Play canceled

Published on Tuesday, February 28, 2006 by the Guardian / UK Rickman Slams 'Censorship' of Play about US Gaza Activist by Julian Borger   A New York theatre company has put off plans to stage a play about an American activist killed by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza because of the current "political climate" - a decision the play's British director, Alan Rickman, denounced yesterday as "censorship". Alan Rickman   James Nicola, the artistic director of the New York Theatre Workshop, said it had never formally announced it would be staging the play, My Name is Rachel Corrie, but it had been considering staging it in March. "In our pre-production planning and our talking around and listening in our communities in New York, what we heard was that after Ariel Sharon's illness and the election of Hamas, we had a very edgy situation," Mr Nicola said. "We found that our plan to present a work of art would be seen as us taking a stand in a political conflict, that we didn't want to take." He said he had suggested a postponement until next year. Mr Rickman, best known for his film acting roles in Love, Actually and the Harry Potter series and who directed the play at London's Royal Court Theatre, denounced the decision. "I can only guess at the pressures of funding an independent theatre company in New York, but calling this production "postponed" does not disguise the fact that it has been cancelled," Mr Rickman said in a statement. "This is censorship born out of fear, and the New York Theatre Workshop, the Royal Court, New York audiences - all of us are the losers." Rachel Corrie was a 23-year-old activist from Washington state crushed in March 2003 when she put herself between an Israeli army bulldozer and a Palestinian home it was about to demolish in Rafah, on the Egyptian border. The International Solidarity Movement, of which she was a member, claimed the bulldozer driver ran her over deliberately. The Israeli Defence Forces said it was an accident, and that she was killed by falling debris. The Israeli government said the demolitions were aimed at creating a "security zone" along the border. The Palestinians say they are a form of collective punishment. "Rachel Corrie lived in nobody's pocket but her own. Whether one is sympathetic with her or not, her voice is like a clarion in the fog and should be heard," Mr Rickman said. My Name is Rachel Corrie consists of her diary entries and emails home, edited by Mr Rickman and Katharine Viner, features editor of The Guardian. It won the best new play prize at this year's Theatregoers' Choice Awards in London.

as a European tourist attraction.[xiii]  Themeing may also be used to translate and localize foreign experiences into something recognizably American. 

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
http://www.ushmm.org/

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is located in the nation’s capital, Washington DC, on 1.9 acres of land donated by the federal government.  It is situated adjacent to the National Mall between 14^th and 15^th Streets, just south of Independence Avenue, SW.  Since the Museum was the product of a Presidential Commission established in 1978 by President Carter, it represents a public-private enterprise (what Vivian Patraka has called ‘its quasi governmental status’[xiv]) and the result of a long process of negotiation and compromise.  This process of negotiation between private individuals (albeit appointed by the President) and official governmental agencies determined the building’s final appearance.  It was this process, we believe, that led to the Americanization of the Museum and its wholesale appropriation by the United States as an inextricable part of its own history.[xv]  Indeed, the subtitle of Edward Linenthal’s account of this process says much: ‘The Struggle to Create America’s Holocaust Museum’ (emphasis added).  This was further aided by the nature of the Museum’s financial backing.  The USHMM building was constructed entirely with funds (some $200m) accrued through private donation.  In accordance with its legislative mandate (Public Law 96-388, passed October 1980), however, federal funds were made available for the aim of Holocaust education and commemoration.  In the fiscal year 1994 its operating budget was $34m of which sixty-four percent ($21.6m) was derived from federal funds.[xvi]  And, above all, as Patraka has noted, the museum is located on a ‘federal grant of extremely scarce land.’[xvii]

The Museum’s location on the Mall reflects the national, federal, and American nature of the project.  Not only is it situated within the symbolic heart of the capital, but also it is nearer to its heart than other key sites in American history.  As the museum’s architect, James Ingo Freed put it, ‘the site is, in fact, sandwiched between the Washington Memorial and the Jefferson Memorial.’[xviii]  Indeed, the Museum is located only 400 yards from the Washington Monument, a significantly shorter distance than both the Jefferson and FDR memorials.  It was not the only site under consideration for some twelve other places were studied but its siting on the Mall reflected the feelings of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.  Hyman Bookbinder, a council member, spoke for them all when he said: ‘If we had been told to “select a place”… I think we would have chosen that very spot.  It is part of what all the tourists go to…’[xix] Furthermore, Irving Bernstein, executive vice-chairman of the United Jewish Appeal, felt that ‘a Washington site would give this institution a unique character and a special opportunity to contribute to national life.  It would make clear that the commemoration of the Holocaust is a central concern of the entire American population.’[xx]  As Linenthal has observed: ‘Not only would there be a national museum to the Holocaust in the nation’s capital, but, by virtue of its location just off the Mall, the museum would gain the prestige of a central national memorial.’[xxi]  These sentiments rather tellingly indicate how much the Museum’s planners desired to place it within the center of America’s national memory.  In this way, it was hoped that the Holocaust would be transformed from being a purely particularistic, ethnic European concern to one of universal proportions.  However, this wish was counter-productive: the desire for the universalization of the lessons of the Holocaust to a wider world produced a Museum devoted to particularism, but rather than being purely Jewish or European, it has become American.

The Americanization of the building was the result of a combination of factors.  Externally, the Museum was designed to resemble the architecture of Washington, DC.  Its principal architect, James Freed, had determined that his building would be not only ‘a good neighbor’ to its companions on 14^th and 15^th Streets, but would also ‘make a bridge urbanistically.’[xxii]  To this end, the 14^th Street facade was constructed from limestone to resemble the Bureau of Printing and Engraving whereas the 15^th Street facade was built from the red brick of the Auditor’s Building which houses the US Forest Service’s Headquarters. In this way, the Museum was structurally incorporated into Washington, DC.  Its outer shell aligned the building with the architectural iconography of the capital’s dual functions: bureaucracy and memorialization.

Although Freed intended to close the visitor off from the outside world of Washington DC and the USA the building’s internal architecture undermines his scheme.  The hexagonal Hall of Remembrance, conceived of as a non-aligned space for contemplation and public commemoration, echoes the obelisk shape of the nearby Washington Monument.  What is more, it had been decided by the building’s original architect, Maurice Finegold, that the Hall of Remembrance should face the Mall to which Freed added the recommendation that it should be of a modest size so as ‘not to compromise the other institutions or monuments.’[xxiii]  Although Freed tried to restrict the view of the Mall and the other memorials from within the Hall, glimpses of them are possible through thin slit windows.  Catherine Slessor has described these views as ‘strategic glimpses … evoking other national commemorations of the undiminished human spirit.’[xxiv]  Freed explained his plan thus: ‘Because these are the things that save you.’  As Linenthal noted, ‘even as Freed’s building seeks to take visitors out of American space, they are reminded that during this symbolic journey their purpose is to remain firmly rooted in American ideals.’[xxv]

The Museum could now count itself as one of those ideals.  The west face of the building overlooks the nearby Jefferson Memorial, the FDR memorial, the Washington Monument, and in the distance, the Lincoln Memorial.  As a consequence, the Museum has been incorporated into the tourist’s agenda as one of the sites to visit.  Freed failed in his attempt not to compromise other institutions or monuments.  Since the Museum has now become a key tourist target (emphasized and exaggerated by its strict limitation on the number of daily visitors) it vies with other places for the tourist’s attention. In turn, this has led to a more scrupulous selection among competing sites.  As the average tourist can only visit a limited number of places in any single visit to the capital, a process of prioritization has occurred. The publicity surrounding the Museum and its relative proximity to the Mall, as well as to a subway station, has ensured its higher placing up the agenda than any other site on the Mall with the exception of the US Air and Space Museum.[xxvi]  Furthermore, the lack of an entrance fee serves to promote the illusion that it is a federal museum, part of the Smithsonian Institution, paid for and provided by taxpayer’s money.

Elements of the museum’s permanent exhibition were also shaped to ‘engage’ its visitors directly with an Americanized narrative.[xxvii]  Statements from Presidents Carter, Reagan, and Bush, as well as General Eisenhower adorn the building’s 15^th Street entrance thus inscribing their names (and hence memories) onto both the museum itself and its narrative.  Slessor has observed that, ‘The starting point of the route through the museum is marked by the quadrant shaped Hall of Flags housing the colors of liberating American army divisions.’[xxviii]  Then, on entering the elevators the visitor is confronted with images of the American liberation of Buchenwald concentration camp on 11 April 1945 rather than the liberation of Auschwitz, the camp that has become the dominant signifier of the Holocaust, since the Red Army liberated the latter.  When leaving the elevators, the visitor is again confronted with enlarged photographs of generals Dwight D. Eisenhower and George Patton taken at Dachau on 15 April 1945.  These same images form the final section of the exhibit bringing the narrative to a comfortable closure heavily inscribed with American values. 

In order not to downplay the United States’ role as liberator and savior, representations of resistance are dislocated from the permanent exhibit.  Rather they form a tiny exhibit almost divorced from the main one.  Indeed, their liminal location between the permanent exhibit and the Hall of Remembrance renders resistance ambiguous, marginalized, and unimportant in comparison to the emphasis placed on America’s role in ending the Final Solution.  Again, the significance of the Red Army here is displaced.  This need to represent the US as the liberator of the camps has led to a rewriting of the Holocaust in which acts of resistance by Jews and others were insignificant and negligible.  Furthermore, as Rochelle Saidel has observed the museum also ignores the US government’s poor immigration policy during the war and its recruitment of Nazi war criminals during the Cold War.  Although negative aspects of US policy during World War II are mentioned such as the Evian Conference of 1939 and the Allied refusal to bomb Auschwitz, this is done in order to focus upon events that connect America to the Holocaust.  Saidel concludes the ‘museum therefore presents a re-creation of history that accentuates America’s positive role in the Holocaust and downplays the negative one.’[xxix]  Finally, the exhibit ends on an unintentionally themed note. In order to acknowledge federal government support for the museum, as visitors leave the exhibit they face the seal of the United States.  Just as Disney terminated the views at the ends of all the major streets of Disneyland with vertical icons so the visitor would always know exactly where s/he was, the USHMM reminds its visitors of their location in contemporary America.  The USHMM clearly aligns itself to the ‘leader of the free world’ and the supporter of democratic ideals thus the Holocaust has been localized for its domestic audience.

What is more, the USHMM’s interior incorporates elements for increased touristic attraction. The building was constructed using what Linenthal has called ‘evocative architecture.’[xxx]  The design of the USHMM echoes that of Disneyland, as both were ‘designed to stimulate emotion through architecture.’[xxxi]  Disney’s ‘imagineers’ achieved this effect by ‘an increasing emphasis on more convincing simulations of the remote and fantastic by precise architecture and detailing.’[xxxii]  Similarly, the USHMM aims to simulate convincingly the remote and fantastic by precise architecture and detailing derived from the iconography of the Holocaust.  Internally, many of the museum’s structural features are modeled upon the ‘tectonics’ of the extermination camps: crematoria doors, lights, barbed wire, gates, and watchtowers.  Externally, the profile of a section of the building resembles watchtowers.  

Other iconographic symbols within the interior of the museum are also experiential in a themed manner.  When entering the building visitors are faced with a choice of directions – left or right – simulating the camp selection process.  Later on in the permanent exhibit they are confronted with the option of crossing through the cattle car.  Combined these elements attempt to translate what may appear distant and grotesque to an American audience.  By authentically simulating the Holocaust, it is hoped to ensure and sustain tourist interest in what may be unfamiliar subject matter. 

The abstract expressions of the Holocaust experience that are found within the museum’s architectonics such as the use of shadow, shade, and enclosure are generally submerged by the more dominating iconography and themeing.  Both inside and outside of the museum replicas of the lighting fixtures, which ‘illuminated’ the death camps, are prominent. Other devices used in the recollection of the Holocaust are handrails that resemble camp fencing and the elevator doors (whereby visitors begin their ‘journey’) that clearly simulate those of the gas chambers.  Subtlety is destroyed as the imagination is led by themeing.  These images are supplemented by the actual stuff of the permanent exhibit.  In order to promote its ‘realism’ the museum boasts some ten thousand artifacts from around the world.  Not only does this serve a themeing purpose, but it also increases the museum’s ‘authenticity,’ authority, and legitimization.  Such ‘authentic’ items include a cattle-car used to transport Jews, a barrack from Birkenau, children’s shoes from Auschwitz, and cobblestones from the Warsaw Ghetto.  Where the original items were unobtainable convincing simulations were introduced instead.[xxxiii]  The inclusion of some of these items was considered so essential that the building actually had to be reshaped in parts to incorporate them, as was the case for the cattle car and the towering photographic exhibit.  And beneath the whole building soil from the concentration camps and American military cemeteries was buried.[xxxiv]  Overall, the extent to which themeing was incorporated into the USHMM has led Omer Bartov to describe at as a ‘plastic representation’ and Yad Vashem’s Director of Education, Shalmi Bar-Mor, called it ‘just a collection of gimmicks.’[xxxv]

Taken together all of these devices advance the notion that the Holocaust is an inextricable part of American history.  As Michael Berenbaum, former project director and now head of research for the USHMM stated: 

The Museum will take what could have been the painful and parochial memories of a bereaved ethnic community and apply them to the most basic of American values.  Located adjacent to the National Mall – surrounded by the Smithsonian Institution and the monuments to Lincoln, Jefferson, and Washington – the building and its contents are being designed with the neighbors in mind so that the Holocaust Museum will emerge as an American institution and will speak to the national saga.[xxxvi]

The USHMM is now firmly located within an American historical continuum stretching from Washington and Jefferson through to Lincoln and FDR.  Through its very location, the Museum has grounded itself in the national memory and acquired for itself an American historicity that it radically lacks. The effect of this is its total naturalization and Americanization. 

Museum - Next to Smithsonian - paid for by taxpayers

 

UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MUSEUM IN WASHINGTON D.C. (Established by the UNANIMOUS passage of Congressional legislation in October 1980 (Public Law 96-388). Although American Jews were not victims of the Holocaust and it was American soldiers who liberated Jews from Concentration Camps, the U.S. Government in response to Jewish pressure, donated federal land (Illegally) and paid with U.S. Tax dollars (illegally) to construct a PRIVATE Holocaust museum on the venerable American National Mall in Washington D.C. After paying for its construction, Congress annually appropriates the majority of the funds (tax money) for the Museum's maintenance. In fact, President Bill Clinton on October 13, 2000 signed Legislation Granting this "PRIVATE" Museum "Permanent Federal Status" which permits Congress to fund the museum annually without any question or review.

The Museum opened more than seven years ago on land provided by the Federal government, which also contributes towards basic operating costs...... The current FY02 budget for the Museum is $55.4 million, with $34.4 million contributed by the federal government and $21.0 million from private contributions. Congress deems it unworthy to provide public funding to honor America’s Veterans in Washington D.C. for the following Wars and Sacrifices. World War I Memorial World War II Memorial (privately funded) A Korean War Memorial (privately funded) A Vietnam Memorial (privately funded) An African-American Slavery Museum A Native American Holocaust Museum A Revolutionary War Memorial A Civil War Memorial An American Women Armed Services Memorial A National Pearl Harbor Museum in Washington D.C. So Why a "Holocaust Museum" and not a publicly funded Memorial for American Veterans?

The answer from one of the most powerful Jewish Americans in Washington D.C., a man no one dares refuse his phone call, not meet with him immediately, or publish his letters or opinion pieces. Abraham H. Foxman, National Director of the Anti-Defamation League (A.D.L.) On the Frontline, January 1994 p. 2, gives the following answer to this question: "The Holocaust is something different. It is a singular event. It is not simply one example of genocide but a near successful attempt on the life of God's chosen children and thus, on God Himself.

 It is an event that is the antithesis of Creation as recorded in the Bible; and like it's direct opposite, which is relived weekly with the Sabbath and yearly with Torah, it must be remembered from generation to generation" Why should the AMERICAN TAXPAYER fund a private Holocaust Museum while America's own Veterans, men and women who've honorably served this country from the Revolutionary War onward have NO publicly funded monument or museum in their honor? This outrageous shame continues while Congressmen compete to provide more funds to Jewish American Museums around the country. Adding insult to injury they shamefully DENY funding of Veterans issues such as health care, pensions, disabilities, and retirement compensation.