the politics of memory

     The essay I chose to write was on the Habsburgs and how they achieved legitimacy. There was a different prompt, however, on the Holocaust and the politics of memory. Class sounded pretty evenly split between the two prompts, which I'm surprised by.
     I avoided this as an essay because I do not know if I have ten pages' worth to say on it at this point, although I should, as in poetry a "politics of ___" speech seems to be the trending idea at the moment. Politics of language, politics of the page, politics of education, politics of the body, etcetera.
    The politics of memory, as I understand it, stems from several items.
1) Memory changes over time
    -The insistence by Austrians and Germans that they 'had no idea' when it was impossible to not know.

2) People prefer to forget
    -How easily the government can use this to their advantage as well, and how fast horrible events become normal, and commonplace.

3) Each memory is from a specific lens, and it is impossible to see the full picture

4) A memorial controls how a person remembers and perceives an event.
        -as in Mauthausen, the smaller, singular concentration camp was chosen to be preserved as that maintains the political image that Austria was not at fault.
        -In Auschwitz, the choice at first to highlight political prisoners instead of Jewish murders.
        -In Auschwitz now, the almost negation of political prisoners for everything to be focused onJews.
        -The lack of coverage on certain groups that are still 'undesirable' today: gypsies, criminals, etc.

5) the purpose of a memorial. Does visiting a memorial, when you already are familiar with the Holocaust, grant you more of a perception, does it illuminate anything extra to think about, and learn coming out of it, or does one get to simply say "I visited Mauthausen, or Auschwitz" and feel better about themselves?

Perhaps they are best to keep because some have the audacity to deny that the Holocaust existed, and perhaps as time goes on the amount of deniers would grow if left unchecked. It is easy to suppress a thing like that. And the memorials are good when somebody is there to adequately explain everything.

And no matter what, certain images give certain impressions. The idea of how many people were cramped into the small bunkers in Mauthausen is something impossible to perceive, especially as there are not as many bunkers crammed in at this time. Everything is perfectly kept up as well, in order to preserve the memorial, but that gets away from the original event.
This also brings up the idea of taxes and expenditure. It would give a better impression of the events if every extermination and concentration camp were kept up, but how much taxes would have to be spent on keeping an event like that around for all to forever see?
Is it ever alright to stop funding the upkeep of these? Should they be allowed to rot and fall, like the ruins of certain castles?

There are a lot of questions within this topic, but I have no answers.