Page 77 - Studia Universitatis Hereditati, vol 11(2) (2023)

ly topical theme in a Germany that increasingly
sees itself as a post-migration society). As the cu-
36
rators explain, migrations were the elephant in
the room at the time the permanent exhibition
was drafted, the time of the massive arrival of ref-
ugees on German soil in the mid 2010s. Migra-
tions as a topic was pervasive in German society
and the historical parallelism with flight and ex-
pulsion after World War II was a frequent trope
in German media and culture (Perron 2021). To
gain some credibility, the Documentation Cen-
tre could not avoid the topic.
As a result, the universal dimensions of the Figure 3: Key to a lost home in Northern Cyprus, shown 77
experience of migrating were included in the ex-
ti hibition on the first floor, which was initially in the first floor of the exhibition
(photo: Catherine Perron, 2015)
thought to be dedicated to the European history
37
of forced migrations. Aspects such as Nations
ta Rights and Responsibility, Loss and New Begin- a visible sign with a “quiet gesture”?
and Nationalism but also War and Violence,
nings, Routes and Camps, Memory and Contro-
versy are treated as the main stations of an open
di tour. However, numerous references to present
migrations are to be found, in the texts as well
as in the objects displayed. An orange life jack-
et used for crossing the Mediterranean, a dam-
aged smartphone of a Syrian refugee, a reference
here of the world-wide number of refugees in 2019, Figure 4: The life jacket of a migrant that crossed
to the Dublin III regulations of the EU, figures

the description of current asylum procedures in
Germany, refugee law and refugee aid, etc. The
parallelism drawn with “flight and expulsion” is
the Mediterranean (photo: Catherine Perron, 2015)
reinforced by the fact that some of these objects
the iconic objects of “flight and expulsion” with
of today’s refugees that are displayed replicate
many in 2015 gave the exhibition a new conceptual thrust.
studiauniversitatis
set, a key to a lost home, a rucksack, ration/cash
Museums dedicated to migrations are very much up and which they are mixed: a refugee agency kitchen
coming in these years. Before 2015 the projects were main- cards, images of refugee camps… pointing to the
ly local and the exhibitions temporary. Afterwards, some
bigger institutions like the Deutsches Auswandererhaus universal aspects of this experience.
dedicated new exhibitions to the subject. Projects like the The museumisation of loss raised complex
DOMID in Cologne, and the Exile Museum in Berlin ap- questions, starting with the fact that it may seem
peared, and numerous exhibitions dedicated to “flight and
expulsion” or the German expellees were prolonged to en- paradoxical and challenging to make the loss
compass the theme of migrations (Fuchs and Kolb 2017, present by means of material artefacts. As men-
291).
36 Interviews conducted by the author with two of the main tioned above, on the first floor, loss is initially
curators in December 2021 and September 2022. staged as one of the fundamental experiences of
37 And more so the fact that on the website the overall title of refugees. Here, the universal dimension is first
the exhibition is “the century of flight”, flight being some- brought to the fore through the filmed testimo-
thing different than expulsion (Dokumentationszentrum
Flucht, Vertreibung, Versöhnung n.d.b)! ny of nine people. Three of them are portrayed