Invoking the “Yolocaust”?

The present study understands comedy in relation to the Holocaust as an attempt by Germany’s third and fourth generations to create alternative forms of commemoration. Analyzing the country’s history of coming to terms with the Shoah, it highlights that recent forms of subversive satire are reacting to a crystallization in official memory politics through counter-discourse to political correctness and the defenders of moralism. The article finds that it is possible to combine comedy and Holocaust memory if Jewish victimhood is not spoofed and the limitations of official memory politics are debunked. Finally, it contends that not every historical assessment based on a local/national context can serve as a global blueprint. The recognition of national historical guilt and the establishment of distinct collective memories are still crucial for understanding specific pasts. Accordingly, German popular culture referring to the Nazi past differs from u.s. comedy dealing with the Holocaust.

Artistic means of representation of sociocultural issues in the works of Thomas Bernhard

The article is devoted to sociocultural issues in the works of Thomas Bernhard, the Austrian writer and the playwright of the twentieth century. Born in 1931, the eyewitnesses of nazi transformations, Thomas was too young to resist them. The period of his personal formation was marked by the drams of a more personal, family character, which, nevertheless, later, the writer will always feel as closely associated with the historical destinies of the country and the world. His own childhood and adolescence, dramatic and traumatic, become for the writer permanent source of dramatic literary plots, the main characters of which will be confused, desperate people, losers and travels, unable to cope with the challenges of fate. In this case, the fiction in his works is often almost impossible to separate from the introduced autobiographical material. The numerous works of Bernhard demonstrate the Austrian mass consciousness, full of shame, guilt, disgust to yourself, escapism. Bernhard shows an acutely critical attitude towards the Austrian society and the state that did not get rid of the Nazi past. However, the writer does not declare his social views directly and unequivocally. Special inaccessibility and hints are much more characteristic of his prose. As a result of the analysis of the most striking works by Bernhard (“Frost”, “The Loser”, “Amras”, “Old masters”, “Yes”, “Correction”, “The Lime Works”, “Beton”, “Gargoyles”) some typical artistic techniques are identified — autobiographical reception, eccentricity, monologism (as a symbol of loneliness, removal, isolation from society, acute individualism and even sociophobia), emotional saturation (the spectrum of emotions is monotonous: most often it is deep disappointment, sadness and grief, anxiety and a cured fear), mosaic of narration, motivation of the reader to joint, “interactive” reflection and independent conclusions, some techniques of “musicalization” of literary text.

Comprehension of the national past in the West Berlin music culture in the 1980s

Статья посвящена роли популярной музыки в процессах осмысления и проработки нацистского прошлого в Западной Германии в 1980-х гг. Популярная музыка рассматривается на примере музыкальной сцены Западного Берлина, а именно группы «Einstürzende Neubauten». Рассмотрены политический, экономический и социальный контекст функционирования сцены Западного Берлина, проанализированы различные способы репрезентации национального прошлого в музыке «Einstürzende Neu-bauten». Сделан вывод о том, что в музыкальной культуре Западного Берлина происходило восстановление преемственности разных периодов немецкой культуры и вписывание проблемного прошлого в публичный исторический нарратив. The article is focused on the role of popular music in the processes of comprehension and dealing with the Nazi past in West Germany in the 1980s. Popular music is examined on the example of the music scene of West Berlin, namely the band «Einstürzende Neubauten». The article considers the political, economic and social context of the West Berlin music scene, analyzes different ways of representing the national past in the music of «Einstürzende Neubauten». The conclusion is made that in the musical culture of West Berlin the continuity of different periods of German culture was restored and the troubled past was incorporated into the public historical narrative.

Guest Editor's Remarks

The 2019 Toronto Symposium, THE VIENNA PROTOCOL: Medicine's Confrontation with Continuing Legacies of its Nazi Past, was sponsored by Biomedical Communications, Institute of Medical Science, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto and the Neuberger Centre for Holocaust Education. https://www.holocaustcentre.com/hew-2019/the-vienna-protocol Prof. Leila Lax, coordinated the Symposium and was inspired by its presenters to create an online collection of Holocaust education resources. She is grateful to the Editor-in-Chief, Gary Schnitz and the Journal of Biocommunication Management Board for their dedication to scholarship, ethics, and the advancement of knowledge, in support of this Special Issue, that deals with contemporary controversies from a dark time in history, that is part of our professional legacy - and memory. This Special Issue is dedicated to the memory of the victims portrayed in the Pernkopf atlas. Image credit: Table of Contents image provided by the Medical University of Vienna, MUW-AD-003250-5-ABB-151.

Anatomical Science at University of Vienna 1938-45

60 years after the Anschluss (annexation) of Austria to the German Reich in March, 1938, Austria is still confronted by unaddressed questions about its Nazi past. After the fall of the National Socialist regime these questions were ignored or suppressed and for decades there was little discussion about events that occurred between 1938 and 1945 at the Medical Faculty of the University of Vienna. Investigations were launched only in response to initiatives from abroad. Table of Contents image credit: Medical University of Vienna, MUW-ZE-003250-0000_BEILAGE_BATCH5_0153-0198.

Editor's Comments

Welcome to the Journal of Biocommunication’s Special Issue 45-1. We have designated this publication as a JBC “Special Issue,” as it is devoted entirely to one topic. Our current Special Issue includes articles and commentaries all related to Eduard Pernkopf’s, Atlas of Topographical and Applied Human Anatomy. Our authors have provided in-depth discussions about the Pernkopf’s atlas’ dark history, the uncertain origin of cadavers used as references for the atlas, and medical crimes of the Third Reich. Seven of the articles are authored by some of the world’s leading historians and authorities on the subject of the Pernkopf atlas and the abuses of Nazi medicine. These authors presented papers at a Holocaust Education Week Symposium that was held on Nov. 10, 2019, at the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada. This landmark Symposium was called, “The Vienna Protocol: Medicine’s Confrontation with Continuing Legacies of its Nazi Past.” The Symposium faculty included Susan Mackinnon, MD, Rabbi Joseph Polak, William E. Seidelman, MD, Sabine Hildebrandt, MD, Philip Berger, MD, Anne Agur, PhD, and Leila Lax, PhD, who also served as the Symposium coordinator and host. Table of Contents image credit: Medical University of Vienna, MUW-AD-003250-5-ABB-81.

Re-presenting histories

This article rereads Alexander Kluge and Peter Schamoni’s short film Brutality in Stone (1961) in light of more contemporary scholarly interest in the architectural ruin. This leads to an analysis that challenges, or recasts cinematic assumptions about the past. I begin my analysis through attention to Brutality in Stone’s radical strategies of montage, marriage of archival stills and newly-shot documentary moving images, merging of real and imagined, past and present, sound and image. These formal strategies are observed through the lens of theories of ruin, Kluge’s own writings on cinema and history, the references to the historiography of Nazi architecture, and contemporary theories of ruination in architecture. I then reveal the film as a type of counter-memory, promoting a critical awareness of, rather than espousing an ideologically motivated enthusiasm for the histories and memories of the past as they have been represented in architectural monuments, cinematic and historical narratives. Specifically, a contemporary reconsideration of Brutality in Stone contributes to rethinking the relationship to the ongoing lessons of German history and its cinematic representation in the contemporary moment. Keeping alive the memories of the past has never been more urgent as we move into an historical moment when memories of the Nazi past are becoming ever dimmer.