Today the new name and new look for Mark R. Hatlie's "places and monuments" webpage went online as "Sites of Memory." That site needs a blog to record changes and comments and this is that blog.

The name "Sites of Memory" stems from the book by historian Jay Winter, "Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning" about cultures of memory after the First World War. Any google search, however, will show you that the term is in quite common use in a variety of social studies contexts. Instead of searching desperately for an original title, I thought it would be better to use a title that people would recognize and immediately understand. The purpose of the site is academic and educational. Students and academics can go to the site and find information and photographs on cultures and memory associated with particular places. There, I am cataloging places of memory that I encounter or seek out as well as hunting down and linking to other websites I find with similar content. Furthermore, I am collecting a bibliography of online and print resources for the study of historical markers, cemeteries, memorials and similar sites.

All Saints Day is an appropriate time, I guess, to give this project a facelift. But that should not in any way lend support to any impression that this project is about practicing remembrance. It is about observing, recording, studying and understanding remembrance within human communities.

My trip to a local cemetery this afternoon can serve as an illustration. I took my three-year-old son along for a walk, but had my camera at the ready. We were not there to visit any graves or to pay our respects to anyone. Niklas was there to kick leaves and walk; I was there to be with him and hunt for historical markers in the landscape. We both got what we came for.

I found a military cemetery with over 300 graves, including a seperate section for civilian victims of a January, 1945 air raid on our town of Tuebingen, Germany. At least that is what I think happened. I'll need to look into it a bit before I post the photos. At the adjacent memorial ensemble (three crosses, as on Golgotha, and a low platform), there were a few dozen people assembled for an All Saints Day service. Candles had been lit and wreaths had been laid. This was memorial culture in action. We got there as the ceremony was ending, so I took a few photos from a discreet distance, then asked an old woman if she had been here in Tuebingen in 1945. She had, but couldn't tell me what had happened on January 15th, 1945, because, "worked in a bank and had a sick sister". That would speak against my air raid thesis, I suppose - even someone in a bank would remember that. A priest was kind enough to answer a few of my questions. I'll put everything I know about the memorials at the Bergfriedhof in Tuebingen at the Sites of Memory on its own special page soon.

Right now, you'll already find a few dozen other sites of memory there, primarily from Tuebingen, Germany and Riga, Latvia, photographed and described in various degrees of thoroughness. The lists of links and other resources is extremely modest at present, but will grow quickly. I hope the website proves useful and popular as it continues to expand.

Mark R. Hatlie