the historical and the metaphoric, the unique and the universal. The tension and discourse between these poles is inherent in the essence of the Museum and its educational work. One can say that, at any single moment, the educational process is taking place in the space between one pole and the other. To preserve the overwhelming power of the concrete event and, at the same time, the symbolic, universal implications inherent in it, there should never be an attempt at resolving the tension between the poles. (Weinberg and Elieli 19) In other words, the "story line" of the permanent exhibit is the line inscribed by visitors as they traverse the space between binaries. And how could it be otherwise? To address visitors in ways that invite them to take up positions at either one binary pole or the other, would be to invite them to assume positions within the very configuration of relations that perpetrated the Holocaust: insider/ outsider, us/ them, human/ inhuman, victim/ perpetrator, Aryan/ nonAryan. On the other hand, to promote a story that resolves the tensions between the poles would be to promote what Adam Phillips calls "the misleading idea that we are all in search of completion" (122). Phillips continues: "Bewitched by the notion of being complete, we become obsessed by notions of sameness and difference, by thoughts of what to include and what to reject in order to keep ourselves [and our stories] whole" (122). But, Phillips argues, "there is no cure for multiple plots" (75). As visitors walk through the "story" of this narrative museum, they are literally positioned in the spaces between video monitors, life-size photographs, displayed artifacts, text, and audio recordings. Even though the texts presented are arranged in roughly chronological order along a corkscrew path, we do not read or hear or view a linear story line. Rather, we are placed physically in the spaces between the story's This content downloaded from 157.55.39.144 on Wed, 11 May 2016 06:27:24 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 20 Elizabeth Ellsworth Pedagogical Address and the Holocaust Museum elements. We are entwined with the story elements. From the spaces between, there is no story line, only a three dimensional competition for our attention. Every visitor to the exhibit will "traverse [their] own path, crossing previous lines of locomotion" (Dannatt 14). No two paths or lines of attention compose the same story. Indeed, "the" story of the narrative exhibit is never stated. Instead, there is a constant deferral of the story. There is a continual opening up of the space between resolved binary terms or resolved endings, knowings or understandings. This is accomplished, in part, by repeated interruption of any single line of attention, of any single sequential development of a story line out of the exhibit's separate elements. For example, while elements are grouped into themes and events, such as "Nazi Propaganda" or "Resistance," there is no linear causeeffect explanation linking these groups. And within each grouping, elements can be encountered in any order, as when visitors come upon groupings of elements labeled "Nazi Propaganda," "Nazi Society," and "Search for Refuge" simultaneously. Even within the groupings, relations between elements within a group are seldom linear. On any given display panel, video testimonies or archival footage are not offered as direct illustrations of printed text. Nor does the text explain the video. Their association is not one of illustration or explanation. Rather, their association is topographical. Each element provides another facet, another perspective, another relation to the theme or