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stoutfellowIn the summer of 1980, I spent two months roaming around in France and Italy. This is a memory from that summer; things may have changed, but the memory remains.
There are two islands in the midst of the Seine as it winds through Paris. The cathedral of Notre Dame occupies most of one of those islands. Behind the cathedral there is a small building; if you enter, you will (if memory serves) descend a short staircase, emerging into a more-or-less circular chamber. (It may be circular, or perhaps octagonal; I don't recall.) On the walls of the chamber are a number of Bakelite plaques; on the floor is a great seal. I'll talk about them in a moment.
Opposite the door through which you enter is another door; I don't know whether it's intended as part of the experience, but for me it is. It's a heavy door, metal, with a small window at head height. Looking through it, you see a long corridor, bare of decoration; there are more doors like this one lining the sides, and another at the far end. It evokes another memory of mine, an old and visceral one: in my mind I hear a door, perhaps as of a jail cell, swinging shut with an echoing clang. It is a sound of despair.
The plaques on the walls of the chamber are stark, black with white lettering. There are dozens of them; each bears a single name.
Ravensbruck.
Majdanek.
Chelmno.
Bergen-Belsen.
Dachau.
Auschwitz.
I don't remember what the seal depicts. Around it is a single sentence in French; I remember only how I translated it.
They went away to the other side of the world, and they never came back.
Seeing it, my eyes filled with tears. Remembering it, as I am doing, evokes the same response.
The building is called the Memorial of the Deportation, and my visit there remains one of my strongest memories of that trip, even after a quarter-century.
I don't know what prompted that memory, but I felt the need to write it down.
There are two islands in the midst of the Seine as it winds through Paris. The cathedral of Notre Dame occupies most of one of those islands. Behind the cathedral there is a small building; if you enter, you will (if memory serves) descend a short staircase, emerging into a more-or-less circular chamber. (It may be circular, or perhaps octagonal; I don't recall.) On the walls of the chamber are a number of Bakelite plaques; on the floor is a great seal. I'll talk about them in a moment.
Opposite the door through which you enter is another door; I don't know whether it's intended as part of the experience, but for me it is. It's a heavy door, metal, with a small window at head height. Looking through it, you see a long corridor, bare of decoration; there are more doors like this one lining the sides, and another at the far end. It evokes another memory of mine, an old and visceral one: in my mind I hear a door, perhaps as of a jail cell, swinging shut with an echoing clang. It is a sound of despair.
The plaques on the walls of the chamber are stark, black with white lettering. There are dozens of them; each bears a single name.
Ravensbruck.
Majdanek.
Chelmno.
Bergen-Belsen.
Dachau.
Auschwitz.
I don't remember what the seal depicts. Around it is a single sentence in French; I remember only how I translated it.
They went away to the other side of the world, and they never came back.
Seeing it, my eyes filled with tears. Remembering it, as I am doing, evokes the same response.
The building is called the Memorial of the Deportation, and my visit there remains one of my strongest memories of that trip, even after a quarter-century.
I don't know what prompted that memory, but I felt the need to write it down.
