The Hitler Show; the Jewish Museum revisits the Nazis.

Publication: The New Yorker

Publication Date: 01-APR-02

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COPYRIGHT 2002 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.

Ten years ago, Bruce Nauman was asked by officials in Hannover, Germany, to conceive a Holocaust memorial for their city. He came up with an idea that has become a cherished legend in the art world, although he eventually decided against proposing it. The work would feature a sign that said, "We are sorry for what we did, and we promise not to do it again." When I tell people about this, they invariably crack up. What's so hilarious? I think it's the succinctness of the statement: Nauman isolated the two emotions -- remorse and repentance -- that are the rhetorical burden of any German memorial to the Holocaust, and he stripped them of folderol. When you think about it, for fifty-seven years an apology and an assurance have been what the world has wanted to hear from Germany and, really, all that the world...

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