Theresearch topic negotiates the postmodern approach of memory and memorial, which due to its artistic, historic and symbolic value, embodies and forms the latest trends and concepts for representation in History and the Arts.
The postmodern theory removes from history its scientific role, whilst the revisionist and relativist memory dominates, as well as the mnemonic techniques that shift the emphasis from the historical event to the expression of a confused and emotionally based thrill. At the beginning, the starting point and the basis for the new theory and its approach to memory is set. The relationship between history and memory, the modern study of collective memory and the dialectic of memory and forgetting. The first chapter of the memory study closes with postmodern theory of representation, and specifically with the (non) representation of memory.
In the next chapter, the relationship between memory and memorial, as a signifier of memory is presented. The modern architecture of monuments does not remain unaffected by the new theories and characterizes the postmodern monuments, "counter-monuments", as those who question the conditions of their own existence.
The "Holocaust" was suitable field and central theme on which postmodern theories about history, memory, identity, representation developed. Therefore, the last chapter presents the basic data on the memory of the Holocaust and analyzes four examples of counter-monuments in Germany. The Monument against fascism in Hamburg (1986), the monument in the Neukölln district of Berlin (1994), the "negative-form" fountain (Aschrott-Brunnen) in Kassel (1987) and the project «Stolpersteine» (the stumbling stones) that started in Germany in 1994 and spread throughout Europe.