ABSTRACT
Martin Heidegger’s silence about the Holocaust continues to haunt philosophical debates with his seeming indifference to Jewish suffering, if not outright anti-Semitism. Silence may just as easily signify evasion, indifference, denial or even acquiescence. Unlike Heidegger, Arendt was unable to remain silent about the Holocaust and National Socialism. Commemorative places such as Lenin’s Mausoleum, the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin and former concentration camp sites were designed to slow time in order to instil reflection on historical events and the dead. While Lenin’s Mausoleum was built to revere the first leader of the Soviet Union, it has become a controversial and anachronistic relic to a fallen empire. In the twenty-first century, nostalgia is a powerful sentiment for populist leaders to tap into and use for political purposes. Nostalgia for a pristine nation unencumbered by membership in international organisations and treaties risks creating the fantasy of a phantom homeland.
