May 11, 2016
Some of the first movements of Jenkins’ The Armed Man are a Muslim call to prayer, the Christian Kyrie Eleison and a Jewish prayer from the psalms. (Music here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvJuHqaJUh8). Rather than wondering about the abundance of religious themes – after all the piece is modeled after a catholic mass – I was pleased by the inclusivity of different faith traditions. Historically, however, the plea for protection went unheeded when you consider the Jewish experience across centuries. I could not think of a better visual and intellectual representation of that theme than the Berlin Holocaust memorial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_to_the_Murdered_Jews_of_Europe (overlaid by a Mogen David I found in a Jewish section of a French cemetery.)
When you approach the memorial you see a large field of concrete slabs or stelae, which are reminiscent of sarcophagi, but also of the symmetry, simplicity and oppressiveness of fascist architecture. The true nature of the memorial reveals itself slowly. Only when you enter the grid do you realize that the ground is sloping and soon you are lost between tall slabs, barely seeing a glimpse of the sky, as if the earth is about to swallow you. It must represent the feeling that so many assimilated German Jews had when the bottom fell out below them, no amount of patriotism, nationalism, service to the Fatherland in WW I a protection against the bloody men out for your annihilation. And on top, while you are sinking ever deeper, life goes on and children giggle over their ice cream cones and use the slabs as climbing structures, a whole world blind to (or ignoring of) your fate.
There is a small but terrific museum underground this memorial, well worth a visit. And there are always reminders that some will never forget, and make sure that they do whatever they can to provide slivers of justice to history. Here is one such story from a recent issue of the Forward: http://forward.com/culture/books/338532/my-lower-east-side-neighbor-caught-adolf-eichmann/
Steve Tilden
Ach, this sad, sad history of human inhumanity. The clips of Hitler, Mussolini, Arafat, Saddam et al hold a terrifying promise that these horrors are always lurking in some dark corner. Trump. Cruz. Religious zealots. A thought — I watched a man walk down the community garden a few days ago, his dog behind him pausing to crap, absolutely no concern by the man. And the graffiti, fresh every day. Perhaps genocide is simply an immense expression of this level of human disregard for others.
Mike O'Brien
There’s a similar experience in the Jewish Museum garden–leaning columns of stone set into sloping ground–you don’t realize how disorienting it will be until you are having trouble standing up. A powerful metaphor.