|
Memory and Anecdote To The Bagel Group
On the 19th March I was delighted to have been given the opportunity by Dorit Ninio to speak to the gathering of the Bagel Group about the establishment of the Adelaide Jewish Museum. I thought to follow up with a brief letter, especially for those that were unable to attend the talk, to outline one of the ways in which the community could contribute to the gathering of information for the Museum. I would like to encourage community involvement in the documentation of our history and culture, because it is our prerogative to construct meaning about ourselves for ourselves and for outsiders looking in.
Shortly before leaving South Africa two years ago, I interviewed members of my family, giving them a chance to represent themselves as they remembered their past. I was aware that many of the anecdotes told were a sanitized version of the past, remembered in such a way so as not to hurt someone's feelings. No doubt because of this, many family secrets remained hidden. In this attempt at recording oral history with no equipment other than a pen and paper, I learned, for example, that my great grandfather (fathers side) was a Rabbi in Lithuania. My great grandfather (mothers side) served in Siberia in the Tsar's army. Afraid that he would be killed in the Russian-Japanese war, his father took him to the German border with a false passport in the name of Flaxman, where he crossed to safety and then got onto a ship and worked his passage to Cape Town.
The facts of the lives of my family were interwoven with anecdotes and memories. This exercise put me in touch with some obvious consequences of the role of memory. Memory is selective; truth is variable; stories can reclaim and reframe reality; the same story can be told from different angles; embarrassing or cowardly behavior is preferably forgotten.
At present, the Adelaide Jewish Museum exists as a 'virtual' museum. Technology allows the museum to exist in cyberspace. As new information becomes available, it is being added to the website, and we now join in the explosion of information about the Jews that is available on the Internet.
If you have access to the Internet, have a look at our website. Even though it is in its infancy, we already have some interesting stories recorded there, and my favorite two are George Moores experience as a refugee in Shanghai and Garry Rogers experience of the Kindertransport to the UK in 1939.
For interpreting history, the stories of the ordinary person are as important as stories about the celebrated personality. No doubt the reader of this letter has a story to tell that is worth recording. I invite you to write the story of your life for inclusion on the website. If that sounds too ambitious, perhaps you would consider a chapter from your life, an episode or memorable incident. If anyone would like assistance with documenting a story, please feel free to contact me.
In this way, at the very outset of establishing the museum, I invite the community to be a part of it and have a sense of ownership and belonging.
Roslyn Sugarman
Curator, Adelaide Jewish Museum
|
