the collective Israeli experience in one of two
ways (Zahalka in SC 8/29). First, as an archaeological truth, explicating
the bureaucratic conditions that made it possible for individual cases to
occur. Second, as a historical truth, in which the sociocultural condi-
tions that made it possible for such harm to be done to a marginalised
group are recognised, contextualised, and redressed. It is our contention
that the state pursued the former, while the families and the advocacy
organisations pursued the latter, leading to the breakdown of conciliation.
7.1 Uzi Meshulam

and the Yemenite Children Affair
The Meshulam showdown dominated the headlines in 1994, and the
coverage was dismissive and even hostile. The idea that a large Jewish
group would pursue claims about state-crimes and their subsequent cover-
up to the degree that they would challenge the state with threats of
violence did not carry itself favourably in a public discourse that was
generally inhospitable to the voices of Jews of Mizrahi (Arab) descent.
Madmoni-Gerber (2009, 166–167) investigated the representation of the
abductions in Israeli discourses through the years and demonstrated how
Meshulam and his followers were labelled as ‘a cult of delusional fanat-
ics’, and compared to David Koresh’s Waco cult, which committed mass
suicide in 1993. Zvi Ben-Dor Benite (2013) explained that Meshulam
was labelled by the media as ‘a clown’, to undermine the validity of
his claims. The word most often used to describe Meshulam in partic-
ular, and Yemenite claims in general, as we shall demonstrate below, was
‘delusional’.
Uzi Meshulam was a working-class Mizrahi leader whose appearance
and style differed from the secularised customs of political communication
in Israel: his style of speaking was direct and unpolished, his language
was peppered with religious symbolism and he was prone to polemics,
and these characteristics did not mesh well with the rhetorical style of
the elites who normally addressed the Israeli public sphere. Moreover,
Meshulam’s authority stemmed from his role as the spiritual leader of a
congregation, which also contradicted political conventions. Simply put,
there was no other dissident like him in Jewish Israeli society and as the
stand-off reached a boiling point, his extreme statements (for example,
his comparing the Israeli state to Nazis) helped to cement his framing as
a dangerous and delusional radical.
Following the Yehud incident, Meshulam and eleven of his followers
were put in prison (they refused to contest the state in the trial, not recog-
nising its authority), but their original demand for an institutional public
inquiry was granted when a state commission of inquiry was convened
by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. The Yehud affair, as a media
event, alerted relatives of abducted children to the scope of the tragedy
and many felt encouraged to approach the commission, which convened
for six years, before eventually dismissing all accusations of a systematic
abduction of children. Instead, it reassured the families that their relatives
had died, rather than been given away for adoption, and it even provided
families with retroactive death certificates. These clear-cut conclusions
contrasted with the evidence that was gathered, which was sealed for a
period of 70 years. The long embargo prompted calls of a cover-up and
instigated another round of activism that culminated in the publication of
the documents and the establishment of a new committee in 2017, which
we will focus on in the last part of this chapter.1
Academic scholarship on Meshulam dismissed the person along with
the claims of the Yemenite community. In the following examples, written
recently by Israeli scholars, the author’s language draws attention to
the ominous nature of the group and the spuriousness of its claims,
demonstrating how the very different rhetorical conventions of Israeli
mass media and of international peer-reviewed academe can promote
the same discourse. In particular, they accuse Meshulam, and the other
claim-makers in general, of promoting delusional and harmful theories.
Arie Perliger and Ami Pedahzur (2009) employ the ‘delusion’ frame to
argue that the Meshulam incident provides a case study in Israeli Jewish
terrorism. They explain that Meshulam, whose group they refer to as a
‘cult’ (ibid., 138), existed on the ‘fringes of the settler counterculture’.
In this way, they link the group to territorial claims to Palestinian lands,
a spurious charge. Meshulam’s actual claims regarding the abduction of
children are framed by Perliger and Pedahzur as a marginal concern about
‘one of the most perplexing episodes in the history of Israel’ (ibid., 138).
1 As we will demonstrate below, this is no longer a contentious claim. Most of the

evidence was both given in public and released in 2016 and government ministers have
referred to the Cohen-Kedmi Committee as a ‘cover up committee’.
The note about the ‘perplexing episode’ is worth exploring, as it is actu-

ally the official theory that explains away the accusations of abduction.
The discursive act of aligning the abductions with confusion and clearing
the act of maleficent intent is not an ‘agnostic’ take. The official line in the
face of any evidence of wrongdoing in this context is often that the harm
is the inadvertent result of a time of confusion and the ‘Chaos of resettle-
ment’ (Madmoni-Gerber 2009, 71). According to this ‘chaos theory’, it
is impossible to blame systemic features of the political structures on the
overstretched nascent state: it was merely good-will-gone-wrong.
More recently, Motti Inbari (2017) explored the belief system of
Meshulam’s congregation of ‘Mishkan Ohalim’ by analysing his taped
sermons. He also drew on the ‘delusion’ frame, writing that the sermons
offer an apocalyptic triumph (2017, 30), an end of days in which the
‘Oppressed Oriental-Jewish communities—the Mizrahim—would achieve
superior status over the Ashkenazim and the secularists’ (ibid.). Inbari’s
text frames Meshulam’s religiously tinged transformative social narrative,
which is not out of step with that of other oppressed groups, as a cause for
concern not only for the media but also for scholars who frame Meshu-
lam’s congregation as a dangerous cult, explicating the accusation of
‘delusion’ and placing it not far from Perliger and Pedahzur’s framing of
Meshulam as a terrorist. Unsurprisingly, any claims regarding systematic
abductions are outright dismissed and the testimonies of families are not
afforded any consideration. Moreover, Meshulam is blamed for inventing
this untruth, which works to the detriment of the Israeli state, ‘adding
another layer to framing Israel as a criminal state’ (ibid., 39).
Inbari’s analysis is reflected by Nadav Molchadsky (2018, 72), who
took an ‘agnostic’ stance on the matter of the abductions. Molchadsky
attempted to lend legitimacy to the ‘chaos theory’ and to use it to also
explain the unconvincing nature of the official narratives of the state and
the insistence of the families to continue to pursue investigations, as if
the source of the claims of families whose children were abducted was
discrepancies in documentation. Molchadsky follows Inbari to castigate
Meshulam’s framing of the abductions, accusing Meshulam of stirring
‘ethnic antipathy’ towards the Ashkenazi establishment, in effect framing
the whole affair as a matter of slander.
It is beyond the scope of this chapter to explore the role of Israeli
academia in dismissing the experiences of the families of the abducted
children. Self-proclaimed academic experts regularly expound on the
impossibility of the abduction in the media and in professional networks,
less so in peer-reviewed publications. Perhaps they do so to fight ‘framing

Israel as a criminal state’ (Inbari 2017, 39), perhaps to fight ‘ethnic
antipathy’ (Molchadsky 2018, 72), but these three examples demonstrate
how narrative strategies of denial can be subtly deployed in a variety of
discursive environments. Next, we will explore how the logic that leads
to the abductions is anything but ‘delusional’, before expounding on
the theoretical and historical conditions that lead to the rejection of the
narrative of abductions.
7.2 The Abductions: How

Were They Even Possible?
A crime such as the systematic abduction of children would do great harm
to the internal Zionist narrative about the absorption of mass immigration
as an ‘ingathering of the exiles’.2 The very reason for a national home for
the Jewish people, to cite the Balfour Declaration (1917), was to make a
safe haven for Jews from persecution. However, while the abductions are
out of step with Zionist narratives, they are in line with Zionist practice
towards Mizrahim, which demanded that individuals expunge their Jewish
identity of its (Arab) exilic culture (Raz Krakotzkin 2005). The orien-
talist contrast between the ‘two cultures’ reflects the twofold traumas of
Mizrahim and Palestinians. These traumas were almost complementary in
the colonial settings of the Israeli establishment in the first decade of the
state. Palestinians who were made refugees by the state were labelled as
dangerous ‘infiltrators’, while Jews of Muslim countries were recruited to
enter the state with the demand that they relinquish their Arabness. More-
over, Mizrahim were often sent to live in peripheral settlements taken
from the same Palestinian ‘infiltrators’ and tasked with physically guarding
the borders of the new state (Ben Yehuda 2019, 264; Chetrit 2009, 201).
The allocation of families to provincial towns according to centralised
decisions and often against their will and in spite of their protestations
(Sharon 2017) also played a role in priming the conditions for acts of
abduction.
It is in this setting that we catch a glimpse of the two traumas together,
in what is perhaps the ultimate narration of the Nakba and its aftermath,
2 About one million Jewish immigrants immigrated to the state in its first decade, about
half of whom were Mizrahim, and many immigrated under duress, including 43,000
immigrants from Yemen who arrived between 1948 and 1949 (Chetrit 2009, 82–83).
the novel Gate of the Sun (1998) by Lebanese author, Elias Khoury.
Khoury based many of his accounts on interviews he took in refugee
camps in southern Lebanon. In one of these texts, the two communi-
ties meet and stories about abducted Yemenite children were recounted
without the reservation that is exhibited when these stories are told in
Israel. Yemenite victims—mourning parents—were met by Palestinian
victims who attempted to return to their villages:
Naheeleh told Yunis about the weeping that people heard coming from the
moshav the Yemenis had built over El Bruwweh and spoke of the myste-
rious rumours of children dying and disappearing. She said the Yemeni
Jewesses would go out into the fields and lament like Arab women and
that she’d started to fear for her children, for “if the children of the Jews
are disappearing, what will happen to ours?” (ibid., 461)
The sense of disbelief, encapsulated in the framing of the abductions as

‘mysterious rumours’ looms over the account. In the coming section,
we will address the logic behind these abductions by interrogating ideo-
logical, institutional, comparative, and historical contexts to answer the
question ‘how is it possible?’.
Ideologically, the shedding of an Arab identity consummate with that
of Israel’s enemies was explained through a ‘developmental’ narrative, by
which Mizrahim should shed their ‘primitive’ oriental culture in favour
of western ‘modernity’ (Ram 1995). The practice of coercive removal
of children aligns with the more general trend of the under-privileging
of Mizrahi immigrants and their placement within an ethnic division of
labour, as well as an ethnic division of space (Swirski 1981). The former
mayor of the Yemenite majority city of Rosh Ha-Ayin, whose sister was
abducted, explained that the ethnic division was extended from produc-
tion to reproduction,3 ‘The Yemenite mothers were perceived by the State
as “baby-machines”, commodity suppliers for the state that one less child
would not matter to. The thinking of the time was that these Yemenites
have so many children’ (Yosef, in Weiss 2001a, 99). In the colonial racist
mind, the abduction was a benevolent act, ameliorating these children’s
fate by instilling in them the western values of education, psychology and
3 Yosef further hints that the harm done to the Yemenites was legitimised with the
needs of ‘childless Holocaust survivors’, a telling enjoinder that falls beyond the scope of
this chapter.
hygiene. As we will demonstrate below, the ideological framework of the

Zionist enterprise includes not only an emancipatory element (related to
flourishing), but also a redemptive one (related to transformation), which
acted as a powerful filter that managed to silence even the protestations
of victims and witnesses, whose plights were dismissed in the clamour of
a greater collective purpose that might have required individual sacrifice.
Institutionally, the site of the majority of the abductions of chil-
dren was the temporary ‘immigrant camps’ in which they were placed.
These were closed off ‘total institutions’ (Amir 2014, 9) that were often
governed by coercion, and in which babies were kept separately from
their parents in infant homes. This practice began in temporary camps
in Aden, from which the immigrants departed, which were effectively
run by representatives of the Yishuv and were the scene of abuse and
neglect (Madmoni-Gerber 2009, 35). It was also in Aden that religious
and cultural artefacts, the precious cultural heritage of one of the world’s
oldest Jewish communities, was looted and often sold (ibid., 36; Amir
2015, 72).4
The ‘immigrant camps’ in Israel were also the site of the religious
studies crisis in 1950, which reflects some of the attitudes around the
abductions (Amir 2015, 74). Yemenite children in these camps were not
provided with religious education as was the wish of the community. This
conflict between secular Zionist ideology and the Yemenite’s traditional
Jewish custom, which culminated in the forcible cutting off children’s
Payos (sidelocks), revealed the violent potential of the clash. This was a
case in which, according to Ruth Amir, ‘children were isolated from the
influence of their ethnic group so that they could be re-socialised into the
dominant culture’ (ibid., 76).
Amir’s theoretical explication allows a comparative explanation, by
aligning the Israeli practice with acts of child abduction elsewhere. The
Australian ‘stolen generation’ refers to children of mixed indigenous and
white descent who were forcefully removed from their indigenous fami-
lies and taken to government institutions and missionaries up until the
4 Later, in the Israeli camps, Mizrahi immigrants were coerced to participate in a

dangerous, and now redundant, large-scale hygienic project. Between 1948 and 1959,
tens of thousands (and possibly hundreds of thousands) of children of Mizrahi descent
were forcefully treated for ringworm, a minor illness, with powerful x-ray projections on
their heads that caused them severe physical and mental ailments (Amir 2015, 108–109;
Davidovich and Margalit 2008).
1970s (cf. Bringing Them Home, 1997). In Canada, the residential school
system for Aboriginal children sought to ‘cause Aboriginal peoples to
cease to exist as distinct legal, social, cultural, religious, and racial enti-
ties in Canada’ (TRC 2015) and operated until the 1990s. In both cases,
children were removed from their families and communities in order for
them to shed distinctive social traits that the state deemed undesirable.
Importantly, these are crimes that have been explicitly recognised as cases
of cultural genocide.
Historically, Yemenite immigrants in particular were the subject of
harsh treatment by Ashkenazi-dominated Yishuv even before their mass
immigration.5 Yemenite Jews were actively sought by the early Jewish
settlers in the early twentieth century who deemed them fit to replace
Arab labour. They were tasked with low-paying manual labour and disal-
lowed from integrating into the Jewish settlements (Amir 2015, 68–69).
As a result of these conditions Yemenite immigrants suffered an extremely
high mortality rate (Shafir 1996, 106).6
While the abduction of children is out of step with the most basic
tenets of political Zionism, it aligns with the practice of the nascent state.
We answered the question ‘how is it possible?’ by referring to the contex-
tual, historical, ideological, and institutional frameworks that align with
the practice of abduction. Interestingly, Meshulam referred to this crime
as only half the story. Alongside the crime of the abductions, he said,
there was also the ‘crime of silencing’ (SC 27/11). To understand the
second crime, we must ask the question ‘how is it not possible?’, what are
the conditions that prevented victims from being believed? After all, even
if the ideational frameworks listed above were deemed unconvincing, the
testimonies of parents, siblings, and other witnesses are loud and clear.
5 The Yishuv is the pre-state settlement in Palestine that was consolidated into the state
of Israel after the declaration of independence in May 1948.
6 For a reading of David Shimonovich’s poems that delineate the Ashkenazi–Yemenite
relations of the second ‘Aliya and sought to conceal the ethnic conflict between the two
communities’, see Hever (2015). It is important to note here that the Ashlenazi–Yemenite
relations of the second Aliya were also dubbed an ‘affair’ in the Israeli discourse—this time
as the ‘Kinnereth Yemenite Affair’, which refers to those workers who were subjugated
and abused by their Jewish landlords in communities near the see of Galilee (Kinnereth).
A more grievous account, known as the ‘Makub Affair’, was composed by the singer Izhar
Cohen (who was also the first Israeli to win the Eurovision Song Contest) to words by
Dan Almagor in the song Zmorot Yeveshot (Dry Twigs ). The song tells of three Yemenite
women workers who were abused by their employer, Yonatan Makub, after they stole
some dry twigs to heat their homes.
7.3 The Crime of the Silencing:

How Is It Not Possible?
7.3.1 In the Cultural Sphere
Alasdair MacIntyre argued that ‘there is no way to give us an under-
standing of any society, including our own, except through the stock of
stories which constitute its initial dramatic resources’ (2001, 254). In this
section, we will briefly explore the Israeli ‘stock of stories’ and consider
ways in which Israeli society has approached the issue of abductions as well
as related tropes and how the cultural atmosphere, before the most recent
round of activism, was inhospitable to storytelling involving the abduc-
tions. The engagement with this traumatic history has been hesitant,
indirect, and abortive.
The abduction of children from mothers of underprivileged colonial
background into privileged Western hands is a well-known practice that
is widely reflected in popular culture.7 Given the particular history and
prevalence of the practice in Israel, it is perhaps not surprising that
Israeli film and literature was even more reluctant to deal with this trau-
matic trope than with the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948 (the Nakba)
and the continuous oppression of the Palestinian people by means of
state violence. Interestingly, when prominent (rather than popular) Israeli
authors dealt with the abductions, they did not approach the most glaring
case of Yemenite children. In his acclaimed Hebrew novel, Arabesque
(1986), Palestinian-Israeli author Anton Shamas wrote about abduc-
tion among Palestinians on socio-economical grounds (sending the baby
of a poor woman to be raised by wealthy immigrants in the United
States). Shamas’ work would soon be followed by other cultural works
that touched on the issue, including Mizrahi author, Ronit Matalon’s
semi-autobiography novel, The Sound of Our Steps (2008), in which she
reflected on the attempt of a wealthy Ashkenazi to adopt the daughter
(identified with the author herself) of his Mizrahi cleaning lady (Ben
Yehuda 2016).
In the realm of film, Tzedek Muhlat (Primal Justice, Israel, 1997) was
based on the abducted children, which, as the publicity material explains
7 Recently, in the film Philomena (2013), the background for such an abduction is
social and not necessarily ethnic; in the Lebanese film Capernaum (2018) the neglect
of children of refugees exposes them to trade. In one way or another, the danger of
separation seems always to loom over impoverished families.
is ‘one of the best kept secrets of Israeli society’. The crime thriller starred
Ofra Haza, arguably the most prominent singer of Yemenite decent in
Israel. However, despite its considerable efforts to generate mass appeal
through star power (the film also features popular leading man Arnon
Zadok), and perhaps because of its direct approach to the abductions, the
film was not even distributed in Israel.8 Nevertheless, narratives related to
the trauma of the abductions have received some play in popular music,
a sphere where Yemenite Jews and Israeli Jews of Yemenite descent are
well represented. Before reaching the height of his success, Israel’s most
popular singer, Eyal Golan, performed a song written by Netanel Noam
that predates the Meshulam incident. It tells the story of an abducted girl
with the Arab name ‘Sa’ida’ and the devastation her abduction wreaked
on her family.9 Following the memory event of the Meshulam stand-off,
more songs were released. Nisim Garame, a singer whose elder sister
was also abducted, released the song The Children of Yemen (written by
Hamotal Ben Zeev and Yoni Ro’eh) in 1998, while another prominent
singer of Yemenite descent, Ahuva Ozeri, recorded a song with a similar
name that same year.
Perhaps the most telling instance of how casually references to the
abductions are dismissed is the song, Rachel, written by iconic Israeli folk
singer Meir Ariel shortly before his passing. It is an allegorical tale that
links the biblical story of Rachel who ‘weeps for her children, refusing
to be comforted - for her children are no more’ (Jeremiah, 31) to the
plight of Yemenite mothers, to whom the song was dedicated. The line
that relates the allegory to the present plays on the Jeremiah: ‘do not
be consoled while your sons and daughters are abducted, stolen, taken’.
However, when the song was released in 2005 by singer, Ronit Shahar,
this line was omitted.10
The cultural framework in which Yemenite claims were promoted left
little chance for their stories to echo with wider audiences, as they did
not display fidelity with known experience (Fisher 1987, 47). Moreover,
8 Conversely, the recent round of activism was accompanied by a substantial flow of

artistic reflections. A partial includes the play, Abducted, written by Yoav Levi, the book
Galbi by Iris Eliya-Cohen, both debuting in 2016.
9 The song was first performed in 1987 by the singer Sasi Ya’ish, whose older sister was
abducted.
10 More recently, a version of the song true to the original lyrics and intent was
produced by singer Yuval Sela.
this incongruity was compounded by an Ashkenazi domination of the

public sphere and a general scepticism to Yemenite plights in the popular
press, as Shoshana Madmoni-Gerber (2009) deftly demonstrated. The
scarcity of known narratives relating to the abductions demonstrates that
such stories were not part of Jewish Israeli society’s canonical ‘stock’
(MacIntyre 2007) or its ‘paradigmatic truth’ (Lincoln 1989). More-
over, such narratives are rejected from reaching the communal ‘stock of
stories’ in different ways that perhaps stem from the labelling of Yemenite
claimants as ‘delusional’ or ‘insane’ (Madmoni-Gerber 2009, 166). As
we will demonstrate below, the framing of the testimonies of Yemenite
parents as ‘delusional’ was a common tactic in every societal level as are
the challenges of approaching the ‘stock of stories’.
7.4 In Official State Inquiries

Meshulam’s actions, as well as the narrative he promoted, radically chal-
lenged the hegemonic cultural framework of Zionism.11 His intervention
was traumatic for Israeli society in the sense that it was: ‘an encounter
that betrays our faith in previously established personal and social worlds
and calls into question the resolutions of impossible questions that people
have arrived at in order to continue with day-to-day life’ (Edkins 2006,
109).
To be sure, Jewish Israeli society has been practising an ethnic divi-
sion of labour from its early days (Swirski 1981). However, the practice
of immigration absorption, which culminated in the ‘mass immigration’
of the early years of the state was organised around the idea of ‘moderni-
sation’ and an ‘advancement’ of Mizrahim from presumed primitivity to
a ‘Europeanised’ way of life, which was purportedly practised in the new
state (Shohat 1988). This problematic immigration regime was coupled
with a condescending attitude that had severe repercussions on the lives
of Mizrahim. Beyond disempowering social stigmas (see Khazzoom 2003
for a theorisation of the function of stigma), the spatial distribution of
immigrants and the allocation of land and land rights to them in relation
to their ethnic origin has had far-reaching effects to this day (Yiftachel
2006; for a fuller account of Mizrahim in Israel, which does not go into
detail on the Yemenite case, see Smoocha 1993).
11 For the hegemonic structures in Israeli society, Kimmerling (2004) is still the
authoritative source.
The discrimination experienced by Mizrahim, who today make up the

majority of the Jewish population in Israel, is often explained as an unfor-
tunate side-effect of a massive project, or the birth-pangs of a new state. It
is said to have been merely some insensitivity and unfairness from larger-
than-life leaders who were too busy building and fighting and fulfilling
a historic mission to worry about welcoming immigrants who were not
ready to join the ‘western’ nation in its fight for survival. This reality has
been recognised to varying degrees in Israel, though its contemporary
repercussions have generally not been.
Still, the idea that the Jewish state would commit a crime of such
magnitude against Jews who have come to shelter in it from persecu-
tion was a traumatic break in the national story. The accusations of a
crime tantamount to cultural genocide starkly contrast with the biograph-
ical narratives of the state (Steele 2008).12 Such biographical narratives
provide a state with its ontological security, a stable sense of itself, which
Catarina Kinnvall (2004, 746) defines as ‘a security of being, a sense of
confidence and trust that the world is what it appears to be’ to the degree
that ontological security is understood to be more important than phys-
ical security (Steele 2008, 2) and is vigorously defended. The ‘Yemenite
Children Affair’ could be seen as a source of ‘retroactive shame’, in which
‘actors feel anxiety about the ability of their narrative to reflect how they
see themselves’ (Steele 2008, 55).
Similarly, Jenny Edkins (2003, 12) explains that the function of the
polity is predicated on a ‘day to day production and reproduction of the
social and symbolic order’. She adds that in cases of breaks in the story,
the state ‘moves quickly to close down any openings produced by putting
in place as fast as possible a linear narrative of origins’ (Edkins 2006,
107). The Meshulam affair demonstrates how the threat that the narrative
of the abductions presented was so severe that it required extreme action.
Per Meshulam’s demand, the Cohen-Kedmi Commission was
appointed in 1995 and unlike the previous two commissions, it was a state
commission of inquiry. In Edkins’ terms, the commission could poten-
tially address the trauma by ‘encircling’ the traumatic space reopened by
Meshulam’s actions ‘by a recognition and surrounding of the trauma’
(2003, 16). Instead of the ‘linear narratives’ that cover it with denials
12 The term ‘cultural genocide’ is highly contentious. Still, Novic writes about the
forcible transfer of children that ‘So far, these cases have gathered some form of consensus
around labelling the process as “cultural genocide”’ (2016, 228).
and alternative explanation that allow the larger national story to proceed
unhindered. The commission was expected to expose the wrongs and to
recognise the perpetration of the state and the victimhood of the families.
It heard testimonies of family members who detailed the traumatic expe-
riences of child abductions. It also heard from witnesses: nurses, doctors,
and other officials who were involved in the abductions, in the process
compiling an imperfect, but indicting, ‘box of evidence’.
However, the conduct of the commission was controversial (Madmoni-
Gerber 2009, 142–145; Sanjero 2002) as was its conclusion: all of the
claims were eventually dismissed by the Cohen-Kedmi commission in its
final report. The Commission, which convened for six years, concluded
that of the 1053 cases of missing children presented to the committee,
other than 33 children whose whereabouts are unknown, all others had
died rather than had been abducted. Families were provided with retroac-
tive death certificates and the compiled evidence was placed under a
70-year embargo. This was the ‘linear narrative’ (Edkins 2006, 107) that
re-covered the trauma and the ‘box of evidence’ that was locked away
became the centre of the next round of activism.
In summary, the Meshulam event opened-up space for ‘speaking from
within trauma’ (Edkins 2003, 16) and in so doing, it endangered Israel’s
sense of ontological security. The violence of the abductions was ongoing
and embedded in the state’s refusal to encounter its past crimes. However,
the wished-for commission of inquiry produced a ‘linear narrative’ that
explained-away the claims of the families, leaving them to languish in
their doubts. It was not until 2016 that the trauma of the abductions
was reopened, in direct reference to Meshulam’s efforts.
7.5 Back to the Near Past: 2017---Establishing

a New Committee of Inquiry
On 30 July 2016, Minister Tzahi Hanegbi gave the following statement
on Israeli television about the ‘Yemenite Children Affair’:
There was an abduction of many hundreds of children, with malice. Did

the establishment know or not? Was it behind it or not? we may never
know, but what is happening over the past few weeks and months is that
the Israeli public is beginning to understand that this is not a delusion,
this is not paranoia… they robbed them, I don’t know where to, but I
hope that through the materials we could finally understand this tragedy.
(Hanegbi in Meet the Press, 2016)
This astonishing statement amounts to an institutional recognition

of a state crime and a break with the conclusions of three official
commissions of inquiry. It is also directly traceable to the event insti-
gated by Meshulam. In response to his death in 2013, two NGOs,
Amram, and Ahim VeKayamin: The Families Forum, began campaigning
for the opening of the Cohen-Kedmi Commission files. They gained the
support of Rina Matzliah, a journalist and the host of a popular news
programme, who featured reports on the abducted children affair and the
troubling history of its investigations. The campaign was joined by new
MK for the Likud party, Nurit Koren, who headed the ‘Lobby for the
kidnapped Yemenite Children’ in the Knesset and worked from within
the government coalition. Together they pushed for the release of the
papers.
In November 2016, Minister Hanegbi appeared on Matzliah’s
programme ‘Meet the Press’ to announce the release of the embargoed
reports, which were scanned and made public via a searchable website.13
Having consulted the material, the minister was convinced that there was
no question about the veracity of the claims and his comment that ‘this is
not a delusion, this is not paranoia’ attests to the way in which the claims
of the families were previously dismissed in Israeli society. Alongside the
publication of the Cohen-Kedmi files, it was declared that a parliamen-
tary commission of inquiry headed by MK Koren will be established, the
fourth commission of inquiry in the history of ‘the affair’. Blander (2011)
described the institution of the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry as ‘a
body without authority. Lacking the cooperation of the investigated insti-
tutions and due to its limited authority, it cannot conduct a serious and
full investigation’. However, as MK Koren explained, the parliamentary
context of the committee has considerable advantages: ‘As you can see, I
legislate to fix things – I didn’t fight for the committee to be in parlia-
ment for nothing, but so we could make changes’ (SC 7/19) and ‘as an
MK, I know where the problems are and I propose laws accordingly’ (SC
11/36).
13 Hanegbi himself recognised the efforts by Matzliah, the NGOs and MK Koren when
he said: ‘your media struggle and Nurit’s parliamentary struggle and the public struggle of
the NGOs together have created a moment of awakening’ (Hanegbi in Matzliah 2016).
However, despite the promises, the government was reluctant at first

to establish the committee. It was only after Koren issued a harsh open
letter, in which she openly dissented from the tightly disciplined and
shaky coalition government and announced that she will not be voting
on the crucial budget law—a drastic measure from a junior member of
the ruling party, that the committee was established. One month after the
publication of her letter, it was reported that Koren will be heading the
‘Special Committee on the Disappearance of Children from Yemen, East
and Balkan’ (henceforward, ‘the Committee’). The title of the Committee
is a curious composition of localities that strikes a sour chord in ‘correct’
Hebrew.14 Importantly, this was the distinct title given by Meshulam to
the affair, denoting that this was not strictly a Yemenite affair, but that it
was mostly so.15
This was not a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry (PCI), but a
temporary parliamentary committee. The differences in the privileges of
the two institutions are difficult to ascertain since the terms of the latter
are murky and open to interpretation, but in general, the PCI has the
same privileges as the regular committee (Blander 2011). The one notable
difference is the predetermined time frame, which could be seen as an
opt-out clause for the government, although eventually the committee
was extended (SC 14/15). While the powers of the committee seem ill-
equipped to tackle the long-denied crime, it was armed with the files
of the previous commission, the (wavering) support of the government,
access to direct legislative action and considerable public momentum.
Madmoni-Gerber (2009) has extensively researched representations of the
affair in the media and decried the lack of attention to the proceedings
of the Cohen-Kedmi commission and lack of response from both private
and state-owned media outlets to demands for publicity to the dramatic
testimonies (ibid., 144)—newsworthy stuff that was not reported. This
time, the Committee was given plenty of airplay and had made all of its
proceedings swiftly accessible online.
14 What makes the combination curious is that the word ‘Balkan’ represents Ashke-
nazi Jews who were also abducted, albeit in smaller numbers. Much like the Hebrew
word ‘Zarfat ’ denotes France, but originally referred to a town in present-day Lebanon,
‘Balkan’ pushes Europe beyond the horizon, somewhere beyond the Balkan Mountains,
a provincialisation of the dominant group in Israeli society.
15 According to Molchadsky (2018, 73), this framing is hostile towards non-Mizrahi
Israelis.
On 8 February 2017, the commission met for the first time; in total,
it convened 58 times until December 2018, when the government was
disbanded. Over the course of its work it made some achievements in
terms of legislation and of making information accessible. From the stand-
point of the authors, foremost among its achievements was the successful
framing of the previous committees as a ‘cover ups’ and the rehabilita-
tion of Rabbi Uzi Meshulam. These processes took place in the context
of what some call a Mizrahi renaissance in the Israeli sphere, coinciding
with Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing regime that sought to confront
Israeli elites. These elites are normally associated with the Labour party,
Israel’s Ashkenazi lead hegemonic ruling party from its inception until
1977, which installed the ethnic division of labour.
Hence, the critical aspect of the trauma is dislocated in the past,
whereas in the present, acknowledgement becomes a process of assimila-
tion into the national frame, this time with what may well be an emergent
hegemonic project lead by Likud. However, despite the promising start,
eventually the activist groups that initially partnered with Koren accused
her and the committee of performing the same function as the previous
commissions of inquiry and of becoming complicit in what Meshulam
termed: ‘the crime of silencing’.
7.6 The Resolution of Doubts:

The Commission at Work
Whether the reason for the committee was the legacy of Uzi Meshulam,
the Mizrahi renaissance, or some other structural aspect of Israeli society
in the late 2010s, it was clear that something had changed about the
politico-cultural landscape that, not for the first time, enabled the opening
of the trauma of the abductions. The senior religious figure in the
Yemenite community, Rabbi Ratzon Arusi (SC 14/12), could not make it
to the inaugural session, so he delivered his statement in a later session, in
which he drew on religious rhetoric to frame the work of the committee:
There is a Hachem (wise man) from Poland, his name was Rabbi Shaul
Nathanzon… he coined a very interesting term: there is no day of joy as
the day of the resolution of doubts and there is no day of woe like the
day of the existence of doubt. That means, we cannot remain with the
existence of doubts. (Arusi in SC 14/12)
Originally a religious exegesis, Arusi used the saying as an insight into

the daily torment of uncertainty about the fate of absent loved and the
emotional toll of the abductions on their families. The so-called linear
narratives sow doubt, silence personal tragedy and mark it as marginal
or even delusion, taking a great personal harm on the families and rein-
forcing a collective stigma about the Yemenite community. It could be
said that Arusi was arguing for an encirclement of the trauma (Edkins
2003), resolving the grid of uncertainty, and dissolving the mist of
delusion.
The Commission seems to have accepted this prescription. It offered an
inversion of the classic balance of power between claimants from marginal
constituencies and the authorities by drawing on the emotional inten-
sity of the occasion. The testimonies of officials were bookended by
testimonies from family members who witnessed their brothers, sisters,
sons, and daughters taken away. These provided the basic metre of the
proceedings and reminded the audience of the lingering of doubt. The
testimonies told similar stories of deceit and pilferage, of heartbreak and
despair, of cover-up and of condescension, of arrogance and disdain.
Eleven of the 58 sessions were devoted to testimonies, while most of the
other sessions also featured them.
Most of the testimonies were from siblings rather than parents, whose
generation has largely died out and their voices remain unheard. This
makes the process of reclamation complex because the living memory
of life in the diaspora is disappearing and the only point of reference
is present-day Israel. A general narrative is repeated: parents had babies
taken away for minor treatments, either at the camps or in hospitals;
sometimes the children were taken by force, other times parents were
convinced that their children should stay in care for their benefit, only
to be told when they returned to visit or collect them that their children
had died and had been already buried at an unknown location. Their
protestations, in response, were ignored.
The testimonies of relatives are heart-rending and they tell similar
stories:
‘On Saturday evening my father called to see what was happening, they
said “it’s alright, you can come and visit on Sunday.” On Sunday he came,
they told him “he died.” “Where is the body buried?” “we buried it, you
can go.” He was so naïve, my father, he told us all the time “in the land
of Israel they don’t lie to Jews, impossible.” He came home and told our
mother “he is dead.” I was a little girl, mother’s crying and the sorrow
on her all these years don’t let go of me. She would not stop crying…
wherever she went she would just cry and be sad and kept asking my
father “are you sure?”’ (The testimony of Yona Meron, SC 41/18)
In the morning, we came to get Shams back, Shams was not there, she
died. We already buried her. My father was shocked – impossible, my
daughter was healthy, she couldn’t have died. This couldn’t be. I want
to see my daughter now. We buried. I want to bury her myself. I want
you to bring me my daughter. They said: we already buried her. Where
did you bury her? There was no answer. They did not want to answer us.
(Testimony of Rachel Keti’i, SC 6/20)
I’m speaking about my brother, who disappeared in 1950, he was ill, they
took him to a Hadassah hospital in Tel Aviv and told my father ‘go home,
come back tomorrow’, the next day he came…and there isn’t a child.
Where is the child? Dead… ‘We buried him, go home.’ So he went home,
he was naïve, he did not believe such a thing could happen and he went
home. They sat Shiva and everything, time passed, my father passed away,
and when the Yemenite children affair exploded with Rabbi Uzi Meshulam
we got into… we said, maybe ours too? (Testimony of Ruth Cochavi, SC
3/25)
The media followed up on some of the testimonies and findings and

published investigative pieces that corroborated the general narrative,
while focusing on high-profile cases. Meir Korach, a Yemenite activist,
reflected on the change in public attitude and the sense of openness to
the previously ignored stories. He explained it through the idea of the
‘She’at Ratzon’, a religious phrase that signifies the likelihood of prayers
to be answered, now meaning a shift in what some social scientists may
call a ‘structure of opportunity’: ‘we are now in a ‘time of willing’ because
this whole story used to be totally denied. Today, public opinion… under-
stands and values… thirty years ago they said it is crazy and unreasonable’
(SC 31/20). Importantly, Korach makes the distinction between being
labelled delusional and being believed.
The Committee was chaired by Koren, while civil society representa-
tives and families of the abducted children joined in on the questioning of
government officials. Overall, the forum of the committee was lively and
its live broadcasts had produced useful inputs from the audience. In the
9 May 2017 session (SC 9/2), chairwoman Koren revealed that after the
previous discussion, the committee received an e-mail that would have

been useful for questioning the witness in real time. She then implored
viewers to participate by calling in or sending e-mails. At almost 600
points, the protocol bears a quote attributed to ‘A call’. These calls
are brisk, cynical, moralistic, and at times humorous, like the calls of
the second-line or of a Greek choir. When Hadara Shilo asks in exas-
peration, ‘I’m 72 years old, how long will be? It’s always: committee
committee committee committee, I will get to the afterlife knowing noth-
ing’, the ‘call’ answers: ‘there they will know’ (SC 2/29). When Shlomo
Geheresi is reluctant to name an official associated with the abduction
of his brothers, the call is ‘say the name’ (SC 6/25). When chairwoman
Koren updates the commission about the progress of a biometrical repos-
itory that may make possible reunifications, the call is ‘there is hope yet’
(SC 7/25) and when an official makes a questionable claim, a member of
the audience retorts with a direct rebuke: ‘you know me… I met you…
several years ago. I want to contradict what was said here’ (SC 10/12).
Despite having no legal measures to fight non-cooperation as the state
commission did, the commission was sensitive to attempts to withhold
information from it, and leveraged the media echo that admonitions
would carry. MK Koren used her podium to address Zionist organisa-
tions that are not state institutions and are under no legal obligation to
show.
whoever is listening now: Hadassah (Women’s Zionist Organisation of

America), Naamat (Labour’s women’s organisation), The Women’s Inter-
national Zionist Organisation (WIZO), these were children’s homes, these
are non-governmental organisations, I am asking here, we called them to
be present in the first discussion we held on the subject and they did
not show up, and I’m calling on them to show up the next time we will
summon them. I am not only calling them to come, I am calling on them
to send to us any document that pertains to the affair, that deals with
the children, where did they arrive, where they were transferred to, I am
asking them to bring everything to the committee. This is the time, this is
a She’at Ratzon. (SC 7/40)
WIZO, which managed ‘babies’ homes’ for neglected infants, was the
commission’s prime target. Evidence suggested that children were given
for adoption from within these homes,
I called in WIZO, every debate we have we call in WIZO and they refuse
to come. To me this says Darshani.16 When an institution that held all of
the children, does not come, this means it is withholding information. The
committee manager spoke to the WIZO spokesperson and what she said
was very severe. She said they had made the documents publicly available
over the internet. We asked where? She did not know. She said it is out
in the open, that there were committees and they supplied them with
whatever they requested and they did not find anything. I want to say that
they did not give anything and committees did not request anything. (SC
10/2)
And, in the same session:
I want to say that WIZO, after so many calls and phones and addresses
to make sure they come – did not arrive. Their absence is disrespectful
to the Knesset and its committees, we will not allow them to dodge us.
We will ask our questions and address their international management. It
cannot be that such an important and meaningful institution, which had
possession over the children, does not come to the debate and answer our
questions. (SC 10/36)
On 28 November 2017, the chairwoman revealed that a session will be

devoted to WIZO. When the day came, there was some excitement. Even
veteran activist and former mayor Yigal Yosef, whose sister was abducted,
could not hold his excitement, ‘In the many years I have been involved
in this matter, this is the first time I meet human figures from WIZO
and to me WIZO is a black box. Most of the affair surrounds this secret,
this black box called WIZO’ (SC 37/15). However, when the day came,
the black box turned out to be empty. WIZO’s representatives did little
other than pass the buck to the state. Sarit Arbel, WIZO’s CEO stated: ‘I
cannot explain or apologise for what has occurred in the past, I represent
the current management in WIZO’ (SC 37/22); she did explain that any
decision about the transfer of children would have been made by state
authorities (SC 37 /3) and that ‘this is a period that our employees who
worked then are no longer with us, our ability to investigate this matter
16 Darshani is a common turn of phrase in Hebrew that stems from religious Jewish
hermeneutical practice. It literally means ‘Drash me’, Drash being the explication of the
connotative rather than a denotative meaning.
is limited’. When a direct call to interview former employees was issued,

it was ignored (SC 37/32).
The underwhelming encounter was not at all surprising. WIZO’s insti-
tutional memory, which consisted of faulty medical records of children
that were under its auspices will not likely reveal how and where these
children were taken. Even if they did, the Commission was not the right
forum to investigate those trails. This was an early sign of the limitations
of the committee—being branched with the Knesset, it had an impor-
tant influence in terms of representation, but despite Koren’s promises, it
had little to show for in operational terms, at times posturing more than
prodding; soon enough, the excitement that marked the commencement
of the committee’s gave way to frustration.
7.7 Cover-Ups
Perhaps the major achievement of the Special Committee was to bring
about and to sustain a discursive ‘time of willing’. It was less about making
discoveries than about legitimising and amplifying previously ignored
voices. Foremost of these discursive achievements was the delegitimation
of the Cohen-Kedmi Commission and the rehabilitation of Meshulam.
The abundance of public inquiries was often used as evidence for the
lack of wrongdoing, while Meshulam was used as proof of the delusional
quality of the accusations. The argument was that if three commissions
came back empty-handed, and if the case was promoted by a cult-leader,
surely there is something wrong with the accusation. This narrative is not
restricted to public discourse; as we have shown above, recent studies that
touch on the affair also make this argument (Inbari 2017; Molchadsky
2018).
Other than these two ‘structural’ readjustments, the new committee
and its media echo seemed to have the effect of revising the societal
‘stock of stories’. In this function, it resembles the Jerusalem Eichmann
Trial (1961). In her report about the trial, Hannah Arendt criticised its
theatricality and lack of soberness and integrity in terms of justice (the
majority of the witnesses did not have anything to do with Eichmann
and his role in the extermination of European Jewry), but completely
missed its social formative role in reclaiming the silenced voices of the
victims while confronting the perpetrator. Felman explained that testi-
mony requires almost entirely and solely an addressee willing not only to
listen but also to make sense of the testimony and to integrate it into
a story (Felman and Laub 1992). As we shall see in the final section of
this chapter, the collapse of the commission can be traced to conflicts
regarding the manner in which this integration will take place and the
degree to which the linear narratives would be bent out of shape.
The problems with the Cohen-Kedmi Commission were known before
the newly released documents. Already in 2002, Israeli jurist Boaz Sanjero
(2002, 48–49) described the approach of the committee as lacking an
‘epistemology of suspicion’. It barely scratched the surface in its ques-
tioning of witnesses, it refrained from utilising its legal powers when faced
with uncooperative witnesses and it did not question the destruction of
relevant archives while the investigation was ongoing. The Cohen-Kedmi
Commission’s final report was a refutation of the idea of an organised
abduction (Sanjero 2002, 49, 59). The commission preferred documents
over testimonies and when discrepancies in the text were dismissed as
the product of a confused institutional procedure, whereas documents
that supported the claim that children had died, rather than been given
to adoption, were taken as reliable (Sanjero 2002).17 The un-embargoed
material revealed the loose knots that the commission used to tie its ‘linear
narratives’, and the new committee used these revelations to attack the
Cohen-Kedmi Commission.
Chairwoman Koren often referred to all the previous commissions as
‘cover-up commissions’ (SC 1/7; SC 2/3; SC 6/3; SC 7/22; SC 9/9;
SC 10/2; SC 16/24) and in the interim summary she made on 20
June 2017, the anniversary of Meshulam’s death, she elaborated on the
previous commissions’ failings,
Again and again we are amazed to find that a lot of information was
available to the commissions but was not treated properly, thoroughly or
professionally. Investigators accepted the verity of documents without veri-
fying them, did not interrogate things thoroughly and we have also found
contradictions in their conclusions, including the names of the missing
children… it appears that there is no choice but to call for the annulment
of the conclusions of the Kedmi commission and to allow the families to
reopen the debate on their family members. (SC 14/4)
17 The report of the commission stated that: ‘in contrast to the position of the Parents,
the commission gives its full trust to the documentation of the deaths of the “missing”.
Moreover, objectively [bold letters in original], the scale of the “disappearance” is limited
to those babies whose fate is still unknown’ (Cohen-Kedmi Commission 2001, 292–293).
Koren then repeated the call for annulment in the Knesset plenary and
her call was reflected by minister Hanegbi, who explained the rational for
the additional committee headed by Koren:
they said: we had committees, why do we need another one? There was
Shalgi, there was Bahlul-Minkowski and then Cohen-Kedmi. What good
would another committee do? I said: Look. This is not just another
committee, this is the committee. Because none of the other committees
dealt with the truth – they dealt with keeping the truth at bay. (Knesset
2017)
Other than fighting previous ‘cover-up commissions’, the special

committee openly sought the rehabilitation of Meshulam (SC 5/19; SC
7/21; SC 10/19; SC 12/17, SC 32; SC 13/44; SC 14/1), as well as the
institutionalisation of his commemoration (SC 21/13; SC 28/30). These
goals were pursued both as future projects, as well as in the very practice
of the committee, which marked the date of Meshulam’s passing and used
the occasion to present its interim summary. The anniversary of his death
in 2017 was marked in the Knesset with fiery speeches by government
officials declaring their support to the efforts of the Yemenite commu-
nity representatives. This was followed by a large demonstration in which
committee representatives participated.
Just as important, the Committee adopted Meshulam’s methodology
for its work. His was no longer the last act of a desperate man, but the
opening chapter for investigation and reckoning. By ‘methodology’, we
mean his prescription of the ‘dual criminality’ of the Yemenite children
affair—of the act of abduction and the silence of those complicit, or as he
termed it: ‘the crime of silencing’ (SC 27/11). The cultural background
we have sketched above illustrates clearly that the telling of the stories of
abducted children was curtailed by a certain ‘atmosphere’ in which the
drama of the encounter between a powerless population and a powerful
state was easily dismissed.
7.8 Into the Stock of Stories:

Two Kinds of Truths
During an early session of the committee, Jamal Zahalka, a Palestinian
MK from the joint Arab list expressed his unflinching support of the
inquiry as well as his unquestioning belief in the testimonies, but he also
gave out a warning about the Committee’s goals.
I think you are looking for the archaeological truth here, this is important,
very important… but much more important is the historical truth, the
historical truth that the manner in which Yemenite children were treated
stemmed from the cultural political conception in Israel, which is against
the orient and against poverty… to my regret, things have not changed.
(SC 8/29)
The archaeological truth would uncover the bureaucratic mechanisms

and the institutional norms that enabled the systematic abduction of
children. Doubts would be resolved as a matter of too much power in
the wrong hands, a major glitch in the system of immigration absorp-
tion. Conversely, the historical truth will recognise that the system as a
whole practised an overarching ideology that enabled the re-allocation of
children, much as it enabled the relocation of their parents.
Zahalka suggested to re-historicise the case and to place it within the
wider context of orientalism and colonialism, which suggests a common
ground with the Arab case in Israel–Palestine as a whole (SC 8/29).
He integrates identity politics with class and socio-economical tensions
while referring again to poverty, meaning that poverty and the Orient go
together historically because of the actions of the west. In other words,
the trauma was now present, but how will it be integrated into the narra-
tives of the state? Will it be encircled or run over by apologetic narratives?
Over time, the committee’s initial momentum was lost and the group of
activists that initiated the opening of the Cohen-Kedmi documents openly
broken with Koren and the committee. The NGO, Amram, revealed that
there have been negotiations with the Prime Minister’s office about the
official recognition of the abductions as a state crime, but that Koren
and her committee have functioned as a disruptive alibi. Shlomi Hatuka,
chairman of Amram accused Koren of using up her position as chairperson
of the high-profile committee to tilt negotiations in favour of the govern-
ment. He accused Koren of suggesting that the state would apologise to
the families but would refrain from using indicting terminology (Hatuka
in Riklis and Na’aman 2018). This was an instance of the archaeological
truth that Zahalka warned about (SC 8/29).
As part of the negotiations, activists and the representatives of the
aggrieved families put together a draft declaration that they expected the
Prime Minister to make that sets up their plan for redress. It stated that,
‘The state of Israel takes responsibility over the affair and declares its full
commitment to do all it takes to address the wrongs towards the families
and to mend the raptures in Israeli society’ (ibid.). The declaration sets
out five steps, both symbolic and substantial. First, the state will annul
the conclusions of the various commissions of inquiry. Second, the state,
in consultation with the representatives of the Yemenite community, will
lend considerable support to education and commemoration of the affair.
Third, a new committee with privileged access to adoption documents
will further the investigation. Fourth, compensation will be paid to fami-
lies, and fifth, the government will actively facilitate the speedy conclusion
of the project through further legislation (ibid.).
The statement also indicates that families felt that the time has come
to scale up the efforts. They were opting for a ‘historical truth’, one that
rearranges existing narratives and accepts that the fault for past crimes falls
on the state rather than on some rogue institution, problematic figure,
or outdated practice. Alongside the publication of these guidelines, the
families expressed their dissatisfaction with the efforts of Koren to both
soften their demands and pressuring them to compromise, while Hatuka
attacked the committee directly:
For almost a year and a half Nurit Koren’s committee is working without
hardly doing anything, and now there will be an extension of six months.
Sorry, did I say nothing? The committee does do one thing: it evaporates
the struggle, it gives institutions the possibility to reject approaches from
families because there is a committee. For a year and a half now and now
six months more of redundant debates, some of them repeat what the
NGOs or journalists have already discovered. Why do we need a committee
or deliberations for? It is clear that there were abduction and that the
establishment and the organisation are not doing anything. (Hatuka in
Riklis and Na’aman 2018)
The framing of Koren as an establishment lackey may be unfair, given

her actions during the Committee, but her purported actions reflect her
response to Zakhalka’s warning: ‘Not only the Kibbutzim built the state,
there were immigrants who worked very hard and I want to restore their
lost honour’ (SC 8/30). In other words, Koren’s idea of recognition was
not the recognition of crimes and the instigation of redress, but a recog-
nition within the context of the ‘linear narratives’ of the state, writing a
role to Yemenite community as Zionist pioneers rather than the victims
of Zionism and offering an appendiceal historical redress (Ben Yehuda

2017).18
This chapter began with Meshulam and it also ends with Meshulam.
The anniversary of his death in 2017 was marked by a sense of coming
deliverance and joint efforts by representatives of the families and the
government, but Meshulam’s 2018 Yarzeit (memorial) saw a large
demonstration in front of the Prime Minister’s residence against the
committee and the government. While the activists chanted, security
guards unfurled a large black curtain that covered the view to the prime
minister’s house on Balfour Street. By the next year, the most prominent
investigative TV programme in Israel (Hamakor 2019) expressed doubts
over the claims of the families and the activists in a way that was unimag-
inable the year before. It seemed that for now, the time of willing has
ended.
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CHAPTER 8
The Commemorative Continuum of Partition

Violence
Kelsey J. Utne
‘(A survivor of the 1947 holocaust)’
With this parenthetical identifier, K. Hussan Zia of Toronto signed their

letter to the editor in January 2009, in which they recalled the violence,
disease, and displacement that marked their memories of coming to newly
independent Pakistan. Zia opines that, for those who lived through Parti-
tion, the lack of any remembrance at the former site of the Walton
Refugee Camp is ‘a matter of great shame’, in The News International,
an English-language daily newspaper with wide readership among the
Pakistani diasporic communities (Zia 2009). At the location which once
hosted the Walton Refugee Camp in Lahore, there are no plaques, no
stone tablets, no pamphlets detailing the historic role of the space. The
nearby hospital that provided services for refugees has no available records
relating to the health of the refugees or the conditions in the camp. Now
Zia felt an added sense of erasure at discussions to close the small Walton
K. J. Utne (B)
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
e-mail: kju3@cornell.edu

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54887-2_8
152 K. J. UTNE
Airport—the former refugee camp and airstrip where Muhammad Ali

Jinnah first arrived in a newly postcolonial Lahore—to make way for new
commercial developments (Alam 2009; The News International 2014).
How was Zia to grapple with the persistent and selective forgetting of the
tumult which marked the end of the British India and the emergence
of two new postcolonial states? In South Asia and around the world,
survivors and their descendants live with an absence of formal commem-
oration of the loss and trauma of Partition, even though it has become
an inescapable reference point in political, religious, and familial stories.
Memories, experiences, and historical events belong to the colonial era
and the postcolonial era—but so too do they belong to a categoriza-
tion of either ‘before Partition’ or ‘after Partition’. This emphasis on an
event’s temporal proximity to Partition is boldly reified in recently devel-
oped public history initiatives: digital oral history archives. As a means to
better understand the trajectory of Partition historiography, this chapter
examines the progression and developments that have led to digital oral
history initiatives, such as the 1947 Partition Archive and Citizens Archive
Pakistan projects.
Narrating the extreme acts of violence that surrounded the parti-
tioning of India and Pakistan at the end of colonial rule evades both
historians and nations. As comprehension continues to deny the limits
of credulity, scholars aiming to articulate ‘the truth of the traumatic,
genocidal violence’ have declared Partition a ‘limit-case’ and impos-
sible to narrate (Pandey 2001, 45–46). They create epistemological
distance by converting the history of Partition itself into a history of
its causes and origins. They have localized it as an inexplicable and
freak event standing outside of historical comprehension. Contrary to
the remembrance and guilt which has been so prominent in Holo-
caust commemoration and historiography, many have suggested that the
impetus to forget the trauma of Partition is integral to the future of the
region’s cohesion and the unity of its nation states (Pandey 2001, 60;
Young 1993; Young 1988). Drawing on Partition scholarship, research
on the split of East and West Pakistan in 1971 has similarly revealed the
importance of considering the frameworks within which public memory
operates. The established narratives of the war for Bangladeshi indepen-
dence contain carefully constructed silences which are reaffirmed and
reproduced at many sites of memory (Saikia 2011). The silences of both
Partitions are perpetuated particularly among instances of open and public
secrets in which ‘war heroines’ (a euphemism for sexual assault survivors)
8 THE COMMEMORATIVE CONTINUUM … 153
exist in community memory within a framework of weakly veiled scorn

(Mookherjee 2006). The resulting refusal to confront the perpetrators
of violence or to take ownership of the lived experiences of survivors is
tightly bound with the concurrent avoidance of memorialization.
8.1 The Partitioning of India and Pakistan

After nearly 200 years of British colonialism and decades of nationalist
agitations, on August 15 1947 newly independent India and Pakistan
emerged on the world stage. Lord Mountbatten’s brief tenure as Viceroy
gave way as Jawaharlal Nehru and Muhammad Ali Jinnah assumed leader-
ship of two separate and sovereign postcolonial states. Announcements in
June of 1947 that independence would commence in 1948 were shock-
ingly amended with an expedited deadline less than three months away.
In addition to celebration and triumph, the independence of India and
Pakistan represents one of the most traumatic experiences in modern
history as millions of people uprooted and countless died in stunningly
violent clashes (Khan 2007; Zamindar 2007; Talbot and Singh 2009).
Partition narratives have historically emphasized the supposed random-
ness of the violence, the frenzy of uncontrollable rioters, and roving crim-
inal elements. Doing so reinforces a sense of uncontainable chaos, thus
ensuring Partition as an inexplicable and unpreventable event. However,
recent scholarship suggested a different story in which groups of people
conspired, negotiated cooperation from railway employees, slaughtered
refugees, and then looted their bodies. The reframing of these attacks
to convert them into the inexplicable began early—in police reports that
would describe them in institutional records as ‘“a communal riot” by the
“unknown,” nameless, people’ (Chattha 2011, 137). This presentation of
the violence conveniently allows the community and individual citizens
to overlook their own complicity in Partition violence and deaths. Unfor-
tunately, though, it has largely persisted in most critical scholarship and
memory studies of Partition. This has been bolstered by an emphasis on
individual personal experience. In South Africa’s Truth and Reconcilia-
tion Commission the ‘privileging of individual stories placed the location
and site of traumatic history at the personal level […] did not do enough
to account for the institutional context of apartheid that organized power
and enabled structural violence’ (Saikia 2011, 6). So too, in Partition
memory projects, emphasis largely remains on individual experiences and
154 K. J. UTNE
losses. Consequently, societal structures that enabled violence and primed

communities for violent clashes avoid examination.
In some cases, the ‘need to forget’ materializes as a sentimentalized
and glorified pre-Partition past, in which wholesome communal harmony
is remembered (Das 2000, 67). This framing is often an instance of the
communities involved enlisting ‘prescriptive forgetting’, wherein post-
conflict communities employ selective remembering as an active choice
to restore societal cohesion and live together after a period of violence
(Connerton 2008, 61–62). Such a practice runs counter to the commonly
held assumption that remembering is a virtue, while forgetting is always a
failure (whether personal or collective). Additionally, it may also reveal a
historiographical awareness of the role of authorship in sculpting commu-
nity identity and memory (Dhavan 2009). Remembering and forgetting
are rarely happenstance. They can be, at times, as intentional as erecting
a bronze statue.
8.2 (Not) Memorializing Partition:

Missing Memorials and Avoidance
Unlike the Holocaust, most Partition narratives lack a readily defined
good side and bad side. We cannot easily point to Nazi perpetrators
and their marginalized victim groups, among them Jews, homosexuals,
and the disabled. On the community level, both Hindus and Muslims
committed acts of astounding violence upon the other at the time of
Partition. Many acts of violence were carried out by and against complete
strangers, as in the case of the attacks on train cars of fleeing refugees.
Hindus bound for India found themselves targeted, as well as Muslims
bound for Pakistan. Some attacks were ostensible retribution for viola-
tions both real and imagined (Das 2007, 123). Organized groups lay
in wait before committing coordinated assaults upon total strangers,
selected strictly based on their presumed religious identity and direction
of travel (Chattha 2011, 133). Survivors from both sides have recounted
grotesque scenes of train cars arriving at stations filled with mutilated
corpses.1
1 The horror and brutality of these train attacks have become an iconic reference point
in cinema and literary works grappling with Partition, one of the best known being
Khushwant Singh’s novel 1956 Train to Pakistan.
Refusing relocation did not translate into safety from the violence.
Many individuals and families insisted on remaining in their ancestral
homes and villages, rather than uproot their entire lives on the premise
of religious identities translating into new postcolonial national identities.
Despite intentions to proceed with life as normal, they witnessed their
own neighbours, colleagues, and employees turn on them. During Parti-
tion, the face of the perpetrator was not always that of a stranger and
experiences of displacement could occur within one’s home town (Sarkar
2009, 196). And finally, family members engaged in acts of violence
against one another. In particular, men took the lives of women and chil-
dren in their own households as a preventative measure, believing that
otherwise worse acts would be committed by others. Hindus and Muslims
were both the perpetrators and the victims. Consequently, any memorial
to the victims of Partition in India would face the dilemma of recognizing
the suffering of each side alongside maintaining accountability. There is
little precedence in the study of commemoration in the modern era for
this dual acknowledgement, wherein neither community had been more
or less aggrieved than the other.
The geographic scale of Partition was immense. While certain areas
did experience more tumult than others, it impacted every corner of
what is now India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The violence was not
confined to specific battle zones or border skirmishes, as has predomi-
nantly been the case in the repeated wars between India and Pakistan
which have followed.2 The violence of Partition infiltrated mundane
spaces. It occurred along rural roads and on trains. In villages and cities.
In homes and on the streets. Correspondingly, the victims of Partition
were not soldiers in combat or similarly organized units. Burials and
cremations were private affairs, and, when it was possible, families dealt
individually with their own dead. There are not major collective burial or
cremation grounds specific to Partition. Even thousands of miles from the
subcontinent, during World War I, Indian casualties are commemorated
collectively at UK sites where Muslim soldiers were buried and Hindu
and Sikh soldiers were cremated (Ashley 2016). But the victims of Parti-
tion were largely unremarkable, merely members of the public without
notable affiliation. Just as the violence during Partition permeated across
2 Jammu-Kashmir is the primary exception to this rule of postcolonial military conflict

between India and Pakistan. For insight into the way the experience of violence permeates
life in the disputed territory, see Robinson (2013).
156 K. J. UTNE
the region, so too did the final locations of dead bodies. The absence
of spatial specificity makes it all the harder to select a physical site for a
monument to Partition.
The Indian and Pakistani postcolonial governments were grossly
unprepared for the massive migrations and wide-scale violence of their
new citizenry. Normally, the commemoration of major traumatic events
in the twentieth century is the prerogative of the state. However, formal
state recognition of the trauma of Partition risks admitting the states’
failure to maintain a monopoly over violence and, potentially, even
complicity. At best, the officials of the new governments were first caught
entirely off guard, then ill-equipped to respond appropriately and assert
order over independent states for whose existence they had fought. At
worst, there were officials who actively participated or otherwise facili-
tated attacks. Neither instance would be amenable to a young, recently
decolonized state in the midst of defining itself and reiterating its legiti-
macy in both domestic and international spheres. Institutional recognition
of the need to mark the transition of 1947 has sought safer alterna-
tives. South Asian governments accomplished this predominantly through
commemorating the anti-colonial nationalist movement and its ‘freedom
fighters’.
8.3 Commemorating Independence Sans Partition

Public ceremonies, historic sites, and museum exhibits manage to simul-
taneously remember the time during which Partition occurred, while
carefully skirting around Partition itself. These alternative memories
attempt to fill the void where Partition experiences ought to be commem-
orated. Annual and daily commemorations which are rooted in temporal
specificity gain purchase through repetition (Hobsbawm and Ranger
1983, 1; Menon 2013, 10). The more times they are enacted reliably
and consistently, the more potent their power to articulate a trauma-free
narrative. Likewise, the presentation of historic houses, significant sites,
and museums produces nationalist histories which omit the corpses and
bodily trauma of Partition. Only three types of deaths are appropriate
in the postcolonial public history: founding figures (most prominently
Jinnah, Nehru, and Gandhi), anti-colonial freedom fighters (such as
Bhagat Singh), and the war dead (particularly those lost in conflicts
between India and Pakistan).
Annual observances in both countries celebrate the founding of the

postcolonial states and the end of the colonial era, while avoiding Parti-
tion itself. Marking the transition of power and the myth of achieving
‘freedom at midnight’, to this day Pakistan celebrates its independence
on August 14 each year, while India observes August 15 as its national
birthday. But early in its postcolonial history, India chose to relegate this
Independence Day to minor status as a national holiday. The govern-
ment established January 26 as Republic Day, which involves considerably
more fanfare. The latter date distances boisterous and patriotic celebra-
tions from the mourning trauma strongly associated with the lead up to
and aftermath of August 1947. The date also creates a sense of histor-
ical continuity to two occasions from the nationalist movement, in 1930
and 1950, from which it derives more positive associations (Roy 2007,
70). January 26 corresponds to no particularly memorable day in 1947
or 1948 in the nation’s history.
In contrast to the unbridled violence which marked the historical parti-
tioning of India and Pakistan, a sanitized version of Partition occurs daily
at the Atari-Wagah border crossing. At sundown every day, the border
closing ceremony re-enacts a controlled and violence-free division of the
two countries, during which crowds on either side pile into bleachers
to shout nationalist slogans and cheer as soldiers lower their respective
flags and close the gates with military precision and nationalist pomp.
The ceremony is premised on the moment of rupture when the colonial
era ended and the postcolonial began. Whereas in 1947 many citizens of
British India were opposed to Partition (or were unaware of its occurrence
entirely), at the Atari-Wagah border ceremony, when the gates close the
two nations are reified with the enthusiastic endorsement and support of
the lay public. In their roles as what Jisha Menon calls ‘citizen viewers’,
they not only affirm their consent as observers, but further become wholly
complicit participants to the division of India and Pakistan (2013, 40).
The Atari-Wagah border ceremony rewrites the history of Partition daily
by enacting an imagined ideal split that is cleaned, organized, and blessed
with the heartfelt support of the public.
Residences of important individuals also feature heavily in the preser-
vation and presentation of public memory. Though Jinnah spent the
majority of his professional career based in Bombay, he relocated (briefly)
to what would become Pakistan’s first capital city and city of his own
birth: Karachi. His life is immortalized in the Qaid-e-Azam House, in
which he lived from 1944 until his death in 1948, and which passed to
158 K. J. UTNE
his sister Fatima Jinnah until her death in 1967. The nineteenth-century
home is one of three historic residences of the revered ‘Great Leader’ that
lie within Pakistani borders. Wazir Mansion (officially called the Qaid-e-
Azam Birthplace Museum) also lies in Karachi, while the remotely located
Qaid-e-Azam Residency, where Jinnah spent his final days, is in a resort
town outside of Quetta. As a rejection of the nation-state Jinnah helped
to create and the narrative of Pakistani identity, Baluchi secessionists
attacked the Qaid-e-Azam Residency in 2013 (Shah 2013). The home
in which he and others discussed plans for Partition and the creation of
Pakistan, however, lies in India in Bombay and thus outside Pakistani state
jurisdiction. For over thirty years India, Pakistan, and Jinnah’s surviving
relatives, have engaged in a protracted legal battle over ownership rights,
despite the house being formally willed to Fatima. Members of India’s
BJP government have called for the demolition of the house which signi-
fies, both the failure of the Indian nationalist movement to create a single,
unified postcolonial state and all that resulted (Bose 2017).
Historic sites maintained in India mute the tragedy of Partition and the
discontent. They instead evoke a similar triumphalism, made possible only
under the leadership of figures like Gandhi and Nehru. Most prominently
among these stands Nehru Memorial Museum and Library in New Delhi.
Established as a museum shortly after Nehru’s death in 1964, the site
includes the Teen Murti House in which Nehru lived during his tenure as
prime minister of postcolonial India.3 While in Delhi, tourists from India
and around the world also visit Gandhi Smriti, where Gandhi lived when
in Delhi. Within its groundsstands a pillar at the site of his assassination.
In Gandhi’s home state of Gujarat, a public trust preserves and main-
tains the ashram Gandhi operated until beginning his famous salt march
in 1930. All three sites refer to Partition in terms of the fracturing of
India and the deep disappointment of Nehru, Gandhi, and other Indian
nationalists.4 By framing Partition in strict terms of valiance, this narrative
implies that Partition’s violence could have been avoided were it not for
the call to create Pakistan. Blame is discreetly avoided.
The Jallianwala Bagh Massacre Memorial in Amritsar evidences that
deaths need not be of elite individuals or soldiers in combat to warrant
3 The name Teen Murti literally means ‘three statues’ and refers to three bronze soldiers
standing sentinel around a monumental stone pillar, honouring the contributions and
sacrifices of Indian Army soldiers during World War I on behalf of the Allies.
4 Author visit to Teen Murti, Gandhi Smriti, and Sabarmati Ashram, 2012 and 2013.
remembrance. In that public park, British soldiers under the direction

of Brigadier General Reginald Dyer opened fire on civilians, gathered
to protest the colonial abuse of wartime powers to suppress the nation-
alist movement. The massacre claimed hundreds, injured many more, and
became the ultimate example of British oppression in South Asia. In the
months and years that followed, the vernacular print industry ensured
wide distribution of eyewitness accounts and songs of mourning.5 Unlike
the violence of Partition, the British play the distinct role of antagonists
in the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre. Though one may debate the extent
to which Dyer, individual officers and soldiers, and the entirety of the
colonial infrastructure shared responsibility, commemoration of the site
fits into a narrative more amenable to the Indian state. And indeed, well
before resettling the last of the refugees or sorting out the administration
of evacuee properties, the Indian government established the Jallianwala
Bagh Memorial through an act of parliament in 1951. As the official casu-
alty count from the massacre remains unknown, so too do the identities of
every victim. Despite such ambiguity, the postcolonial state ensured their
commemoration, and in 2009 bestowed upon them the official desig-
nation as ‘freedom fighters’ (Buncombe 2009). Politicians and lay public
alike embrace Jallianwala Bagh as a critical juncture in the region’s history
and path towards independence, but one without the same complications
enmeshed in Partition.
Administrators in both countries have created further intellectual
distance between certain historic sites and their role in Partition. As
violence escalated in 1947, many Muslim families in the Delhi area
sought safety in Purana Qila, Humayan’s Tomb, and other sites under
the Archaeological Survey of India’s (ASI) jurisdiction. In these historic
sites of Delhi’s many pasts, refugees first sought temporary sanctuary,
but many lived there for years. Many ultimately left India, even if they
had originally intended to return to their homes once stability returned
(Rajagopalan 2016, 143). In the decades that followed, the ASI’s admin-
istration of these sites muted their role in the story of Partition. Hindu
nationalists spearheaded ASI excavations at Purana Qila in the 1950s,
thereby obliterating much physical evidence of refugee occupancy. Inter-
pretive signage and publications at these sites detail their historical
5 Notable examples include Biharilal Agarval’s (1922) and

Jagannath Prasad’s (1920).
160 K. J. UTNE
significance—excepting any mention of refugees or Partition.6 Though

Hindus and Sikhs also were among those who sought refuge in the
impromptu camps, their very necessity highlighted a perceived failure to
resist the call for Pakistan.
Whereas Indian sites erase the refugee experience, Pakistani sites
emphasize the victory of Pakistan’s founding and the patriotic sacrifice
of refugees from India. The very existence of the country embodies
more than the triumph over centuries of colonial occupation, an aspect
of the narrative which India embraces as well. In Pakistan, it represents
an additional triumph over Indian and Hindu nationalisms; over the
idea of single secular postcolonial state. Consequently, Pakistan incorpo-
rates refugees in the story of 1947 limitedly, by focusing strictly on the
concept of displaced Muslims fleeing India. For over twenty-five years,
the Bab-e-Pakistan Foundation has aspired to build an ambitious memo-
rial complex on a portion of the Walton Refugee Camp site, space until
recently utilized by the Pakistani Army, Punjab Police, and Punjab Boy
Scouts Association. Proposed by General Zia in 1985, the project aims to
commemorate ‘the valiant fighters in our cause who readily sacrificed all
they had, including their lives, to make Pakistan possible’ (Hassan 2016;
Bab-e-Pakistan 2015). If ever realized, the complex will include a mosque,
library, museum, auditorium, art gallery, and a 164-foot tall memorial.
In the Lahore Museum, the Pakistan Movement exhibit narrates the
‘struggle for freedom of the Muslims of India’ over British colonialism,
from Tipu Sultan to the uprising of 1857, through to the earliest years of
Pakistan. A handful of photographs depicting migrants from India repre-
sent the only reference to Partition. The image captions explain that these
are individuals fleeing an unsafe Hindu India, arriving at last in the only
homeland for South Asian Muslims: Pakistan.7 The migration is unidi-
rectional. The exhibit is mute to the existence of Hindus and Sikhs who
travelled in the other direction, or remained in place. It makes no mention
of violence and the death of over one million South Asians. In place of
these uncomfortable facts, Pakistan emerges as a teleological safe haven
for Muslims who were not safe in India—conveniently omitting that the
abrupt creation of two separate states helped create the circumstances
under which migration became an imperative.
6 Author visit to Purana Qila and Humayan’s Tomb 2013.

7 Author visit to Lahore Museum 2014.
8.4 Silences and Scholarly Interventions

Early Partition historiography emphasized the high politics of elite
decision-makers among the upper echelons of the Indian National
Congress, Muslim League, and British colonial government (Hodson
1969; Qureshi 1965; Sayeed 1968; Bahadur and Johari 1988). These
histories focused largely upon the years and political movements leading
up to independence and Partition in a quest to locate its origins and
(dis)place blame (Talbot and Singh 2009, 24). With the fiftieth anniver-
sary of independence in 1997, scholarship turned a critical eye to the
personal experiences and consequences in individual lives of Partition
rather than chasing an explanatory chronology. This body of scholar-
ship exchanged political machinations for the personal memories of the
non-elite, with particular consideration to the experiences of women and
marginalized minorities.
The first rounds of Partition oral history research emerged from a polit-
ical climate in which the previously latent spectre of communal violence
had reasserted itself. The anti-Sikh riots of 1984 and the destruction of
the Babri Masjid in Ayodha in 1992, brought into harsh perspective that
Partition’s clashes between different religious communities were neither
merely outliers, nor constrained to that particular historical juncture.
These scholarly works were borne out of personal experiences and a need
to grapple with the tensions of the late twentieth century. Many in South
Asia are haunted by memories of parents, grandparents, and great grand-
parents—memories that are not their own, and yet they identify deeply
with the loss of homeland (Butalia 2000; Saikia 2011, 69). Dissatisfied
with histories of high politics, they sought to locate the lived experi-
ences of Partition outside of state archives. Among the first major oral
history projects on Partition, Ritu Menon and Kamla Bhasin’s Borders and
Boundaries: Women in India’s Partition (1998) revealed that many inter-
viewed women placed distinct value in the act of ‘remembering to others’,
often for the first time (1998, 18). Breaking the silence and sharing their
experiences allowed them to become part of the formal history record.
Whereas the Jewish community employs a discourse of victimhood to
instill horror, sympathy, guilt, and promises of deterrence against future
threats, Indians and Pakistanis have not embraced this same approach.
Doing so would undermine the way these communities understand and
define themselves as capable of protecting the nation. This articula-
tion manifests in the ability to protect women, endowing them as the
162 K. J. UTNE
custodians of tradition, national honour, and the future of the nation

(Sarkar 2001; Sangari and Vaid 2010). After all, as Paul Brass notes,
the label ‘martyr […] has a much more positive ring than that of
victim’ (2006, 18). Among Sikhs, acknowledging community vulnera-
bility or the capacity for unprovoked violence against civilians runs directly
counter to historical constructions of Sikh identity and values. Roles
with assertions of agency dominate, while victim experiences, particularly
sexual violence, are sources of shame. In some circumstances, the role
of perpetrator becomes permissible, acceptable for circulation within the
community, because perpetrators’ actions make claims about a commu-
nity’s dominance. Thus, memories of heroism circulate widely, while
those of victimhood are selectively forgotten. This forgetting may be
prescriptive in that it aids the post-conflict (and possibly altered) commu-
nity in maintaining unity (Connerton 2008; Gellner 1987). In South
Asian communities, the loss of ‘honour’ following the assault and sexual
violence of women damages community and family ties. When these
violations are acknowledged, women have been ostracized by their own
communities (Butalia 2000). Forgetting can be a means of survival.
8.5 The Digital and Diasporic Turns

Neither sanitized nationalism nor omission has proven sufficient to
memorialize Partition. It was too momentous an experience for too many
people. In the last 15 years, multiple digital oral history projects have
grown out of a new imperative. Rather than being driven by a sense of
reflection or a need to grapple with the persistence of communal violence
in contemporary South Asia, they operate under a sense of panic: Parti-
tion survivors are dying (Sengupta 2013). As repositories for historical
knowledge (in this case, that of their own lived-in experiences), they
are constricted by the limitations of human mortality. These projects are
motivated by the same urgency faced by the Shoah Foundation and other
Holocaust oral history projects. The archives are established by individ-
uals to whom the loss of these lived experiences is personal, as these are
the memories of their grandparents’ generation. Their professional back-
grounds range from physics to film production, but they are united by
a common vision to ensure the world never forgets Partition’s tragedies.
Almost 70 years after the actual events of Partition, young South Asians
seek to reconnect with this perceived moment of rupture.
Shortly after visiting the Hiroshima Peace Memorial in Japan, Guneeta

Singh Bhalla founded the 1947 Partition Archive. Then a postdoc
researcher in physics at UC Berkeley, Singh Bhalla and others were trou-
bled by the fact that ‘There was no memorial for the partition […] there
wasn’t the same kind of knowledge about it’ as existed for Hiroshima
and the Holocaust’ (Perlman 2011; Viswanathan 2006). She felt private
citizens and civil society must take on the responsibility to preserve
memories, commemorate experiences, and create non-state archives.
Consistent with the experiences of scholars researching in the 1990s, the
interviewees she spoke with often shared their stories for the first time
(Sengupta 2013). The 1947 Partition Archive is simultaneously articulate
and nonspecific when it comes to locating its members and their relation-
ship to Partition. The organization’s mission statement describes itself
as a ‘people-powered non-profit’ dedicated to ‘documenting, preserving
and sharing eye witness accounts from all ethnic, religious and economic
communities affected by the Partition of British India’ (1947 Partition
Archive 2015). It describes its members as ‘concerned global citizens
committed to preserving this chapter of our collective history’. Though
personal experiences played heavily in the establishment of the organi-
zation (Singh Bhalla discusses in interviews her grandmother’s stories of
fleeing Lahore for Amritsar during Partition) and the South Asian dias-
pora community is most prominent in lists of board members, donors,
and volunteers, neither the mission statement nor the ‘About Us’ descrip-
tion locate the project within the South Asian community or within the
larger diaspora in North America.
Whereas the 1947 Partition Archive avoids association with a single
nation or community, the Citizens Archive Pakistan collects interviews
that are ‘in a dialogue on national identity’, specifically Pakistani identity
(The Citizens Archive of Pakistan, n.d.). Pakistani journalist and film-
maker, Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy, founded the project in 2007 in response
to a recurring point of inquiry among her colleagues: how did we get
where we are as a nation?8 The organization’s flagship programme, the
Oral History Project (OHP) emphasizes memories of personal expe-
riences and memories of ‘the early days of Pakistan’. Following the
demographic questions, interview questions ask about specific major
events regarding the establishment and politics of the Pakistani state.
8 Interview by author at the Lahore office of Citizens Archive Pakistan October 13,
2014.
164 K. J. UTNE
These include memories of major speeches, riots, Jinnah’s death, and

wars with India. By specifying certain categories of events as subjects of
interests, there is a potential to produce a particular arc of the national
narrative of Pakistan—specifically one that will ‘instill pride in Pakistani
citizens about their heritage’.
Unlike the 1947 Partition Archive, Citizens Archive Pakistan is not
thematically focused on Partition. However, given Partition’s pervasive
influence in the lives of Pakistanis, the OHP places Citizens Archive
Pakistan on the forefront of Partition memory and memorialization in
Pakistan.9 Although nongovernmental organizations, neither Citizens
Archive Pakistan nor 1947 Partition Archive is immune to state pressures.
The broad scope and titles of CAP projects reflect the sensitive nature
of remembering Partition experiences within the confines of South Asia.
Their web content (as recently as August 2017) and a 2010 museum
exhibit at the Mohatta Palace Museum in Karachi navigate the taboo
subject under the thematic heading ‘Birth of Pakistan’ in place of any
mention of Partition.10 Based in the United States and drawing exten-
sive support from global diasporic communities, on the surface the 1947
Partition Archive eschews alignment with any single postcolonial state’s
preferred narrative. However, geographic remoteness does not remove an
active need for the support of the Indian and Pakistani governments, who
issue or deny the visas for documentary visits to South Asia to record
further interviews. Thus, the programmes walk a tightrope, on which
they simultaneously confront institutional silence and must operate within
permissible political parameters.
Public involvement is essential to the vision of these commemora-
tive initiatives. Building on social media infrastructure and collaborative
digital resources such as Wikipedia and Kickstarter, both projects utilize
crowdsourcing. Instead of creating more ‘citizen viewers’, as described
by Jisha Menon, digital archives create ‘citizen historians’ (1947 Partition
Archive 2015). They invite the whole of the global South Asian commu-
nity to become active contributors in the (re)production of Partition
memory. The organizations welcome individuals who express an interest
9 Conversation with Furrukh Khan, professor of Postcolonial Studies at Lahore

University of Management Sciences, September 9, 2014.
10 A similar project by CAP on the 1971 war, in which East Pakistan seceded
and became independent Bangladesh, acknowledges political and personal cleavages
reminiscent of 1947.
in interviewing family members, friends, and neighbours. The approach

is dual purposed. In the race against the clock, the more people who are
involved and in more locations, the more robust and comprehensive the
archival collection. In addition to increasing the organizational capacity
to conduct interviews, it imbues volunteers with a sense of ownership.
They become invested in the project and its success. There is a growing
peer group to this collaborative digital model for diasporic South Asian
history, including the Sindhi Voices Project, the South Asian American
Digital Archive, India of the Past, and, most recently, Harvard’s Lakshmi
Mittal South Asia Institute’s Partition Stories: Collection and Analysis of
Oral Narratives.
Is digital commemoration sufficient? It may be better than nothing
at all, but public discourse indicates that it fails to wholly satisfy. It is
remarkable that so many decades have passed without a single physical
memorial site to an event that is reliably compared to the Holocaust,
which itself is marked by memorials around the world, major museums
in the United States and Germany, and carefully preserved concentration
camps (Pandey 2010). These physical sites have become pilgrimage sites
by allowing for wordless, visceral mourning and remembering. While the
oral history archives preserve memories for posterity, they remain intan-
gible. Even their most ardent proponents articulate long-term plans to use
the collected materials to create a Partition Memorial Museum that is akin
to the Holocaust Memorial Museum or the Hiroshima Peace Memorial
in Japan.11
8.6 Conclusion: A Partition Museum at Last?

After 70 years, the world’s first Partition Museum opened its galleries
to the world on August 17, 2017 in Amritsar, India.12 Like its predeces-
sors, this commemorative project by the Arts and Cultural Heritage Trust
(TAACHT) carefully eludes sensitive nationalist politics by focusing on
individual human stories and experiences. Exhibits highlight individual
recollections and personal items carried by refugees: a wedding sari, a
toy box, a property deed, a pocket watch. The Museum is creating its
11 Visit to Lahore office of Citizens Archive Pakistan October 13, 2014 (Perlman 2011).
12 Parts of the museum technically opened in October 2016, but the grand opening of
all of its galleries was not until August 2017.
166 K. J. UTNE
own oral history collection, but is facing the increasing scarcity of Parti-
tion witnesses which has already placed pressure on its peers. Although
TAACHT does not crowdsource the oral history interviews themselves, it
actively solicits requests and suggestions for potential interviewees (The
Partition Museum, n.d.). It is unclear whether the Museum has part-
nered with pre-existing projects like Citizens Archive Pakistan or 1947
Partition Archive. Neither was mentioned on its web content, which
does credit Amity University (a private university based in Uttar Pradesh)
as supporting its oral history recording, and the London School of
Economics’ South Asia Centre as providing academic advisement.
The new museum marks a turning point in the commemoration of
Partition. Whereas commemorations such as the Atari-Wagah border
ceremony and exhibits at the Lahore Museum elide Partition’s traumas,
the Partition Museum intends to showcase the violence that character-
ized Partition. The museum’s CEO and trustee of TAACHT explained
the need for the museum: ‘If you look at any other country in the world,
they have all memorialized the experiences that have defined and shaped
them […] yet this event that has so deeply shaped not only our subconti-
nent, but millions of individuals who were impacted, has had no museum
or memorial, 70 years later’ (Scroll.in 2017). The new museum is a water-
shed moment in the commemoration of Partition; the culmination of
decades of demands. But will it be enough?
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Cultural Nationalism. New Delhi: Permanent Black.
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Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
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CHAPTER 9
Absent Bodies, Present Pasts: Forced

Disappearance as Historical Injustice
in the Peruvian Highlands
Eva Willems
9.1 Introduction
Societies all over the world develop transitional justice strategies to face
the legacies of civil war and dictatorship. Remembrance is a central feature
This research was made possible with the financial support of the Research
Foundation—Flanders (FWO). My gratitude goes to the members of the
Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF), in particular Gisela Ortiz and
Percy Rojas for facilitating my entry into the community of Yachay; to my
research collaborators Alicia Noa, Gabriela Zamora, and Karina Barrientos for
their valuable work and their important contributions to the research; to the
villagers of Yachay for their hospitality and willingness to collaborate; and to my
colleagues of the research line meta- and public history at Ghent University for
their valuable comments on drafts of this text.
E. Willems (B)
Center for Conflict Studies, Philipps-Universität, Marburg, Germany
e-mail: eva.willems@uni-marburg.de

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54887-2_9
172 E. WILLEMS
of these strategies.1 The International Center for Transitional Justice

states that ‘Victims of human rights abuses cannot forget, and states have
a duty to preserve the memory of such crimes’ (ICTJ, n.d.b). However,
a closer look at the local realities of post-conflict societies makes clear
that remembrance is not always self-evident. During the Peruvian civil
war (1980–2000) over 15,000 people were forcibly disappeared by the
army, the Shining Path, and other armed groups. According to the United
Nations International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from
Enforced Disappearance, ‘enforced disappearance is considered to be the
arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty
(…) followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by
concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which
place such a person outside the protection of the law’.2 Remembrance as
a way of dealing with the legacies of mass-violence gets an extra problem-
atic dimension in cases of forced disappearance: How to mourn without a
grave? How to remember the unknown? The legacies of forced disappear-
ances demonstrate the paradox that according to Paul Connerton goes
together with forms of repressive erasure, as ‘the requirement to forget
ends in reinforcing memory’ (2011, 41).
This chapter will start with a brief historical overview of the Peruvian
civil war and of the specific context of forced disappearance in Yachay,
a small district with a high number of disappeared in the central Andes
1 According to the International Centre for Transitional Justice, ‘Transitional justice

refers to the ways countries emerging from periods of conflict and repression address large
scale or systematic human rights violations so numerous and so serious that the normal
justice system will not be able to provide an adequate response’. Transitional justice
measures may include criminal prosecutions, truth commissions, reparations programs,
gender justice, security system reform and memorialization efforts (ICTJ, n.d.a.).
2 Article 2 of the Convention defines enforced disappearance as a crime committed by
‘agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization,
support or acquiescence of the State’. Article 3 however states that ‘each State Party shall
take appropriate measures to investigate acts defined in article 2 committed by persons
or groups of persons acting without the authorization, support or acquiescence of the
State and to bring those responsible to justice’ (United Nations General Assembly 2006).
In the Peruvian context, a broad interpretation of these definitions is used, considering
enforced disappearance a crime committed by both the state forces and the Shining Path.
Law N°30470 on the search of persons who disappeared during the period of violence
1980–2000, approved by Peruvian congress in June 2016, defines a ‘disappeared person’
as ‘any person whose whereabouts are unknown by his relatives or of whom there is no
legal certainty of their location, as a consequence of the period of violence 1980-2000’
(Ley n°30470 2016).
9 ABSENT BODIES, PRESENT PASTS: FORCED DISAPPEARANCE … 173
region of Ayacucho.3 By drawing on ethnographic field research among

family members of the disappeared in this village, I will then explore
two different aspects of dealing with forced disappearance as a legacy of
mass-violence. First, I will focus on the process of remembering the disap-
peared. During the yearly ‘Day of Memory’, when Yachay commemorates
its victims of the civil war, relatives of the disappeared are confronted with
the absence of remains and proper burial sites. As such, the presence of
the violent past is enacted through the absence of the bodies of the disap-
peared. I argue that this absence influences the process of mourning as it
might prevent relatives from separating the violent past from the present
and future. Secondly, I will suggest that the absence of acknowledgment
of the Peruvian state toward the relatives of the disappeared is part of a
larger historical injustice based on, among other factors, socioeconomic
exclusion, and that the lack of commitment of the state to search for the
disappeared can be understood as an injustice of the past that lasts in the
present.
By examining these two forms of absence—the absence of remains
and the absence of acknowledgment—I will consider the potential of
the search for the disappeared (including exhumation, identification, and
reburial) as a transitional justice mechanism to achieve recognition for
past violence and present citizenship. I claim that on the one hand, the
dead bodies of the past can have an emancipatory potential for their rela-
tives in the present and future as the process of finding, identifying, and
reburying can respond both to the absence of remains as to the absence of
acknowledgment. However, following the premise that non-recognition
or misrecognition might inflict harm or be a form of oppression, many
risks are involved.4 The relation between the state and its citizens is
complex and finding the appropriate balance between the humanitarian
approach and the focus on criminal justice in the search for the disap-
peared has proven to be very difficult. If the process is not carried out
properly, it can be a constant reminder of injustice rather than leading
to social justice. It therefore holds the risk of re-victimizing groups that
experienced processes of historical injustice and of disregarding ongoing
structural violence in the present.
3 Due to privacy reasons, the names of the village and of the respondents in this chapter
are pseudonyms.
4 For a discussion of this premise and its origins, see: Taylor (1994).
174 E. WILLEMS
Yachay lies like a bowl in the middle of the Andes landscape, at a four to
five-hour drive from Huamanga, the capital city of the Ayacucho region.
Situated at 3800 meters AMSL,5 the village is enclosed by rounded
mountain peaks that change colors from sand-brown during the dry
season to all shades of green as the rain sets in. I entered the village for
the first time during a heavy rainy season in 2012. At that time, I was
a master student volunteering with the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology
Team (EPAF) and we were doing preliminary research to identify possible
burial sites.6 The road was not yet paved, and the usual derrumbes or
mudslides made us stay in Yachay instead of traveling on to more distant
communities. During the day, I was delighted by the peace and the beauty
of the village, especially after having spent most of my time in the chaotic
metropole of Lima, but at night I felt like I was thrown right back into the
gruesome history that I had been reading so much about and I could not
sleep. There is almost no twilight in the Andes and complete darkness falls
abrupt, marking the relentless separation between day and night—some-
thing that I never really got used to. Yachay was the first village in the
countryside of Ayacucho that I ever visited and at that moment, I could
not imagine that I would go back dozens of times.
The findings in this contribution are based on ethnographic field
research in Yachay conducted in 2014 and 2015 over a period of eleven
months. The data consists of 33 semi-structured interviews with villagers,
complemented with many informal conversations and observations during
significant activities such as the annual Day of Memory, the annual
harvest festival, the exhumation of a mass grave with victims of the
civil war, and follow-up meetings with relatives. All the interviews were
recorded, and the transcriptions were coded in NVivo.7 The data gath-
ered during informal conversations and observations was mostly written
down in fieldnotes, or in some cases, also recorded with the consent of
the informants and transcribed.8 During my fieldwork, I was based in
5 Above main sea level (AMSL).

6 The Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (Equipo Peruano de Antropología Forense,
EPAF) is a Peruvian NGO based in Lima and dedicated to the search for the disappeared
in Peru and other countries. See: http://epafperu.org/en/. Accessed 20 Mar 2017.
7 NVivo is a software tool for organizing and managing qualitative data.
8 These data are in the footnotes referred to as ‘field recordings’ when it concerns public
events involving a group of people, or informal conversations in the case of individual
informants.
Huamanga from where I traveled back and forth to several communi-

ties, often accompanied by one of my research collaborators: Alicia Noa,
Gabriela Zamora, and Karina Barrientos. Their main task was to translate
from Quechua to Spanish during interviews with informants who did not
master enough Spanish, but they also provided important practical and
psychological support throughout the research process. The length of my
stays in Yachay varied from four to ten days. Apart from these field trips
that I undertook independently, I also accompanied the EPAF on their
field trips that mostly had the purpose of doing preliminary research or
following up on exhumations of mass graves. Due to the fact that my first
contacts in the village were established through my collaboration with the
EPAF, I would, in the beginning, often be seen as an NGO-worker rather
than as a researcher. Nevertheless, the level of confidence that they had
already established made it a lot easier to find an entry into the commu-
nity and throughout the course of my fieldwork, I became increasingly
seen as a separate actor as I spent more time in the community by myself.
9.2 The Peruvian Civil War

(1980–2000) and the Truth
and Reconciliation Commission (2001–2003)
In 1980, the Shining Path started a violent revolutionary campaign in
the central Andes region of Ayacucho.9 Intellectuals at the University of
Ayacucho, led by Professor of Philosophy, Abimael Guzmán, founded the
radical Maoist splinter group of the Peruvian Communist Party (PCP).
The Shining Path gained followers by spreading its ideology through so-
called ‘popular schools’ that were installed in many of the peasant villages
in the highlands of Ayacucho and by recruiting fighters among the local
population.10 Their aim was to overthrow the Peruvian state by initiating
9 The full Spanish name is Partido Comunista del Perú - Sendero Luminoso (PCP-SL).
The PCP-SL originated as a separation of the Peruvian Communist Party. Ayacucho is
one of Peru’s 24 regions, located in the central Southern part of the country in the heart
of the Andes mountain range. The capital of the Ayacucho region has two names: the
homonymous Ayacucho and the more locally used Huamanga.
10 Villagers, including women and young children, were obliged to attend the ‘pop-
ular schools’ (escuelas populares) where Shining Path militants taught Maoist-communist
ideology and recruits received military training to start the armed struggle (Comisión de
la Verdad y la Reconciliación 2003a).
176 E. WILLEMS
a violent people’s revolution. The limited presence of the state in the

rural areas and the poor socioeconomic conditions eventually provided
a fertile soil for the radical ideas of the Shining Path. However, as the
movement’s violent nature became clear to the local population, some
began to oppose its presence. By the time the Peruvian army decided to
intervene in 1982, the situation had already escalated into a complicated
civil conflict marked by multidirectional violence, often fought between
‘intimate enemies’ (Theidon 2013, 461).11 The Marxist-Leninist Tupac
Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) started its own revolutionary
struggle in addition to the Shining Path while the population organized
itself in self-defense patrols to cope with increasing insecurity. In 1992,
the authoritarian government of President Alberto Fujimori succeeded
in capturing Abimael Guzmán and dismantling the Shining Path’s party
leadership. As there was no central authority anymore, the movement
started to fall apart and the frequency of their violent interventions
diminished significantly. Fujimori succeeded in depicting himself as the
vanquisher of the Shining Path, which helped him to legitimize political
repression and human rights violations as part of the ‘struggle against
terrorism’. In 2000, the large-scale corruption of Fujimori’s government
came to light after which he fled to Japan. A transitional government was
installed to prepare new elections, which resulted in the presidency of
Alejandro Toledo.
Following the Latin American examples of Argentina, Chile, El
Salvador and Guatemala, Peruvian human rights organizations started to
push for the set-up of a truth commission. From 2001 to 2003 the Peru-
vian Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) investigated the events
of 20 years of civil war on the basis of around 16,000 testimonies. The
final report of the TRC estimated that 70,000 Peruvians had been killed
or disappeared between 1980 and 2000 (CVR 2004, 17). The Shining
Path was held accountable for 54% of the casualties, the state forces for
37% (CVR 2004, 18). The native language of 75% of the victims was
Quechua or another indigenous language (CVR 2004, 23), and 40% of
the victims fell in the rural region of Ayacucho, one of Peru’s poorest
areas (CVR 2004, 18). These numbers made clear that ethnic, cultural,
11 Kimberly Theidon uses this term in the context of the Peruvian civil war to refer
to the fact that the conflict was characterized by violence between neighbours, families,
villagers, i.e., former friends that became ‘intimate enemies’ (2013, 461).
and socioeconomic factors played a key role in the presence and dissemi-
nation of the violence. When the Peruvian army was sent to Ayacucho in
1982, after two years of violence, many of the soldiers were not so keen
on protecting people whom they considered inferior. Moreover, because
the Shining Path initially had a lot of supporters among the rural popula-
tion, the army did not differentiate between peasants and members of the
Shining Path, which resulted in the extrajudicial killing and disappearance
of many innocent civilians (CVR 2004, 20).
9.3 Forced Disappearances in Yachay

Yachay is an example of a peasant community located in the heart of
where the civil war between the army and the Shining Path would rage.
The village was first infiltrated by the Shining Path whose members killed
the local authorities and commenced forced recruitments. Due to the
Shining Path’s rapid and immersive take over, the military perceived
Yachay as a stronghold of subversion. Between 1981 and 1982, the
Shining Path took complete control over the community’s organization,
designating it as a ‘liberated zone’ (EPAF 2012, 23).
Although forced disappearance is a war tactic that in Latin America
is mostly associated with state forces, it is necessary to specify that in
Yachay, and in the context of the Peruvian civil war in general, there are
different types of forced disappearance. The disappearances committed
by the Shining Path come in the form of forced recruitments: villagers
were kidnapped and forced to fight with the armed group. Of those who
survived because they escaped or were released, some never returned to
the village out of fear for revenge by the military. The final resting-place
of those deceased in battle is often unknown. The forced disappear-
ances committed by the Shining Path were rather a ‘side effect’ of the
type of warfare used by the armed group. On the contrary, the military
used forced disappearance as a deliberate strategy to install terror and
erase evidence of mass human rights violations (Baraybar 2009, 29). On
suspicion of being part of the Shining Path, villagers were arrested and
detained in the nearby military bases. During this detention, most of the
prisoners were severely tortured and several of them were also executed.
After the execution, the bodies were burned, buried in mass graves, or
thrown off the mountain cliffs. In most of the cases, every trace of the
detainees is missing since the moment of arrest. Relatives who went to the
178 E. WILLEMS
bases to ask for their family members were denied any additional informa-
tion and were often mistreated themselves. All kinds of tactics were used
to make it hard to trace prisoners back or to identify corpses. Detainees
were, for example, exchanged between different military bases; they were
forced to swap clothes, and corpses were often unrecognizably mutilated
or burned (Baraybar 2009, 35).
Due to these tactics that were used to generate confusion, it is still
unclear how many Peruvians were victims of forced disappearance during
the civil war. The International Committee of the Red Cross, the Public
Ministry, and the EPAF estimate that the number fluctuates between
13,000 and 16,000 persons that are still missing today.12 These ill-defined
numbers reflect the typical characteristics of the crime of forced disap-
pearance. Although it is hard to express in absolute numbers, Yachay
seems to have suffered a significantly higher number of disappeared than
other surrounding communities. Of the 77 cases of the district of Yachay
investigated by the TRC, 24 cases make explicit mention of forced disap-
pearance, of which seven cases were committed by the Shining Path and
17 by the armed forces.13 At least 65 villagers were disappeared in the
two nearby military bases between May 1983 and September 1984 (EPAF
2012, 50).14
Apart from the villagers who were disappeared and whose last resting-
place is still unknown, there is also a considerable group of villagers who
were buried in clandestine graves. Due to the emergency situation, it
was often impossible to arrange a proper burial in the cemetery, because
people were buried secretly out of fear for reprisals by the army or the
Shining Path, or because the perpetrators forced the villagers to bury the
victims at the place of execution.15 Many of these graves are located in
the most desolate corners of the highlands, hours away from the village.
12 All these institutions manage different lists with diverging numbers. One of the
priorities for facilitating the process of search is to bring together all existing information
in one database. This will be done by the International Committee for the Red Cross in
collaboration with the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights (United Nations General
Assembly 2016).
13 This means there could be other cases that include forced disappearance but that not
explicitly mention it. One case can relate to several persons (CVR 2003a).
14 Forty percent of the disappearances committed by the state forces in Ayacucho
occurred in 1983 and 1984 (CVR 2003a, 86).
15 Burying victims from one side or the other would often be perceived as a sign of
collaboration or treason.
Until 2011, the TRC and the Peruvian NGO Commission for Human
Rights (COMISEDH) located 4052 presumed clandestine graves in the
Ayacucho region, containing the remains of approximately 8660 victims
(COMISEDH 2012, 74).
9.4 Mourning in Absence of Bodies:

‘the Disappeared Exist, but They Are Not Here’
The disappeared exist, but they are not here. They find themselves beneath
the earth or beneath the inclement rain, they are hungry like us, they feel
the cold, they feel the heath, they watch us, but we cannot see them, they
talk to us but we cannot hear them. They wonder about their future, a
never-ending present.16
The high number of disappearances has had a notable impact on the

socioeconomic fabric of post-conflict Yachay. Due to the gendered aspect
of forced disappearance—most victims were men—women started to
assume new roles in community life during and after the conflict.17
Kimberly Theidon has described how ‘widows, perhaps more than any
other group, embody the contradictory effects of war’ as they balance
between victimization and empowerment and question expected gender
positions (2013, 144). During fieldwork, ‘the women of Yachay’ became
an often-used concept for my research collaborators and me, as we spent
endless hours sitting on the pavement at the corner of the main square,
listening to the stories about their disappeared husbands and sons. The
large presence of women symbolizes the absence of the disappeared, an
absence that at the same time takes the form of a kind of omnipresence.
As such, the disappeared have become a social category of villagers that
‘exist but are not there’ (EPAF 2012, 29). The widows form the living
16 Own translation of original citation: ‘Los desaparecidos son, pero no están. Se

encuentran bajo tierra o bajo la lluvia inclemente, tienen hambre como nosotros, sienten
frío, sienten calor, nos miran, pero no los vemos, nos hablan pero no los escuchamos.
Se preguntan sobre su futuro, un presente que no acaba nunca’. Jose Pablo Baraybar in
EPAF (2012, 15).
17 On the changing role of women in community life after the civil war and the influence
of human rights discourse, see: Yezer (2013). Anthropologist Arianna Cecconi (2013) also
mentions this gendered aspect in her research on representations of the war in dreams.
180 E. WILLEMS
counterpart of the disappeared and together they form a new group in

society that did not exist before the war.
Berber Bevernage remarks that several scholars have detected a (non-
exclusive) link between the pre-occupation with ghosts or spirits and
post-conflict contexts (2012, 88). Be it mere coincidence, but trans-
lated from Quechua, ‘Ayacucho’ literally means ‘corner (cucho) of the
dead/souls (aya)’. Doing field research in Ayacucho indeed means to
be constantly confronted with the presence of the dead. Their ghosts
are perceived as taking part in daily life and can inspire both fear and
confidence. For example, one woman in Yachay described how, while
hiding in the puna 18 during an attack of the Shining Path on the village,
she performed a ritual to calm down her sheep that were upset by the
presence of ghosts who were wandering around after the massacre.19 In
her ethnography on representations of the Peruvian civil war in dreams,
Arianna Cecconi describes the nightly visits of the ghosts of the disap-
peared in the dreams of their relatives, often providing information about
their whereabouts (2013, 179). Bevernage states that the ‘spectral pres-
ence’ of the disappeared can be understood as ‘the irrevocable past and
its ambiguous “presence” in the present’ (2012, 87). For Bevernage,
‘the spectral presence’ challenges the notions of the absent and distant
past that are dominant in modern Western historical thinking (2012,
87). Indeed, the absence of the dead bodies of the disappeared contrasts
sharply with the vivid presence of their souls in popular imagination.
This liminal existence of the disappeared at the verge of life and death
brings us to the question of mourning and remembrance, which clearly
manifests itself during the yearly Día de la Memoria (Day of Memory),
an initiative that was set up in 2012 by the Peruvian Forensic Anthro-
pology Team, the Association of Relatives of Victims of the Sociopolitical
Violence of Yachay and the municipality. Every year in June, Yachay
commemorates its victims of the civil war. As going to the cemetery is
one of the central activities of the Day of Memory, relatives of the disap-
peared are confronted with the absence of remains and proper burial sites.
18 Apart from their houses ‘downtown’, most villagers in the Andes of Ayacucho also
have smaller stone houses in the highlands (so-called estancias, litt. ‘places to stay’). They
spend a lot of time herding cattle in the puna, as the highlands are commonly referred
to in Quechua and Spanish. The puna also became an important refuge during the civil
war when villages were attacked by the Shining Path or the state forces.
19 Interview with Elsa, Yachay, 02.05.2015. Fieldnotes, Ayacucho, December 20, 2015.
The lack of a physical space to mourn differentiates the disappeared from

the dead (EPAF 2012, 35). Relatives of the disappeared have repeatedly
stated that they do not want to participate in the commemoration because
they have no place to bring flowers or light candles: ‘I don’t go. Why
would I go if he is not there? Those who bury [their dead] there, they
go, I don’t go. Why would I be going? For nothing’,20 and ‘There is no
place to bring flowers. […] So, nothing, we don’t bring anything’.21
In order to create a place to mourn, representatives of the relatives
started asking the municipality to put a big cross for the disappeared at
the cemetery.22 After several years of requests by the villagers, the cross
was inaugurated on the Day of Memory in 2015. However, instead of
putting the cross at the cemetery located at the outskirts of the village,
the mayor decided to put the cross at a more visible spot in front of the
catholic church at the main square. This decision caused much dismay
with the family members, who want the disappeared to be part of the
cemetery.23 ‘Mister Mayor, fulfill your promise! […] That cross must be
at the cemetery, so that if we go there, we can also leave flowers. For
those who have niches, we can leave the flowers there; for those who
don’t, we are going to leave them at the cross. We have to have a proper
cemetery!’24 The rite of burial does not just differentiate the dead from
the living (Cecconi 2013, 173). It also dignifies them as human beings,
instead of being ‘thrown away like animals’—as it is often stated by family
members. To be deprived of the ability to bury the dead is a fundamental
characteristic of the state of emergency caused by the war. ‘At that time,
you would bump into a corpse over here, and another one over there,
and another one a bit further being eaten by a dog. It almost didn’t
20 Own translation of original citation: ‘Yo no voy. A qué voy a ir si no está allí? Los
que entierran allí si van, yo no voy. Para que voy a ir? Por gusto’. Interview with Elsa,
Yachay, May 2, 2015.
21 Own translation of original citation: ‘No hay dónde llevar flor. (…) Entonces nada,
no llevamos nada’. Interview with Isabel, Yachay, March 5, 2015.
22 Fieldnotes, Día de la memoria, Yachay, June 26, 2014.
23 Field recordings, Día de la memoria: inauguración de la cruz, Yachay, June 26, 2015.
24 Own translation of original citation: ‘Señor alcalde eso que sí cumple! (…) Esa cruz
que sea en el cementerio, cuando nosotras también vamos para dejar nuestra flor. Si de
alguno de nosotros tenemos el nicho llevamos ahí, y de los que no tiene van a dejar
en la cruz. Debemos tener un cementerio formal’. Field recordings, Día de la memoria:
inauguración de la cruz, June 26, 2015.
182 E. WILLEMS
frighten us anymore, it was almost normal. It is so painful to have lived

that moment’.25
In many cultures worldwide, and also in the specific context of the
Peruvian Andes, this dignification can be achieved by performing the
necessary rites of passage that constitute ‘a transfiguration into a new
mode of existence for both the dead and the living’ (Rojas-Perez 2013,
162). Arnold Van Gennep (1960) has pointed out that funeral rites are
above all rites of transition and incorporation. Their purpose is twofold,
as they concern both the incorporation of the deceased into the world
of the dead as well as the reintegration of the bereaved into society (Van
Gennep 1960, 146). According to Van Gennep, ‘the living mourners and
the deceased constitute a special group, situated between the world of
the living and the world of the dead’ (1960, 147). The condition of in-
between existence at the verge of life and death is thus not only reserved
for the disappeared, it can also strike the bereaved. As Van Gennep states,
‘in some cases, the transitional period of the living is a counterpart of the
transitional period of the deceased’ (1960, 147). The funeral as rite of
passage that brings an end to this transitional period therefore concerns
both the disappeared and the bereaved. As long as the disappeared cannot
be incorporated into the world of the dead, their relatives run the risk
of being forced into an inhumane condition of never-ending mourning.
During my fieldwork in Yachay, relatives of the disappeared repeatedly
stated that burying their loved ones would help them to live in peace
(‘encontrar paz/vivir tranquilo’).26
Thus, the mechanism of dehumanization of indigenous peasants that
was used by the state forces to justify torture and disappearance continues
to operate in the post-conflict time on another level. As long as the disap-
peared are not buried properly, they and their bereaved are deprived of
an essential component of their human dignity (EPAF 2012, 25). Facil-
itating the process of mourning, for example by constructing the cross,
25 Own translation of original citation: ‘Tu caminabas en ese tiempo, te encontrabas

con cadáver en ese tiempo, más allá otro, más allá que está comiéndose el perro. Ya no
era, ya no era miedo ya era casi normal. Es tan doloroso haber vivido ese momento’.
Interview with Juan, Yachay, May 4, 2015.
26 Fieldnotes, Día de la memoria, Yachay, June 26, 2014; Field recordings, Día de la
memoria: inauguración de la cruz, Yachay, June 26, 2015; Field recordings, Día de la
memoria: romería al cementerio, Yachay, June 26, 2015; Fieldnotes, exhumación Yachay,
Yachay, May 6, 2015; May 7, 2015; Interview with Isabel, Yachay, May 3, 2015; among
others.
can be a way for the relatives of the disappeared to achieve recognition

for the injustices of the past, as well as an attempt to separate the past
from the present in order to turn the permanent condition of ‘absence’
into a historical condition of ‘loss’ and grant breathing space to the future
(LaCapra 1999, 716).
9.5 Mourning in Absence of Acknowledgment:

The Disappeared Are Here, but They Do Not Exist
Dominick LaCapra situates absence on a transhistorical level, while situ-
ating loss on a historical level. Converting absence into loss means
defining the loss as an historical event that can be dealt with: ‘In this
transhistorical sense absence is not an event and does not imply tenses
(past, present, or future). By contrast, the historical past is the scene of
losses that may be narrated as well as of specific possibilities that may
conceivably be reactivated, reconfigured, and transformed in the present
or future’ (LaCapra 2001, 49). Locating the bodies to provide them with
a proper burial is a way of defining the loss and facilitating the process
of mourning (LaCapra 2001, 69). Indeed, as completing the necessary
rites of incorporation in the absence of the bodies of the disappeared
proves to be problematic, many relatives still cherish the desire to find the
remains of their loved ones. However, the search for the Peruvian disap-
peared has faced many difficulties since the recommendations made by the
TRC in 2003. As the Public Ministry focuses on criminal justice rather
than on the humanitarian aspect of finding, identifying, and returning
the remains, progress has been very slow. To initiate an exhumation of a
burial site, relatives have to start a judicial process. In most of the cases
however, there is not enough evidence to punish the perpetrators—which
is precisely one of the characteristics of forced disappearance—and the
case is closed. Consequently, relatives oftentimes end up without remains,
without answers, without any form of justice.27
27 See also: CVR, ‘Capítulo 2.3: Plan Nacional de Intervención Antropológico-Forense’,

in: Informe Final, TOMO IX: Cuarta Parte: Recomendaciones de la CVR, Hacia un
compromiso nacional por la reconciliación, passim. For an analysis of the TRC’s involvement
with exhumations of mass graves and the related tensions between the TRC and the state
institutions, see: Rojas-Perez (2015). According to the EPAF, in 2015 around 3200 bodies
were exhumed of which approximately 1830 were identified. However, the Ombudsman
Office has more than 12,000 documented complaints concerning missing persons, and
184 E. WILLEMS
In Yachay the search for the disappeared faces similar problems. In

May 2015, a team of the Public Ministry arrived for the exhumation of a
clandestine grave containing a man, three women, and two small children
who were executed in 1984 by the army for providing food to members
of the Shining Path. Fellow villagers were forced to dig the grave. The
alleged location of the grave was in the middle of the puna at 4400 meters
AMSL, a 45 minutes’ drive, plus two hours walk, away from the village. As
the relatives were displaced during the conflict and now live in Lima, they
traveled for around 18 hours to get there. However, locating the exact
spot after more than 30 years in the desolate landscape of the highlands
is not at all self-evident and the team of the Public Ministry gave up
after two hours. Even though their mission was officially planned to take
two days, the team sat down and let the relatives randomly dig around
and look for bones. There was no psychosocial support provided; on the
contrary, the relatives were openly mocked by some members of the team.
After one more hour the team left, leaving the desperate and disappointed
relatives behind. There was no mobile phone reception, as is the case in
most remote parts of the highlands, and the transport back to the village
was only arranged for the following day. The relatives thus decided to
spend the night in tents in the middle of the highlands near the supposed
grave, which proved to be a troublesome experience for some of them.
As soon as the night fell, one of the relatives started worrying about the
jarjachas , who in the Andes of Ayacucho are believed to be the ghosts
of the condemned that wander around the puna in search of revenge
on the living. He also expressed to me the fear that members of the
Shining Path might still be ‘walking around’ and attacking at night.28
That night went by without much sleep, as the relatives kept telling stories
about their youth and the drastic changes caused by the war. The land-
scape of the puna that contained their peaceful childhood memories, has
since the war and the displacement to Lima become filled with fear and
danger. When we returned to the village the next day, the atmosphere was
the Victim Register (Registro Único de Víctimas, institution created after the TRC where
people can testify and claim reparations) more than 16,000 (EPAF, n.d.).
28 The members of the Shining Path are often referred to as ‘those who walk at night’
(in Quechua: tuta puriqkuna), a term that according to anthropologist Kimberly Theidon
is linked to the fear of jarjachas. Jarjachas are ‘humans who take on animal form as part
of their divine punishment’ and have ‘glowing eyes and hideous teeth’ (Theidon 2013,
215).
tense and emotional as the relatives felt dispirited and frustrated.29 To

make matters worse, one of the relatives, who suffered from diabetes, got
very ill and did not survive the journey back to Lima. The consternation
among the family made some of the younger relatives who had stayed in
Lima propose that it was better to stop the search, as they felt it was only
causing more grief.30 However, the other family members were deter-
mined to find the remains and upon returning in August they succeeded
in localizing the grave, after which the Public Ministry came back to do
the official exhumation in September.31 The remains were recovered, but
it took more than a year before they were finally given back to the rela-
tives on November 11, 2016. During a collective ceremony in Huamanga,
58 remains of victims of different cases in the region were returned.32
After the ceremony, the family members transported the coffins with the
remains to Yachay, where they were buried in a mausoleum constructed
by the municipality.33
The lack of a proper policy of the state to find the disappeared is not
merely a consequence of the enormous challenges this task involves. I
suggest that one of the root causes of the limited advance in finding the
disappeared lays in the absence of acknowledgment of the injustices of the
past by the state toward the family members. This absence of acknowl-
edgment is not only based on the lack of recognition by the state for
its own responsibility in the crimes, which in many cases takes the form
of pure denial. It is part of a larger historical injustice that still defines
power relations in contemporary Peruvian society and consists of system-
atic socioeconomic exclusion and racism toward the indigenous peasant
population, who are often regarded as second-class Peruvians and hence
denied full citizenship.34 So to speak, the Peruvians who disappeared in
29 Fieldnotes, exhumación Yachay, Yachay, May 6, 2015; May 7, 2015.

30 Whatsapp personal communication, May 9, 2015.
31 Fieldnotes, exhumación Yachay, August 11, 2015. Fieldnotes, reunión familiares fosa
Yachay, Lima, August 27, 2015.
32 Whatsapp personal communication, November 11, 2016. See also: ‘Ministra Pérez
Tello participó en entrega de restos de víctimas de terrorismo’ (La República 2016).
33 Whatsapp personal communication, November 11, 2016.
34 In June 2009, protest from indigenous people in Bagua against oil exploitation in the
Amazon was violently oppressed by the state forces, which led to more than 70 deaths.
After the incident, President Alan Garcia declared that the indigenous people were ‘no
first class citizens’. This is a striking example of discrimination from the state toward its
186 E. WILLEMS
the highlands are there but they do not exist, they are the missing who
are not missed. They are part of a population group that for many other
Peruvians is negligible. Once again, the injustices of the past last in the
present, in the form of lack of serious commitment by the state to search
for the disappeared. This is a critique primarily directed at the state poli-
cies, not toward the individuals working for the state about whom I do
not aim to make any generalizations. Frustrations about the state policies
also exist among the personnel working for the public ministry as they
are often obstructed from properly carrying out their job due to a lack of
means and commitment of the higher authorities.35
9.6 The Role of the Dead in Achieving

Social Justice in the Present
What is at stake in the process of mourning for the disappeared goes
beyond mere bereavement customs or rites of passage, and involves a
bigger dimension of mourning for historical injustices that, according to
Connerton, entails two types of suffering that are often closely inter-
twined: suffering that results from extreme conditions such as war or
genocide, and suffering as a consequence of structural experiences of
oppression (2011, 16). The TRC recognized structural socioeconomic
exclusion and racism as one of the fundamental causes for the escalation
of violence in Ayacucho (CVR 2003b). Moreover, Isaias Rojas-Perez has
pointed out how the TRC recognized that ‘the possibility of a democratic
political community is tied to the problem of how Peruvians are able to
remake their relations with their dead by bringing the latter back into
mainstream society as legal subjects (victims), cultural subjects (persons to
be properly buried and mourned), and historical subjects (persons whose
history is not to be forgotten)’ (2013, 189).
Indeed, the search for the disappeared in transitional justice
processes—including exhumation, identification, and reburial—can help
survivors who have faced processes of structural exclusion to achieve both
recognition for past violence and present citizenship. The dead bodies of
the past thus have an emancipatory potential for their relatives in the
own citizens. (Original citation: ‘Estas personas no tienen corona, no son ciudadanos de
primera clase’.) (La República 2011).
35 Fieldnotes, exhumación Yachay, Yachay, May 6, 2015; May 7, 2015.
present and future. As the process of finding, identifying, and reburying

can respond both to the absence of remains as to the absence of acknowl-
edgment, the bodies do not only hold the potential forensic evidence
for legal justice, they can also play an important role in achieving social
justice in the form of recognition. As stated by LaCapra, to make the
shift from ‘absent’ to ‘lost’ bodies is crucial, as historical losses can be
‘at least in part compensated for, worked through, and even to some
extent overcome’ (2001, 65). Being caught in the permanent condition
of absence can cause ‘melancholic paralysis’ as the distinction between
past, present, and future gets blurred and mourning becomes impossible
(LaCapra 2001, 64, 69). Facilitating the process of mourning as a form
of ‘socially engaged memory work’ can help survivors to separate the
injustices from the past from the present, instead of seeing them as a
precondition for the future (LaCapra 2001, 66).
The search for the disappeared as a transitional justice mechanism is,
however, a double-edged sword. If the process is not carried out prop-
erly, as seen in the example of Yachay, it can be a constant reminder of
injustice rather than leading to social justice. Therefore, the failure of
the process of search for the disappeared holds the risk of re-victimizing
groups that experienced processes of historical injustice, and of disre-
garding ongoing structural violence in the present. Both the example of
the Day of Memory and the exhumation in Yachay make clear how the
relation between the state and the survivors is highly complex when it
comes to achieving recognition and justice for the disappeared. At the Day
of Memory, during the ceremony at the cemetery, the mayor expressed
the lack of recognition by the state, while at the same time suggesting
the villagers themselves did not take enough initiative to denounce the
crimes:
How much would I have liked the Minister of Justice or the state to
come [to the day of memory] to get to know this reality. Yachay is the
most affected [village] of this region. Terrible, indelible things happened
here. In the other [surrounding] villages they denounced in due course the
massacres that happened, but here, we didn’t denounce what happened.
That was the big weakness.36
36 Own translation of original citation: ‘Cuánto me hubiera gustado que venga Ministro
de Justicia o el estado para que conozcan a esta realidad. Yachay es el más afectado a
nivel de esta zona. (…) Acá ha pasado cosas graves imborrables. En allá en su debido
188 E. WILLEMS
However, in an earlier intervention during that same ceremony, one of the

villagers lamented the lack of knowledge about the juridical procedures in
the search for the disappeared:
We don’t know anything about the law. How are we supposed to under-
stand? That’s why I say we need an adviser that can take care of the whole
process. And it will probably take a long time, it is a process, it is not
easy. But sometimes it is as God says: “it takes a long time for justice to
arrive but it will arrive”. […] If we don’t have any legal support we won’t
achieve anything, we will go on year after year as we are now.37
In the case of the exhumation, the relatives were forced by the state to
take justice in their own hands as they were told to localize the grave
by digging for the bones themselves, which in fact is illegal. Responding
to the initial objections of the relatives, the public prosecutor who was
in charge stated that the mandate of the public ministry was to exhume
the remains, but not to localize the grave.38 This contradiction—how
to exhume a non-localized burial site?—demonstrates very clearly the
Kafkaesque situation the search for the Peruvian disappeared has become.
The state with its ‘drifting’ and overly bureaucratic judicial apparatus
claims the ownership of the search for the disappeared on the one hand
but paralyzes the process by neglecting its responsibilities on the other.39
It is in this complex context that human rights NGOs have been
lobbying to establish a new legal framework that tackles the problems
that surround the search for the disappeared. On the 26th of June 2016,
in the last month of government of President Ollanta Humala, the law
oportunidad han anunciado que ocurrió matanza, mientras acá no hemos anunciado todo
lo que pasó. Eso fue la gran debilidad’. Field recordings, Día de la memoria: romería al
cementerio, Yachay, June 26, 2015.
37 Own translation of original citation: ‘Nosotros no sabemos de los leyes. ¿Cómo
podemos entender? Por eso digo que esté un asesor para que él pueda gestionar todo este
proceso. Y probablemente es un largo tiempo, es un proceso, no es fácil. Pero a veces
como dios dice “la justicia tarda pero llega”. Si no tenemos una asesoría legal no vamos
lograr nada, repitiera año en año en la forma que estamos’. Field recordings, Día de la
memoria: romería al cementerio, Yachay, June 26, 2015.
38 Fieldnotes, exhumación Yachay, Yachay, May 6, 2015.
39 Deborah Poole uses this image of a ‘drifting state’ in explaining the relation between
peasant communities and the state in (among others) Ayacucho, describing how legal
cases ‘seem to drift more or less aimlessly from one office to the next, before finally being
returned, unresolved and often years later, to their points of origin’ (Poole 2004, 42).
on the search of persons who disappeared during the period of violence

1980–2000 was finally approved by the congress (Ley n°30470 2016). By
December 2016, under the new government of Pedro Pablo Kuczynski,
the law resulted in the design of a national plan for the search for the
disappeared, coordinated by the Ministry of Justice (Ministry of Justice
2017, 9). Both the law and the plan focus on the humanitarian aspect of
the search for the disappeared by putting the rights of the relatives center
stage. The plan states that ‘all the teams that are involved in the process
of finding missing persons must first and foremost ensure that no further
harm is done to the victims’ (ibid.). According to the plan, following
a humanitarian approach means ‘to orient the process of search in a
way that it has a reparative effect for the families, without this implying
encouraging or hindering the determination of criminal responsibility’
(ibid.). This humanitarian approach that puts the ‘innocent victim’ center
stage has been criticized for its potential depoliticizing effects. Survivors
run the risk of being stripped from their political agency and the struc-
tural causes that led to the violence and last in the present might be
neglected (Azevedo 2016, 46). Finding the appropriate balance between
the humanitarian approach and the focus on criminal justice indeed proves
to be very difficult, especially in communities where intimate enemies
face each other and the distinction between victims and perpetrators gets
blurred. Maintaining a fragile coexistence is often a necessity in communi-
ties where socioeconomic conditions force survivors of ‘intimate violence’
to live together. In Yachay, one of the soldiers that served in the nearby
military base during the war still lives in the village. It is generally assumed
that he can provide crucial information for localizing the corpses of those
who disappeared in the military base. More than wanting him to be pros-
ecuted for possible crimes, the relatives want him to break the silence in
order to possibly find the remains of their loved ones.40
9.7 Conclusion: Opportunities and Pitfalls

of Searching for the Disappeared
Between 1980 and 2000, over 15,000 Peruvians were forcibly disap-
peared in a civil war that was fought along structural ethnic, cultural, and
socioeconomic divides. In this contribution, I have shown that mourning
40 Interview with Isabel, Yachay, March 5, 2015.

190 E. WILLEMS
is an essential aspect in achieving recognition for the injustices of the

past and restoring human dignity in order to turn toward the future. In
Yachay, dozens of villagers were forcibly disappeared either by the Shining
Path or by the state forces. To this day, their bodies are missing, but
their ‘spectral presence’ is a constant reminder of the violent past. During
the Day of Memory, being confronted with the absence of the bodies
for the relatives often means to be forcibly stuck in the presence of the
past. Performing the necessary rites of passage can be decisive in over-
coming this inhumane condition of never-ending mourning. Therefore,
locating the bodies of the disappeared can be a form of ‘socially engaged
memory work’ that enables the bereaved to turn the permanent condition
of absence into a historical condition of loss that can be worked through
(LaCapra 2001, 66).
The search for the Peruvian disappeared runs along similar divides that
characterized the civil war and contemporary Peruvian society. As long as
the disappeared of the highlands are not considered as equal citizens by
the state, they will not be properly searched for. This is a missed oppor-
tunity, as the dead bodies of the past can have an emancipatory potential
in helping survivors that have faced processes of structural exclusion to
achieve both recognition for past violence and present citizenship. The
potential pitfalls of the process are, however, not negligible. Finding the
appropriate balance between the humanitarian approach and the focus
on criminal justice has proven to be very difficult due to the complex
relation between the state and its citizens on the one hand, and among
survivors of ‘intimate violence’ on the other. When it is not carried out
properly, the search for the disappeared therefore holds the risk of re-
victimizing groups that experienced processes of historical injustice, and
of disregarding ongoing structural violence in the present.
The findings in this chapter are based on the particular case of the
village of Yachay in Peru, but similar dynamics are at stake in other post-
conflict societies that have to deal with the legacies of forced disappear-
ance. Especially in contexts characterized by structural socio-economic
exclusion of certain (indigenous) population groups, the relation between
survivors and the state tends to be highly complex. In-depth empirical
studies of local post-conflict contexts should be considered in order to
make well-informed recommendations for future design and implemen-
tation of transitional justice strategies (such as the search for missing
persons) and fully explore the opportunities and pitfalls of searching the
dead bodies of the past, for the present and future life of survivors of
historical injustices.
References
Azevedo, V. R. (2016). Restoring the Dignity of the War’s Disappeared?
Exhumations of Mass Graves, Restorative Justice and Compassion Policies
in Peru. Human Remains and Violence, 2(2), 39–55.
Baraybar, J. P., et. al. (2009). Desaparición Forzada en el Perú. El aporte de la
investigación forense en la obtención de la evidencia probatoria y la construcción
de un paraguas humanitario. Lima: EPAF.
Bevernage, B. (2012). History, Memory and State-Sponsored Violence: Time and
Justice. New York: Routledge.
COMISEDH. (2012). Los muertos de Ayacucho. Violencia y sitios de entierro
clandestinos. Lima: COMISEDH.
Comisión de la Verdad y la Reconciliación (CVR). (2003a). Informe final, TOMO
II. Lima.
Comisión de la Verdad y la Reconciliación (CVR). (2003b). Informe final,
TOMO VIII. Lima.
Comisión de la Verdad y la Reconciliación (CVR). (2004). Hatun Willakuy.
Versión abreviada del Informe Final de la Comisión de la Verdad y Reconcil-
iación. Lima.
Cecconi, A. (2013). Cuando las almas cuentan la guerra: sueños, apariciones y
visitas de los desaparecidos en la región de Ayacucho. In P. Del Pino & C.
Yezer (Eds.), Las formas del recuerdo. Lima: IEP.
Connerton, P. (2011). The Spirit of Mourning: History, Memory and the Body.
EPAF. (n.d). Una política para la búsqueda de personas desaparecidas. http://epa
fperu.org/una-politica-para-la-busqueda-de-personas-desaparecidas. Accessed
14 Sept 2016.
Equipo Peruano de Antropología Forense (EPAF). (2012). De Víctimas a
Ciudadanos. Memorias de la Violencia Política en Comunidades de la Cuenca
del Río Pampas. Lima: SINCO Editores.
ICTJ. (n.d.a). What Is Transitional Justice? www.ictj.org/about/transitional-jus
tice; www.ictj.org/sites/default/files/ICTJ-Global-Transitional-Justice-2009-
English.pdf. Accessed 16 Feb 2017.
ICTJ. (n.d.b). Truth and Memory. www.ictj.org/our-work/transitional-justice-iss
ues/truth-and-memory. Accessed 16 Feb 2017.
LaCapra, D. (1999). Trauma, Absence, Loss. Critical Inquiry, 25(4), 696–727.
LaCapra, D. (2001). Writing History, Writing Trauma. Baltimore: Johns
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La República. (2011, July 2). Conozca las “patinadas” verbales de
Alan García. https://larepublica.pe/politica/553595-conozca-las-patinadas-
verbales-de-alan-garcia/. Accessed 16 Feb 2017.
La República. (2016, November 11). Ministra Pérez Tello participó en entrega
de restos de víctimas de terrorismo. http://larepublica.pe/politica/820581-
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ministra-perez-tello-participo-en-entrega-de-restos-de-victimas-de-terrorismo.
Accessed 16 Feb 2017.
Ley n°30470. (2016). Ley de búsqueda de personas desaparecidas durante el
período de violencia 1980–2000. http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/Treaties/CED/
Shared%20Documents/PER/INT_CED_ADR_PER_25074_S.pdf. Accessed
15 Mar 2017.
Ministry of Justice. (2017). Plan nacional para la búsqueda de personas desapare-
cidas (1980–2000). https://www.minjus.gob.pe/wp-content/uploads/2017/
01/Plan__busqueda_personas_desaparecidas.pdf. Accessed 13 Feb 2017.
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Grupo de Trabajo sobre las Desapariciones Forzadas o Involuntarias sobre su
misión a Perú: observaciones del Estado. A/HRC/33/51/Add.4. https://
acnudh.org/informe-del-grupo-de-trabajo-sobre-las-desapariciones-forzadas-
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the Margins of the State. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
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Whatsapp personal communication, May 9, 2015; November 11, 2016.
CHAPTER 10
Restoring the Human Dignity of Absent

Bodies in Colombia
Sandra M. Rios Oyola
10.1 Introduction
Proper burials and funerary rituals are a luxury in times of war. Bodies
are disappeared, concealed in mass graves or destroyed with the purpose
of hiding the truth about human rights abuses, as well as destroying
the memory of an entire group of people. The relatives of those who
died in massacres or in extrajudicial killings, and whose bodies were
disposed in mass graves, are affected by the impossibility of conducting
proper burials, which also affects the process of grieving. The desapare-
cidos and the massacres that occurred during civil wars have become icons
of the violence in Latin America. The effects of this type of violence
for the surviving victims are many, it disrupts the process of grieving,
the social transformation of communities and the possibility of bringing
accountability to perpetrators. Victims do not fully know the truth of
what happened to the disappeared, which in some cases enhances the
permanent search for truth, an exhausting and often hopeless task.
S. M. R. Oyola (B)
The Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
e-mail: sandra.riosoyola@uclouvain.be

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54887-2_10
196 S. M. R. OYOLA
In that context, exhumations are seen as the preferred mechanism

to empower families and to re-dignify the victims (Dreyfus and Gessat-
Anstett 2015; Henderson et al. 2014). The recognition of human dignity
that comes with a proper burial is commonly accepted and the obligation
to dispose of the dead respectfully is part of the Geneva Conventions.1
However, the legal path that leads to exhumations can be a very lengthy
process that involves multiple risks of re-victimization such as misiden-
tifying the remains, reviving the trauma, or exposing the relatives to
new threats against their safety (Robin Azevedo 2016). Exhumations are
also more difficult in situations where populations have been forcefully
displaced and armed actors continue to have inherence in their home
villages, where the bodies are buried. This chapter argues that transitional
justice offers several tools that can contribute to the restoration of human
dignity of the absent bodies beyond or complementing exhumations. It
explores how mechanisms such as reparations, memorialization, and truth
commissions can contribute to the dignification of the victims with absent
bodies. Additionally, grassroots groups of victims have developed tools to
deal with the absence of proper burials and the absence of their relatives’
bodies. This chapter investigates some of the main arguments about the
impact of the absent bodies and absent burials for human dignity. It ques-
tions the mechanisms used for the restoration of human dignity of absent
bodies according to the three different notions discussed below.
10.2 Human Dignity in Transitional Justice

Human dignity is related to the idea that there is an intrinsic and equal
worth in being human. Human dignity is a concept used to advance
competing interpretations and adjudications of human rights, jurispru-
dence, and philosophy (Düwell 2014; Kateb 2011; McCrudden 2008;
Misztal 2013; Nussbaum 2008; Rosen 2012; Waldron 2012). Possibly
one of the most influential definitions of human dignity has been written
by Immanuel Kant in the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals
(1785); Kant argues that ‘the incomparable dignity of human being
derives from the fact that he alone is “free from all laws of nature,
obedient only to those laws which he himself prescribes”’, being the most
1 ‘In 1995, for example, Colombia’s Council of State held that the deceased must be
buried individually subject to all the requirements of the law, and not in mass graves.
Colombia, Council of State, Administrative Case No. 10941 (ibid., § 456)’ (ICRC 2017).
10 RESTORING THE HUMAN DIGNITY OF ABSENT BODIES IN COLOMBIA 197
important prescription the idea that you always treat people not simply as
a means, but at the same time as an end. The notion of human dignity
is used to understand the value of human life and its uniqueness, which
means that it cannot be exchanged, replaced, or lost.
Human dignity appears in international humanitarian law as the moral
justification for the definition and protection of human rights. Human
dignity is linked to several, and sometimes competing, rights such as
freedom, autonomy, liberty, physical integrity, and basic material needs,
such as the right to housing, food, or work (Rao 2008). The field of
transitional justice and reconciliation has incorporated the idea of human
dignity, although mostly uncritically, through three dimensions. The first
one corresponds to a notion that justifies the protection of human rights;
the second one is as a principle that influences the mechanisms used for
its protection; and the third one is through the influence of ‘politics of
dignity’.
In the first case, the notion of human dignity is considered to
be the foundational normative category in international human rights.
According to Pablo de Greiff, human rights should be at the core of
the transitional justice agenda in order to prevent the fragmentation of
society and foster reconciliation (De Greiff 2013). The notion of human
dignity is used to denounce grave violations against human dignity such
as the dehumanization caused by torture and rape, but it also provides
an umbrella for the recognition of ill-treatment of victims who have
been marginalized, stigmatized, or denigrated. The identification of these
actions that go against victims’ human dignity, although they are not
defined as a grave human right violation, can contribute to understanding
the complex legacy of long-term conflict and systematic violence.
The inclusion of human dignity in transitional justice is influenced
by the language of international humanitarian law; victims’ dignity is an
assertion found in the UN General Assembly in 1986 (GA Res 41/120)
and in numerous international, regional, and domestic human rights
instruments. Prominently, it can be found in the Rome Statute of the
International Criminal Court (2002) that mandates the Court ‘to protect
the safety, physical and psychological well-being, dignity and privacy of
victims’ and in the Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of
Crime and Abuse of Power (1985), which also states that victims should
be treated with compassion and respect for their dignity. These principles
are also reaffirmed by the Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to
a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International
198 S. M. R. OYOLA
Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian

Law (2005).
In the second case, the notion of human dignity is used as a principle
that influences the development of legislation and mechanisms that could
protect human dignity. In the case of transitional justice mechanisms,
they include measures that can contribute to the restoration of human
dignity after its violation through grave human rights violations, but
also through less clearly defined harms. The protection and restoration
of human dignity are considered to be paramount in the policies of
reconciliation, transition, and peace (Rosoux and Anstey 2017). For
example, policies of memorialization and truth commissions have been
generally understood to acknowledge past wrongdoing, to officially
recognize the harms suffered by victims and to restore their equal status
as citizens. Similarly, trials often act as a form of reaffirming victims’
equal worth and recognizing them as fellow citizens and human beings
(Haldemann 2008). The restitution of property is seen as a form to
return not only physical property to victims but to restore their sense
of ownership, stability, and dignity (Atuahene 2014). In the case of
restitution of property, Bernadette Atuahene has introduced the term,
‘Dignity taking’ to describe ‘when a state directly or indirectly destroys or
confiscates property rights from owners or occupiers whom it deems to
be sub persons without paying just compensation or without a legitimate
public purpose’ (2014, 3). Atuahene considers dignity restoration to
be ‘the compensation that addresses both the economic harms and the
dignity deprivations involved’ (2014, 4). She argues that this is the result
of combining reparations and restorative justice. But in the case of the
disappearance of bodies, their desecration or the prohibition of funerary
rituals, the return of the bodies might not be sufficient for the restoration
of victims’ dignity. The integration of other forms of reparation and
measures of satisfaction is required.
Finally, in the third case, ‘politics of dignity’ comprise dignity as an
umbrella claim for the recognition of rights by disenfranchised groups.
This use of the notion of dignity is rooted in historical, economic, and
political demands of excluded people demanding equality and social inclu-
sion. The restoration of human dignity can be seen as a flagship among
emancipatory and social movements (El Bernoussi 2015), a vehicle that
creates empathy and brings together the dispossessed in their fight for
freedom, equality, and basic resources (Alhassen and Shihab-Eldin 2012;
McCrudden 2013). In the Latin American context, the claim for dignity
can be found among a variety of groups that demand justice and recog-
nition of their rights, such as peasants’ groups, women’s, LGBT’s groups
and has been linked to resistance.
10.3 The Human Dignity of Absent Bodies

Douglas Davies, a renowned scholar of death studies, argues that the
dignity of the dead is related to ‘the very fact that human bodies bear
life itself’ (2005, 60). However, funerals are not only the result of the
transcendental awareness of our mortal condition, but they are an oppor-
tunity for the living to pay homage to the dead. The dignity of the
dead is an extension of the dignity they had when they were alive; they
are a tribute and a recognition of the dignity of humans. Accordingly,
Atiemo (2013) considers that it is possible to identify the dignity of the
living person by the type of recognition that they receive when dead.
Atiemo proposes that: ‘A study of burials and funeral rites is important
to help determine how a society regards categories of human beings. By
observing and analysing the way communities bury different categories
of human beings, one may arrive at a particular society’s concept of what
makes a person properly human’ (2013, 135). For instance, according
to traditional religious practices in Ghana, people who were considered
evil, such as rapists, adulterers, murderers, witches, and wizards, but also
those who had been born with deformities, were denied of decent burials.
This exclusion can be interpreted as the ultimate disenfranchisement from
the community of living, but also the community of dead. Furthermore,
the religious prohibition of funerary rituals for those who had engaged in
unacceptable behaviours can be observed as a denial of a person’s dignity,
a statement that rejects that the deceased belongs to the same category as
the other humans. Heretics and witches burnt at the stake ‘was in itself
the final symbol of degradation, of removing from society those deemed
to pollute it’ (Davies 2005, 69).
The absence or prohibition of funerary rituals can be used as a tool
for humiliation of the deceased and of those who survived her. The lack
of funerary ritual is considered an offense because there are religious
and cultural expectations about the treatment of the corpse; the lack of
funerary ritual or the ‘desecration’ of a corpse breaks a taboo. This means
that the absence of funerary rituals or the disappearance of bodies would
lead to the humiliation of those who could not satisfy the cultural and reli-
gious obligations, but also it would prevent the recognition of the dignity
200 S. M. R. OYOLA
and equality of those who perished, a dignity that would place them in
a common place with other human beings. Hence, the direct relation of
funerary rituals to the dignity of the dead is, in the first place, in terms
of the equal status of the dead, who should receive recognition as other
human beings do. Second, it affects victims in terms of the ability of the
living to fulfil a cultural and religious norm, a sense of obligation for
their relatives or friends. Preventing a funeral, destroying or desecrating
a corpse, and disappearing the body aim to deny the equal status of the
deceased victim, and disempower the surviving victims.
In the case of civil war, conflict, and authoritarian regimes, the bodies
that do not receive a proper funeral belong to those who actively defied
the regime and joined the opposition, but also to civilians who were
targeted due to their ethnicity, class, gender, political affiliation, or other
form of identity. In those cases, the prevention of proper burial of victims
fulfil several functions. Ferrándiz and Robben (2015) have documented
that the disappearance of bodies has been used to redefine the victory over
the territory, the political incapacitation of the opposition, and represent
the power of the dictatorship over death and life in the cases of Argentina
and Chile. Disappearance, together with torture, was used to break the
basic sociality of individuals and generate a larger effect on the structure
of society.
In the aftermath of the dictatorship, exhumations, the discovery of
mass graves, and the confessions of perpetrators revealed the extent of
the atrocity, but did not overcome the clashing of narratives about what
had happened in the past. According to Robben ‘these returning intru-
sions from an unmourned past, the emotional responses they summoned
forth, and the political debates and public protests they provoked, were
the unmistakable characteristics of a society that had not yet come to
terms with the massive trauma in its recent past’ (2005, 350). In the
post-dictatorship Argentina, the institutional mechanisms of the transi-
tion were not sufficient for overcoming the psychosocial impact of the
legacy of violence. Hence, exhumations are an important component in
the restitution of dignity and in the process of reconciliation, but it is not
enough by itself.
In the case of the prevention of funerary rituals, this practice is asso-
ciated with damage to a person’s human dignity because these violent
practices are not limited to the destruction of the body, but they also
include the moral worth of the person and the spirit of the commu-
nity as well. Preventing the performance of funerary rituals is far from
being a collateral damage of war; rather, it is a premeditated act oriented

towards the spiritual destruction of social groups, particularly of ethnic
groups with bonds socially constructed through rituals (Brewer 2010,
22). This is a practice of cultural annihilation that took place, for example
in Guatemala, where only a third of the survivors received proper burial.
According to the Recovery of Historical Memory (Recuperacion de la
Memoria Historia—REMHI) project in Guatemala (Vol. 1, 1998), the
Guatemalan Army gave precise instructions for hiding the locations of the
bodies after their murder; the military personnel were instructed to bury
the bodies of the victims as fast as possible in order to prevent their burials
to be used as subversive, agitation, or propaganda work. Garrard-Burnett
(2015, 185) argues that ‘the scorched-earth campaign that left so many
tens of thousands of Maya dead or presumed dead posed a special set of
metaphysical problems’; the lack of proper funerary rituals prevented the
Maya survivor communities to establish relations with their dead.
This practice was subordinated on some occasions by a strategy
of exemplifying terror, used to teach others the consequences of non-
compliance with the regime. In the case of Guatemala, under Rios Montt,
the practice of selectively forced disappearances was replaced by large-
scale massacres. Contrary to the disappearances, ‘any family member who
survived were left with no doubts about what had happened’ (Garrard-
Burnett 2011, 89). However, as it occurs in the case of genocide, there
are not lessons to be learnt that could save future victims from the fate
of extermination. In those cases, the prohibition of funerary rituals does
not aim to prevent more people to subvert the regime, but it is used as a
tool for humiliation, taking a person’s dignity away and humiliating those
who survived her. According to Margalit, ‘Even in war we are required
to treat humans with basic dignity. Humiliation is the denial of that, and
cruel humiliation is the severe case of denying humans the moral status
of human beings’ (2010, 132–133).
Denying the other’s dignity makes the continuation of violence easier;
ostensibly the act of dehumanization makes the killing easier. More than a
demonization of the other, it was its dehumanization that made possible
the genocide in Rwanda. Pio, a killer in the Rwanda genocide claimed
‘We no longer saw a human being when we turned up a Tutsi in the
swamps’ (quoted by Aguilar 2009, 21). Similarly, in her research of the
barbaric practices of mutilation of corpses during the Colombian conflict,
Uribe claims that these practices facilitated committing massacres because
they allowed neglecting the victims’ humanity and dignity: ‘Those who
202 S. M. R. OYOLA
carry out the massacres have before them strangers who do not belong to
their world, archetypes of the unspeakable: physically close but spiritually
distant’ (2004, 95).
In sum, the sabotage or prohibition of proper funerary rituals is
a mechanism employed to deny the dignity of the victims, increase
the humiliation of the deceased and surviving victims, and facilitate
further extermination of a group of people by dehumanizing them. The
remaining question is whether this process can be reversed, if victims
whose bodies have been disappeared or destroyed can regain their dignity
as the language of transitional justice argues, and if that is the case, how
this can be achieved and what are the challenges for that. In order to
advance some possible answers to these questions, the next section focuses
on the Colombian case and the efforts to promote the dignification of
victims.
10.4 The Restoration

of Victims’ Dignity in Colombia
The conflict in Colombia started in the late 1950s, with the creation of
communist guerrillas and extreme right-wing illegal paramilitary groups.
It has been fuelled by the financial incentive of the drug trade, private
security companies, and security forces with a long record of human rights
violation. The rural regions of Colombia, which are distant from the
capital center, have been particularly affected by the violence. There have
been 2087 massacres between 1983 and 2012. In addition, 5.7 million
people have been forcibly displaced and 220,000 civilians have been
murdered. At the same time, a very diverse and high number of peace-
building initiatives have existed in the country (Bouvier 2009, 2013). In
2005, the paramilitary groups initiated their demobilization after nego-
tiations with former President Alvaro Uribe. In that context, several
transitional justice mechanisms were created, among them the Justice and
Peace Law (2005) and later, the Law of Victims and Land Restitution
(2011). In 2012, President Juan Manuel Santos started a peace dialogue
with the FARC guerrillas, which was finally signed in 2016.
Despite the several attempts at peacebuilding and conflict transforma-
tion in Colombia, violence has not ceased yet. In recent years, hundreds of
social leaders, union leaders, and peasant leaders of land restitution have
been murdered, threatened, and abused. According to the Office of High
Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), 389 aggressions against
social leaders and human rights defenders occurred in 2016 (OHCHR

2017). Furthermore, the OHCHR reported that the disproportionate
effects of the conflict on indigenous and Afro-Colombian population has
not been improved. According to the Colombian think tank, Centro de
Recursos para el Análisis de Conflictos (Resource Centre for Conflict
Analysis or CERAC) most of the murder and threats against social leaders
are not the result of the traditional actors of the armed conflict in
Colombia (Restrepo 2016). Instead, the action of right-wing paramilitary
groups, and new cohorts of them also known in Colombia as Criminal
Bands, are responsible for this violence.
It has been reported that the number of victims of the Colombian
conflict since 1985 have been five million. There is not an exact number
of the disappeared in Colombia but the government’s Victims’ Unit
registers more than 45,000 victims of forced disappearance, while the
Institute for Forensic Medicine presents a number of 111,588 victims
missing, with more than 22,000 of them being classified as forced disap-
pearances (Haugaard and Bouvier 2016). Colombia has implemented
several transitional justice mechanisms, including trials to members of
illegal and official armies, amnesties, historical memory commissions, and
reparations, which have been created through two main laws. The Justice
and Peace law 975 (2005) followed the peace agreement between the
paramilitary group the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia and the
Uribe government in 2003 (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia), and the
Victims and Land Restitution Law 1448 (2011). Article 4 of the Law
of Victims and Land Restitution (2011) establishes that the principle of
dignity, according to the constitutional mandate, shapes the participation
of victims and respect to their rights. It also establishes that the value
axiological ground of the rights to truth, justice, and reparation is the
respect to the integrity and honour of the victims. Additionally, the
Colombian government has promoted satisfaction measures that involve
preserving and dignifying the memory of victims, and to carry dignifying
events out. Article 139 establishes that the government should develop
actions that will re-establish victims’ dignity.
Two central institutions have been created after these laws, the Unit
for the Attention and Integral Reparation of Victims (Unidad para la
Atención y Reparación Integral a las Víctimas )—in short, the Victims’
Unit, and the National Historical Memory Center. They have addressed
the restoration of victims’ dignity as one of their main goals. Among other
activities, the Victims’ Unit engages in returning the human remains of
204 S. M. R. OYOLA
victims to their families, and the Historical Memory Center, supports

local memory initiatives, as well as document and disseminate a narra-
tive about the conflict that explains the reasons for emergence of the
conflict. The Victims’ Unit attempts at restoring victims’ dignity under
three mechanisms: the psychosocial accompaniment, representation, and
material response. The psychosocial component of dignity has been devel-
oped by the Victims’ Unit in their goal of operationalizing the concept
of dignification and recognition of victims. The process of responding to
victims’ needs, such as in the process of giving the human remains of
victims to their relatives, should be done with dignity.
According to the Article 139, Law 1448 (2011), symbolical repara-
tions or satisfaction, aims to have a public impact to build and recover
the historical memory, the recognition of victims’ dignity, and the
reconstruction of the social fabric:
It states the satisfaction of the rights to truth, justice and reparation. It

includes the possibility of individual and collective grief in those cases that
were not possible due to threats. They aim to re-create the death rituals
with dignity. These measures [seek to] reestablish the individual dignity
through the recognition of the suffering of the grieving people, but they
also have a collective orientation (…) they bring to the present the memory
of past violence in a sense that recognizes social responsibility. (Article 170,
Decree 4800, 2011)
According to Lina Rondón in an interview with the author,2 the process

of dignification is crucial for the whole process of reparation. In the case
of exhumations, known as the ‘Dignified Transfer of Human remains’, the
accompaniment to victims, as well the dignified conditions of the place-
ment of the remains are of equal importance. It is vital to incorporate the
history of these families into the events of what happened. Lina Rondón
argues that,
the goal is to give meaning not only to the finding of the body but to what
these families have done in order to find them, to what they have done in
order to cope. The psychosocial scheme includes dignifying phone contact,
psychosocial accompaniment during the transfer, and then everything that
seems to be logistical but that is arranged in such a manner that helps to
2 Lina Rondón Daza is a psychologist and adviser to the general direction of the
psychosocial attention team for the Victims’ Unit. 15 September 2016, Bogotá.
structure the person. It is a dis-structuring moment, and the purpose is to

give structure to the mess.
Similarly, the Historical Memory Center aims to provide some form

of symbolical reparation through the memorialization of victims (Riaño
Alcalá and Uribe 2016). The purpose of the Center was initially to find
the truth of the events that occurred, but their path has evolved to include
the dignification and recognition of victims. They do not only docu-
ment the events that happened, but aim to restore the broken social
fabric of communities through the strengthening of local initiatives of
memory. For instance, they work with traditional funerary singers in
Bojayá and they support the casa de la memoria, a grassroots museum
and site of memory in Granada. According to Andrea Garzon, adviser to
the National Historic Memory Center, in an interview with the author
in 2016, the focus of the documentation and recovery of memory is
the victims, not the perpetrators. This change of focus was the result of
the Victim’s law in 2010 and 2011, and the component of truth and
reparation of the Law 1424.
Finally, the material aspect of dignity is perhaps the most contested
and refers to the material reparation of victims, including the administra-
tive (economical) reparation. And judicial reparation (when the fault of
the state can be proven) there are also collective reparations, land resti-
tution. This is one of the most contested aspects because some victims
consider it against their dignity to receive money in recognition of their
deceased victims. This is perceived by many of them as blood money,
an effort to silence victims and in many cases, divides communities and
creates resentment.
10.5 The Process of Dignification

of Victims with Absent Bodies
Two victims’ testimonies of their experience of conflict during the early
2000s can help us to understand the psychological and social conse-
quences of the victimization of absent bodies. The first testimony belongs
to a victim of the massacre of Bojayá, an Afro-Colombian municipality
in which over 100 people perished during a confrontation between the
FARC guerrillas and the AUC paramilitary in 2002 (Rios Oyola 2015).
Civilians were seeking refugee inside the San Pablo Apostol church, when
an explosive launched by the FARC reached the church, which had been
206 S. M. R. OYOLA
used as a shield by paramilitary soldiers. The second testimony is part

of an interview with the author that took place in Granada, Antioquia
in September 2016. In Granada, during the 1990s and early 2000s over
400 were murdered, 128 were disappeared, and over 15 mass graves have
been found.
Rosa Chaverra was a victim of the massacre of Bojayá; her testi-
mony reflects the multiple ways in which victims were affected. Her
case provides an insight in the consequences of the destruction of the
bodies during the massacre, since this woman lost her parents, nephews,
cousins, uncles, aunts, and brothers. In addition, six of her eight brothers
were displaced to Quibdó with their families and one of her sisters was
permanently injured in the massacre. She says:
I have seen my dad and my mom in my dreams, and I ask them what they
wanted because I saw them upset. And they answered to me, ‘oh darling,
I am very hungry’, and that was because she [my mother] did not eat,
since the armed groups entered. She did not eat anymore, so she left very
hungry. I ask her about my dad, and she points over there, he is working,
and then I wake up, and then I can sleep no more.
The next day I tell my dream to one of my neighbours, and he tells me that
I should pray for them, because they are people that were gone without
praying [funerary rituals]. I did not see where my parents were when they
killed them; the truth is that my brother went to search for them to bury
them. He did not find them; the grave was open and they had to close it
again empty. The truth is that I don’t know where my parents are because
my brother did not find them… because my parents were like minced
meat. And that makes me very sad; not being able to bury my parents is
too much pain for me.
(Rosa Chaverra’s public speech at the Forum ‘Bojayá una década
después ’ at the National Museum of Colombia, Bogotá, 27 April 2012).
Rosa’s relatives’ bodies cannot be retrieved in an exhumation.3 Her grief

is enhanced due to the impossibility of proper funerary rituals for her
relatives. She and her brother made a grave that was closed empty when
they did not find the bodies to bury. She feels a sense of obligation to
her parents that could not be satisfied. Victims’ grief is enhanced by the
3 An official exhumation of the rests of the victims of the massacre of Bojayá took place
in May 2017.
conditions of the deaths of their relatives. The lack of funerary rituals

takes from them the possibility of creating narratives that articulate their
grief.
In a different regional conflict, the second testimony refers to the
violence experienced by the peasant communities of Granada, Antio-
quia. Gabriela is a leader from ASOVIDA, a local victims’ organization
working on the local memory museum. She experienced the violence of
the conflict in the early 2000s. She explains the violence in the region as
a result from the competition over the territory by the paramilitary and
the FARC guerrillas:
There were many mothers who had to let their children’s corpses be eaten
by the vultures. The terror repressed their love, and they could not work
through their grief… There were two people who helped to recover the
bodies, the ambulance driver and the dumper driver… they challenged the
armed groups in order to collect the bodies. God protected them to let
them tell their story.
They would bring the bodies to the cemetery. And in the cemetery, they
would wait one, two, up to three days for the relatives to recognize the
corpses. Many people knew their relatives were there, but they did not go
to see them. For instance, my brother was disappeared by the paramili-
tary; I never went to recognize a body, but I asked the gravedigger who
knew my brother to let me know. Many people could not bury their dead,
because of fear. There were risks for them, for example, the paramilitary
used to watch over the cemetery to see who would come to recognize the
corpses. There were many victims that had nothing to do with that.
(Interview with the author, September 2016).
Gabriela was not able to find the body of her brother due to terror,
while Rosa could not access the bodies. In Bojayá, the timing of the
first non-official exhumation, done without proper tools or legal process,
was postponed due to the ongoing conflict in the region. It was only
15 years later that an official exhumation took place. In both cases, the
impossibility of developing proper funerary rituals enhances grief and
pain.
In Bojayá, victims refer to the mala muerte, as a consequence of the
lack of proper funerary rituals, meaning the repetitive dreams of the
deceased that torment victims (Rios Oyola 2015, 143–146). Theidon
describes similar effects among victims in Peru, as does Eva Willems in her
208 S. M. R. OYOLA
chapter in this volume, wherein the victims live haunted by the memory
of atrocity that leads to negative emotions that cause spiritual and moral
confusion (Theidon 2013, 45). The disruption of the funerary rituals in
a certain way means a rupture between the community of the living and
the dead. In Granada and in Bojayá, victims have preserved the memory
of the deceased through rituals, museums, and sites of memory. Victims
create transformative initiatives that respond to the violation of the human
dignity of the deceased victim and of the threat against their own dignity.
10.6 Conclusion
The process of dignification in the absence of proper burials for victims
is mainly observed through the exhumation of human remains and their
return to their relatives in proper ceremonies. However, in many cases of
massacres where the bodies have been destroyed, or in cases of ongoing
violence, where it is not possible to identify the remains, other forms of
dignification have been created, through institutional transitional justice
efforts, and by the local communities who have been victimized.
Exhumations are an institutional form of recognizing a victims’ dignity.
This form of dignity restoration focuses on the loss that affects the
victims’ relatives. In order to guarantee a dignified process, the grief
that accompanies the process of exhumation should be respected, done
in privacy and not as a spectacle. In Bojayá during the ceremony of
exhumation, members of the community refused the presence of media
that would document their grief, which they considered to be ‘a wound
that was opened again’ (Consejería DDHH 2017). In a similar fashion,
Robin Azevedo criticizes the exhumation campaigns in Ayacucho, which
followed mediatized patterns and ‘the spectacularization of these acts of
“restoring dignity” to the exhumed remains’ (2016, 44).
In cases when exhumations are not sufficient, not possible or the body
of the victims has been disappeared, alternative forms of dignification have
been sought. Social memorialization and truth-seeking mechanisms are
the preferred path to recognize the dignity of the lost ones. These strate-
gies have been conducted by institutional efforts such as the Historical
Memory Center, as well as by local victims’ associations such as the Nunca
Mas museum in Granada and the many memorialization efforts through
rituals, songs, and dance in Bojayá (Rios Oyola 2015).
Finally, the absent bodies disempower surviving victims because they
feel that they are not able to carry their duties towards their deceased
relatives. This disempowerment becomes an affront against their dignity,

not only a violation of the dignity of the deceased victims. Hence, the
politics of dignity, mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, could be
helpful for understanding what steps can be taken in order to restore
victims’ dignity. Judith Butler argues that grief can be a political force if
it is moved beyond the individual melancholia (2004). Grief as a resource
for politics allows us to understand what counts as ‘grievable’ for society.
In other words, the expression of grief in the public arena has the poten-
tial of creating a cultural extension and psychological identification with
victims of violence. Grief can also help to mobilize victims’ feelings related
to the violation of their dignity and bring them to the public arena.
Dignity as a claim that mobilizes victims and articulates their feelings
of social disenfranchisement has been seldom reflected on transitional
justice mechanisms. Misztal (2013, 106) argues that dignity can be under-
stood as ‘the call for social justice’ or the redistribution of recognition. In
Colombia, this perspective has been integrated by acknowledging that
it is in the act itself of demanding rights that victims can find their
dignity restored. For instance, the Dignified Transfer of Human Remains’
mentioned before, includes an important mention to the work that
victims have done in trying to find the fate of the bodies of their relatives.
Similarly, acts of memorialization emphasize not only the violation of the
human rights, but the agency of victims engaged in resisting violence.
However, a broader perspective of the politics of dignity should include
transformative mechanisms of reparation that respond to the demands of
the victims.
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CHAPTER 11
The Wandering Memorial: Figures

of Ambivalence in Hungarian Holocaust
Memorialization
Alexandra Kowalski
Throughout Europe, Holocaust monuments are evidence of the ‘memory

work’ (Nora 1984) accomplished on a continent that once bred genocide
(Kucia 2016), continuing five decades of mobilization around memory
of the Shoah globally (Levy and Sznaider 2006; Alexander 2009; Eder
et al. 2017). As a ‘genre’ of public work, Holocaust museums and memo-
rials emerged immediately after the war (Marcuse 2010). Their numbers
started growing from the 1970s on, as the Holocaust became a mobi-
lizing concept for transnational Jewish organizations (Alexander 2009),
and received new impetus in the past decade in the wake of UN’s creation
of an International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of
the Holocaust in 2005 (OSCE-ODIHR 2015, 4–6).
The recent controversy about the expression ‘Polish death camps’ and
its criminalization by Polish law in February 2018 were painful reminders
A. Kowalski (B)
Central European University, Vienna, Austria
e-mail: Kowalskia@ceu.edu

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54887-2_11
214 A. KOWALSKI
that the symbolic territories of Holocaust remembrance are still shifting—

and are likely to keep shifting as political illiberalism and nationalist
closure gain new legitimacy globally. As Young’s (1993) study pointed
out, Holocaust memorials are best understood as manifestations of ambi-
guity and ambivalence, at the intersection of national needs, frames, and
ideologies on the one hand, and of transnational models and activism on
the other. Taking inspiration from this and other classical studies of Holo-
caust memorials in Germany, Poland, Israel, and the US (Olick and Levy
1997; Hansen-Glucklich 2014), this paper reflects on the difficulties of
genocide memorialization in Hungary.
Hungary partly followed the international trajectory of Holocaust
memorialization in Eastern Europe (OSCE-ODIHR 2015), but is also
characterized by historical specificities that put the difficulties of ‘negative’
memorial work in bold relief. Europe’s consensus on Germany’s guilt in
the Holocaust provides solid ground everywhere for denial and avoidance
of self-examination (Laczó 2018). From Hungary (Kovács 1994; Gyáni
2016) to Poland (Szarota 1996) and France (Rousso 1994), the narrative
of national victimization is powerful and plays an important role in stifling
honest memory work. Poland, Hungary, and other countries of Eastern
Europe share a particularly intense history of denial and forgetting under
socialism (Ziarek 2007; Laczó 2019; Gyáni 2016).
Hungary’s early history of governmental collaboration and anti-Semitic
policies, however, makes the pressure of the historical record perhaps
stronger there than in other countries—especially the ones, like Poland,
that can claim large human losses to war, occupation, and deportations.
The first numerus clausus laws were successfully passed in the 1920s,
and a series of discriminatory laws further stripped Jews from civil rights
between 1938 and 1941. Hungary was an ally of Germany’s from the
onset of the war. Deportations of non-Hungarian Jews started as early
as 1941, long before the formal occupation of 19 March 1944. Mass
deportations of Jewish nationals ‘only’ started in March 1944, and many
Hungarian historians stress that the Horthy government delayed the
process till May 1944, but the rapidity with which rural communities
were eradicated (in a mere three months), all under the watch of local
Hungarian authorities and in the absence of an occupation force worthy
of the name, makes for a particularly uncomfortable historical truth (Cole
2003). The organization of Budapest Jews’ murder by confinement,
execution, labour, and marches in the following fall and winter is mostly
11 THE WANDERING MEMORIAL: FIGURES OF AMBIVALENCE … 215
Hungarians’ responsibility—especially of the fascist Arrow Cross, in power

after October 1944 (Komoróczy 1995; Braham 2000).
A major goal of the Hungarian government’s support to Hitler’s
Germany, under the rule of Admiral Miklós Horthy, was to bring the
‘Great Hungary’ (territories lost to the treaty of Trianon in 1920) back
together. The history of the ‘Great Hungary’ motif and of the nation-
alist territorial claims it represents is deeply enmeshed with the history of
anti-Semitism. The master narrative of defeat that hinges metonymically
on the motif of the Great Hungary makes for an endless lament over
the alleged ‘tragedy of Trianon’ for which Jews are partly blamed. This
connotative web of powerful tropes (Jews, tragedy, Trianon, loss, Great
Hungary) makes a ‘code’ that still structures much of contemporary polit-
ical discourse. The entanglement of territorial nostalgia and anti-Semitism
is constitutive of the Hungarian nation as it emerged from the ashes of
the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I. It is still to this day
constitutive of Hungarian nationalism.
As suggested by András Kovács (2016), Holocaust memory and histo-
riography are caught in the intricacies of historical debates on the ‘tragedy
of Trianon’ and the Horthy period that followed, and their symbolic web
of nostalgias, resentments, and anti-Semitism. I argue here that the diffi-
culties of Holocaust memorialization illustrate this insight. They are a
phenomenal manifestation of a historical truth that is at once glaring and
continually blurred. The powerful cultural code of Hungarian victimiza-
tion structurally prevents clarity on the subject. This chapter analyzes
the workings of this code on Holocaust memorials in Budapest, and
specifically its production of ambiguity and ambivalence.
Besides territorial resentment, a second historical specificity is the pres-
ence of a large and diverse community of survivors and their descendants,
which sets Hungary apart from the rest of an otherwise ‘virtually Jewish’
Eastern Europe (Gruber 2001). In an apparent paradox, continued Jewish
presence has perpetuated Jews’ symbolic invisibility in the public sphere,
on an assimilationist model of belonging that has defined the communi-
ty’s existence since the nineteenth century (Gluck 2016). If the ‘Jewish
revival’ of the 1990s and 2000s may have made Jewishness somewhat
conspicuous recently (Mars 2000; Vincze 2010), the semiotics of Holo-
caust memorials analyzed in this chapter suggest that invisibility still
defines Jewishness in Budapest today. The wandering memorials studied
in this chapter constitute one of the forms of this relative but continued
invisibility—an invisibility continued by other means than sheer silencing.
216 A. KOWALSKI
The always elusive, avoidant presence of Holocaust memorials in

Budapest manifests the ambivalence, the ambiguity, and/or the reluc-
tance of an entire nation of Jews and non-Jews vis-à-vis this painful
history. It enacts and reflects the collective dilemmas posed by the
antinomies, desires, and impossibilities of settling on a common narra-
tive. The wanderings, material and symbolic, of Holocaust memorials in
Budapest reflect divides not only between Jews and non-Jews, but also
between Jews of widely diverse spiritual horizons, institutional affiliations,
and organizational cultures, both from Hungary and abroad. Interest-
ingly, the current resurgence of right-wing populism at the heart of
Hungarian politics is rapidly and dramatically changing the symptomatics
of ambivalence, and ambivalence itself, into more bifurcated, explicit, and
assertive positions.
‘Ambivalence’, in psychology, refers to an internally conflicted attitude
moved by mutually contradicting desires and impulses. For our purpose
here, ambivalence describes the contradictions at work in the collective
representation of the Holocaust in Hungarian public space. Before 1990,
Holocaust memorialization was at most discreet, and Holocaust memory
in a state of memorial latency or repression. After 1990 and the fall of
the socialist regime, new memorials started combining two contradictory
impulses: a desire for memorialization and a will to bring up the Jewish
genocide in the public sphere, on the one hand, and a reluctance to deal
meaningfully with the subject, to inscribe it in relevant or visible social
spaces, on the other.
As a result, I argue that contemporary Holocaust memorials tend
symptomatically to come into being through either one of two forms
of displacement: either a symbolic displacement, whereby messages are
blurred through unstable or undefined meanings; or material displace-
ment, where the signifiers themselves (the monuments) are made difficult
to grasp (to see) because they change place, are exiled, or are placed out
of sight. It is the reality of such displacements as signs of an ambiva-
lent collective memory which I seek to capture through the notion of
the ‘wandering memorial’. A wandering memorial is a memorial that
has not found its place, is out of place, or is otherwise out of the way.
The wandering memorials of Budapest belong to a category of lieux de
mémoire best described as non-lieux, or non-realms. As a general item,
the category is familiar to scholars of genocide (Bensoussan 2004), colo-
nialism and slavery (Gueye and Michel 2017; Forsdick 2014), collective
loss (Baussant, forthcoming), and other negative heritages. Like other
kinds of non-lieux, wandering memorials perpetually oscillate between

oblivion and desire (Augé 2004), between emplacement and displace-
ment, presence and erasure. In this chapter, I take the discussion on
negative events a notch further by offering a systematic taxonomy that
maps forms of silence, denial, and ambivalence—paradoxical forms of
memory work that are at once about erasure and remembrance.
I identify and specifically discuss five figures of memorial ambivalence
in the Budapest case, defining the symbolic geography of Budapest’s
Holocaust memory. The first one, the screen memorial, embodies in social
space what a screen memory is to an individual’s mind, substituting an
inconvenient, original representation for a convenient story or image. The
second figure is the ambiguous memorial: a monument whose object is
unclear because it is the signifier of multiple signifieds. The third form
of memorial ambivalence is the wandering memorial. In the title of this
chapter, the expression refers to the symbolic totality of the manifesta-
tions I am looking at here. In the segment below, ‘wandering memorial’
refers to a particularly significant, but specific instance of this totality:
namely, monuments (or projects) that are physically displaced, misplaced,
or pushed around, and that are as a result ‘out of place’. The fourth
figure of ambivalence is an insecure type of denial that gives itself away
because of its insecurity—it leaves a trace, a vestige, a ruin of the monu-
ment that is being denied the status of monument. I call this figure the
non-memorial. The fifth and last form is the invisible memorial. A form
of denial as well, the invisible memorial is an intentional but reluctant
monument that hides in the folds, cracks, and corners of the city.
This taxonomy was inducted from an analysis of the biographies of
Holocaust memorials in Budapest. Its purpose is to provide an account
that captures as many of them as possible. The biographies were assem-
bled through primary and secondary sources, and were complemented
through press reviews when needed. I also collected and analyzed
discourses about the monuments found in the guide books currently
sold in Budapest bookstores, as well as in urban tours focused on
Jewish topics—five official ones organized by Mazsihisz, the Hungarian
Federation of Jewish Organizations, in and around the Great Syna-
gogue at Dohány Street, and five independent ones organized by three
distinct organizations. I focus mostly on Hungarian-language sources,
with English language ones used as ‘control’ data. I also draw on a
large stock of background information on the history of Jewish heritage
collected through several years of research on the (non-)preservation of
the old Jewish quarter in contemporary Budapest.
218 A. KOWALSKI
11.1 Figure of Memorial

Ambivalence I: The Screen Memorial
If we were to look for an equivalent for the famous 1948 Warsaw ghetto
memorial by Rapoport in Hungary (Young 1989), the most likely candi-
date would probably be the spectacular pillars designed by Alfréd Hajós
bearing hundreds of thousands of victims’ names. Its place in the Jewish
cemetery at Kozma Street, very much out of sight and out of the central
areas, makes its meaning and impact quite different from the Rapoport
monument, however. It is striking that the Kozma Street monument
gets little visibility in tourist information, and in that sense, it probably
qualifies as the first wandering memorial of its kind.
Since the inauguration of Hajós’ monument, the only Holocaust
memorials were a small set of plaques, the first of which was put up in
1948 on the outside wall of the synagogue, which it says was the loca-
tion of the Nazi ghetto’s gate. The focus is on the ghetto’s wall; the
two plaques in the synagogue area commemorate the liberation of the
VII district ghetto by the Red Army. As Cole (2002) notes, the plaques
celebrate the saviours, not the victims. The socialist regime was noto-
riously repressive vis-à-vis expression of identities considered ‘religious’,
and silence about the Holocaust naturally (and conveniently) echoed
silence about Hungary’s Jewish population, as well as the Horthy era
generally. As in Auschwitz II, the first Holocaust commemoration site in
Poland, repression operated through a nationalization of the Holocaust
that insisted on commemorating ‘all victims’.
As Cole (curiously) did not note, the first monumental memorial
to Hungarian victims of the Holocaust was the Emanuel Tree, by the
Hungarian artist, Imre Varga, erected in 1991 in the backyard of the main
synagogue and sponsored by a US NGO established by the actor, Tony
Curtis, in honour of his father, Emanuel Schwartz. Although visible from
the street through a large, gated opening, it was set on private ground.
The Tree is a willow tree, bearing the names of 30,000 victims, a name
inscribed on each leaf, their Jewishness represented through the tree’s
reversed menorah shape and the symmetrical shape of the biblical tablets.
Despite the tree being a memorial to victims, the ‘privatized’ character
of the sculpture distinguishes it from the kind of public homage that is
Rapoport’s epic monument (Petö 2009) and mimics the original confine-
ment of Hajós’ memorial in an enclosed space normally used for Jewish
communal life.
The other memorials that bloomed in the wake of post-1990 polit-

ical liberalization in or around the Dohány Synagogue were, as a matter
of fact, focused more on saviours than on victims. In this sense, they
continued the memorial approach that was dominant before the regime
change. The cult of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved
thousands of Budapest Jews and an emblematic figure of the Allies’
presence in Budapest during World War II, is especially conspicuous. A
monument to Wallenberg’s memory was placed right next to the Tree,
and next to a collective memorial bearing the names of other saviours.
On neighbouring Dob Street, a block away from the gates of the syna-
gogue’s garden, a sculpture dedicated to Karl Lutz, Swiss diplomat who
also saved Hungarian Jews, was erected in the same year as the Emanuel
Tree and extends the presence of the Righteous into public space (Cole
2002).
On second glance, ‘righteous gentiles’ cast a long shadow onto the
Emanuel Tree itself. Today, the Tree is part of a memorial ensemble
inaugurated in 2012 and called ‘Wallenberg Memorial Park’. Tourist
brochures generally consider Tree and Park as a memorial totality,
subsumming the Tree under the “Wallenberg memorials” category.
Although the Tree is clearly dedicated to victims, it was placed firmly
under the patronage of the saviours: towering over the tree and part
of the monument itself, is a Hebrew inscription celebrating those ‘who
save a soul for mankind’, engraved on the otherwise unmarked shape of
the tablets. For Varga, the Tree was the second run of an idea already
embodied by a statue of Wallenberg he made for the American Embassy in
1986 (Taylor-Tudzin 2011), sometimes referred to as the ‘“old” Wallen-
berg memorial’ (Pótó 2019), which ended up displaced to a suburb of the
city. The constant slippage between the Tree and the figure of Wallenberg
in discourses about the memorial park appears irresistible. It is as if the
actual referent of the victim’s memorial were the saviour(s).
Calling memorials to saviours ‘screen memorials’ draws attention to
their function. As screen memories do for an individual psyche, screen
memorials substitute a relatively innocuous story or image for a more
painful, original one. The story of the Righteous is the part of the Holo-
caust narrative that non-Jews can identify with. It is also a story that Jews,
from Yad Vashem to Steven Spielberg, have actively contributed to make
part of popular culture. In the Hungarian context, Jewish organizations
embraced it as their own even before Schindler’s List turned the ‘Gentile
saviour’ type into a popular hero of Jewish urban tourism, anticipating
220 A. KOWALSKI
a global spread that would only happen in the second half of the 1990s
(Orla-Bukowska 2015; Tóth 2008).
Wallenberg’s way to Holocaust memory was paved by another, well-
established screen memory. After World War II, Raoul Wallenberg’s name
signified primarily dissidence and opposition to the Socialist regime,
owing to the diplomat’s tragic end at the Soviets’ hands. He was captured
by the Red Army when Budapest was liberated, never to be seen again. He
is thought to have died in jail in Moscow or in Siberia. His disappearance
immediately became a bone of contention between Western powers and
the Soviet Union. Wallenberg was thus originally celebrated as a victim—
a victim of communist repression. Varga’s master, Pál Pátzay, produced a
famous Wallenberg monument after the War, which was taken down by
the communist regime in 1948 and disappeared for many years. Varga’s
own 1986 statue was not a Holocaust monument but a vindication of
the 1948 affront, and a symbol of Hungarian resistance to communism
toward ruler János Kádár’s predictable fin de règne (Taylor-Tudzin 2011).
It is only in the 1990s that the cult of Wallenberg met again with Holo-
caust memorialization as a symbol of ‘gentile righteousness’, yet one
shrouded in nationalist and liberal legitimacy, doubling also as a symbol of
Hungary’s new independence from communist rule. Since then, wrapped
in its Wallenberg garb, genocide reaches public space through the loose
fence of the synagogue’s backyard, and does so as a replay of old scripts of
political emancipation and redemption that for decades have helped the
public avoid mourning and atonement.
The Hungarian cult of Wallenberg and other saviours operates a mani-
fold substitution. First, it substitutes the story of Jewish victimhood for
a story of heroic gentile heroism. Second, it replaces the latter with the
traditional nationalist narrative of Hungarian victimhood, of Hungarians
as victims of Soviet rule. Finally, it obfuscates the question of national
responsibilities in the victimization of Hungarian Jews. The screen memo-
rial saves the nation the pain of dealing with its crime, with its guilt, and
with its overblown sense of dispossession.
11.2 Figure of Memorial Ambivalence

II: The Ambiguous Memorial
The second type of ambivalent monuments is one for which the object
of which is unclear, or that has multiple objects. Several ‘screen memo-
rials’ also qualify as ‘ambiguous memorials’. We saw that the Wallenberg
Memorial Park, which tour operators also sometimes refer to as the ‘Wal-
lenberg Holocaust Memorial Park’, honours multiple memories: of one
saviour, specifically; of saviours, generally; and of Jewish victims of the
Holocaust. The park, in addition, memorializes all victims of Nazi evil,
which is represented as a snake in a monumental stained-glass composi-
tion. The park is an ambiguous memorial in the sense that its signifieds
are multiple. The Emanuel Tree itself is polysemic, with an inscription
about ‘saviours of souls’ that comes to blur an otherwise straightforward
homage to victims. Its physical inscription in a ‘Wallenberg Memorial
Park’ contributes to the same double-speak effect.
The gardens of the main synagogue at Dohány Street host other
ambiguous Holocaust memorials. One of them is the ‘garden of heroes’.
The area on the left of the Dohány Synagogue is a cemetery—in fact,
a mass grave created for a part of the many victims of hunger, cold, or
disease in the last weeks of the Jewish ghetto between December 1944
and February 1945. The site was one of three burial grounds designated
by police decree as common graves in 1945. After visiting the syna-
gogue, tourists are led in front of this dedicated space. There, trained
tour guides tell of the tragedy of life and death in and around the ghetto,
at the hands of Nazis and Hungarian Arrow Cross men. They explain
that the cemetery was turned into a memorial site dedicated to the victims
of the Nazi ghetto, and that its name is ‘the garden of heroes’. On the side
of the garden-tomb, against columns that line it and support the roof of
a patio, hang photos that illustrate the architectural and memorial history
of the garden. At the back of the memorial garden-cemetery, plaques
and monuments proliferate: memorials to individual victims, to donors,
commemorative re-dedication plaques including a 1985 commemoration
of the liberation, and a sculpture memorializing the death marches. At
that point, visitors are a bit lost on a walk that has progressively and
unexpectedly transformed a cultural site (the synagogue) into a disorderly
museum of memorials dedicated to the victims of multiple episodes of
suffering, torture, and death with no explicit relation to each other except
for the Jewishness of victims and a broad sense of absolute tragedy.
When moving past the tombs and the various memorials and plaques
at the back of the synagogue, the visitor realizes that the ‘heroes’ of the
‘garden of heroes’ are actually not one, but two. The heroes are not just
the dead of the ghetto transfigured into martyrs by an act of memo-
rialization; they are also the Jewish Hungarian patriots who fell during
222 A. KOWALSKI
World War I, to whom the ‘heroes’ temple’ behind the garden is dedi-
cated... and to whom actually the garden orginally owes its name! The
Heroes’ Temple is an idiosyncratic building that is strikingly beautiful
in an austere, mausoleum-like way. The square, bright-white synagogue
was built in 1931, and dedicated to the Jewish Hungarian soldiers who
died in World War I. A characteristic example of symbolic ambiguity, the
‘heroes’ of the garden are of two kinds, as the visitor discovers mid-visit.
And so, her confusion, which was already great, becomes extreme: were
the ghetto’s martyrs elevated to the status of heroes according to the
familiar Zionist model which conventionally celebrates ‘heroism’ while
commemorating the Shoah, as she assumed (Zertal 2005)? Or was it so
by derivation, because the name was there already, and no one moved
to change it? Did the original victims, the national heroes of World War
I, withhold their symbolic share of the ‘heroes’ garden’? Or were they,
rather, replaced by others, who took their name, as well as a part of their
physical space? But then, given the beauty of the little white synagogue,
could not the victims now buried in the garden receive full credit for
their sacrifice, and be given a name of their own? Were they not worthy
of their own space and name? The ‘garden of heroes’ is like a slip of the
Hungarian Jewish memory-tongue: it is as if Holocaust victims could not
be named for what they are.
The juxtaposition of Holocaust memorials with other types of memo-
rials is disorienting enough. The proliferation of memorial objects,
plaques, tombstones, dedicated to different events or people, all of it in
the absence of a narrative locating the site in the symbolic centre of the
Hungarian Holocaust, is profoundly confusing. The various episodes that
constitute the Holocaust as a long process of mass extermination (concen-
tration, deportation, death camps, executions, marches) are not explicitly
connected to each other as part of one genocidal effort. Tour guides
mention atrocities perpetrated by the Hungarian Arrow Cross administra-
tion following German occupation, but they do not relate this late phase
of the War to prior collaboration with Nazi Germany in the War. They
do not connect either the Nazis’ planning of the ghetto in Budapest with
prior Hungarian plans, or the Hungarian local administrations’ orderly
and efficient execution of countryside Jews’ deportations to death.
Memorials around the synagogue are not necessarily ambiguous in
and of themselves. They are made ambiguous through their arrange-
ment in space, and through the discourses that frame them for visitors
and locals alike. Varga’s Tree, the tombs, the tombstones everywhere, the
little memorial stones, the death march sculpture: each of these items is
rendered individually clear in its intent and reference to one or another
episode or aspect of the Shoah. All are moving, some are heart-wrenching,
and the general omnipresence of death on the grounds of the synagogue
insinuates itself in the visitor progressively and profoundly in the course
of a visit, making in the end for a rather haunting experience. And yet,
what can be considered a large, multifaceted Holocaust memorial, is one
that does not say its name, and seems reluctant to do so.
So much ambiguity in the heart of the most prominent Jewish monu-
ment in Budapest (the Great Synagogue), in an area that has been known
since the nineteenth century as the ‘old Jewish quarter of Budapest’, is
significant. The quarter played a unique role in Hungarian Jewish history,
as the symbol of a prosperous, peaceful era of civic integration, and as a
meaningful witness to the resilience and strength of an ancient cultural
settlement (Komoróczy 1995; Perczel 2007). The place was also a nodal
point in the history of the Hungarian Holocaust, as the location of
the Budapest ghetto between November 1944 and January 1945. The
complex planning and incomplete implementation of multiple ghettos in
the city was a significant moment in Hungarian and Jewish history (Cole
2003). The intricacies of confinement devices and their planning were a
unique feature of genocide in Hungary, as well as, one might add, a para-
doxical factor in the survival of the Budapest Jewish community (Perczel
2007; Cole 2002). Anyone attuned to these aspects of Jewish Hungarian
history would expect them to be reflected on and memorialized on the
site around the Great Synagogue. Instead, the site insidiously perpetuates
the stigmatization of what remains, since 1945, a ‘pariah landscape’ (Cole
2002) through ambiguous forms of mourning and commemoration.
11.3 Figure of Memorial Ambivalence

III: The Wandering Memorial
‘Wandering’ is the third of our five figures of memorial style. Wandering
is the quality of monuments (or projects) that move around because their
proponents have difficulties finding them a place in the physical space of
the city. They often end up, as a result, ‘out of place’. The Wallenberg
memorial, the Lutz memorial, and the Emanuel Tree are all wandering
memorials of the 1990s in that sense (Tóth 2008). The most prominent
Holocaust memorials of the millenial generation are also, and even more
significantly so, wandering ones.
224 A. KOWALSKI
Among them is the Holocaust Documentation Centre and Memo-

rial Collection (Memorial Centre hereafter), a project proposed in 1999
and built from 2002 on. The space opened to the public in 2004, on
Páva Street in the IX district, after years of debates about historiog-
raphy, curatorial choices, and appropriate location. The first of its kind
in the post-war history of Hungary, the centre was inaugurated 60 years
after the end of World War II, and 15 years after the fall of socialism.
Wandering memorials are often displaced temporally, as well as spatially,
and several locations were originally considered for the Memorial Centre,
all primarily in the VII district, which has been a popular destination
of Jewish tourism and Jewish cultural life in Budapest. The synagogue
on Rumbach Szebesztyen Street, one of the three landmark synagogues
that make the ‘Jewish triangle’ in the VII district, was a major candi-
date. It was arguably an appropriate site to host a budding reflection on
the Hungarian context of the Holocaust, since Hungarian authorities had
used the building as a deportation centre in 1941, long before the 1944
German ‘occupation’ (Komoróczy 1995). Scholars in and outside of the
Jewish organization, Mazsihisz, disagreed about the appropriate message.
Finally, the Hungarian state and its experts moved their centre out of the
Jewish district. The Memorial Centre is now located on the compounds
of another synagogue that lost most of its community to the Holocaust,
off the beaten paths of both Jewish culture tourism and casual Budapest
tourism.
According to the official account, the rationale for the Páva Street loca-
tion is that it lies ‘outside of the traditional Jewish quarter, further empha-
sizing its national character’ (Holocaust Memorial Center, n.d-a). The
formula is revealing and crucial: first, it admits plainly that the nation (its
state, its scientists, and its Jewish organizations) was unable to generate
a consensual Holocaust narrative. Secondly, it inadvertently provides an
explanation for why consensus was (and is) impossible in the first place:
by essentializing ‘traditionally Jewish’ and ‘national character’, and pitting
these terms against each other, the official discourse frames the rela-
tionship between the nation and its Jewish fragments as a zero-sum
game that excludes hyphenated identities, as well as the possibility of a
mutually constitutive, dialogical process, of a ‘truth and reconciliation’
variety. The covert message contradicts the overt intention, which is to
foster ‘dialogue’ and ‘reconciliation’. The displacement of the Holocaust
Centre ‘outside of the traditional Jewish quarter’ exposes an entity (the
Hungarian nation, represented here by its state) that, in the very moment
it acknowledges that ‘preserving the memories of the tragedy, as well as

reconciliation are a national issue’ (Holocaust Memorial Centre, n.d-b),
claims that it will do so on its own, and unilaterally.
From this revealing soliloquy on, only one path is open: repetition and
the maintenance of the problematic relationship on a symptomatic mode.
And so it goes: the Centre’s research program is, the institution says,
an investigation of ‘the reasons for [which the Holocaust was] breaking
with the Hungarian historical traditions of coexistence’, instead of what
in the ‘traditions’ themselves might explain the apparent ‘disruption’—in
fact, an outcome of decades of national ambivalence towards its Jewish
minority.
Another important wandering memorial that arose around the same
time as the Holocaust Centre is the Shoes on the Danube, by artist
Gyula Pauer (2005), which represents the shoes of Jews marched and
shot into the Danube in the fall and winter of 1944–1945 by Arrow
Cross commandos. Like the Memorial Centre, Shoes was conceived and
implemented with characteristic delays. Pauer started elaborating the
concept after hearing of the European Union commemorations for the
60th anniversary of the Holocaust (Taylor-Tudzin 2011). Hungarian
authorities passed on commemoration and dispensed with any call for
projects. Within a year, Pauer and friends were experimenting with casts
of shoes at an isolated location, behind the parliament, on a strip of
the Danube banks, insulated from the city by an expressway devoid of
pedestrian crossings. A member of parliament who became aware of the
project, encouraged Pauer to continue but failed to obtain subsidies or
a better location. The shoes remained in their experimental ‘non-place’,
thereby keeping the event a ‘non-realm’ (Bensoussan 2004) of Hungarian
memory. One might say, then, that the shoes are a case of wandering or
displacement through non-placement.
Monuments of the 2000s share an assertiveness that distinguishes them
from those of the previous decade. Like the Memorial Centre, Shoes deals
explicitly with interactions between victims and perpetrators, and it is
denotative rather than connotative. Both avoid metaphor, metonymy,
allegory, or other symbols that displace meaning through substitute
images, as in the Nazi fire-snake stained glass in the synagogue’s garden,
for example, the willow tree image, the ‘heroes’ grave-memorial, or
the Wallenberg monuments. Connotation, Stuart Hall (1980) famously
argued, is an engine of mass ideology production. The 2000s memo-
rials tentatively departed from this ideological mode of production by
226 A. KOWALSKI
indexing facts. However, displacement hampers full paradigm change, and

the Memorial Centre entrenched the impossibility of dialogue between
the nation and its Jewish minority. The Shoes honor victims shot in the
Danube, but the plaque does not name Jews as the victims except through
its Hebrew segment. Moreover, both memorials were maintained in a
physical and symbolic periphery of collective memory.
Ten years after the creation of Shoes, and owing to the monument’s
popularity with international tourists, the municipality finally decided to
place a zebra crossing across the expressway nearby, creating a bridge
between the memorial and the parliament. Thus, it took ten years of
intense transnational circulation of bodies and meanings to re-centre
physically and symbolically a site that was long inaccessible. The memory
of the monument’s marginality is now lost in the constant flow of visitors
that make it one of the most popular urban fixtures in Budapest.
The ‘garden of heroes’ is also a wandering memorial, although perhaps
in a more complex and intricate way than the two previous examples.
This is, first, because it lays in the place of another victims’ memorial
that it has not fully replaced. Secondly, it is a product of a rushed and
unauthorized (by the community, if not by the state) transfer of bodies.
The site was indeed constituted as a memorial through a major transgres-
sion of religious rule. The bodies that constitute it are forever breaking
the taboo that normally keeps the dead out of the vicinity of syna-
gogues. They are forever out of place. The most religiously sensitive tour
guides signal this transgression by calling the location ‘unusual’. As to the
Hungarian Jewish Museum and Archives, it perpetuates, in the very core
of historic Jewish Budapest, the exile of Holocaust memory away from
Jewish Budapest. Until the permanent exhibition was revamped in 2013,
the Holocaust was only briefly evoked and in the most general terms,
in one of the last rooms of the exhibition, unrelated to the history of
Budapest or to the often-banal objects exhibited in the other rooms. The
new permanent exhibition, although more assertive than its predecessors
in establishing the long history of Jewish settlement in the Carpathian
basin, does not deal with World War II events either.
The wandering character of Holocaust landmarks and memorials is
another sign of their ‘pariah’ nature. It is not an exaggeration to say that
the memory of the Budapest ghetto has been in exile from its historical
location in the historic Jewish district of Pest. At the memorials, during
guided tours, and in tourist brochures and books, the connection between
monuments and Holocaust history is tenuous. I have not heard the Holo-
caust mentioned by name on any of the Jewish culture tours I took. The
ghetto is rarely mentioned during tours of the VII district, including the
ones with an explicitly Jewish theme. On Mazsihisz’ official synagogue
tours, the narrative is missing, though virtually all monuments in the
garden are de facto Holocaust memorials. Only one of the five guides
I followed (one who was unusually passionate and exceptionally involved
in local Jewish affairs) explicitly referenced the Horthy regime’s collabora-
tion prior to the German ‘occupation’, and pointed out the involvement
of scores of Hungarians in the Holocaust machinery, including in depor-
tations. All other accounts were at most an alignment of gruesome crimes,
rather than a narrative. None of the accounts mentioned another (former)
mass grave at Klauzál tér, a non-memorial that serves today as a recre-
ational square yet often haunts historians’ and residents’ discourses about
the area (which will be discussed shortly). The intensity of avoidance
and silence in the historic heart of Jewish Budapest is simply, in light
of history, extraordinary.
Independent tours of Budapest with a Jewish theme are equally
avoidant, as they resort to the characteristic, euphemistic cliché of main-
stream historiography, mentioning ‘the tragedy’, ‘the tragic events’, ‘the
war’, or ‘the tragedy of the 20th Century’. Hungarian-language guide-
books (or books about Budapest, more generally) systematically silence
the episode, including when dealing with the Jewish district/former
ghetto area, preferring to stick to art-historical descriptions of the syna-
gogues. It is striking that web sites and books devoted to Jewish heritage
are silent or euphemistic; such silencing often extends to English language
guidebooks, although the Jewish quarter is generally better represented
in the latter.
A major landmark among Holocaust memorials, and a new wandering
memorial, has recently surfaced outside the historic Jewish space: the
counter-monument at Szabadság tér. This unique memorial marks a new
age in Hungarian memorial history. Set in a central area of the capital
near the parliament, it consists of a heteroclite gathering of personal
objects such as suitcases and jewellery, pictures, stones, deportation docu-
ments, and flowers, all direct or indirect references to the deportation,
persecution, and killing of half a million Hungarian Jews. The informal
display of Shoah memorabilia on the metal fence started spontaneously
in 2014, in protest of the Monument to the Victims of German Occupa-
tion, commissioned by the right-wing government and commemorating
228 A. KOWALSKI
‘all the Hungarian victims of Nazi occupation’. The official monument

is a large allegorical sculpture representing an angel (allegedly archangel
Gabriel) attacked by an eagle (for Nazi Germany).
The Monument to the Victims is also, in its own official way, a unique
Holocaust memorial. The allegory explicitly peddles the nationalist narra-
tive of Hungarian victimhood, in a way that seeks or pretends consen-
sually to bring ‘all victims’ together in one commemorative gesture. By
explicitly representing the official narrative of Hungarian victimhood in
public space, and by camouflaging the fact of Jewish victimization inside
this narrative, the Hungarian state was converting a repressed, implicit
narrative, into official doctrine. Turning a neurotic repression of facts
into an overt (and shameless) fact-distortion, Archangel Gabriel flirts
with negationism. It is this official memorial policy that the counter-
monument denounces year after year, bringing together in a historically
unique alliance Jewish constituencies that have often been both divided
and discrete on the subject of the Holocaust. Even Mazsihisz, which
has distinguished itself over decades of resilient, but not too honourably
silent, ‘representation’ of Hungarian Jews, protested the Monument to the
Victims.
Unlike the wandering memorials of the previous decade, the Holocaust
counter-monument is wandering by choice. It embraces its out-of-
placeness as the very locus of its meaning: it is out of place because it
is unauthorized; it is out of place because it opposes a counter-narrative
to official distortions; and yet, it is there, very much in place, in the
centre of the city, still standing and even growing, five years and one
major vandalization later. The main memorial site remains a web site, a
platform for organizing protest events beyond the scope of Holocaust
memorialization.

Ambivalence IV: The Non-memorial
The fourth form of ambivalence is closer to denial and sheer repres-
sion, than the types of ambivalent admissions examined above. Unlike the
unapologetic silencing of the socialist period, however, what I call here the
‘non-memorial’ betrays itself through its insecurity. The non-memorial is
a trace, a vestige, a ruin of a monument that could or should have been a
memorial, yet is being denied the status of monument. The non-memorial
denies commemoration while imperfectly erasing the truth or ignoring
reality. It is a vestige of the truth; it is also the vestige of a controversy, of a

disagreement about the truth. Its state of dilapidation bears witness to the
victimization it unintentionally memorializes, and to the unfinished polit-
ical process that should have turned the involuntary monument into an
intentional one. Dilapidation is the claim itself—a repressed claim for the
site’s status as a site of neglected, problematic realm of memory. The non-
memorial’s signification as a memorial is denied, yet it stands precisely as
a representation of its own negation.
Several non-memorials stand out—I will discuss three. Two are discrete
and tangible architectural vestiges: the Rumbach Sebestyén street syna-
gogue, and second, the ghetto wall. The third one is an unmarked
historical place that lives in peoples’ memory and left a scarred, uneven
landscape behind: the former cemetery at Klauzál tér.
The Rumbach Sebestyén synagogue is a major monument of archi-
tectural history designed by the Viennese Art Nouveau architect, Otto
Wagner, completed in 1872. It is also one of the three architectural
pillars of the ‘Jewish triangle’ of Budapest (the Jewish district) as defined
by historian, Géza Komoróczy, in the early 1990s. Although the myth
according to which the ‘Rombach’ was the property of the Status Quo
Ante community, one of three historic Jewish Hungarian congregations
which was dispelled (Haraszti 1993; Komoróczy and Miller 2018), the
Wagner building did host a conservative segment of the reformed Jewish
community more or less continuously until 1961, and it remains today
one of three major historical synagogues of the so-called old Jewish
district of Pest. Its construction bears testimony to an age of formal
equality and great hope for Hungarian Jews. The building was used as
a detention centre in 1941, when the Hungarian government, as part of
its collaboration with Nazi Germany, rounded up non-Hungarian Jews
to send them to the Galician territories it controlled in the East. At least
18,000 individuals were ultimately murdered as a consequence.
The synagogue was brutally ransacked and sacred furniture and objects
destroyed, but the space continued to be used for weekly religious service
during the ghetto period. Although it seems to have been used by
survivors after the war (Komoróczy and Miller 2018) the synagogue’s
status suffered from the community’s decimation and its further decline
in the decade that followed the liberation. Half of all Jewish survivors
who stayed or returned to Budapest after the war left the country in
the aftermath of the 1956 Revolution, if not immediately after the war.
Rumbach was vacated after it lost its rabbi to emigration in the late
230 A. KOWALSKI
1950s, and has since been left empty and unused. Of the past 58 years,
30 have been spent in discussions about its possible future renovation
and uses. Since March 2018, it has been converted into a community
house and cultural centre, part community—and part religious building—
a renovation overseen by Mazsihisz, its owner, and financed by public
funds.
Sold to a state-owned property developer in 1988, it has been the
object of intense negotiations and complex bids, symbolic and finan-
cial, for its renovation and appropriation by both Jewish and non-Jewish
individuals, and by both Hungarian and international organizations.
Although the complex story of these competitive attempts cannot be
retold in detail here (cf. Komoróczy and Miller 2018), it is important to
recall their extremely protracted character. Whether one considers libera-
tion (1945), the building’s vacation (1961), or the state’s initiative (1988)
as a point of departure, the time-lag is spectacular in light of the cultural
and art-historical value of the building which is particularly uncontro-
versial, especially in the double context of booming tourism and of the
‘Jewish revival’ that propel urban growth in the area since the late 1990s.
It is in the context of these debates over the ownership, use, and function
of the Rumbach Synagogue, that the possibility of its use as a memorial
centre was examined, and finally rejected in favour of a ‘displacement’ of
the Memorial Centre off-centre, to Páva Utca.
Collective inability to decide on the fate of such a major architectural
landmark can perhaps not be entirely attributed to ambivalence towards
a site of painful memory. Divisions among the Jewish community of
Budapest, as well as the importance of the stakes, economic and cultural,
of the renovation, also explain delays. The fact remains: for three decades,
in spite of its conspicuous art-historical value, the site has been a scar in
the landscape of a dense tourist area, an unmended hole in the landscape
of Jewish Hungarian memory.
One can note, also, the conspicuous silence that surrounds the history
of the building during the war and the ghetto period. Guide books,
Hungarian or English, systematically fail to mention the roundup of
1941 and intentional deterioration of the building, or to grapple with
its puzzling state of lasting disrepair. A plaque placed in the 1990s was
the only sign of commemoration to be found in or about the site until
recently. The plaque did not point out that the Hungarian government
was the perpetrator—impersonal agents are always the subjects of verbs in
these public descriptions. We do not know what will be the place of Holo-
caust history in the new building and cultural centre, and how the 1941
deportations will be represented if at all, but it is difficult to ignore that
the plaque has been removed from the facade for the time of the renova-
tion work. Until today, even Jewish culture websites1 consider Wagner’s
building entirely under aesthetic categories rather than as a landmark of
Jewish Hungarian history. The only exception in this silence is found
in a recent guidebook authored by young Hungarians and published
under the title, Jewnior Guidebook—The Pocket Guide to Budapest’s Jewish
Quarter (2013), which devotes four pages to memorials, including one
to the Rumbach events of 1941.
The Jewnior Guidebook also mentions the ghetto wall. Until the last
standing piece of the wall was destroyed and suddenly rebuilt in 2008,
the ghetto wall was a non-memorial according to the definition proposed
above. Not much was generally left of a wall built in haste in 1944,
often with perishable materials such as wood. One stone segment was still
standing though, tucked in a courtyard on Király Street, a major historical
thoroughfare of the Jewish quarter. The segment was identified around
2000, through government-sponsored architectural surveys. Discussions
about conserving it started around 2004, when the civic organization
OVÁS! mobilized for the preservation of historic heritage in the area.
The wall (and its vestige on Király Street) was mentioned as an important
memorial object in a 2007 UNESCO report on the state of preservation
of the neighbourhood (under its watch as part of the World Heritage
‘buffer zone’). The wall portion was finally destroyed by renovation work
before being rebuilt in a ‘nicer’ fashion (new stones, with some design
and colour scheme matching those of new condos around). Two memo-
rial plaques were added: on the wall itself, inside the yard, the text focuses
on the history of the ghetto and its wall; on the building façade outside
the plaque draws attention to the wall inside, and to the recent struggle
for its ‘preservation’. In the last phase of this memorial’s biography, the
non-memorial became an invisible memorial.
In the first example (the Rumbach synagogue), the non-memorial
was the vestige of a public controversy in which it was proposed, then
rejected, as official memorial. In the second example (the wall), the non-
memorial was valuable for a minority of preservationists who advocated
1 See for example https://web.archive.org/web/20130522223832/http://jewish.hu/

view.php?clabel=zsinagogak.
232 A. KOWALSKI
for its preservation through surveys, historical research, and alternative

guidebooks. The third and last example exists partly in historians’ work,
but mostly in an oral tradition that is passed on and keeps a haunting
memory alive. Klauzál tér is a square that occupied a central place in the
social and commercial life of the Jewish district. The public park was used
as a cemetery during the winter 1944–1945. The bodies were transferred
to a regular cemetery after liberation of the ghetto, but they still inhabit
the descriptions of residents, a few alternative tour guides, and Hungarian
Jews who know the history of the place, and who often connect its history
to that of the collective grave near the synagogue. Although the two
graves were different in nature and function, death joins them on peoples’
minds. Etched in the collective memory of the neighbourhood, Klauzál
tér is a ghost memory hidden in an unkempt but popular park and play-
ground loved by families, dog owners, Roma teenagers, and homeless
people in a touristy part of the city. Surrounded by landmarks of living
Budapest Jewish culture (the restaurant Kádár, the bookstore and café,
Masszolit), it is an unmemorialized, but haunting symbol of death and of
the ghetto.
Conceptualizing and identifying non-memorials calls for a degree of
counterfactual thinking. It requires imagining what could, or should
have been, that is not. This is not about projecting desires onto reality.
There is method to the counterfactual history that is proposed here.
It is about mobilizing historical knowledge of the historical conditions
that objectively made some outcomes likely or possible. It is also about
listening to voices that are not represented in official discourse. This list
of non-memorials is by definition an open one.

Ambivalence V: The Invisible Memorial
Our fifth and last type of ambivalent memorial is the invisible memo-
rial. Like the non-memorial, the invisible memorial is a symptom of
denial. Unlike the non-memorial however, which owes much to internal
conflicts, unsettled controversies, and unclear volitions of the body poli-
tics, the invisible memorial is an ‘intentional monument’. It is one that is
intentionally hidden in the folds and cracks of the city.
The original ‘invisible memorial’ is a monument located in Saar-
brücken, Germany, which draws attention to the ubiquity and invisibility
of Jewish cemeteries. Invisible memorials are a memorial genre illustrated
in Budapest in 2015 by the List of Names in Mortar Memorial on the

grounds of Eötvös Lorand University (ELTE). List of Names is another
recent counter-memorial that overtly opposed the government’s bois-
terous Monument to the Victims. It consists of a list of names of victims
inscribed on thin plaques of copper inserted in the mortar between the
bricks of a building’s walls (Kállay 2015).
Continuing the Hungarian ‘tradition’ of not naming Jews and of
commemorating ‘all victims’ of a generic ‘tragedy’, List of Names is dedi-
cated to ‘all the university’s victims of deportations’. The aim of the
monument was to create a university-wide community through a shared
sense of victimhood. For this reason, it doubles up as an ‘ambiguous
memorial’. It is significant from the standpoint both of this monument’s
intention and of its critique, that first, it should be an invisible memorial,
unlike the Szabadság tér monument; and second, that it strictly repli-
cates the ‘all (Hungarian) victims’ ideology. Ideological repetition does
not happen for a lack of reflexivity in this case, it should be stressed; it
is on the contrary the result of an intense collective debate in which this
position became the dominant one. It reflects, in particular, the delib-
erate choice of a large segment of the Hungarian Jewry, represented by
the intellectual Péter György in the debates about the List, to leave iden-
tification up to individuals rather than project a Jewish identity, ethnic or
religious, onto them. It reflects a dominant position in a divided Jewish
community. Among other symbolic features, this position excluded the
use of Hebrew on the monument alongside Hungarian, English, and
Braille (György 2015; Kállay 2015).
The transnational ‘stumbling stones’ (Stolpersteine) project is only in
appearance similar to the ELTE monument. Conceived in Cologne by an
artist from Berlin and exported to multiple locations, including Budapest,
the stumbling stones are also an invisible memorial in some way. Like
ELTE’s List, it is inserted in the urban fabric in places where it was
not meant to be. While the List of Names hides between bricks on a
university campus, however, the stumbling stones literally stand ‘in the
way’. Although relatively invisible as ‘monuments’, the stones cannot
be ignored and were not meant to be hidden—quite to the contrary.
Their location in the most public of public spaces, sidewalks, lifts the
secrecy that is built into the concept of the invisible monument, a secrecy
that replicates the non-committal hesitations of the first generations of
Holocaust monuments.
234 A. KOWALSKI
Another comparison may be drawn with the Yellow Star Houses (Csil-
lagos Házak) project. Yellow Star Houses is a mapping project that
memorializes a confinement and concentration technology unique to
Budapest: the reassignment of Jewish families to designated ‘Jewish’
buildings. The Open Society Archive mapped the locations of the build-
ings, and made the map public online. When residents agree to it, the
project entails marking facades with a plaque. The project is similar to
the stumbling stones in that it documents the geography of genocide.
It is more traditional in that it consists of placing plaques on walls. It is
also less visible because it is contingent upon the agreement of numerous
residents whose sympathy with the project varies greatly (as opposed to
a municipal or governmental authorization in the case of the stumbling
stones). The Yellow Star Houses exist in virtual online space; and only
on a small number of facades. Their invisibility is not a fully intentional
outcome, in the same sense as it is for the List of Names. One cannot
say it is completely involuntary or contingent either, however, since the
set up that produces invisibility is a device that was designed and crafted
with purpose. A page of the cultural site welovebudapest.hu devoted to
‘moving monuments’ to look for on Holocaust remembrance day does
not take note of the Yellow Star houses.
The ghetto wall post-reconstitution also qualifies as an invisible memo-
rial. The reconstructed remnant of the wall stands in a private courtyard
behind a solid wooden gate that is most often closed. Petö’s idea of ‘priva-
tized memory’ applies even more literally than it does for the Wallenberg
memorial, other memorials of the first generation, or for ELTE’s List,
which are visible or freely accessible from the street. For visitors informed
of the ghetto wall memorial’s presence, a small window in the ancient
door allows for a peak at its ochres and red colours, at about a 50-metre
distance from the eye. Motivated visitors can wait until someone with
access enters or exits the gate.
Recently, an imposing, monumental map of the ghetto cast in iron
was placed on a wall of Dohány Street, defying the customary invisi-
bility of the ‘pariah’ memory. Borrowing a technique used by the Loeffler
brothers, the architects of the Kazinczy street synagogue in 1912, the
wall was built at an angle, creating a simulacrum of a miniature plaza
breaking the monotony of the street front without completely disrupting
the alignment of facades. A few photos tucked and lit under glass
lenses were inserted at specific addresses on the map, giving visitors
glimpses of everyday life and death in the Jewish quarter and ghetto.
The map is surrounded by Hebrew inscriptions printed in the concrete

wall, lights blinking softly, and other decorative, religious marks. A text
in three languages (Hungarian, English, and Hebrew) summarizes the
history of the 1944 ghetto and draws attention to the martyrdom of
Hungarian Jews. Although it is difficult to overstate the monument’s
uniqueness among all the Holocaust memorials of Budapest discussed
in this chapter, especially considering its size, its place in public space,
and the assertiveness of its message, this monument retains elements
of the previous examples’ invisibility: it is owed to a private initiative
(Chabad-Lubavitch’s) and located on a private wall; it is tucked between
two ordinary facades of a nondescript block, and it stands on the very
edge of the Jewish quarter, off the paths of ordinary tourists. The monu-
ment received so little publicity that one of the most prominent activists
and preservationists of Jewish heritage, a person well-acquainted with
Budapest and its Jewish monuments, discovered it at my invitation only
three years ago.
The memorial’s dissonant features, it must be stressed, reflect the
marginal standpoint of a transnational organization that is now supported
by a foreign government (Israel), which has frequently been in open
conflict with local organizations and views on many issues concerning
Jewish representation in public space since 2004. Most recently, Chabad
has aggressively been supporting Hungary’s far-right government’s
memorial project of a new Holocaust Memorial Centre, the House of
Fates. The project is opposed by virtually every other Jewish organization
in and outside of Hungary. In its endeavour to grow ideological roots
worldwide, Chabad seems to bet on political support to compensate for
a lack of local Jewish support, whether from native Orthodox groups, or
from the large majority of reformed and secular trends (Gruber 2014).
It is remarkable, generally, that the monuments that are most blatant
and aggressive in their denotation of the Jewish ordeal, such as the one
just discussed, are often recently constructed and foreign-based. Another
notable example of such memorial work was the Shoah Cellar, oper-
ated by an Israeli entrepreneur until financial and other conflicts with
local Jewish organizations (including his landlord on Wesseleny utca, the
Mazsihisz) shut it down in the fall 2018. The Shoah Cellar dealt with the
Hungarian story of the Shoah through the life of Hannah Szenes. With a
story line directly borrowed from the Zionist repertoire of Israeli nation-
alism, the Shoah Cellar offered an amateurish, historically inaccurate
picture of the Holocaust which was much decried by local organizations
236 A. KOWALSKI
and historians. Although the Cellar had no impact on local debates on

the Holocaust due to its notorious historical inadequacy, it was for the
few years it existed a remarkable dissonance in a Hungarian landscape that
otherwise entirely silenced any coherent narrative about the Holocaust.
11.6 Conclusion
This taxonomy of Hungarian non-lieux illustrates the complexity of a
collective memory that is at one and the same time about telling and not
telling the truth, remembering and forgetting the irreparable, inscribing
and erasing traces. Three general points might be drawn from the case
of Budapest Holocaust memorials as it was analyzed here. They delin-
eate an agenda of further research and theorizing that could not be fully
completed within the bounds of this chapter.
The first, and main point, is that repression and forgetting do not come
in one form and are not easily opposed to ‘memory’. They often appear
through multiple shades of ambivalence that embody complex social rela-
tionships, and express multiple interests and positions at a given historical
juncture. Collective memory is a social relation—a theoretical point that
is not new in and of itself, but that negative memorials, as character-
ized instances of ancient or current symbolic conflict and controversy, put
in bold relief. In fact, sites of memory are probably best understood as
vestiges of ancient struggles involving multiple participants grappling at
once with each other and with the relationship itself. The lines of struggle
have chances to run through dominated groups themselves, making them
sites of ambivalence that are homological to the national polity as a whole.
A closer relational analysis of Holocaust debates or Jewish heritage in
contemporary Hungary would probably reveal such homological divides
in the communities, cultural or discursive, that bear these debates.
The second point unfolds from this agonistic view of collective
memory, and is of a more methodological nature. The fact that memo-
rials, their forms, contents, and place in social space are traces of
the social struggles that begot them, suggests that an ‘archaeological’
approach to memorial sites, focusing especially on their materiality, is
particularly adequate for reaching the dialogical meanings that constitute
these sites, and ultimately the social relations themselves that engen-
dered these meanings. This methodological point is about the need for
neo-materialistic approaches in memory studies, especially in studies of
negative memory.
The third, and last point, is about the relevance and potential of
an agonistic-materialistic approach to cultural and political history more
generally. The taxonomy of Holocaust memorials offered here might be
translated into a history of what I would like to call Hungary’s ‘Horthy
syndrome’, taking inspiration from Henri Rousso’s (1994) study of the
‘Vichy syndrome’ in France. A syndrome in Rousso’s sense is a set of
symptoms of a ‘past that does not pass’ (1994), of symbolic forms that
symptomatically express the reality of a responsibility that is resisted,
rejected, and silenced. The memorials’ stories told in this chapter suggest,
among other things, that the Horthy syndrome might have evolved
through at least three phases: an age of repression and silence pure and
simple (the socialist period); an age where repression was carried on by
other means, through various forms of symbolic and physical displace-
ment (the post-socialist era), and finally, an age where ambivalence is on
the brink of resolving itself in a polarized struggle, provoked by the brash
distortions of an illiberal, conservative government (since 2010). The
systematic study of syndromes, of their structure and of their contents
might take research on collective memory to new comparative-historical
grounds.
Acknowledgements While the author is solely responsible for the contents of

this chapter, the text greatly benefitted from the work and feedback from several
scholars and students. Thanks are due especially to Michael Miller and László
Munteán for their generous and attentive readings, comments, and corrections.
Grateful thanks to Greta Szüveges and Borbála Klacsmann for their expert assis-
tance with Hungarian sources; to Kata Varsányi and Márton Szarvas for help
with field work. Thanks to Olivette Otele, Luisa Gandolfo, and Yoav Galai, the
editors, for their suggestions and work on the text.
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CHAPTER 12
Afterword: Mourning, Memorialising,

and Absence in the Covid-19 Era
As we close this volume, life under the pandemic has foregrounded

various coping mechanisms that include individual and collective efforts
to remember or forget pain. How each community experiences those
events and emotions vary greatly. As the death toll rose in Britain, the
mourning processes took on new turns. The ritual of burial that had been
Betty Campbell’s statue, which will be proudly located in the centre of Cardiff.
O. Otele (B)
Colonial History, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
L. Gandolfo
Department of Sociology, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK
Y. Galai
Department of Politics, International Relations and Philosophy,
Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, UK
e-mail: yoav.galai@rhul.ac.uk

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54887-2_12
242 O. OTELE ET AL.
denied to families and friends because of social distancing rules created a

void and a longing for forms of togetherness. Britain decided to open its
doors and came onto the streets and doorsteps to bang pots and pans,
and clap to honour healthcare professionals working for the National
Health Service, as well as to remember those who lost their lives saving
others. The ritual started in New York and Italy, with people clapping
while others shared their artistic productions (music and ballet, among
others) to alleviate the pain of grief. As the weeks went by, the weekly
activities resulted in a sense of community that brought to the surface the
kinetic power of memory when the body is in motion. We remember with
our body and our rituals connect these moments with sound and place,
thus creating unique memory-soundscapes. In this context, the unique-
ness was moments of togetherness during the pandemic, and banging pots
and clapping has become a symbolic, and a literal, site of memory.
The rituals and the narratives that accompany these events often evolve,
as new meanings are added to these practices. The inability of the British
government to present satisfying reasons for the delay to go on lockdown,
or for not joining the European Union (European Commission 2020)
personal protective equipment (PPE) scheme that would have prevented
the virus spreading more rapidly, and potentially could have saved many
health professionals,1 was in striking contrast to the narrative of together-
ness mentioned above. Two very distinct and even competing narratives
linked to absent bodies in the public imaginary, and a celebratory perfor-
mative ritual was present. Clapping for ‘health heroes’ became a ritual
shared by all, including politicians and the royal family.
Togetherness was relayed by the media through video clips that slowly
turned into a very British gesture. It was about Britain’s ability to
allegedly ‘take it on the chin’,2 as much as it was the United Kingdom’s
capacity to overcome adversity, as it did during the World Wars. It was also
1 In 2014, Britain joined the EU Joint Procurement Programme, but under the Brexit
withdrawal agreement, Britain was still able to take part in the joint programme until 31
December 2020.
2 This is a reference to an interview given by the British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson,
when he suggested that there were various theories that needed to be seriously considered.
One of them was that people should be prepared to accept that the virus must be allowed
to spread (‘herd immunity’), and that the population would simply ‘get it over and done
with’ or ‘take it on the chin’ (Vaughan 2020).
12 AFTERWORD: MOURNING, MEMORIALISING, AND ABSENCE … 243
another instance of the country’s Dunkirk moment,3 where the process

of erasure of the roles of those who had contributed to these ‘war efforts’
were absent. Absent black, brown, LGBTQ+ and disabled bodies and the
impossibility to mourn on the one hand, and the celebratory aspect of
the British ability to ‘keep calm and carry on’ on the other, contrasted
with the exclusion of those deemed to be on the margins or neglected, as
the Grenfell and Windrush (Gentleman 2019) scandals, and its plethora
of deaths related to the ‘hostile environment’ (Goodfellow 2019) have
demonstrated—even when they, too, were dying while saving lives. The
British people were not all in this together, it seemed after all.
Performing Britishness4 during the pandemic was echoed by street
parties organised for VE Day5 in May 2020. As it was revealed, those
parties broke social distancing rules and excluded parts of the British
people; as several testimonies revealed on social media, this was partic-
ularly the case for those with links to the former colonies. Clapping had
become politicised and weaponised by those who wanted an end to the
lockdown, and by those who saw it as a way to satisfy the masses.6 As we
are writing the last pages of this volume, England is easing its lockdown,
while Scotland and Wales are refusing to follow Westminster’s path, and
scandals over government officials, aids, and politicians’ inability to follow
the government advice further split public opinion about the narrative of
togetherness behind the Thursday night ritual. Against this backdrop, we
have entered a Godot-esque situation where hope and examples of gross
negligence are at play; all the while we are waiting for the vaccine, and
in all likelihood will ‘carry on’ amidst the new normal of life under the
pandemic.
There is, however, a danger in carrying on, as well as an opening to
continue silencing issues that need addressing. As the virus gained pace,
the murder of George Floyd directed attention to the long-term prac-
tice of brutality that in the preceding months took the lives of Breonna
Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery. The unfolding of the Black Lives Matter
protests beyond the United States prompted, to a degree, a reflection on
3 This is a reference to patriotic stances that emerged in several parts of the country
when the movie Dunkirk was released in 2017.
4 Associating clapping with Britishness was an argument used by far-right supporters.
5 Victory in Europe (VE) Day is a national day of commemoration that is marked
annually in the United Kingdom (as well as across Europe) on 8 May since 1945.
6 Echoing the piece on commemoration practices, see: Otele (2015).
244 O. OTELE ET AL.
the fact that the roots of those injustices connected with a reluctance to
confront the past in a meaningful manner. As the initial protests increased
across the United States, the ensuing movements took a localised turn in
Europe: in Scotland, the death of Sheku Bayoh in Kirkcaldy the previous
year was foregrounded, after the 31-year-old trainee gas engineer and
father of two was detained on the street and knelt on by six officers,
which resulted in 23 injuries and, soon after, Bayoh’s passing. In Paris,
the murder of Cédric Chouviat, and the sudden and violent arrest of an
unnamed (at the time of writing) black woman outside a train station in
Aulnay-sous-Bois, both in June 2020, evoked earlier cases: Adama Traoré
in 2016, and the brutal sexual assault of Théo Luhaka in 2017. These
tragedies are a few of many that have unfolded in recent years, and are
occasionally followed by moments of mass consciousness, a lull, and later,
another (often brief) public awakening. While the absences and erasures
in this volume occur over a longer period, the protests of 2020 present
ruptures that could break the silence around contemporary injustice and
the legacy of violent histories.
While conversations regarding confederate and colonial monuments
and street names have occurred over the years,7 attempts to act on these
calls are gaining momentum. From the statue of Christopher Columbus
at the Minnesota State Capitol to Edward Colston in Bristol, and the
soon-to-be removed Cecil Rhodes statue at Oriel College in Oxford, the
empty plinths present a visual challenge to the skewed historical accounts
and the complacency that veils national accountability for past atroci-
ties. The images of the vacant plinths, now inscribed, reconstituted, and
problematised, have stimulated a discussion that reveals the deep reluc-
tance to accept the truth about how our institutions, cities, and countries
were constructed. Against this backdrop, cityscapes are being read anew
through the earlier work of, for example, Joshua Kwesi Aikins, whose co-
authored Straßennamen mit Bezügen zum Kolonialismus in Berlin (Aikins
and Kopp 2008) logged over 70 streets in Berlin and detailed their colo-
nial ties. Building on this Aikins has campaigned for a decolonisation of
the public space, an endeavour that has been successful and is ongoing.
In Britain, the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slave-
ownership at University College London provides an interactive map that
7 Including the Rhodes Must Fall (2015–), Black Lives Matter (2013–), Faidherbe Doit
Tomber!, and Coordination Action Autonome Noire movements, and the Association
Internationale Mémoires et Partages (1998–).
details houses and institutions where slave owners lived for various dura-
tions (Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slave-Ownership
2020), while the art of Alberta Whittle highlights how Scotland is ‘sit-
ting in a place of colonial amnesia’ and calls for an acknowledgement
that ‘Scottish cities are built on the bodies of black and brown people’
(MacNicol 2019). More recently, in her seminal book, African Europeans:
An Untold History (2020), Olivette Otele challenges the assumption that
the African and African European communities are a relatively new addi-
tion to the continent; in contrast, there is a rich and intricate history
that has been omitted from public discourse and the history books at all
levels of education. While many of the chapters in this volume allude to
conflict and post-conflict societies, a significant conclusion is that silences,
erasures, and absences suffuse our every day, whether we are in Scotland,
France, or the United States. In response, we must interrogate the stories
told about the past, seek out the absences, and confront the historical
episodes that shape the world around us, today.
For the contributors in this volume, absence has shaped how commu-
nities negotiate the historical narratives that emerge from past and
ongoing violences, as well as how mourning and grief is practised. In
each case, absence is caused by erasures that are enacted in various ways,
including the omission of truths, as in the contributions by Olivette Otele,
Luisa Gandolfo, Alexandra Kowalski, Kelsey J. Utne, and Yoav Galai and
Omri Ben Yehuda, or the language that brings power to one commu-
nity, while taking from another, as discussed by Andrea Zittlau, Eva
Willems, and Sandra M. Rios Oyola. At other points, the absence is phys-
ical: the desaparecidos whose bodies are yet to be recovered; the empty
seats in Johanna Mannergren Selimovic’s account of Haris Pašović’s Sara-
jevo Red Line, and Manca Bajec’s retelling of the memorial ceremony
at the Omarska camp in Bosnia and Herzegovina. As we move through
the global experience of the Covid-19 pandemic, the loss continues, at
times connecting with existing patterns of disappearance as in Ecuador in
May 2020, when the bodies of those who had succumbed to the virus
gradually disappeared from the hospital in the port city of Guayaquil
(Zabludovsky, May 5, 2020), evoking earlier desaparecidos . At other
times, death draws attention to how we memorialise, and as the numbers
rise, how we talk about individuals, bodies, and mortality is as much
subject to inequality as the acts of memorialisation (or the lack thereof).
246 O. OTELE ET AL.
As we negotiate the current uncertainty, the memorialisation process

vacillates along lines of age, race, disability, and socioeconomic back-
ground. The inequalities are perceptible in political responses to the virus,
including the language used to discuss the pandemic that has had under-
tones of conflict (Meretoja 2020; Tisdall 2020): a foe to be beaten, a
readying for mass grief, and the valorisation of workers (where soldiers
switch with healthcare staff and key workers). A significant reason for this
lies in the inequalities that have shaped not only how we move through
the Covid-19 era, but also whether the chances of our survival are high
or low. In the case of the latter, we can question whether those who have
passed are recognised equally? On a deeper level, to what extent is society
interrogating the structural inequalities that facilitate inequality in death,
mourning, and memorialisation? We are several months into the virus, and
while the end point is uncertain, examples of the link between inequalities
and absence (including silence, omission, and erasure) continue to arise.
In the United States, Memorial Day weekend saw the number of
deaths related to Covid-19 touch 100,000, a number that prompted
reflections on how to mourn, how to recognise, and how to reckon with
the magnitude of loss. For Judith Butler, the moment called for an under-
standing of the universality of grief, yet also a pause to acknowledge the
disparity in terms of vulnerability and inequality:
The vulnerable include Black and Brown communities deprived of

adequate health care throughout their lifetimes and the history of this
nation [the United States]. The vulnerable also include poor people,
migrants, incarcerated people, people with disabilities, trans and queer
people who struggle to achieve rights to health care, and all those with
prior illnesses and enduring medical conditions. The pandemic exposes the
heightened vulnerability to the illness of all those for whom health care is
neither accessible nor affordable.
Perhaps there are at least two lessons about vulnerability that follow: it
describes a shared condition of social life, of interdependency, exposure
and porosity; it names the greater likelihood of dying, understood as the
fatal consequence of a pervasive social inequality.
(Butler 2020)
One month after Butler’s interview, the figures continued to tell a story:
in the United Kingdom, the BAME rate of death from Covid-19 was
‘more than twice that of whites’, while 63% of the healthcare staff who
had passed away were black or Asian (Siddique 2020; Cook et al. 2020).
In the United States, late May revealed that ‘African Americans have died
at a rate of 50.3 per 100,000 people, compared with 20.7 for whites,
22.9 for Latinos and 22.7 for Asian Americans’ (Pilkington 2020).
In cities, the combination of respiratory diseases emanating from
pollution, overcrowded housing and low-paying-public-facing roles that
necessitate travel through the dense streets and public transport, make
already marginalised communities the most vulnerable populations. Death
clusters along the grooves of marginality, and pregnability echoes a history
of depravation. Loss is mostly experienced away from the home, where we
are instructed to stay until the disease overpowers us. If it does, we know
to go to a hospital, where we either recover, or die, away from loved ones.
For the unfortunate ones who succumb to this disease, funerals are often
conducted not in the direct presence of families, while some bodies are
even buried in mass graves. The very ability to mourn is disrupted.
The concept of ontological security challenges the prominence of phys-
ical security as the ultimate goal of political communities. Ontological
security stems from our trust in ‘the world is as it appears to be’ (Kinnvall
2004, 746) and it is based on a sense of security derived from trusting in
an ongoing routine (Mitzen 2006, 347). For many communities, Covid-
19 breaks with any familiar measure of sociality. For individuals, the threat
of the virus is such that it does not immediately interrupt any measure of
our routine, but because of the delay of its effect, it makes every action
suspect, and any sensory perception unreliable. This means that we cannot
trust ourselves to know that we are safe, and we cannot trust others to
know that they are safe either. The world is not as it appears to be.
We are instead in a state of absolute ontological insecurity and we
can only be guided by our personal mythologies. These are homemade
collages, assembled from the incessant flow of data on the news, social
media, and social networks to which we cling to make sense of the danger
outside. On the other hand, we are guided by official ‘nudges’ from the
government through various media that are set to move bodies about in
order to manage public health as statistical death. Within such a chaotic
and ubiquitous mediatisation of life, we cannot but be misinformed,
because the assurances that we normally seek will not hold.
The absent bodies of the pandemic echo the cases in this volume, but
not in a direct way. The deaths due to Covid-19 are not denied by the
state, but the state’s failure to lend any meaning to them is an aspect
of ontological insecurity. The virus is spread by contagion by members
248 O. OTELE ET AL.
of the political community themselves, making it difficult to pin the

blame for the disease on outside forces (though some still try, as we
saw when Donald Trump attempted to blame China [Sevastopulo and
Manson 2020]). For this reason, many states are drawing on images of
conflict to explain the pandemic in order to align it with existing experi-
ence as yet another external difficulty to overcome that lends a measure
of ontological security to the ongoing crisis. Therefore, leaders are now
talking about a war with an invisible enemy and about the necessity for
extraordinary means.
We know, from Renan, that our national political communities are
forged in war and conflict, and that there is the imperative to narrate
national histories as a heroic epic that is at once a ‘moral conscience’ and
a ‘daily plebiscite’ (Renan 1990 [1882], 20). Eventually, the same narra-
tive tradition that rejects difficult histories of perpetration and complicity,
now refuses to recognise the structural faults that exacerbate the effect of
Covid-19.
Against this backdrop, Micki McElya observed how the United States
has negotiated its mourning, and questioned, ‘Are these deaths not ‘ours’?
[…] if we are all warriors, why aren’t the currently more than 86,000
American pandemic dead treated as patriots and honoured for their sacri-
fices? […] The pandemic dead have received almost none of this, and the
omission is significant - even if the dying is still just beginning’ (McElya
2020). The omissions and silence nest within each other, and amidst the
uncertainty, attention must be directed towards the individuals, commu-
nities, countries, and regions that are absent from the greater conversation
about how Covid-19 is affecting society.
When the virus abates, the question of how to memorialise will endure.
Covid-19 has arrived 122 years after the 1918 Flu, which claimed over 50
million deaths globally. As we close this edited volume in July 2020, the
global total for Covid-19 is just over 600,000 deaths. And yet, 122 years
on, there are only two memorials to the 1918 Flu: a bench in Hope
Cemetery in Barre, Vermont, and a zinc plaque placed next to a war
memorial in Wellington, New Zealand (Segal 2020). The limited memo-
rialisation of the 1918 Flu has been attributed to the desire to forget: as
Albert Crosby writes, ‘As one searches for explanations for the odd fact
that Americans took little notice of the pandemic, then quickly forgot
whatever they did notice, one comes upon a mystery and a paradox.
Americans barely noticed and didn’t recall - that is exasperatingly obvi-
ous’ (2003 [1989], 322–323). The inability to recall echoes Mannergren
Selimovic’s reflection on Paul Connerton’s ‘hegemonic forgetting’, and

her observation in this volume that, ‘There is little space for the ambi-
guities and fine-tuned mechanisms of grief, dignity and co-existence in
hegemonic accounts of the past, which often seem driven by an opposite
ambition to close the ambivalence and mask presence of absence’.
And yet, steps are being taken to unmask the presence of absence,
the unknown names, and the named people who we did not know. Over
the Memorial Day weekend, The New York Times ’ front-page listed the
names of the 100,000 people who had succumbed to Covid-19 in the
United States. Their electronic version went further: as the mouse scans
the screen the tiny, animated people light up and details appear above
their head: [move right ] ‘Black N Mild, 44, New Orleans. Bounce D.J.
and radio personality’; [move left ] ‘Laneeka Barksdale, 47, Detroit. Ball-
room dancing star’; [move down] ‘Romi Cohn, 91, New York City. Saved
56 Jewish families from the Gestapo’, and so the page unfolds and the
multitude of lives lived is revealed in one and two line briefs (The New
York Times, May 24, 2020). As Casey Cep writes, ‘Such is the perverse
mathematics of tragedy: the staggering specificity of any one life lost; the
overwhelming obscurity of lives lost’ (Cep 2020).
In the same month, the #NamingTheLost initiative invited those who
wished to commemorate to participate in a 24-hour global vigil on 20
May, 2020. Organised by ‘people who have been impacted by Covid-19
and/or those in pastoral roles who have been called to support others in
grief’, the event extended to the bereaved who had lost loved ones in the
United States and beyond (#NamingTheLost 2020). The motivation for
the event went deeper than a need to focus on a date of remembrance: it
provided a response to ‘the lack of collective mourning during the Covid-
19 crisis [that] has left many feeling even more isolated and alone - and
created a gap in the public conversation about what is at stake and who is
suffering at this time’ (ibid.). Streamed online, the vigil urged individual
forms of mourning: a candle could be lit offline and the vigil observed for
one hour; for others, the vigil could be left and returned to, or attended in
its entirety. Before the date, the bereaved were urged to submit the names
of those they had lost and during the commemoration, the names were
read and observers urged to reflect on each name as it was announced.
Among the names were essential workers, yet the initiative emphasised the
need to honour the names of those ‘we do not yet know’, because ‘[a]ll of
their memories are essential to us’. Although the year is still in flux, there
is a chance to avoid the mask being placed on the absence; to prevent the
250 O. OTELE ET AL.
omission of names, and to grieve everyone equally, as #NamingTheLost,

and the plethora of initiatives described in this volume, demonstrate.
31 July 2020
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Index
A historical amnesia, 9, 43, 51

Abolition, 36–38, 40 Anthropology, 18, 56, 58–60, 65, 71,
abolitionists, 39 77, 171, 174, 180
Absence, 3, 7–10, 16–20, 22, 24–31, Anti-colonialism, 156
39, 49, 55, 56, 59, 67, 68, Archives. See Oral history
70–72, 76, 78, 87, 88, 92, 96, Art, 15, 16, 27, 29–31, 57, 66, 77,
113, 140, 152, 156, 173, 179, 81, 83, 84, 114, 154, 160, 229,
180, 183, 185, 187, 190, 196, 245
199, 208, 214, 222, 244–246, Atari-Wagah border, 157, 166
249 Auschwitz, 70, 218
Acknowledgement, 7, 10, 16, 24, 26,
29, 48, 121, 136, 155, 162, 245
Afrophobia, 35, 36 B
Agency, 18, 19, 27, 57, 88, 90, 153, Bangladesh, 152
162, 189, 209 Bangladesh Liberation War (1971),
authorship, 154, 165 152, 164
Al-Akhal, Tamam, 83–87, 89, 91, 97 Belonging, 40, 42, 43, 50, 83, 215
Alshaibi, Sama, 86–91, 97 Bodies, 7–11, 17–20, 25, 31, 46–49,
Ambivalence, 16, 27, 214–217, 225, 51, 56, 62, 63, 65, 67, 70, 71,
228, 230, 236, 237, 249 76, 77, 82, 83, 85, 86, 88–93,
American Museum of Natural History 95, 96, 102, 134, 137, 153,
(AMNH), 8, 56, 59, 68–70, 72 156, 173, 177, 180, 183, 186,
Amnesia, 9, 30, 49, 245 187, 190, 195, 196, 198–202,
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive 253
license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54887-2
254 INDEX
205–209, 226, 232, 242, 243, 143, 146, 153, 156–158, 160,
245, 247 162, 164, 180, 182, 185, 199,
Bojayá, 205–208 200, 204, 207, 213, 221–223,
Bosnia and Herzegovina, 101, 103, 232, 234, 241, 243–248
245 corpses, 154. See also Bodies
Sarajevo, 245 Denial, 19, 24, 56, 88, 102, 108,
Boundaries, 31, 40, 92, 95, 107, 114 120, 125, 132, 185, 199, 201,
Buildings, 5, 8, 17, 18, 20–22, 26, 214, 217, 228, 232
81, 104, 106, 110–112, 115, Desecration. See Exhumations; Human
132, 222, 224, 229–231, 233, dignity
234, 244 Día de la Memoria (Day of Memory)
Burial sites, 173, 174, 180, 183, 188. (Peru), 180
See also Death Diaspora, 163–165. See also Migration
burials, 11, 183 Dignity, 19, 20, 24, 27, 190,
196–205, 208, 209, 249
Displacement, 67, 75, 76, 80, 81, 84,
C 86–88, 91, 93, 151, 155, 159,
Chabad Lubavitch, 235 161, 184, 216, 217, 224–226,
Children, 25, 28, 45, 46, 66, 73, 230, 237
84, 96, 120, 121, 123–130, Hindu nationalism, 160. See also
132–135, 137–144, 155, 175, Nationalism
184, 207 homeland, 160
Chile, 9, 56, 65, 67, 71, 72, 176, 200 material displacement, 216
Christian missionaries, 60 national, 164. See also Nationalism
Citizens Archive Pakistan, 152,
Partition Museum (Amritsar), 165.
163–166
See also Museums
Closure, 6, 16, 31, 40, 58, 214
refusing relocation, 155
Coexistence, 24, 27, 189, 225, 249
symbolic displacement, 216
Colombia, 5, 11, 196, 202, 203, 206,
Disposal of the dead, 155. See also
209
Burial sites
Colonialism, 144, 153, 159, 160, 216
cremation, 155
triumph over colonialism, 160
Commission for Human Rights
(COMISEDH) (Peru), 179
Communalism, 154. See also Violence E
Covid 19, 245–249 Embodiment, 7, 76, 85, 96
Emotions, 7, 76, 78, 83, 84, 93, 95,
208, 241
D guilt, 152, 161
Dance, 70, 72, 208 horror, 154, 161
Dark tourism, 36, 44, 50 scorn, 153
Death, 4, 5, 25, 46, 47, 63, 88, 107, shame, 151, 162
120, 121, 123, 133, 134, 142, sympathy, 161
INDEX 255
Erasure, 7, 19, 24, 38, 42, 43, 50, Guatemala, 11, 176, 201
61, 77, 88, 89, 151, 172, 217,
243–246
Ethnography, 48, 49, 70, 180 H
Ethnonationalism, 21 Hajós, Alfréd, 218
Exhumations, 173–175, 183–188, Halaby, Sophie, 81–84, 89, 91, 97
196, 200, 204, 206–208 Hatoum, Mona, 91–97
Exile, 75–77, 81, 85, 88, 89, 91, 93, Haunting, 161
95, 96, 115, 116, 125, 226 ghosts, 68, 232
hauntology, 68, 69
phantoms, 65
F revenants , 68, 69
FARC, 202, 205, 207 spectres, 68, 69
Forced disappearance, 172, 173, Heritage, 157, 159, 164, 165
177–179, 183, 190, 201, 203 historic sites, 156, 158, 159
desaparecidos (Colombia), 195, 245 local, 36, 37, 41
Forgetting, 20, 21, 25, 36, 154, 162, midnight, 157
214, 236 national, 8, 36, 37, 49, 236
forgetting as failure, 154 National Trust, 45, 47, 51
hegemonic forgetting, 27, 249 welsh, 37, 38, 41, 47, 50, 51
prescriptive forgetting, 109, 154, Heroes, 21, 114, 219, 222, 225, 242
162 heroism, 162
selective forgetting, 152. See also Hindus, 154, 155, 160
Memory Hiroshima Peace Memorial, 163, 165
Four Faces of Omarska, 103, 105, Holocaust, 7, 17, 20, 70, 151, 152,
109, 110, 115 154, 163, 165, 213–228, 231,
Fujimori, Alberto, 176 233–237
holocaust survivors, 20, 126
Shoah, 213, 222, 223, 227
G Shoah Foundation, 162
Gandhi, Mahatma, 156, 158 Honour, 162
assassination site, 158 Horthy, Miklós, 214, 215, 218, 227,
Gandhi Smriti (Delhi), 158 237
Garden of heroes, 221, 222, 226 Humala, Ollanta, 188
Genocide, 7, 56, 61, 68–71, 128, Human dignity. See also Humiliation
132, 152, 186, 201, 213, 214, dignification, 196, 208
216, 220, 223 dignity of the dead, 199
geography of genocide, 234 dignity restoration, 198
Ghana, 199 politics of dignity, 197, 198
Ghetto wall, 229, 231, 234 re-dignification, 196
Grief, 27, 76, 78, 84, 85, 185, 204, Humiliation, 11, 199, 201, 202
206–209, 242, 245, 246, 249. Hungary, 214–216, 218, 220, 223,
See also Mourning 224, 235–237
256 INDEX
Hungarian nationalism, 215 J

Jamaica, 44, 45, 48
Japan. See Hiroshima Peace Memorial
I Jarjachas , 184
Identity, 154. See also Pakistan, Jinnah, Fatima, 158
Pakistani identity; Wales, Welsh Jinnah, Muhammad Ali, 152, 153,
identity 156–158, 164
national identity, 163 Qaid-e-Azam Birthplace Museum
religious identity, 154 (Karachi), 158
In-betweenness, 8 Qaid-e-Azam House (Karachi), 157
India. See also Indian National Qaid-e-Azam Residency (Quetta),
Congress 158
Babri Masjid (Ayodhya), 161
BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party), 158 K
Bombay (Mumbai), 158 Kant, Immanuel, 196
Delhi, 158, 159 Klauzál tér, 227, 229, 232
Hindu nationalism, 160. See also Knowledge production, 37, 48, 152,
Nationalism 163
Indian nationalism, 158–160. See Kuczynski, Pedro Pablo, 189
also Indian National Congress;
Nationalism
Indian nationalists, 158. See also L
Indian National Congress Lahore Museum, 160, 166
Indian soldiers. See World War I Landmark(s), 77, 78, 81, 224, 226,
Jallianwala Bagh Massacre Memorial 227, 230–232
(Amritsar), 158 Landscape, 18, 31, 49, 62, 75–84, 91,
Muslim League, 161. See also 95–97, 136, 174, 184, 223, 229,
Pakistan 230, 236
Nehru Memorial Museum and Lieux de mémoire, 216
Library (New Delhi), 158 non-lieux de mémoire, 216
Liminality, 8, 24, 30, 31
religious identity, 155
List of Street Names in Mortar, 233
Teen Murti House (New Delhi),
Loss, 4, 6, 8, 10, 11, 15–17, 20,
158
25, 27–29, 31, 50, 72, 76, 78,
Indian National Congress, 161
80, 84, 89, 92, 115, 152, 154,
national identity, 155. See also
161, 162, 183, 187, 190, 208,
Nationalism
214–216, 245–247
International Criminal Tribunal for
Lutz memorial, 223
the former Yugoslavia (ICTY),
108
Invisibility, 215, 232, 234, 235 M
Israel, 5, 76, 80, 120–133, 136, 137, Map(s), 32, 60, 103, 217, 234, 235,
144, 146, 214, 235 244
INDEX 257
Martyrs, 21, 162, 222 reluctant sites of memory, 9, 36,

freedom fighters, 156, 159, 160 37, 45, 49, 51
Mass graves. See Desecration; sites of memory, 35, 36, 39–41,
Exhumations 152, 156, 160, 205, 208, 236,
Materiality, 165, 236 242. See also Space
corpses, 156. See also Death demolition of, 158. See also
obliteration of physical evidence, Space
159 destruction of, 161
physical site(s), 165. See also residences as sites of memory,
Memoryscape 157
Mazsihisz, 217, 224, 227, 228, 230, Memory work, 8, 16, 21, 26, 27,
235 29–31, 88, 213, 214, 217
Memorabilia, 46, 227 informal memory work, 31
Memorialization, 7, 8, 11, 38, 111, socially engaged memory work,
153, 159, 162, 164, 166, 245, 187, 190
246, 248 Migration, 156, 160
digital commemoration, 165 Militaries, 21, 155, 157, 175, 177,
lack thereof, 151, 163, 165, 166 178, 189, 201
Memorials, 158, 160 Mnemonic, 108
ambiguous memorials, 217, 220, Monument(s)
221, 233 counter-monuments, 114, 227, 228
official memorials, 228, 231 intentional monuments, 232
screen memorials, 217, 219, 220 involuntary monuments, 229
wandering memorials, 215–218, pillar, 158
223–228 reluctant monuments, 217
Memory, 154, 162 Most Mira. See Bosnia and
contested memory, 30, 205 Herzegovina
cultural Memory, 47, 85, 96 Mourning, 4, 5, 9, 11, 16, 20, 36,
intergenerational memories, 50, 55, 72, 83, 88, 126, 157,
161–163 159, 165, 173, 180, 182, 183,
invisible memory, 31 186, 187, 189, 190, 220, 223,
memory work, 153 241, 246, 248, 249. See also Grief
negative memory, 236 Museums, 8, 9, 21, 55–59, 61, 63,
non-memory, 229, 231 65, 68–72, 91, 156, 158, 160,
post-memory, 50, 96 164–166, 205, 207, 208, 213,
preserving memories, 163. See also 221, 226
Preservation American Museum of Natural
remembering as virtue, 154 History (New York City), 8
selective remembering, 154. See also Museo Nacional de Historia Natural
Forgetting (Chile), 68
Memory politics, 17–21, 30 Music, 29, 130, 159, 242
Memoryscape, 21, 22, 29, 31 singing, 28
258 INDEX
Muslims, 154, 155, 159, 160 crowdsourcing, 165, 166

Muslim soldiers. See World War I digital oral history, 152, 162, 164
‘remembering to others’, 161. See
also Agency
N Oral History Project (OHP)
Nakba, 86–88, 96, 97, 125, 129 (Pakistan), 163, 164
Narratives, 2–4, 8–10, 16, 18, 19, 21, OVÁS!, 231
22, 26, 27, 29, 31, 36, 39–44,
46–51, 55, 56, 59, 68–70,
75–80, 85, 89–92, 95–97, 107, P
108, 121, 124–126, 130–133, Pain, 4, 9–11, 24, 31, 46, 85, 106,
137, 138, 141, 142, 144, 145, 206, 207, 220, 241, 242
152–154, 156, 158, 159, 164, Pakistan, 160. See also Walton Refugee
200, 204, 207, 214–216, 219, Camp
220, 222, 224, 227, 228, 236, Bab-e-Pakistan Foundation, 160
242, 243, 245, 248 Karachi, 157, 164
contested narratives, 11 Lahore, 163–166. See also Walton
counter-narratives, 157, 158, 160, Refugee Camp
228 Lahore Museum, 160
oral narratives, 107 Pakistani identity, 158. See also
Nationalism, 156, 157, 159, 161, 162 Nationalism
nationalist history, 156, 157 Quetta, 158
nationalist politics, 165 Palestine, 5, 75–77, 80, 81, 83, 85,
Nation-building, 6, 17, 25, 26 86, 88, 89, 91–93, 96, 97, 128,
Nehru, Jawaharlal, 153, 156, 158 144
Nehru Memorial Museum and 1947 Partition Archive, 163, 164, 166
Library (Delhi), 158 Partition of India and Pakistan (1947),
Noncombatants, 155, 162 152, 153, 157, 160, 161. See also
Nostalgia, 1, 56, 76, 95, 154, 215 India; 1947 Partition Archive
Pašović, Haris, 15, 28, 245
Patriotism, 26
O Pátzay, Pál, 220
Omarska, 10, 101, 102, 105, 106, Pauer, Gyula, 225
110–112, 114, 115, 245 Performance, 16, 22, 28, 29, 48, 49,
Prijedor, 101, 102, 115 55, 56, 66, 70–72, 111, 200
Trnopolje, 101, 102 Performativity, 108
Oppression, 4, 10, 11, 19, 39, 69, Perpetrators, 5, 6, 26, 107, 108, 141,
129, 159, 173, 186 153–155, 159, 162, 178, 183,
Oral history, 4, 38, 39, 163, 165, 189, 195, 200, 205, 225, 230
166. See also Oral History Project complicity, 153, 156
(OHP) (Pakistan); 1947 Partition organized groups, 154
Archive villains, 29
citizen historians, 164 Peru, 174–176, 207. See also Yachay
INDEX 259
Peruvian Civil War (1980–2000), Rumbach Szebestyén street synagogue,

10, 172, 175 224, 229
Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Rwanda, 5, 201
Commission, 176 Rwanda Genocide (1994), 201
Plaques, 45, 101, 218, 221, 222, 226,
230, 231, 233, 234, 248
Poetry, 28, 29, 41, 79, 82, 87, 89 S
Popper, Julius, 61–64, 71 Saviours, 218–221
Power, 3, 6, 8, 11, 19, 31, 49, 51, Scars, 17, 18, 30, 230
56, 57, 67, 69, 70, 76, 79, 81, Schools, 41–43, 51, 87, 102, 104,
86, 88, 90, 96, 97, 110, 114, 128, 175
130, 135, 137, 142, 144, 153, curricula, 43
156, 157, 159, 185, 197, 200, London School of Economics, 166
215, 220, 242, 245 Seacole, Mary, 51
Preservation, 40, 42, 157, 217, 231, Selk’nam, 8–10, 56, 60–73
232 Serbia, 110, 111
preserving memories, 165. See also Settlers (European), 48, 61, 70, 71
Oral history Shammout, Ismail, 84
Puna, 180, 184 Shining Path, 172, 175–178, 180,
184, 190
R Shoah Cellar, 235
Race, 41, 42, 246 Sikhs, 160, 162
racism, 2, 36, 185, 186 anti-Sikh riots (1984), 161. See also
Rapoport, Nathan, 218 Violence
Reconciliation, 57, 69, 102, 107, 113, Sikh identity, 162
197, 198, 200, 224, 225 Sikh soldiers. See World War I
Recuperacion de la Memoria Historia Silence, 3–5, 7–9, 16, 19–22, 24–27,
(REMHI) (Guatemala), 201 29–31, 55, 82, 93, 106, 107,
Refugees, 41, 87, 88, 116, 125, 129, 127, 137, 143, 152, 158–161,
151–154, 159, 160, 165, 205. 164, 189, 205, 217, 218, 227,
See also Walton Refugee Camp 230, 231, 237, 244–246, 248
Regreso de los Espiritus, 56, 70–72 Singh, Bhagat, 156
Repression, 80, 172, 176, 216, 218, Slavery, 9, 35–40, 43, 44, 48–51, 216
220, 228, 236, 237 Soldiers, 158. See also War dead
Resistance, 20, 21, 25, 31, 48, 64, Soviet Union, 220
67, 90, 115, 199 Space, 151, 158. See also Displacement
Restorative justice, 198 geographic remoteness, 164
Rituals, 6, 10, 31, 65–67, 71, 111, spatial specificity, 156
180, 201, 204, 208, 241–243 Spomenik (The Monument Group).
funerary rituals, 11, 199–201, 207, See Bosnia and Herzegovina;
208 Yugoslav Wars (1991–2001)
Ruins, 21, 102, 217, 228 Stigma, 131, 137
260 INDEX
Stories, 2–4, 7, 19, 22, 23, 26, 27, Transitional justice, 19, 171–173,
36–43, 46, 47, 50, 51, 57, 60, 186, 187, 190, 196–198, 202,
66, 69, 81, 91, 101, 106, 107, 203, 208, 209
114, 121, 126, 128–133, 137, Transitions, 18, 77, 78, 83, 93, 94,
138, 141–143, 146, 152, 153, 108, 120, 156, 157, 182, 198,
159, 160, 163, 165, 179, 184, 200
207, 217, 219, 220, 230, 235, Trauma, 4–11, 18, 20, 27, 29, 31,
237, 245, 246 36, 44, 50, 51, 55, 84, 85, 87,
Stumbling stones (Stolpersteine), 233 88, 96, 111, 120, 125, 130, 132,
Survivors, 6, 8, 10, 11, 17, 29, 96, 133, 136, 137, 144, 152, 156,
115, 151–154, 162, 186, 187, 157, 166, 196, 200
189, 190, 201, 215, 229 symbolic trauma, 50
Szenes, Hannah, 235 Trebević, 22
Truth, 6, 38, 101, 113, 131, 143–
145, 152, 172, 176, 195, 196,
198, 203–206, 208, 214, 215,
T 224, 228, 229, 236, 244, 245
Temporal disturbances, 30 Truth and Reconciliation Commis-
The Emanuel Tree. See Varga, Imre sions (TRC), 9, 10, 128, 175,
The Righteous, 219 176, 178, 179, 183, 184, 186
Time, 1–3, 6, 9, 10, 17–19, 21–23, Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation
25–27, 38–40, 45, 47, 49–51, Commission, 176
56–58, 60, 62, 66, 67, 70, Truth and Reconciliation
71, 79, 80, 83, 84, 86, 87, Commission (South Africa),
89, 91–97, 102, 105–107, 153
112, 119, 120, 124, 126, 128, Truth and Reconciliation
135–141, 144–146, 156, 161, Commission (Yugoslavia),
163, 174–176, 179–182, 187, 109
188, 195, 197, 202, 225, 230, Tupac Amaru Revolutionary
231, 236, 244, 245, 249 Movement, 176
sundown, 157
temporal, 8, 17, 18
temporal conflicts, 30 U
temporal proximity, 152 Uribe, Alvaro, 201–203
temporal specificity, 156
Toledo, Alejandro, 176
Touch, 18, 29, 85, 93, 141, 246 V
Tourism, 158, 219, 224, 230 Varga, Imre, 219, 220, 222
Guide books, 230 Victimhood, 19, 133, 161, 162, 220,
pilgrimage sites, 165 228, 233
Traces, 20, 21, 24, 26, 31, 38, 57, re-victimization, 173, 187, 190,
69, 77, 177, 178, 217, 228, 236 196
INDEX 261
victims, 19, 159, 162, 220, 228, Wallenberg, Raoul, 219–221, 223,
233 225, 234
Violence, 3, 5, 8, 9, 15, 17, 19–21, Walton Refugee Camp, 151, 160
24, 25, 29, 31, 62, 64, 70, War dead, 152, 156
72, 93, 107, 108, 110, 120, Wells, Nathaniel, 37
122, 129, 133, 151–160, 162, West Indies, 39, 44, 45, 48
166, 172, 173, 176, 177, 180, Williams, Charlotte, 37, 39
186, 187, 189, 190, 195, 197, Witnesses, 155, 159, 163, 166
200–204, 207–209, 245 citizen viewers, 157, 164. See also
communal violence, 153, 154, 161, Agency
162 Women, 155, 161, 162
sexual violence, 162. See also war heroines, 152
Women World War I, 155. See also War dead
Hindu soldiers, 155
World War II, 4, 38, 102, 219, 220,
224, 226
W
Wales
Bangor, 45 Y
Butetown History and Arts Centre, Yachay, 171–175, 177–180, 182, 184,
37, 41 185, 187–190
Cardiff, 37, 39 Yassin, Deir, 78, 87
Penrhyn Castle, 8, 36, 43–45, 51 Yellow Star Houses (Csillagos Házak),
Welsh identity, 41 234
Welshness, 40–42, 44 Yugoslav Wars (1991–2001), 108

Post-Conflict Memorialization: Missing Memorials, Absent Bodies Olivette Otele Luisa Gandolfo Yoav Galai

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Post-Conflict Memorialization: Missing Memorials, Absent Bodies Olivette Otele Luisa Gandolfo Yoav Galai

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MEMORY POLITICS AND TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE

More information about this series at

Memory Politics and Transitional Justice

Cover image: Yoav Galai

Our deepest thanks go to the contributors to this volume: Johanna

1 Introduction: Absence and Trauma in Post-Conflict

2 Articulating Presence of Absence: Everyday Memory

3 Mourning in Reluctant Sites of Memory: From

4 Dust on Dust: Performing Selk’nam Visions, Tracing

5 Absence, Gender, and the Land(Scape) in Palestinian

6 Monumenting Our Pasts: Monuments, What Are

7 The Resolution of Doubts: Towards Recognition

8 The Commemorative Continuum of Partition

9 Absent Bodies, Present Pasts: Forced Disappearance

10 Restoring the Human Dignity of Absent Bodies

11 The Wandering Memorial: Figures of Ambivalence

12 Afterword: Mourning, Memorialising, and Absence

Manca Bajec is an artist and researcher whose multidisciplinary work

published in The Holocaust and the Nakba: A New Grammar of Trauma

curiosity about the makings of ‘everyday peace’ in deeply divided soci-

Leverhulme Programme, Compromise after Conflict. She is the author

Fig. 4.1 Shoes, Guanaco Skin, Selknam People (Ona). South

Introduction: Absence and Trauma

Olivette Otele, Luisa Gandolfo, and Yoav Galai

In his poem, B-Movie (1981), Gil Scott-Heron reflected

© The Author(s) 2021 1

Alistair MacIntyre wrote that, ‘there is no way to give us an understanding

Ernst Gellner (1983) revised Weber’s famous definition of a state to

1.1 Memory and Trauma

Locating healing in the realm of discourse means retrieving past expe-

trauma for national trauma or how converging a nation-building project

The work of reparation is strengthened by the “introjection”, or taking

Recovery is therefore about going through processes of healing that are

1.2 Absence, Remembrance, and Mourning

Selimovic, and Olivette Otele, respectively, explore the in-betweenness

prospect of retelling their experiences was expressed through analogies

non-recognition (or misrecognition) can equally precipitate harm and/or

Rosenblatt, A. (2015). Digging for the Disappeared: Forensic Science After

Articulating Presence of Absence: Everyday

Johanna Mannergren Selimovic

J. Mannergren Selimovic (B)

© The Author(s) 2021 15

divisive politics. For a moment, an intense and silent presence of absence

2.1.1 Conceptualising Presence of Absence

spatial disturbances in our thinking about memory politics and transitions

this gap by investigating how presence of absence is enfolded in narrative,

2.1.2 Articulations of Silence

a void or absence, but ‘silence as possibility’.1 Far from mechanisms for

2.1.3 Silences and the Siege of Sarajevo

as a performance and a strategy to navigate the contentious post-war

Sometimes we would go to other flats where friends lived, because there

This story, recounted in detail with intense viscerality, contains an exces-

I am not a very quiet person. I don’t have a problem with sharing my

2.1.4 Commemoration, Art and the Presence of Absence

also entails forgetting.3 This means that ‘certain interpretations of the

2.1.5 The Red Line of Sarajevo

2.1.6 Connecting Silence, Aesthetic Representation and Peace

work of the imagination’ (Motsemme 2004, 910), articulates presence of

Zehfuss, M. (2006). Remembering to Forget/Forgetting to Remember. In D.

Mourning in Reluctant Sites of Memory:

The term Afrophobia1 that refers to a series of negative behaviours, is the

1 Afrophobia is defined as negative attitudes towards people of African descent racialised

© The Author(s) 2021 35