The Stolpersteine blur the boundaries of Halbwachs’ historical and collective memory. Although the stones serve as historical records of past citizens, they create an environment that is actively experienced present citizens, contributing to the present identity of various social communities. The stones contribute to communal identity, influencing each individual observer’s understanding of the public landscape in which they are located. Through very subtle techniques, Stolpersteine forms a memorial that references the incomprehensible scale of the Holocaust tragedy, while simultaneously recreating clear memories of historical individuals. It forms a landscape of memory through which one may observe the present condition. g
1 Cucu, Alina-Sandra and Florin Faje.‘Remembering Death, Remembering Life: Two Social Memory Sites in Budapest’ Sociologia. Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai, January 2009 2 Olick, Jeffrey K. And Joyce Robbins. ‘Social Memory Studies: From “Collective Memory” to the Historical Sociology of Mnemonic Practices’ Annual Review of Sociology , 1998. p111 3 Halbwachs, Maurice. On Collective Memory. Translator and editor: Lewis A Coser. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992 4 Nora, Pierre.‘Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire’ Representations 26.The Regents of the University of California, Spring 1989. p7 5 ibid 6 Minow, Martha. Between Vengeance and Forgiveness. Boston: Beacon Press, 1998. p141 7 Cucu. p135
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Aisling O’Carroll
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