Maintaining the clarity of our distinctive IBCC narrative voice has not been without its challenges within the partnership tasked with delivering the entire, ambitious project. Tensions in perspective have mostly been turned to highly creative use. Every now and then, however, challenges have been thrown up that have threatened to disrupt a singular voice.

For example, our external partner decided to name the visitor centre the Chadwick Centre, after the designer of the Lancaster bomber. This seemed from our perspective in the partnership to be rather too ‘top down’, to focus too heavily on hardware not people, and to be too Lincolnshire-specific. (There are faultlines in the Bomber Command memorialisation community, split along bomber Groups and aircraft flown.) Out of respect we worked with it. We had interviewed Roy Chadwick’s daughter for the archive and she is included in the exhibition, speaking of her father. We included stories and images of crews who flew a variety of aircraft, and made efforts at wide geographical coverage. We were also mindful that all Bomber Command aircraft meant only one thing to those on the ground in occupied Europe: death and destruction.[1]

And now, on the eve of opening, the tone of our narrative voice has been altered by additions to the entrance area of the Chadwick Centre, without involving the exhibition/archive team. It is important to this explanation to note that the only area of the site that is behind a paywall is the exhibition itself. All other areas can be freely accessed. One anticipates that many more visitors will move through the ‘free’ than the ‘paid’ spaces.

As one walks into the Chadwick Centre, one is greeted by a large quote on the wall by Arthur Harris, not only chief of Bomber Command but even today considered one of the most controversial figures in the Allied military command structure. Even (or especially) veterans and their families remain divided over his role and legacy, as testified in many of the interviews we have collected. Here, immediately, is a provocation, a call to an official victor narrative. The quote is about Roy Chadwick, a bust of whom (donated by his family) is positioned below it.

The bust of Roy Chadwick and the quote by Harris.

In another area of the entrance – harder to see until one is leaving – is the fifth verse of Laurence Binyon’s poem, For the Fallen.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again; They sit no more at familiar tables of home; They have no lot in our labour of the day-time; They sleep beyond England’s foam

It was written in 1914, a few weeks into the First World War. The fourth verse, beginning ‘They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old’, is now commonly associated with British remembrance and the poppy.[2] In the verse quoted, it is of interest that Binyon refers to ‘England’, not even Britain, nor its allies, so a contested issue within the victor narrative is introduced, compounding the implications for our wider interpretive scheme.

The overall impression now created in the entrance area is that the IBCC has not moved beyond a rather outworn, binary us/them perspective on the bombing war. (The decorative scheme in the café does nothing to disrupt such an impression, but that may be extending our argument too far.)

Another potential challenge is the ‘Knight of the Skies’. In October 2017, this sculpture was donated to the IBCC by a family with close connections to Bomber Command and who have lent significant support to the IBCC. The knight was one of 36 sponsored sculptures in Lincoln city centre’s Knights’ Trail over the previous summer.^[3] Each sculpture was distinctively themed and painted by a different artist. The ‘Knight of the Skies’ wears flying gear and holds the IBCC spire as a sword above Lincoln cathedral and fields of poppies. On its side, a Lancaster and its crew stand beneath a shield bearing the Bomber Command motto, ‘STRIKE HARD STRIKE SURE’.  The last British survivor of the Dams Raids, Johnny Johnson, has autographed the knight. It represents a heroic view of those who flew in RAF Bomber Command.

The Knight of the Skies

The knight has been displayed in the Remembering Bomber Command gallery, which is entirely appropriate. This is, after all, one local form of remembering that contains multiple personal stories, not only connected to the war but to the IBCC.

At issue for the interpretation is its current location, presiding over the entrance area as visitors approach from the carpark. If one does not intend viewing the exhibition, it is the only bit of the exhibition one gets for free.

What we have for the opening of this prestigious new development in Lincoln, then, is not one but two voices that sit awkwardly side by side, a reminder of the heritage dissonance that has long been identified as one of the dangers of mobilising an unruly past for contemporary purposes, such as commemoration and place-making.[4] We wish it were not so and that the quotes at least could be replaced. We have concerns about how the Centre may be portrayed online and how that may shape the decision to visit (or not) among those who are not our natural/predicted audience – although we want them to be impressed, too.

This reflection sums up our views as we let go of our interpretive work at the Centre and give over to visitors to interact with the interpretation, create their own experiences and take away their own memories.

Dan Ellin, Heather Hughes and Alessandro Pesaro

[1] In recent years there have been a number of landmark studies on this theme, offering very different perspectives to those produced in the Cold War context. See for example Richard Overy, The Bombing War, Europe 1939-1945. Allen Lane, London, 2013; Dietmar Süss, Death From the Skies: How the British and Germans Survived Bombing in World War II, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014; Jörg Friedrich, The Fire: The Bombing of Germany 1940-1945. Columbia University Press, New York, 2006.

[2] For the issues associated with poppy remembrance, see Maggie Andrews, ‘Poppies, Tommies and remembrance: commemoration is always contested’. In Soundings, Vol. 58, 2014, pp 98-109.

[3] http://www.knightstrail.com/  accessed 31.12.2017.

[4] See J. E. Tunbridge and G. J. Ashworth, Dissonant Heritage: The Management of the Past as a Resource in Conflict. John Wiley, Chichester, 1996.

Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table is a collection of autobiographical short stories, each one structured around an element from the periodic table, hence the title. Published in 1975, the book tells the life story of a young Jew who grows up in fascist Italy, struggling to circumvent racial laws, studies chemistry at the University of Turin, graduates, joins the resistance, survives the Holocaust, and finally pursues a successful career in the decades following the end of the conflict.

The book defies labelling. The most recognisable theme is the author’s passion for scientific knowledge and discovery, with essays ranging from purely imaginative tales to sapid recollections based on his professional life: stories include medallions dedicated to his friends, as well as political or philosophical metaphors.

Cover of the first edition (Milan, Einaudi, 1975)

Others chapters have a more direct connection to Levi’s dramatic life. This is especially true for Cerium, which is based on his time in Auschwitz when he toiled in a chemical lab at the Buna Werke industrial complex. Levi quickly understands that small cylinders of Iron-Cerium alloy can be stolen, then painstakingly turned into lighter flints, and eventually bartered for extra food rations. Cerium contains an eye-witness testimony of aerial bombing in which Primo Levi chooses not to describe the whole bombing sequence, but isolates the air-raid siren which becomes a powerful symbol of horror. The passage should be read in context: a grey, desolate wasteland with imposing industrial plants as backdrop, populated by prisoners who endure shocking hardships and brutal discipline. For vigour, intensity and imaginative language this is probably one of the most potent literary descriptions of aerial warfare, as seen from the perspective of someone who was at the receiving end of it.

Verso le dieci di mattina proruppero le sirene del Fliegeralarm, dell’allarme aereo. Non era una novità, oramai, ma ogni volta che questo avveniva ci sentivamo, noi e tutti, percossi di angoscia fino in fondo alle midolla. Non sembrava un suono terreno, non era una sirena come quelle delle fabbriche, era un suono di enorme volume che, simultaneamente in tutta la zona e ritmicamente, saliva fino ad un acuto spasmodico e ridiscendeva ad un brontolio di tuono. Non doveva essere stato un ritrovato casuale, perché nulla in Germania era casuale, e del resto era troppo conforme allo scopo ed allo sfondo: ho spesso pensato che fosse stato elaborato da un musico malefico, che vi aveva racchiuso furore e pianto, l’urlo del lupo alla luna e il respiro del tifone: così doveva suonare il corno di Astolfo. Provocava il panico, non solo perché preannunciava le bombe, ma anche per il suo intrinseco orrore, quasi il lamento di una bestia ferita grande fino all’orizzonte.
I tedeschi avevano più paura di noi davanti agli attacchi aerei: noi, irrazionalmente, non li temevamo, perché li sapevamo diretti non contro noi, ma contro i nostri nemici. Nel giro di secondi mi trovai solo nel laboratorio, intascai tutto il cerio ed uscii all’aperto per ricongiungermi col mio Kommando: il cielo era già pieno del ronzio dei bombardieri, e ne scendevano, ondeggiando mollemente, volantini gialli che recavano atroci parole di irrisione:

Im Bauch kein Fett,
Acht Uhr ins Bett;
Der Arsch kaum warm,
Fliegeralarm!

A noi non era consentito l’accesso ai rifugi antiaerei: ci raccoglievamo nelle vaste aree non ancora fabbricate, nei dintorni del cantiere. Mentre le bombe cominciavano a cadere, sdraiato sul fango congelato e sull’erba grama tastavo i cilindretti nella tasca, e meditavo sulla stranezza del mio destino, dei nostri destini di foglie sul ramo, e dei destini umani in generale.

The air-raid sirens erupted around 10 o’clock in the morning. It was nothing new at that juncture, but we and the others were stricken by a bone-deep anguish every time. It didn’t sound like a noise from this world; it wasn’t like a factory siren. It was rather a sound of immense loudness which rhythmically rose to a spasmodically shrill tone all across the locality, and then fell down to a thunderous rumble. It wasn’t so by chance, as nothing in Germany happened by chance. After all, it was perfectly fit for purpose and in line with the circumstances. I often thought it was devised by a malevolent musician, who managed to pack into it fury and bereavement, the wolf howling at the moon and the breath of a typhoon. So should have sounded Astolfo’s horn. It induced panic, not only because it was the harbinger of bombs, but also for its intrinsic horror. It was almost the lament of a wounded beast, a beast so big to reach the horizon. Germans feared air raids more than we did: we, irrationally, didn’t. We were aware that they were not aimed at us, but at our enemies.
In a couple of seconds I was alone in the lab. I grabbed all the Cerium and went out with my Kommando, the sky already resounding with the droning sound of bombers. Yellow leaflets were falling down, swinging indolently. They bore horrible, scornful words:

Im Bauch kein Fett
Acht Uhr ins Bett
Der Arsch kaum warm
Fliegeralarm!

No lard in the belly
At eight o’clock in bed
As soon as the butt is warm
Air-raid alarm!

We were not allowed to enter the shelters. We gathered instead in the vast brownfields around the construction yard. When bombs started to drop, I was lying on grass and frozen mud, touching the small cylinders in my pockets. I was meditating on the oddity of my own destiny, on the fact that we were like leaves on a branch, as well as on the destiny of all humans [translation mine].

The passage contains two literary allusions. The horn is a reference to Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando furioso, an Italian epic poem appeared in 1516: Astolfo’s horn induces panic and horror.

The words “leaves on a branch” allude at Soldati, a First World War poem written by Giuseppe Ungaretti.

Si sta come
d’autunno
sugli alberi
le foglie

It’s like being
in the autumn
on the trees
the leaves

Autumnal trees are here a symbol of fragility of human live in wartime.

Primo Levi eventually survived the Holocaust and managed to go back home in Turin following a long, circuitous route. In 1987 he fell into the stairwell of his home – the demise was ruled a suicide.

Alessandro Pesaro, Digital Archive Developer