Bucharest’s “Lost” Synagogues as “Lieux sans Memoire"
Bucharest’s “Lost” Synagogues as “Lieux sans Memoire"

Summary/Abstract: The 60-plus synagogues destroyed during the so-called urban systematization in the 1980s, along with others that were destroyed either before or after, or which have been converted to other uses, constitute Bucharest’s “lost” synagogues. The “lost” synagogues have been transformed into something else – into apartment blocks, shopping centres, streets and gyms. They have become “lieux sans mémoire.” Four examples discussed here underline that it has become increasingly difficult to uncover the sites of former synagogues and the silenced and hidden histories of the dwindling Jewish minority in Bucharest’s heavily altered urban space. Since the fall of communism there has been no major change in terms of how the authorities, the political elite and the broader public have dealt with Bucharest’s “lost” synagogues. In Bucharest there has never been much interest in the cultural heritage of the synagogues. The non-Jewish majority have suppressed most synagogues and sites where synagogues once stood from their perception and from their discourse about the city – or they have long been forgotten as “lieux sans mémoire.”

• Details
• Contents