When we talk about the destruction of monuments and what represents the monumental heritage we are talking about a kind of memory destruction. Every act of conservation and restoration invariably affects and transforms the original essence of the heritage, which involves a certain degree of loss. The obsession with physical preservation is so great embodied in the mentality of the 20th century that it is difficult to separate the attempt to understand the past and its meaning from the agony of choosing which parts (of the past) should be protected and preserved. The wide range of ways the past is used in society is thereby reduced to the literal act of preserving its physical aspect.
Whether minor or radical, more or less brutal or progressive, these transformations are often defined as the “defunctionalization” of heritage. Still, it is a change of function and use within a system of procedures and uses. Until modern times, it was quite normal to eliminate what we now call a monument or a work of art when it was considered obsolete or no longer suited the needs and expectations it previously satisfied.
Forgetting is only possible through a conscious, free and deliberate act of forgetting something. The same password can be applied to heritage. Only when a building, locality, or tradition is deliberately no longer given any attention and thus does not fulfill any function in society, that object is effectively lost as heritage. In other words, conscious forgetting does not imply the physical destruction of the object. In this regard, only the demolition of monuments or the newly created void after the demolition of anti-fascist memorials cannot undo the persistence of a heritage object or site – unless no one cares to remember them anymore. It is extremely ironic that the very act of destruction called anti-fascist memorials to memory, and even certain activities related to their activation in collective memory, such as various publications that have recently started to be written about them or artistic projects that tried to revitalize them.
Within the mentioned context, both destruction and construction/creation can be understood as equally essential features of immortalization.
Loss and change are part of life and part of what gives our heritage value.
The loss itself is not so much problematic as it is how individuals, communities, and societies choose to deal with the loss, i.e. the destruction. After all, heritage is a continuous manifestation of change over time, not a victim of it.