Crematoria, Barracks, Gateway: Survivors' Return Visits to the Memory Landscapes of Auschwitz

Abstract Abstract:Drawing primarily on oral history interviews, alongside documentary films and memoirs of return, this article examines a series of sites—crematoria, barracks and gateway—in contemporary Auschwitz where Holocaust survivors adopt multiple roles. Rather than viewing contemporary Auschwitz as simply a passive canvas on which survivors enact rituals, the article argues for a more dynamic relationship between landscape and memory. Not only is Auschwitz revisited by survivors as a series of interconnected micro-sites rather than a homogenous memorial landscape, but also as a simultaneously symbolic and material multisensory landscape that enters into the "muscular consciousness."