Terezín as Reverse Potemkin Ruin, in Five Movements and an Epilogue

Abstract

Mani is the middle finger of the Peloponnesian peninsula. It is known for three things, and all are oddly appropriate to our inquiry: funeral dirges, towers, and vendettas. The ruins of ancient towers are easy to imagine, but there are other strange structures visible throughout Mani as a result of its notorious vendettas. For whenever a family member starts to build something, they are invariably sued by other relatives. And so the structures are half built, somewhere between the unfinished and the ruin. This was similar to the situation in the Soviet Union and other communist countries, where the word ‘Dolgostroj’ was coined to describe the unbuilt as simultaneously white elephant and ruin.