Maybe there are some things that can’t be explained. Some events in history are just too horrible to remember, but we hope that by honoring those who pay the ultimate price will keep us from falling in the vicious cycles of history.
Chile’s former president, Michelle Bachelet, understood the power of museums as a political instrument when her government (2006-2010) spearheaded the creation of an institution dedicated to remember the victims of the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet as her legacy to the Chilean people. The Museum of Memory and Human Rights, created to unify the country in defense of democratic values, opened amid controversy in January 10, 2010. “The opening of this museum is a strong indicator of the strength of a united country.” President Bachelet announced during the opening ceremonies "...a union founded on a shared commitment to never again suffer a tragedy like that in this place we will always remember”.
The military dictatorship that took place from 1973 to 1990 is still a very divisive issue for Chile’s population. Other countries in the region, wrestling with their own difficult histories, have committed great state financial resources to acknowledge the victims of human rights abuses committed by their own citizens or political structures. The product of “Commissions of Truth”, as they are often called, are “Museums of Memory”, whose designs have been inspired by holocaust museums and memorials built in Europe and North America.
Memory Museums have been created in Argentina and are being built in Peru and Colombia. These institutions which purpose are often oriented to reveal to its own constituency the truth of a particular event in recent history –military dictatorship or civil war– and to recognize the lives of victims of abuse, have been funded by incumbent governments. One issue that emerges is how impartial can a state-run, or state-sponsored museum be about the historical actions of that government when the resources that keep the museum running come from the same government? This is why the exploration of history by these museums can be either one-sided or shallow.
Merely describing events, as opposed to interpreting them from different angles –the left and the right one – shows a clear determination to support one view over the other, exemplary of cultural institutions that cannot provide an impartial interpretation of history because by doing so they create a conflict of interest. A museum, one that is fair to its constituency, sits at the center of either end.
The Museum of Memory and Human Rights should commit to restore the memory of the victims of the military dictatorship as opposed to recount its events, to be more a memorial than just a museum. As a museum it has a doomed future as it compromises its mission, but as a memorial, it can create narratives that will truly connect its visitors to the interrupted human lives lost during those years.
Here is an example of how a particular interrupted life’s story is recounted in a museum that does this particularly well. Isadore was a self-employed cap maker. He was married and had seven sons. His family lived in a home next to the town’s center. Times were difficult but he was able to provide for his family. When his town was occupied by the military in early September, ten people were shot in his street, others such as doctors and teachers were taken away. While the military rounded up the men and held them in the market place, soldiers set the town on fire. Isadore, his wife Sossia and his seven sons where taken to a concentration camp where they were asphyxiated with exhaust fumes sometime in May of 1942.
I learned this during my visit to the Holocaust Museum and Memorial in Washington, DC on April 27 of 1995. I was handed a small booklet titled “For the dead and the living we must bear witness.” It was an identification Card, a card relating the story of Isadore Frenkiel, born ca. 1898 in Gabin, Poland whose fate, his wife’s and their sons, was to be killed in a concentration camp.
I was 24 years old when I learned about Isadore. Even though this event was so foreign, so removed and so far my reality, I am sure the story, the names and this injustice will stay with me until the day I die. In contrast, I do not remember one single Chilean, aside from Augusto Pinochet, from my visit to the Museum of Memory.
