This creative essay is an investigation into how we can remember without any sign of the past. How can we remember a thing that seemingly left no traces? This investigation will be carried out with a specific example in mind – the “Estherhazybad” in Vienna. The Estherhazybad was a bathhouse in the sixth district and a popular meeting point for gay men. As homosexuality was criminalized during World War II, it became a sad scene of ever-occurring raids to arrest gay men. The house was built in the 1850s and demolished in the 1980s, and the plot became part of a bigger housing project. There is no plaque or memorial to commemorate the horrid scenes that went on in that place around 70 years ago.
The essay most probably won’t suffice you with an answer. Rather, it is an exploration of a train of thought or the expansion of an idea on hope.

I.

Like a sandcastle built too close to the water, it will be consumed by the tide. What is it that remains? Will the sea be gracious enough so as to preserve the little castle? Or will it fall victim to the soothing cycle of the moon, or rather, the wrath of time?
And if it is not Poseidon’s doing in making the castle disappear, will the wind erode it? Will the destruction, revealed by time, of a gentle ocean breeze pick it apart, grain by grain?

There could have been a thousand sandcastles in the same place, and there might be hundreds more in the future, but none of them would ever know of their existence, and definitely not their creators.

With the example laid out, there are two questions at hand. First, what role does the human play in this scenario, and what other actors should be considered, for example, the fisherman who knows the sea and beach like the back of his hand?
Secondly, there is some ambivalence to the forces of nature in this example. By reducing nature to its destructive force, we take on a simple-minded perspective, since nature is not destroying; rather, it is reestablishing its original state. Relating this train of thought back to the very first example of the Estherhazybad, the question arises of what forces play a pivotal role in a culture of remembrance, given the crucial part of temporality.

II.

The introduction of other actors into the scene allows for a more in-depth examination of what will be remembered. If we consider not just the creators of the sandcastles but also, for example, a fisherman, who sets the sails early in the morning, passing by the beach under the orange skies of daybreak. He returns at the end of the day, noticing that the moon is already pulling the ocean out of its ephemeral basin. But today he also takes notice of a sandcastle – a tiny kingdom constructed of even tinier grains. What remains of it the next morning is nothing but a few bumps, tiny hills carrying the memory of what once was. And by the next morning, nothing remains of the castle at all – every trace carried away by the oceans back and forth.

The ocean, though, did not reach the fisherman’s mind. He perfectly remembers the sandcastle with its four towers, its gate, and its grand audience hall at the center. While the castle might be destroyed, the image still lives on in the fisherman’s mind.
The destruction of the physicality of a certain subject, therefore, does not equal its complete and utter erasure from the world and, more importantly, the mind. We must consequently highlight the immateriality of memories and their importance to a culture of remembrance.

While we don’t know if the fisherman might have told his wife or children about the sandcastle, or if he kept this miniature paradise to himself, we can be sure that he remembers it. The dissemination of the fisherman’s observations plays a crucial part in this and is intrinsically linked to the temporal aspect of our investigation. It can be noted that the immateriality of the fisherman’s memories has a vital role in this exploration of thought.

III.

While the next part of this investigation is not directly connected to the research subject at hand – the Estherhazybad – the ambiguity of nature is a seemingly perfect analogy to the force of temporality.
The basis for the question is constituted by time. The time horizon plays a crucial role in the analogy of the sandcastle and further extends to the subject of the Estherhazybad. If we recognize time as a scalable variable, we can examine different aspects of the same physical locality. The time horizon is also the foundation that constitutes the perception of nature.

When observing nature over a brief time frame, nature’s destructive force might move to the forefront. By extending the time frame, though, what becomes visible is nature not destroying, but rather reclaiming its space. In other words, if we extend the time frame, it can be observed that nature is healing itself.
For example, if we return to the example of the sandcastle and look at it from the point it was built up until the evening when the ocean tide touched the castle walls. Extending the time frame to the next morning, we saw that what remained of it was nothing but a few bumps. Another extension of the time frame might result in seeing the beach return to its original state with no traces left. And if we look at it throughout, let’s say a year, hundreds of castles could have been built, but no traces would be left of any of them.
Therefore, the time frame through which we observe subjects is crucial for their perception.

IV.

We finally arrive at the central question that constitutes the core of this investigation, namely, how can we remember a thing that is not there anymore?

What is it that remains of the sandcastle washed away by the tide of the ocean?
What is still there after the wind has blown over its majestic towers?
What is there to remember after the castle has been consumed by the forces of nature?

In the first part of the essay, we established that the physical remains of an object are secondary if the object has the option to take on an immaterial imprint in the form of a memory. Even though the mind, through its intangible nature, is protected from the direct forces of nature, its defenselessness in front of the spirit of temporality will eventually erode it, as pointed out in the second part of this text. If we now put the two observations – the immateriality and intangibility of thought and the temporal – into relation with each other, we can obtain an approach that eventually will lead us to find solutions to the problem at hand.

Since the fisherman in our example is of curious nature and the town in which he lives is rather small, every alteration to their surroundings is a rather scandalous happening. He therefore goes on to tell his family about his observation, being intrigued by this little sandcastle that so proudly stood at the beach for only a couple of hours. He tells them about the four towers, its gate, and its grand audience hall at the center.

With our example now laid out, we are able to begin a cautious attempt to draft an answer to the question of how we can remember something that is not there any longer. The observation carried out revealed three crucial aspects of the question, first of the importance of the immateriality of thought, with thought being untouchable by the physical forces of nature. Secondly, the dissemination of thought, meaning the passing on of a memory, event, or observation. Finally, the temporality of thought poses the final obstacle to the thought’s transfer into memory. That will ultimately determine if the thought will become a memory and hence actually be remembered.

By having identified these three aspects, the answer to the question comes easily. If we want to remember the things that are no longer, we need to preserve their memory and distribute it. The passing on of memories is the basis for preserving memories.
Even though one might be struck by the banality of this revelation, the essence of this examination constitutes the foundation of a crucial societal process. Justifying the banality resulting from this elaborate investigation.

V.

The following part of this essay is committed to relating the results of the investigation back to the original example of the Estherhazybad and concluding our train of thought. At this point, though, I want to mention that the discussions that could be continued from this place on are manyfold. The very question of how a subject can be remembered can be debated; this speculative exploration would extend far beyond the frame of the inquiry at hand.

As mentioned in the introduction, there are no physical traces of the Estherhazybad. The building was demolished in the second half of the 20th century, and no plaque or memorial was constructed to remember the scars of the past. Further, the records, in particular of what happened there in the context of the prosecution of gay men in the Second World War, are scarce. The absence of a physical commemoration of the subject presents an obstacle to the dissemination of the memory, which, as discussed in the essay, is a vital part of remembering a subject. It is inherent to the nature of physical objects that they are better suited to honor a memory. However, the physicality of a memory is not a prerequisite for preserving it. Meaning that the memory of the Estherhazybad could be passed on and preserved also by, for example, oral transmissions, highlighting the importance of the ephemeral nature of thought. The ephemerality of memories is a central part of the point I am making. The materialized form of memories and the physicality of a culture of remembrance are essential for Western society. For many cultures and communities, the immateriality of memories forms the very basis of their remembrance culture. That highlights the argument made in this essay about how the immateriality of memories establishes the basis for remembrance.

Before leaving you to confront yourself with your thoughts about the topic, I want to point out one last societal-political dimension, which, by the political nature of the subject, seems unavoidable. The Estherhazybad was located at the Gumpendorfer Straße in Vienna’s sixth district – a densely populated area in an urban environment. In this context, the question of what we want to remember becomes increasingly more difficult. The accumulation of memories and stories in a certain place can become multilayered. The intricacy of memories in public spaces poses the question of what memories from what kind of people(s) should be remembered. This, in turn, is a highly political question. Which, ultimately, comes down to choosing what we as society deem memorable. What stories do we plan to move to the forefront, and in general, what do we want to remember?