As an in situ memorial museum tells the story of its location, the question is whether this story is inherent to the site's materiality, or whether it is constructed and projected by architects, curators and visitors. This raises various questions which I address in this chapter while situating them within broader academic fields and concerns: particularly memory studies, with a focus on the remediation of memory; critical heritage studies; museum studies; and the spatial turn in memory studies.

In the field of memory studies, the diverse ways in which the past is actively shaped in the present are studied and theorized. The study of the remediation of memory focuses on the involved medial processes. It is important to stress that in situ sites of memory are not comprised of one coherent discrete medium. Rather, they are spatial configurations that allow visitors to create affective, real and imaginative connections between the past and present. Critical heritage studies emphasizes that heritage is a process in the hereand- now. However, if heritage is merely a construct in the present, why do we attach so much meaning to authenticity? In order to answer this question, I turn to museum studies and the notion of the museum script to trace the development of the Hollandsche Schouwburg as a memorial museum. This allows me to combine both a synchronic and diachronic perspective. I do so cautiously, aware of the fact that the present situation both embodies and mediates the past, but is not fully determined by it. In the last section, I address the spatial turn in memory studies. The importance of spatial and material characteristics of sites of memory has been underscored by several leading memory scholars, a perspective that places these sites within larger networks and landscapes of memory. This chapter aims to shed light on how we can actually account for the dynamic nature of spatial memory.

Performing Memory and the Remediation of the Past

There is continuous debate over the fundamental concepts and methods of memory studies. The intellectual wealth, unremitting urgency and multidisciplinary nature of memory studies are evidenced by various academic journals, handbooks and anthologies.

The symbolic center of the memorial complex at the Hollandsche Schouwburg is situated at the rear of the open courtyard. In the middle of the space where the stage of this former theater once stood is a large pylon on a base in the form of a Magen David or Star of David. Behind this memorial needle stands an inscribed stone wall dedicated to the memory of victims that were deported during the German occupation. These sculptural elements are surrounded by crumbled and eroded brick walls that, in contrast to the pylon and inscribed wall, are made of the original components of the building (see figure 2.1). The visitor now stands at a site where an essential part of the persecution of the Jews took place. Where the pylon and grey wall are markers that are clearly not part of the original building, the brick walls create a semi-enclosed and affective space which may be entered in order to somehow make contact with an absent past. The fact these walls were part of the original building is emphasized by the bare and rough bricks pointing toward the sky and is further reinforced by traces of bricked-up doors and other openings, suggesting that these walls have had previous lives. There is no enclosing roof: the top of the walls are unevenly finished and blackened by erosion.

The walls are remnants of the original building that seem to have stood the test of time and are experienced by visitors as silent witnesses to the tragic events that unfolded within this space. They enable and even facilitate an affective experience: what visitors see resonates with their expectations, in this case, absence staged through the trope of the ruin, a technique more often employed at Holocaust sites. The result is convincing because of the building's history: persecuted Jews awaited deportation within these very walls that are now stripped back to their material essence. However, as James E. Young points out, the ruin can be a problematic form of representation at sites such as the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum where the debris of gas chambers represent victims through the intended destruction of evidence by the Nazis.

‘God bless all six of you, thank you for all the joy you brought. If we do not meet again in the future, please think of us with the love of a child. Goodbye all six. Father and mother.’ These handwritten words are projected on the facade of the Hollandsche Schouwburg (see figure 5.1). The art installation Last Words by Femke Kempkes and Machteld Aardse was part of the Amsterdam Light Festival that lasted from December 6, 2013, until January 19, 2014. The two Dutch artists employed correspondence that was sent from the Hollandsche Schouwburg by Jews who were awaiting deportation in 1942 and 1943. After the war, these historic documents became part of the collection of the Jewish Historical Museum. The abovementioned example was a handwritten letter by Herman and Mathilde Chits addressed to their children (see figure 5.2).

Last Words brought the inside of the memorial complex outside, temporarily transforming the otherwise blank facade into a spectacular projection screen, countering Robert Musil's observation that there is nothing in the world as invisible as a monument. Passersby were confronted with the history of this site, whether they wanted to or not. The artist included a letterbox where people could leave their comments. Some of the reactions demonstrated indignation, claiming it was disrespectful to openly exhibit such private and painful messages. However, the great majority of the people described the work as impressive and commended the project for keeping the memory of these people alive. An interesting consequence of the artwork's public character was that it addressed a different crowd than the memorial museum usually does. People who visited the light festival and followed the Illuminade route, which led along eighteen different light artworks, were often struck by the serious and tragic nature of Last Words. In addition, people who coincidentally passed by the Hollandsche Schouwburg or exited the tram that stops directly in front of the building could hardly miss the illuminated art installation. Where the former group could have anticipated this artistic intervention, the latter was temporarily shaken out of its daily routine.

The Hollandsche Schouwburg was not designed as a memorial museum from scratch, but evolved over time, superimposing older structures and functions into a fragmented and chaotic whole. The result is a site that is experienced by many visitors as authentic and evocative by using traces, signs and other markers that have a direct and actual connection to the past that they mediate. These indexical interventions emphasize the feeling of being there, at the site where part of the persecution of the Jews was carried out. These indices are not unmediated traces of the past. Instead, they are a conjunction of the site's promise and the visitor's expectation to find traces of the past. This is what I call the ‘latent indexicality’ of the Hollandsche Schouwburg that encourages visitors to look for fragmentary and material signs of the Holocaust. In some instances, these signs have been explicitly designed and curated as such, and at other times they are actively imagined by visitors. Indexical signs are constructs that are not inherent to a material environment. They are highly affective and allow visitors to reimagine their relationship with the past and potentially inscribe their own biographies in the museum's narrative. This process is a creative interplay between the site's materiality, exhibition strategies by the architect and curator, and the imaginative appropriation of the visitor.

An example of this complex interaction is the historic photograph placed on a large panel in the garden behind the courtyard, on the very spot the people in this picture were standing in 1942 (see figure 4.1). A girl depicted in black-and-white waves at you, smiling, standing in a disorganized courtyard. Her hand is blurry, her smile genuine. A boy in front of her has a somewhat defiant, but playful posture. A man in a suit with a white armband is drinking from a teacup and in the background a police officer is talking to someone. People are sitting alone in the sun while others are talking to each other.

The photograph is blown up to life-sized proportions and stands in the middle of a rather empty garden. You are now backstage, behind the former theater stage that holds the large pylon.