Arts & Culture
The echoing streets
Published 02 May 2005
Contemporary art - The enormous loss caused by the Holocaust is captured in a deeply moving work by Susan Hiller, as Richard Cork describes
Our continuing struggle to grasp the enormity of the Holocaust impels us to visit the sites of abomination. But Susan Hiller took a very different route. Her J-Street Project, at the Timothy Taylor Gallery in London, visits the multitude of streets in Germany still named after their former Jewish residents.
On one white wall, a starkly simplified map of present-day Germany is spattered with more than 300 numbers. Next to the map, the numbers are listed in six columns identifying particular streets, beginning with Aachen and ending with Zerbst. They recall the melancholy lists on so many war memorials. Opposite, another wall is filled with photographs introducing us to the thoroughfares and their poignant signs. The variety of locations, from rural to industrial, is almost overwhelming. People are difficult to detect, although shopfronts, advertisements and graffiti testify to their existence.
A video installation takes us on an arduous expedition into the heartland of loss. Far from assailing the viewer with gruesome reminders, Hiller focuses on what is visible today - and what, inevitably, can never be found. The 67-minute journey begins with a street lamp blazing against the backdrop of a large, dark and impersonal postwar building. A sign attached to the lamp tells us that we are in "Judenstrasse", yet its ancient ethnic identity has been eradicated, and the distant sound of a string quartet confirms the mournful mood. We notice a sign announcing "Polizei", juxtaposed with the street name "Judengasse". We are left to contemplate the word "gasse". It means "alley", but is inescapably redolent of the death chamber.
Slowly and gingerly, a car moves across a snowbound landscape. A panoramic stretch of sublime winter countryside opens out in front of us, punctuated by the sign "Judenhof". Places remain impossible to discern. "Judenberg" appears, but all we can see is dismal corrugated sheds. "Judennam" is promised against bare branches and a grim expanse of nothingness. A covered market appears, surrounded by picturesque old buildings that have been carefully restored. They prompted me to think about Adolf Hitler's respect for historic architecture, and how he was often eager to preserve the old towns where the Jewish population had lived for so long. Yet their right to continue inhabiting these locations was cruelly denied.
Road-drilling destroys the silence in "Judenweinerstrasse". A sign flashes up: "Judenbad". Bad means "bath", but you might imagine it was an insult. Silhouettes walk through the blackness, which is finally alleviated by a brilliantly illuminated star sign.
Yet the respite does not last. Buses, lorries and other heavy vehicles barge past Hiller's lens. They blot out a succession of deftly edited signs: "Juden" this and "Juden" that. The repeated obliteration becomes disturbing, as does our growing puzzlement. Why are there so many "Juden" streets? Were they forced upon Jewish communities long ago by Aryans determined to ghettoise people of alien races? Hiller wants us to ruminate on centuries of dispossession. But The J-Street Project is not a history lesson. It is a work of art, and the ear-battering sequence culminates in a darkness so deep that, for a while, nothing can be discerned on the screen at all.
In the concluding minutes, the gloom appears to lift. Blue skies appear. A motorcyclist starts up with a roar below a sign with the sinister name "Judenplan". In a place called "Neue Judenstrasse", smoke gradually drifts across the entire scene, threatening to extinguish everything in sight. Thoughts of incineration at the death camps stir. Then everything is explained: a barge slides into view on a canal, emitting smoke, while a distant train clatters past at a far swifter speed. A string quartet can be heard, reminiscent of the music in the video's opening moments, and a jaundiced colour spreads across the mottled sky.
That nothing much has happened at any stage in the piece does not reassure us. Quite the reverse. Hiller haunts us with a wholly authentic sense of desolation. The unimaginable catastrophe that so depleted the Jewish population remains raw in our minds. Nor should we imagine that the hatred belongs to the past. Hiller began this elegiac work in the wake of the twin towers atrocity, and its completion is timely. After leaving the gallery, I found in my newspaper a report on rising anti-Semitism in Britain today. While The J-Street Project teaches us that the people slaughtered by fascist persecution can never be replaced, it also warns us that the urge to erase minority cultures has not gone away.
Susan Hiller's J-Street Project is at the Timothy Taylor Gallery, London W1 (020 7409 3344) until 21 May
Post this article to
We want to encourage people to comment on our content and to exchange views with other readers and hope this will be done on a courteous basis. However, if you encounter posts which are offensive please let us know by emailing comments@newstatesman.co.uk and we will take swift action where necessary.
