Visitors to the House of Memory

Victoria Bishop Kendzia is a teaching fellow at Humboldt University, Berlin. Her publications include “‘Jewish’ Ethnic Options in Germany between Attribution and Choice: Auto-Ethnographical Reflections at the Jewish Museum Berlin” in the Anthropological Journal of European Cultures. She completed her doctorate at Humboldt’s Institute of European Ethnology.

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgementsPrefaceIntroductionChapter 1. Focus of the Research and Methodological Approach: The Research QuestionChapter 2. Memory, Political Education and the Positioning of the JMB: From Memory to Remembrance to Past PresencingChapter 3. Betroffenheit: The Museum Visit as an Embodied Memorial ExperienceChapter 4. The Visit as a Predominantly “Touristic” ActivityChapter 5. Between Engagement, Playful Appropriation, and ExclusionChapter 6. Concluding Reflections: From the Museum as a Field Site to a More Inclusive Culture of MemoryAfterwordAppendixBibliographyIndex

“The book is highly insightful in discerning the politics of representation, especially in the case of memory and spaces that embody memory… What makes this book ethnographically compelling is that the audience reception and reaction is also voiced and interrogated.” • MEAH“…the book provides an inspiring approach at a time when generational and societal changes call for the emendation of well-established patterns of memory and remembrance.” • German Studies Review“Visitors to the House of Memory lucidly explores the intersection of museum experience, ethnic exclusion, and education. Its proposal for different models of inclusion in and through history education is very much needed in Germany and Europe today.” • Irit Dekel“This is a very good ethnography of a central Berlin cultural institution. It deals with important questions of German national identity, guilt and responsibility, intergenerational transmission of memory, and museum pedagogy.” • Jackie Feldman, Ben Gurion University of the Negev