Conflicting Remembrance: Negotiating Memory and Religion Through Art at the Buchenwald Memorial

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Fluid writing style.  Personal interviews.  Unique perspective on German memorialization of Buchenwald.

Author Response

Thank you very much for your encouraging feedback. I have nonetheless revised the manuscript extensively and hope that the revisions have further enhanced the clarity and precision of the argument.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is a valuable article examining a complex yet significant issue of remembrance, particularly given its sensitivity to many challenges arising not only from the past (politicisation) but also from the future (AI). The article deserves a high degree in terms of methodology and content. Therefore, I recommend it for publishing without any significant revisions.
I only want to draw attention to the three places that are grammatically or stylistically incorrect (rows: 36, 339 and particularly 300). 

Author Response

Thank you very much for your encouraging feedback. I have nonetheless revised the manuscript extensively and hope that the revisions have further enhanced the clarity and precision of the argument.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I enjoyed reading this article. I think the points are well-made and supported. However, I think this is an opinion or commentary piece camouflaged as a case study. If it is a case study, then where’s the literature review, the methods section with data analysis, and results? The author provides some data from interviews but there’s know indication of how many interviews were done, how the interviews were analyzed, and what other interviewees discussed. The “research questions” are not answered in a scientific, systematic way, but rather, the author(s) give their answers to the questions and supports their answers / argument with data, which is a different kind of process than a case study. The recommendations should flow from the results and from the discussion of the results.

If this paper is a case study, then major revisions are needed. I think it works well as a commentary or an op-ed. Also, the paper needs to be edited. There are a few places where sentences could be reorganized for clarity and/or have missing words.

Author Response

Thank you for this careful and critical assessment. I understand the concern regarding the classification of the article as a case study. My intention was not to present an empirical case study in the social-scientific sense, but rather a theoretically informed cultural analysis of a specific event and site. The argument is primarily based on document analysis (archival materials, guidebooks, exhibition texts, festival publications) and on interpretive analysis of spatial and symbolic forms. The interview with the artist served only as a complementary perspective to corroborate certain interpretive conclusions; this has now been clearly marked in the revised manuscript.

Coming from a cultural studies background, my methodological approach does not rely exclusively on empirical data collection in the form of systematic interviews or quantitative analysis. Instead, it is grounded in interpretive, hermeneutic, and discourse-analytical methods. I am aware that expectations regarding “case studies” may differ across disciplines, and I appreciate the reminder to clarify this more explicitly.

In response to your critique, I have substantially reworked the manuscript. I have clarified the methodological positioning, reframed the argument to make its analytical structure more transparent, and revised the text throughout to strengthen coherence and precision. I hope that these revisions make the scholarly contribution and analytical quality of the article more evident.

Thank you again for your constructive comments.

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I read the study with great interest. The issue of memory is close to my own research, and I spent a lot of time in the former GDR in my youth. The topic raised is interesting, not so much because it deals with memory politics, but because it links this to Buchenwald, the festival held there, and the challenges posed by the rise of the AfD.
Unfortunately, however, the study is somewhat confusing and fails to develop a clear logical train of thought. It is as if the authors could not decide what to focus on. Should they present the discourse on the politics of memory related to Buchenwald, analyze the results of the Genius Loci festival in terms of the politics of memory, or discuss the political instrumentalization of memory related to Buchenwald? If they had decided this, the thesis's line of thought would have been clearer and more coherent. Then the sections between chapters 1 and 5 would not have seemed like independent mini-studies.

My main problem with the arguments presented is that the author fails to recognize that the festival also politically instrumentalizes memory. In a different direction, but structurally very similar to the way it was used by the ideologues of the GDR. The author is strongly influenced by his political biases regarding the rise of the AfD. I share these biases, but they need to be discussed analytically in the study.

In addition to my fundamental criticisms, I would also like to draw attention to a number of specific details that I believe require serious revision of the study. I will proceed line by line, rather than following the logic of the significance of my comments.

21: Why does the entire study have to begin with this political context—and not with the intended main topic of the paper?
27-29: societies never assume – authors or academic schools assume.
32: nothing exists outside of society, especially social science does not speak of society on one side and religion on the other.
33: I recommend using the term "functionalist" instead of "instrumentalist."
36: the word "role" is missing from the quote "prominent in German society."
59-60: the weekend itself lasts from Friday to Sunday, so there is no need to write it out separately.
Chapter 2, starting at 90: it should be presented more clearly and explicitly why the memorial site can be said to be religious in nature. Anyone who has not visited the site cannot imagine it from this description.
155: Nora's work should be cited here in connection with the term lieux de mémoire, which is mentioned later (230). This is the first reference to this technical term.
157: The term transcendental (theological) does not fit in with the general terminology used in the study.
160: The mention of the Soviet Camp is without precedent; it is not clear what it is, where it is, etc.
159-167: The reference to Butler's work is very appropriate, but the entire relevant Butler work is not about what the study quotes from it.
173 and elsewhere: it would be important to use these terms clearly separated and consistently: ritualized, routinized, sacred, sacralized
198: The author could have mentioned the Via Crucis earlier when he intended to prove that the architectural design of the memorial site is Christian.
271: The term Passion has a more general meaning, and it is not justified to find a direct religious reference in its use.
323: According to the study, the festival transformed the memorial site, but not in the way the author claims. Rather, it replaced the political interpretation of the GDR with an anti-AfD interpretation, which instrumentalizes remembrance in the same way and hinders personal mourning in the same way.
346: My previous statement is further supported by the renewed reference to the upcoming election. The same applies to the statement in 442-443.
416: Routinized rather than ritualized.

Author Response

Please see the attachment!

Thank you.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Thank you for the responsive revisions. 

Reviewer 4 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear author(s), Thank you for revising the paper. I think the paper is now convincing, and I will vote in favour of publication.