1999 march 19

lego lands

there was another envelope from my mother in the mail recently.

as usual, it was crammed full of this that and the other: recipes; some photographs she took of my oma; a st patrick's day card; a scribbled note from my father; and a photocopied article from some magazine or the other. at first i didn't see why she had sent it as it obviously started in the middle of something and ended long before the article should have come to a conclusion, but then i looked more closely at the photographs. they were at the top, and were not associated with the article at all.

it was a poor photocopy and therefore a poor scan, but maybe you can make it out. designed as a special art project by polish artist zbigniew libera, these one of a kind lego sets will construct a series of concentration camp structures. he made excellent use out of the little skeleton men available with the pirate sets and i'm not sure from which set he appropriated the cords for the electroshock mechanism, but the probes look like the standard flag holders.

now, before anyone gets in a tizzy, thinking because i am amused i am therefore downplaying the horror of the holocaust, let me set you straight. my mother spent part of the war in hiding. she was in a small village outside of dachau and remembers watching the trains roll past. her elder brother would sneak down to the tracks with his cousins and try to see what was happening at the camps, but they were small and scared and recall nothing but wire, lots of barbed wire. my grandfather had fled the country when he got word he and his brothers were to be arrested. he didn't have the resources to take the whole family with him but knew they would be safe in bavaria. he was not jewish, just a separatist and an active, vocal critic of the nazi regime.

my family lost friends and neighbors in the camps, but luckily no blood relatives. with the exception of my uncle and cousin, who i suspect have sick romantic visions of nazidom, and a strange greatuncle, each member of my family condemns the actions of germany and many germans during the war. they have protested whenever the city of dachau talks about changing their name to something with less of a stigma, the ultimate p r maneuver, not wanting anyone to forget what happened there, lest it happen again. the elder generation, my grandmother and her sisters, would not talk about what they knew, or did not know, or suspected, but each one would pale if a conversation about dachau or its like went on for very long. i don't know if they were feeling guilt that they did nothing, though how much a bunch of women and children could have done is debatable, or were once again feeling the fear they lived under, not just by living in the shadow of the camp, but also by harboring my mother and her family, or were just embarrassed and hoping the whole episode, the whole war, would go away, a hope evinced by many of their generation. but even they would murmur, again and again, "it was horrible, horrible, all those people, there was no need..."

i think the lego sets serve the same function as the protests against the name change of dachau, the same purpose as schindler's list: they keep the holocaust alive, and not a thing of history books. when people are outraged by these sets, they talk about them. public debate starts afresh, school children are drawn into the discussions and learn that the holocaust was a real event, a horrible tragic gruesome event with real consequences, not just something that happened on pages 217 - 230 of their history texts.

peter parker has just jumped onto my shoulder for a quick snuggle. his fur is slightly damp; he must have been grooming himself. wet cats, at least damp ones, smell just like fresh rainwater. it's just what i needed.

proud to be german and the owner of three lego skeletons, claire