From Stigma to Medal of Honor? Auschwitz Tattoos as Embodied Memories

  • Abstract:

    In their award-winning documentary Numbered (2012), Dana Doron and Uriel Sinai interviewed 50 survivors who had had a number tattooed on their arms upon arrival in Auschwitz. The film illustrates the change of this infamous symbol over the decades. For some, the former sign of dehumanization has developed into a symbol of survival, not only that of an individual but as a seed of a new family, even a nation. Almost 70 years after their (grand) parents were branded with the number, some (grand)children chose to engrave that very number on themselves. Feeling an enormous obligation to ensure that the Holocaust does not fall into oblivion they want to be bearers of memory – literally and in a visible sense, making their relative’s experiences an integrated, un-removable part of their body. However, their tattoos vary greatly from the washed-out ink figures in their grandparents’ wrinkled skin; the numbers appear now in flashy styles, mirroring first and foremost the taste and attitude of their bearers. It is obvious that here we meet with a generation used to expressing their identity through their bodies, which at the same time function as agents of (political) statements and provoke public debate. The documentary is only one example of a range of similar performative activities employing permanent or temporary tattoos. What roles do such activities fulfill? While Holocaust survivors in the decades after the war met with ignorance about the meaning of their tattooed number or even suspicion about how they had managed to survive,the picture of a young person with a hip tattoo might not immediately evoke associations with the Holocaust. Can the past really be tattooed on the present? The tattoos can be understood as an expression of generational trauma-transfer, or as aide-mémoires,tools to build one owns identity by recalling family or national history. But is this embodied behavior a suitable form of knowledge transfer and identification?What image does this practice give of the historic event and in which way does it shape the identity of the later born generations who now take over the once stigmatizing symbol? What messages do these embodied memories transport and what kind of discussions do they provoke?