{"id":1736,"date":"2010-04-21T17:33:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-21T17:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hub-dev.bates.edu\/magazine\/?page_id=1736"},"modified":"2017-09-06T11:40:51","modified_gmt":"2017-09-06T15:40:51","slug":"ehrenmal","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/back-issues\/y2005\/spring05\/features\/uncovering-berlin\/ehrenmal\/","title":{"rendered":"Sowjetisches Ehrenmal"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Sowjetisches Ehrenmal <em>\u2014 by\u00a0Andrew Jarboe &#8217;05<\/em><\/h3>\n<p>If history is written by the winners, how does a city once divided in two remember its common past?<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 4px\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/Images\/Bates_Magazine\/spring05\/features\/berlin\/Jarboe-2962WEB.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" hspace=\"4\" vspace=\"4\" align=\"middle\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I visited the <em>Sowjetisches Ehrenmal<\/em> (Soviet Memorial), the memorial in Treptower Park to Soviet soldiers who died fighting Germany during World War II. Built shortly after the war, it was a reminder to Berliners of both the sacrifices made by the Red Army and the crimes of National Socialism.<\/p>\n<p>What is remarkable, though not necessarily surprising, is that depending on what side of the Berlin Wall a Berliner grew up on, the <em>Sowjetisches Ehrenmal<\/em> holds a different meaning.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"margin: 2px\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/Images\/Bates_Magazine\/spring05\/features\/berlin\/Jarboe-2961web.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" hspace=\"2\" vspace=\"2\" align=\"right\" \/>West Berliners hardly think of the site. I spent the semester living with a family in West Berlin. When I asked my host what she thought of the memorial, she brushed it aside. \u201cThat\u2019s an Easterner memorial. I\u2019ve never even been there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For many former East Berliners, the memorial serves as a reminder of life under the German Democratic Republic, the regime of East Germany. They recall how the government used the site for political rallies. Interestingly, nobody I spoke to said that the memorial made them think about World War II; it would seem that the original purpose of the memorial has been lost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sowjetisches Ehrenmal \u2014 by\u00a0Andrew Jarboe &#8217;05 If history is written by the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":221,"featured_media":0,"parent":1728,"menu_order":8,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_dimp_site_id":"","_dimp_override_contact":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"class_list":["post-1736","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1736"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1736\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11190,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1736\/revisions\/11190"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}