Dissolving Subjects in Medieval Reliquaries and Twentieth-Century Mass Graves

Abstract

The remains of the dead can impinge upon public consciousness in different ways, ranging from the shock of ‘uncovering’ human remains in unexpected places to the social effects that can unfold around human remains that remain unseen but are known to be present. In 2009, following a lengthy legal battle, an official court decree ordered the excavation of private land located on the grounds of a former concentration camp in Jamlitz, Brandenburg. The decision was based on extensive evidence that this land was the site of a mass grave containing the remains of Hungarian, Polish, and German Jews who had been murdered during the Holocaust. The dispute, in which the burial rights of the as-yet-undiscovered human remains had come head to head with the rights and wishes of the landowner, became the focus of intense public debate. This cross-period paper compares the assumptions and values underlying this dispute with late medieval responses to encounters with the many relics and reliquaries that were circulating at the time. In doing so, it invites reflection on how individual self-perception and social identities can be shaped and threatened by engaging with human remains and the shifting and subjective contexts that inform their meaning.