Living Memorial

• Our point of departure was the governmental decision,00:00:26.100
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• which was unexpectedly made public on 19 March 2014,00:00:33.138
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• a memorial of the 70th anniversary of the German occupation of Hungary was00:00:37.992
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• to be unveiled on Szabadság Square. A huge public scandal broke out in00:00:46.322
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• connection with this for a number of reasons. One was that no one understood00:00:54.914
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• why the 70th anniversary of the Nazi occupation of Hungary deserved00:01:02.026
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• a memorial. Secondly, all this happened without anything leading up to it,00:01:06.565
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• the public didn’t know anything about it. By way of an insinuation,00:01:13.638
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• a secret governmental decision was unexpectedly revealed to the public.00:01:20.414
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• What we found was a jumbled mess of a description, a distorted, Xerox image of00:01:26.119
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• very poor quality, and a foggy background story about why this event had to be00:01:31.387
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• commemorated in Hungary.00:01:35.287
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• The debate that was sparked was, of course, primarily of a political and00:01:36.869
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• memory-political debate. Obviously the loudest protest came from Jewish00:01:42.908
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• organizations and groups that didn’t regard the German occupation00:01:50.354
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• on 19 March 1944 an event deserving of celebration in Hungary.00:01:57.434
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• Nobody understood why this should happen.00:02:04.135
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• To this, the government in its discomposure, re-qualified the memorial00:02:06.352
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• of the occupation as a memorial for the innocent victims of the occupation00:02:13.190
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• which was not originally part of the government decision. This elicited an even00:02:18.543
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• greater uproar, because if we are talking about all Hungarian victims, then we blur00:02:24.232
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• together the 430,000 Hungarian Jews and Roma who fell victim to the holocaust00:02:32.898
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• with the non-Jewish Hungarians who, albeit few in numbers,00:02:41.371
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• suffered from the German occupation.00:02:49.013
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• So this sparked a political debate. This was just before the elections, the whole thing00:02:56.923
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• was coloured by the back and forth between feuding political parties.00:03:04.276
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• And in this great chaos and cacophony, I thought along with a few sculptors and00:03:12.099
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• artist friends that we need to do something about this memorial.00:03:21.412
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• When the idea first came up, of the 'Free Artists', Csaba Nemes, Szabolcs KissPál,00:03:34.636
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• Balázs Kicsiny, György Jovánovics and myself were present, and we came up00:03:45.408
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• with the concept. Then we were joined by sociologists, professors from00:03:53.763
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• the Sociology Department at ELTE. We should also mention the significance00:04:01.186
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• of the Human Platform, which provided an organizational background:00:04:07.461
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• we could meet in their offices, we organized the actions with their00:04:11.657
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• logistical help. I could also mention András Lukács, who played an important00:04:17.404
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• role in all this. These colleagues are all artists working in the public eye, and all of00:04:25.044
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• them had worked with the topics of memorials, remembering and memory.00:04:31.724
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• We began to think about it and had the idea that we somehow had to00:04:42.981
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• appropriate Szabadság Square – the venue being one of the most00:04:50.560
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• debated points of this whole plan. No one could understand how such a00:04:57.005
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• historicizing memorial could be designed to be placed above a garage entrance.00:05:03.091
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• This was an unsuitable location for raising a memorial from every possible00:05:11.311
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• perspective. A road passes right in front of it, there is a large, cascading fountain00:05:17.627
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• in front of it. It’s unsuitable in every respect in terms of approaching it00:05:24.729
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• and viewing it. Nobody could understand the reason behind the haste and00:05:29.487
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• behind choosing this location. As a result of the debate, the government00:05:36.508
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• abandoned its plans to adhere to this prompt deadline and the Prime Minister00:05:43.543
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• appeared ready to only return to this question after the elections,00:05:50.295
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• to remove this matter from the themes and topics of the political campaign and00:05:54.943
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• the election process. Which was false justification, as a historical lie is00:05:59.000
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• a lie regardless of whether it’s articulated before or after the elections.00:06:05.922
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• So they shouldn’t have referred to this as a reason. Nevertheless, everyone thought00:06:11.000
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• that the date for erecting the memorial was postponed for a while, so we would00:06:16.661
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• have time for proper discussion. We were all the more surprised when,00:06:21.480
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• on the day following the election, having secured two-thirds of the votes,00:06:27.366
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• without a word, the governing party began construction. This resulted in more00:06:32.030
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• forceful civil opposition, various civic organizations appeared on the square.00:06:37.392
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• Political parties were, of course, following this as well. The cordons were regularly00:06:41.513
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• taken down and the matter was dragged out for weeks.00:06:46.281
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• I think it’s important to stress that our initiative, from the first moment on,00:06:50.493
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• aimed to remove this from the conflict field of governing party vs. opposition,00:06:58.637
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• and party politics in general. Not that this field is not a natural part of everyday life,00:07:07.085
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• but because memory politics – the matter of social memory – in our eyes, is more00:07:15.522
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• important, or at least of a different dimension, than political strife.00:07:24.066
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• We decided that we would time our action to take place before the election,00:07:30.776
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• on 23 March. This was a location-specific, artistically oriented – but not art or00:07:36.594
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• artist-related – reflection. We came up with the idea that this space should00:07:41.681
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• somehow be sanctified and transformed into a place of reverence before they00:07:50.104
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• could start construction, so that it would be more difficult – or impossible –00:07:56.233
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• to gain access to it for construction. We wanted to occupy this place.00:08:02.067
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• So we had the idea to ask the residents of Pest to come to this place00:08:10.377
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• in flash mob style. There was nothing there yet aside from the garage entrance.00:08:16.544
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• We asked them to bring personal objects with them and place it on the spot where00:08:24.165
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• the memorial was to be built. In parallel with this, we also came up with00:08:31.167
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• another idea – and this was how created the title “Living Memorial”, which is what00:08:37.011
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• we called it from the start. The idea was to initiate conversations on this site that00:08:44.515
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• were befitting of the nature of memory. The basic notion behind this was that00:08:50.963
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• remembering is always human communication.00:08:56.669
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• I think it’s important to emphasize that this was not a Jewish matter – although00:09:00.863
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• remembering the Holocaust was, of course, the most substantial part00:09:07.965
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• of the whole thing. Jewish trauma is not the only trauma that exists in this country:00:09:13.114
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• there is Trianon trauma, displacement trauma, as well as the trauma of the00:09:17.817
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• victims of the communist regime. So there are a lot of different historical traumas00:09:23.163
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• that society has to process through speaking about it, people need to share00:09:28.877
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• these stories with one another. The way to do this is through00:09:35.307
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• conversation, which became the main, central metaphor of our action. Let us00:09:40.353
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• talk, in other words, remember, in other words, think, in other words, exchange00:09:44.886
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• ideas and open up to one another.00:09:52.319
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• It was the idea of György Jovánovics, Kossuth Prize-winning sculptor,00:09:56.152
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• to make the two white chairs facing one another the visual emblem of this00:09:59.970
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• „conversation-memorial”. We placed the chairs in the place of the memorial.00:10:06.004
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• It symbolized the people that would sit down on these chairs facing each other00:10:11.448
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• and began their discussion. It was when the construction began and these00:10:15.649
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• cordon-removing actions and political demonstrations were taking place00:10:21.298
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• that we begin, in April, our action with the chairs. We bought some white chairs and00:10:27.559
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