This invisibility is especially insidious when it comes to Holocaust memorials. As I watched cyclists pedal and couples stroll past the stele, I imagined the command “Passant, souviens-toi!” was little more than a blur. Perhaps it was the intense afternoon heat rising from the pavement, perhaps it was the bateaux-mouches on the Seine, perhaps it was the prospect of a cold drink at a café that distracted them. Of course, I was also thinking of a cold drink. But I could not help but also think of a remark made by the French philosopher Jean Baudrillard: “Forgetting the extermination is part of the extermination itself.”
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