71 Introduction Museums are prominent sites of memory in contemporary cultures (Nora, 1989). They make memory sensible, collectible and transferable through the objects, documents and images on display along with the discursive practices attending their exhibition (Katriel, 1997). According to Tony Bennett, museums give rise to particular forms of ‘civic seeing’ in which ‘the civic lessons embodied in those arrangements are to be seen, understood and performed by the museum’s visitor’ (2011, p. 263). In their conserving and conservative capacity for showing what is pre- cious (or abominable) in cultural legacies (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, 2000), they can also give voice to an explicitly mobilizing agenda, turning the museum into a tool for social advocacy. As such, they do not only pro- vide knowledge about the past but also promote a sense of ‘epistemic responsibility’ (Linell and Rommetveit, 1998) whereby knowledge prefigures action. Museums that represent the national past often foreground war and violence as moving forces in history (van den Dungen, 2006), comme- morating particular wars and at the same time cultivating the modern myth of the heroic and self-transformative war experience (Harari, 2008; Mosse, 1979). As Lehrer et al. (2011) argue, museums thus create new forms of public knowledge that reframe age-old forms of seeing (and looking away) in the face of violence. A new type of museum that has emerged in the past few decades around the world are what Sodaro (2013) calls ‘memorial museums’, which, according to the International Coalition of Memorial Museums, are designed ‘to commemorate victims of state, socially determined and ideologically motivated crimes.’ 1 Paul Williams (2007, p. 8) defines them as dedicated to a historical event 4 Krieg dem Kriege: The Anti-War Museum in Berlin as a Multilayered Site of Memory Irit Dekel and Tamar Katriel 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 9781137032713_05_cha04.indd 71 9781137032713_05_cha04.indd 71 3/26/2015 9:02:11 PM 3/26/2015 9:02:11 PM This file is to be used only for a purpose specified by Palgrave Macmillan, such as checking proofs, preparing an index, reviewing, endorsing or planning coursework/other institutional needs. You may store and print the file and share it with others helping you with the specified purpose, but under no circumstances may the file be distributed or otherwise made accessible to any other third parties without the express prior permission of Palgrave Macmillan. Please contact rights@palgrave.com if you have any queries regarding use of the file. PROOF