Commemorating Hell: The Public Memory of Mittelbau-Dora will be the topic of discussion at the Silver Spring Civic Center at One Veterans’ Plaza (corner of Elsworth and Fenton Streets in Silver Spring) on April 17 at 2 PM. Written by Gretchen Schafft and Gerhard Zeidler, it is the story of the Nazi concentration camp, Mittelbau-Dora in Nordhausen, Germany where V-1 and V-2 rockets were assembled under the direction of Wernher von Braun and Arthur Rudolph, who later were pioneers in the U.S. space program. The camp held 60,000 prisoners, of whom 20,000 did not survive. It was later commemorated by the communist government of East Germany and after 1989 by unified Germany. How these displays of deeply disturbing history affected the towns’ people and how they reconciled with their many memories of WW II lays the groundwork for a socio-cultural analysis of public remembrance under extreme circumstances.
You are cordially invited to this free talk and to supper following at the Schaffts’ house, 1222 Noyes Drive, Silver Spring, MD 20910 (phone 301-588-6013). Please RSVP to gschafft@verizon.net only if you are coming for the supper. We will be delighted to have you!
.gif)