File spoon-archives/heidegger.archive/heidegger_2003/heidegger.0312, message 25


Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2003 22:41:40 +0100
From: artefact-AT-t-online.de (Michael Eldred)
Subject: Re: FYI NYTimes.com Article: Plaques for Nazi Victims Offer aPersonal  


Cologne 02-Dec-2003

michaelP schrieb  Tue, 02 Dec 2003 15:04:20 +0000:

> on 2/12/03 1:03 pm, Bakker, R.B.M. de at R.B.M.deBakker-AT-uva.nl wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > "It goes beyond our comprehension to understand the killing
> > of six million Jews," Mr. Demnig said. "But if you read the
> > name of one person, calculate his age, look at his old home
> > and wonder behind which window he used to live, then the
> > horror has a face to it."
> >
> >
> >
> > Machination/Erlebnis a la Spielberg: make the masses
> > accessible to Erlebnis, (give the horror a face: for
> > instance Anne Frank's), and use the Erlebnis passion
> > for further manipulation, one-track self-excusing
> > accusation.
> >
> > Also THIS horror has faces to it. Don't let yourself
> > be lured into it.
>
> Seems to me that we *must* think and com-pre-hend the savage murder of six
> million and not reduce it to sentimental one-at-a-time facings; we must face
> right up to six million (and we can, if we swap murders for money units;
> that says some thing about us...) and not commit the crime of reduction,
> feel/scan out that difference, millions of murdered bodies like the
> production of tins of baked beans: gestell. We are the horror, the horrible
> if we can not do this.
>
> Appalled every time.
>
> mP (only an other jew)
>
>

Michael,
The art work in question (by the 56-year-old Cologne artist, Guenter Demnig)
does not have anything to do with sentimentality, even less with Erlebnis and
machination, the use of which in this case is mindless jargon.

The art work unconceals, it opens a world or keeps a world-that-has-been open.
It is eery to stand on a street in Cologne (Aachener Str.) and look down at a
group of sixteen small golden stones set in the pavement. The 'holes' left in
German society by the elimination of the Jews are brought to light and saved
from oblivion -- in a very inconspicuous way and without pathos.

You should come to Cologne and experience this art work. The golden
commemorative stones set in the pavement are dotted throughout the city.
"Experience" in English is either "Erlebnis" or "Erfahrung" in German. We simply
do not have this distinction in English. Heidegger connoted "Erlebnis"
pejoratively, and "Erfahrung" affirmatively. "Erlebnis" comes close to
"entertainment", "Unterhaltung", but this art work has nothing at all to do with
being entertained.

After coming to Cologne to see the pavement stones commemorating the Jewish
"holes" left in German society, you should then travel on to Munich and
experience an orderly, clean city free from the disturbance of such a reminding
art work.

Art has to be experienced. It is always a sensuous experience that speaks to our
_bodily_ existing.. To reject this is to retreat into a bodiless intellectuality
that remains unaffected by the mood of an art work.

Michael
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-  artefact text and translation _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_- made by art  _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
http://www.webcom.com/artefact/ _-_-_-_-artefact-AT-t-online.de _-_
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ Dr Michael Eldred -_-_-
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_





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