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Memory in Berlin: a short walk

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2007

JOACHIM SCHLÖR*
Affiliation:
Parkes Institute, Dept of History, University of Southampton, Southampton, SO17 1BJ

Extract

Last October I moved to Southampton, ‘City of the Titanic’ – what a strange way to advertise a place. The memory of the sunken ship is still very much alive. I did keep my apartment in Berlin, though, and from time to time I manage to spend a couple of days there. From a distance, the city looks and feels different. When I go shopping in my favourite market hall or for a latte macchiato in Café Atlantic, I try not to step on the stones laid in the ground beside the normal cobblestones. They are of the same size, but painted in something golden; they glitter in the sun and bear an inscription such as ‘Hier wohnte Alfred Hohenstein, Jg. 1920. Deportiert am 10.05.41 Auschwitz’.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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References

1 This should be the place to mention theories of memory (from Maurice Halbwachs to Aleida Assmann) and also of research into totalitarianism.