Historical baggage
What is more important: collective memory or private property? That’s what is at issue in a heart-wrenching legal case in France that will conclude next moth. Last year, Michel Levi-Leleu attended a Holocaust exhibit in Paris. There, he saw a suitcase that had belonged to his father, who had been murdered by the Nazis at ...
What is more important: collective memory or private property? That's what is at issue in a heart-wrenching legal case in France that will conclude next moth. Last year, Michel Levi-Leleu attended a Holocaust exhibit in Paris. There, he saw a suitcase that had belonged to his father, who had been murdered by the Nazis at Auschwitz. The luggage even had his father's name and address still on it.
Monsieur Levi-Leleu understandably requested that the curators hand his father’s property over to him. But they refused. The suitcase had been loaned by the Auschwitz museum and they argued that these clearly personal objects are essential to the museum’s work:
These items are of huge importance if the names of their owners can still be seen, as there are only a very small number of these. They are concrete proof that real people who can be identified and portrayed died in the camp.”
This position strikes me as wrong-headed. As Daniel Finkelstein points out, the Auschwitz museum’s view is “that their rights to the stolen property of a murdered man are greater than those of his son.” That can’t be right. Ultimately, where the suitcase can do most good should be irrelevant in legal terms. It is the property of the Levi-Leleu family and if they want it they have a clear and unambiguous right to it. Documentary evidence at places like Auschwitz is important. But considering the evil history of the place, it is imperative that it is freely given, not expropriated.
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