A Memory Boom of Troubled Pasts

According to Jay Winter, "technological change opened up new possibilities of preserving and retrieving the voices and faces not only of soldiers but also of substantial numbers of civilians in wartime".

He also talked about an existential mode of remembrance, especially under conditions of extreme violence, individuals can choose what to speak about with regard to their experiences and what to not speak of.

In a symbolic way, as silence dignifies suffering, so does the speech of those who suffered. After 1990s, many civilian victims of the Second World War recovered the narratives of their own lives by telling their stories. Beyond the victims, the testimonies of soldiers are similarly powerful.

Memorials, of which monuments are subsumed under, comprise of many forms. For the "comfort women" Statue of Peace, it is an object that reminds visitors of past events or persons, and the landscape of which the statue resides in adds an emotional element of experience that allows visitors to connect the past to their present. This type of memorial is different from museums and exhibition works that contain contextual and interpretive information that has been purposely created for visitors.

Concerning how the second world war has been represented in German museums and memorials, check out this video about how the reminders of the past can be found dotted all over Berlin, Germany.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezrWvlTHpMM

References:

Echternkamp, Jörg, and Stephan Jaeger, eds. Views of Violence: Representing the Second World War in German and European Museums and Memorials. Berghahn Books, 2022.