With all of these attempts at more and better documentation, it is striking that only in the rarest of cases any attempt is made to make the memorials historically concrete. The significance of this will become clear if we look theoretically at the way the commemorative process works. It can be conveniently described as a process of identification. A historical event transpires. A monument is established.
Some people consider certain aspects of the event worthy of commemoration.
These are incorporated into a work of art and phrased as an inscription by the concerned parties. The memorial causes a viewer to relate its message to his or her own system of values. The viewer integrates the message of the memorial into his or her conception of society at large. Within this theoretical framework it is relatively easy to understand the development of the inscriptions of West German synagogue memorials over time. When memorials did attempt to move viewers to relate the message to themselves, they usually distorted the significance of the Holocaust.