The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls...
Graffiti as a way to take the temperature of things.
Tool: Listening to the Environment Around My Research Concerns
The truth is that the ways in which Austria holds itself accountable for the horrors of the Holocaust are inscribed all over its cities, from the official plaques denoting public works built with forced labor, to art projects like the stumbling stones, and in the graffiti that I encounter walking through its streets.
The Story:
I’ll be honest, I expect Austrians to be kind to me when I talk about my current project, but also to be more than a little exhausted about having to talk about World War II. I suspect that I expect that because I see how hard it is for Americans to have the honest conversations we need to have about the horrors in our own national past, and the exhaustion experienced on all sides of these questions by the sheer force of will it takes to either force these discussions, or enforce the silences around them.
I’m pretty sure Austrians would like nothing more than just to not have to ever talk about the Nazis again, but its clear they’re willing to continue the conversation for as long as it necessary; and that its still necessary.
I’m heartened to have come across several pieces of graffiti that push back against Nazi ideologies, and none that support it. This may, I realize, have something to do with the neighborhoods we visit, and if we visited different ones, we might find something different. The last time we were here we did see at least one piece of pro-Nazi graffiti, but it was only one.
Several Jewish friends have, when I’ve said I’m traveling to Austria, told me that although Germans have worked hard to deal with the implications of their actions in WWII, Austrians have not. I want to say that I have never found that to be true. Everyone I’ve engaged with here, including members of the generations who usually keep “the great Austrian silence” around things done in the war, have been willing to speak with me openly and honestly. Everywhere I look, I see signs of a collective accountability, in both official and spontaneous expressions marking the issue in public spaces. I’m not sure why my friends think that, but it has most certainly not been my experience.
I imagine what it would be like if we put a plaque up on everything built by slave or conscripted labor. Our country would be paved in them. I’d like to live in a place where I’m more likely to see anti-racist, anti-bias graffiti than hate speech, but I don’t. It’s nice to visit one, though.