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10 The Linguist Vol/56 No/5 2017 www.ciol.org.uk FEATURES historian's account of the past, based on the rigorous use of archival sources. This ambition is also often expressed through architectural design, an aesthetic that can best be described as an expensive-to-achieve sparseness. Perhaps the most baffling museum title is the 'Topography of Terror' documentation centre, calqued from the German Topographie des Terrors. This was coined as a name for the remnants of the SS and Gestapo headquarters, and an improvised exhibition was created on this site in the late 1980s. At the time, the organiser could not have known that 'terror' would take on a new meaning in English after 9/11, but even prior to that, the English word never had the sense it has in German: the state's intimidation and terrorization of its own citizens. Arguably, the institution benefits from the neat equivalence of its German and English titles, which makes branding easier, and in practice tourists remain resolutely untroubled by the strange name – the Topography of Terror is a must-see attraction in Berlin. But to the English ear there remains an incongruous contrast between the sensationalising alliteration that conjures up a tabloid headline and the high-register, academic connotation of 'topography', an ambition that is matched by the minimalist architecture of the centre and the earnestness of its displays. Would anything be gained by a more transparent translation, such as 'Documentation Centre for the Sites of State Terror'? Probably not, but this linguistic slippage would make a useful discussion for a guided tour. OPENING UP MEMORIES More broadly, we are interested in the gap between what Germany's memory culture means to citizens who have grown up with it and what it means to outsiders, who may only vaguely know that Germany has started 'facing up' to its past. Indeed, they may imagine that Germany has always documented the Nazi past, in which case they may find some of the displays of recently 'unearthed' objects (which symbolize the return of a repressed past) puzzling. In some cases, such as the Topf & Sons site in Erfurt, where the crematoria ovens for Auschwitz were made, one has the feeling that the whole museum needs 'translating', as the product of certain trends in German memory politics. At sites in eastern Germany where the National Socialist past was overlaid by the GDR dictatorship, the layers of cultural and historical memory become even more complex and interwoven, and the challenges of their translatability for the outsider all the more intractable. As part of our research project, we envisage using a small online showcase to experiment with more layered forms of museum translation. Currently we know relatively little about the working practices of translators who work for history museums. Examples from the exhibition space suggest to us that translators work with text only, without images of the objects they are captioning. We also assume – although we do not know – that few (if any) translators specialise in museum translation and that for most translators a set of exhibition texts is one job among many. We would be very interested to hear from translators who have translated exhibition texts for museums: c.paver@exeter.ac.uk or matthew.philpotts@liverpool.ac.uk. Notes 1 Brown, A (2015) 'Re-writing History'. In The Linguist 54,5 TOP ATTRACTION Does the Topographie des Terrors (top) suffer from its unusual name?; and (below) a pot of WWII frost-protection cream on display at the Jewish Museum Berlin In some cases, one has the feeling that the whole museum needs translating For writers' biographies for all feature articles, see page 34. © FOTO THOMAS BRUNS, DEUTSCH-R USSISCHES MUSEUMBERLIN-K ARLSHORST