Abstract: Homogenization, monochromatic rendering, and the process of schematic imposition is readily apparent in modern mainstream Jewish French politics. The Jewish Maghreb explores complex self and communal understandings of Maghrebi Jewish populations and their descendants in France through ethnography across generations. This study examines how colonial history, migration, and geopolitics shape ongoing Maghrebi belonging. From commercial networks in Paris to Algerian pilgrimage journeys, the book reveals communal North African Jewish navigation of plural sediments of self and history. The heuristic ‘maghrebinicité,’ works to illuminate ongoing negotiations of memory, citizenship, and cultural transmission in postcolonial France, offering fresh insights into diaspora, return, and the persistence of transnational connections.
Abstract: The article discusses the development of the symbolic meanings of Auschwitz in Poland since the end of the Second World War, taking into account the context of Polish history and memory, in particular the memory of the Holocaust and disputes surrounding it. Analyzing various kinds of representations, the article examines chronologically the major symbolisms of the former camp – Polish, international, universalist, and Jewish – as well as pointing to others, and identifying the periods of their development. The article argues that Auschwitz has had various meanings in Poland. At present, it is, among others, a symbol of the Holocaust, but not the symbol thereof.
Abstract: The memories of the child refugees who fled Central Europe on the so-called Kindertransport between December 1938 and September 1939 are the most widely documented of any refugee and migrant group to come the United Kingdom. However, the dominant narrative has been one of migration to and settling in England, despite the fact that the child refugees settled in places across the British Isles, including Northern Ireland, Wales, and Scotland—the last of which, for example, received an estimated eight hundred Kindertransportees. This essay will investigate how former Kindertransportees negotiate their different identities in their memory narratives. The majority of the Kindertransportees were Jewish, although approximately 20 percent came from families that did not identify as Jewish but were persecuted as Jews. Therefore, there is a complicated interplay of religious identities, those derived from the country the child refugees were leaving behind and those of the country and the nations of settlement. This article will compare those narratives that construct non-English identity as Other, those that adopt separate national identities in the Diaspora with earlier definitions of Englishness versus Britishness, and others that adopt a center/margin hierarchy common in British culture.
Abstract: Aquesta Tesi aborda el tema de la Memòria de l’Holocaust a l’Estat Espanyol a través d’una perspectiva sociològica i una perspectiva històrica. Els conceptes de memòria, antisemitisme i totalitarisme són les variables que articulen i justifiquen el plantejament d’aquesta recerca. A través de la recerca historiogràfica i els testimonis, s’ha analitzat els diferents actors que van intervenir en l’Holocaust relacionats amb l’Estat Espanyol juntament amb aquelles ideologies que els podien influenciar. El primer actor a analitzar han estat les víctimes, principalment els jueus, tot i que es fa una pinzellada dels Republicans, així com del Treballadors espanyols que van anar a l’Alemanya Nazi. A través de diversos testimonis s’ha pogut conèixer qui eren, quina fou la seva trajectòria entre el 1936 i el 1948, i la seva sort en l’Holocaust, i quina relació van tenir amb les diferents institucions de l’Estat Espanyol i amb les organitzacions d’ajuda estrangeres. El segon grup que s’ha analitzat és el Govern Franquista per conèixer quin fou el rol d’aquest en relació amb l’Holocaust. La hipòtesi de treball és veure si és possible classificar-lo com a Perpetrador, Col·laborador o Bystander. Per això, és fa un primer anàlisi concret sobre l’antisemitisme, en un segon lloc, s’indaga sobre les relacions que van existir entre el govern de Franco i l’Alemanya Nazi,. En una tercer apartat, s’analitzen les principals institucions que van jugar un rol en la seva influència ideològica tant en la població com en altres institucions respecte a l’Holocaust: la Falange i l’Església i en l’última part s’estudia la política exterior front l’Holocaust per part del govern franquista en aquells països on hi havia població espanyola, fent una comparació amb els altres països suposadament neutrals, per acabar abordant la política de Franco amb l’Alemanya Nazi un cop acabada la guerra i fins l’inici de la guerra freda. Finalment, s’aborda l’Holocaust a la Unió Soviètica considerant-lo un dels capítols més innovadors i centrals per entendre la relació i la construcció de la memòria envers l’Holocaust. A la URSS és on membres de l’Estat espanyol, tant els Divisionaris com els Republicans, van ser testimonis directes de la destrucció del poble jueu. A més a més, la relació amb el bolxevisme permet poder relacionar-ho amb l’imaginari de l’enemic judeo-bolxevic.
Abstract: In this article, we analyse Il Memoriale della Shoah, the memorial of the victims of the Shoah in Milan, which was inaugurated in 2013 and, in 2015, was turned into a night shelter for destitute migrants. To understand the rhetoric and politics of the Memorial, we bring together the notions of affective practices, découpages du temps (lit. slices of time) and multidirectional memory. This analytic approach allows us to examine the nonlinear shape of remembering, the dialectic relationships between the spatialisation of time and the temporalisation of space, the ways in which emotions are brought into being semiotically in context, and the ethical questions that these feelings raise. Through detailed multimodal and affective analysis of the affordances of the built environment and its soundscape, the curation of the Memorial, the contextualisation of three guided tours (two online and one in situ) and politicised commentary on the Memorial’s decision to shelter refugees, our paper illustrates the multi-layered character of the relationship between space and time – one in which the past, the present and the future partly overlap and mobilise political action.
Abstract: This article addresses the themes of culture, identity, and trauma in a bilingual analysis between a German-speaking second-generation Holocaust survivor and an analyst of German descent. By paying attention to the shifts between German and English over the course of the therapy, it becomes possible to see how deeply language is intertwined with culture, history, and traumatic memory in the German–Jewish experience. Both patient and analyst are embedded in multiple cultural contexts and participate in language shifts that shape the process of negotiating and revealing identity. The article suggests that identity is neither fixed nor stable, but linked to the fluid and dynamic shifts of our experiences in the presence of the other person, and of language and culture in general. By focusing on the therapeutic interaction between the patient and analyst, the case demonstrates the degree to which the burden of history, struggle with trauma, and legacy of shame are all embedded in and determined by culture and history across contexts and generations.
Abstract: Bohemia and Moravia, today part of the Czech Republic, was the first territory with a majority of non-German speakers occupied by Hitler’s Third Reich on the eve of the World War II. Tens of thousands of Jewish inhabitants in the so called Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia soon felt the tragic consequences of Nazi racial politics. Not all Czechs, however, remained passive bystanders during the genocide. After the destruction of Czechoslovakia in 1938-39, Slovakia became a formally independent but fully subordinate satellite of Germany. Despite the fact it was not occupied until 1944, Slovakia paid Germany to deport its own Jewish citizens to extermination camps.
About 270,000 out of the 360,000 Czech and Slovak casualties of World War II were victims of the Holocaust. Despite these statistics, the Holocaust vanished almost entirely from post-war Czechoslovak, and later Czech and Slovak, historical cultures. The communist dictatorship carried the main responsibility for this disappearance, yet the situation has not changed much since the fall of the communist regime. The main questions of this study are how and why the Holocaust was excluded from the Czech and Slovak history.
Abstract: Since the 1989 political transition, a multifaceted process of knowledge production and memory formation regarding rural Jews has been ongoing in Hungary’s civil and academic spheres, often starting from or leading to local history research. These initiatives typically have multiple aims and functions: mourning the losses of the Holocaust, confronting and facing the difficult past, and uncovering the historical values of specific localities. Through the
presentation of examples and analysis of a bibliography on the subject, this article evaluates the achievements, directions, and shortcomings in this field, using historian Diana Pinto’s conceptual framework of “Jewish Space.” Building on the theoretical and practical analyses by Diana Pinto, Erica Lehrer, and Ruth Ellen Gruber, the author emphasizes that the social memory of European Jews can be most effectively created in spaces where Jewish and non-Jewish organizations and individuals can collaborate, engage in dialogue, and make joint contributions. The analysis also highlights the need for more professional and financial support for individuals and organizations active in this area and stresses the importance of coordinating their work and developing strategies based on professional criteria to ensure the efficient use of resources.
Abstract: Cet article aborde la restauration de la mémoire de la Shoah en Ukraine, ainsi que le rôle, dans ce processus, de différents acteurs de la mémoire et de leurs actions. Cette question sera étudiée à la lumière des changements intervenus dans la politique historique ukrainienne au cours des années 1990-2010, à travers le prisme de l’interaction entre un récit national ethnocentré et la mémoire de la Shoah. Les choix mémoriels de l’Ukraine s’inscrivent dans ce qu’on pourrait qualifier de « modèle est-européen » au sein duquel domine un récit focalisé sur le groupe ethnique majoritaire qui y tient le rôle principal. L’histoire de l’Ukraine est celle des Ukrainiens ethniques et est racontée comme le long cheminement d’un peuple vers la création d’un État national (ou vers le rétablissement de celui-ci). On y observe enfin surtout des discours post-traumatiques et postcoloniaux, ainsi qu’une lecture des relations avec les pays voisins fondée sur des rivalités. Dans ce contexte, l’appropriation de la mémoire sociale (culturelle) de la Shoah et son inclusion dans le récit mémoriel officiel font inévitablement face à des difficultés.
En Ukraine, cette intégration rencontre les mêmes obstacles qu’ailleurs en Europe centrale et orientale et dans les pays baltes :
Premièrement, nous l’avons dit, on ne peut brosser le tableau complet de la Shoah sans se heurter au récit national canonique dans lequel la mémoire de la Shoah, que ce soit sous sa forme nationale ou transnationale, n’est pas présentée comme faisant partie de la mémoire collective…
Abstract: To be valid, history must be predicated on absolute, uncompromising truth, not manipulation. Eighty years ago, 48,000 Jews were not deported from Bulgaria — while 11,343 other Jews were cruelly loaded on trains bound for Treblinka where they were murdered. These are two interdependent realities that cannot be and must not be allowed to be uncoupled.
Il suffirait de si peu. Au regard de maints États européens alliés, satellisés ou occupés par l’Allemagne nazie, la politique de la Bulgarie envers les populations juives pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale se prête à une lecture moins sombre. Signataire du Pacte tripartite le 1er mars 1941, le pays ne participa pas à l’offensive allemande de juin 1941 contre l’URSS ; son armée ne prit aucune part à la « Shoah par balles » et ses citoyens n’apportèrent pas de contribution aux exactions des Einsatzgruppen, ces unités mobiles d’extermination du Reich. Le « vieux royaume de Bulgarie » (frontières d’avant avril 1941) ne procéda pas à l’internement systématique et à l’extermination sur son territoire de ses citoyens juifs à la différence, par exemple, de l’État indépendant croate ustaša, né du démantèlement du royaume de Yougoslavie après son invasion par les nazis en avril 1941. La Bulgarie ne connut pas non plus les atrocités des pogroms de Bucarest et de Iaşi perpétrés dans la Roumanie de 1941, cet autre allié du Reich. Enfin, la presque totalité de la communauté juive de Bulgarie, soit environ 48 000 citoyens, survécut à la guerre après que le gouvernement eut reporté, puis renoncé à déporter une partie, sinon de la totalité, de cette communauté…
Abstract: Lors du festival Open City organisé à Lublin, en octobre 2019, l’artiste Dorota Nieznalska a présenté une installation intitulée « Judenfrei (Bûcher numéro 1) ». Cette œuvre présentait un bûcher recouvert de pancartes partiellement brûlées, sur lesquelles figuraient les noms de localités où, entre 1941 et 1946, des pogroms contre les Juifs furent perpétrés par des Polonais. À proximité de l’installation, les organisateurs avaient disposé un panneau explicatif précisant que ces crimes furent commis en toute connaissance de cause par des membres des communautés locales, animés par des instincts bas, la haine, l’antisémitisme et l’appât d’un enrichissement facile. Przemysław Czarnek, alors voïvode de la région de Lublin et futur ministre de l’Éducation et des Sciences au sein du gouvernement du parti Droit et Justice (PiS), a vivement réagi. Il a dénoncé publiquement l’installation de Nieznalska, la qualifiant d’« acte antipolonais », tout en fustigeant le panneau d’information qu’il a accusé de véhiculer un « mensonge ». Il a exigé du maire de Lublin qu’il fasse retirer cette œuvre controversée. Face à cette critique, la chercheuse Joanna Tokarska-Bakir, spécialiste des pogroms, a dénoncé l’ignorance du voïvode et s’en est indignée : « Comment peut-on laisser libre cours à ses intuitions face à des études scientifiques irréfutables qui attestent l’existence des pogroms dénoncés par l’artiste ? »
Malheureusement, les seules intuitions de Przemysław Czarnek ne sont pas le cœur du problème…
Abstract: Depuis les années 1990, l’usage des termes « révisionnisme » et « révisionniste » s’est imposé dans l’espace intellectuel et médiatique pour désigner, au-delà des auteurs d’extrême droite et faux savants niant l’existence des chambres à gaz, qualifiés de « négationnistes », tous ceux qui, d’une manière ou d’une autre, relativisent le génocide des Juifs et la complicité criminelle du gouvernement de Vichy. La négation d’un côté ; la minoration de l’autre. Dès 1990, l’historien Henry Rousso, auquel on doit l’introduction de la notion de « négationnisme » en France, évoquait une « histoire “révisionniste” de Vichy » à propos d’un ouvrage de François-Georges Dreyfus, Histoire de Vichy (Perrin), qui reprenait un certain nombre d’arguments pétainistes.
Mais, étonnamment, cet usage reste rarement explicité, alors qu’il a une histoire. L’objet du présent article vise à établir la généalogie et à retracer les évolutions et les lignes de force du contre-récit historique sur Vichy et les Juifs, de 1945 à nos jours. Pour cela, il se fonde sur l’étude de nombreux écrits et d’archives privées d’auteurs désireux de réhabiliter les dirigeants du régime pétainiste, de proposer une vision « pacifiante » des années noires ou d’aller à l’encontre d’une supposée doxa sur le sujet.Jusqu’à la fin des années 1960, les écrits justifiant la politique de Vichy et niant ou minimisant ses crimes sont d’abord et avant tout le fait d’avocats ou de parents des grandes figures liées à l’État français.
En juillet-août puis en octobre 1945, Philippe Pétain et l’ex-chef du gouvernement de Vichy Pierre Laval ont été jugés et condamnés à mort par la Haute Cour de justice pour trahison – la peine du vieux maréchal a été commuée en détention perpétuelle…
Abstract: Проаналізовано значення поняття «культура історичної пам’яті», розглянуто історію її формування у Західній Європі, особливості ландшафту пам’яті у Східній Європі та Україні, визначено ключові питання історичної політики України, які мають потенціал перешкодити європейській інтеграції України. Внаслідок проведеного дослідження встановлено, що Україна належить до східноєвропейського регіону історичної пам’яті, якому притаманні етатизм, єдність та героїчність, віктимність, сек’юритизація. На шляху до європейської інтеграції перед Україною поставатимуть проблеми піднесення ролі Голокосту в історичній пам’яті та визнання часткової відповідальності за злочини колаборантів, обмеження регулювання з боку держави історичної сфери, українсько-польських історичних конфліктів. Водночас може відбуватися дифузія західноєвропейської та східноєвропейської моделей пам’яті.
Abstract: This volume considers the uses and misuses of the memory of assistance given to Jews during the Holocaust, deliberated in local, national, and transnational contexts. History of this aid has drawn the attention of scholars and the general public alike. Stories of heroic citizens who hid and rescued Jewish men, women, and children have been adapted into books, films, plays, public commemorations, and museum exhibitions. Yet, emphasis on the uplifting narratives often obscures the history of violence and complicity with Nazi policies of persecution and mass murder. Each of the ten essays in this interdisciplinary collection is dedicated to a different country: Belarus, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, North Macedonia, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, and Ukraine. The case studies provide new insights into what has emerged as one of the most prominent and visible trends in recent Holocaust memory and memory politics. While many of the essays focus on recent developments, they also shed light on the evolution of this phenomenon since 1945.
Abstract: In discussions of commemorative spatial practices, landscape has often been relegated to the background of more figured forms of architecture and sculpture. This paper presents three recent landscape-based Holocaust Memorial projects – Esterwegen Concentration Camp, Platform 17 Memorial, and Memorial Place at Mühldorfer Hart – which centre on trees to address key themes of absence and resilience. Unlike the German Holocaust memorials that rely on Minimalist forms to communicate, these projects embrace ambiguity and process. In doing so, these projects present a powerful counterpoint to the dehumanising abstraction of other Holocaust sites. Through these case studies, this discussion will engage memorial scholarship by James E. Young, Jacky Bowring, and Andrew Shanken to illuminate how landscape can create complex and enduring memorial narratives. Using the author’s site photos, the project designers’ published documentation, and key theoretical works, this paper will compare these projects to suggest new strategies for spatialising memory.
Abstract: La memoria del Holocausto y los crímeLa memoria del Holocausto y los crímenes del nazismo comienza a tomar forma como fenómeno cultural en España desde, al menos, finales de la década de los setenta y se articula como objeto político a comienzos del presente siglo. Desde el año 2000 han proliferado una serie de políticas memoriales, fundamentalmente educativas y conmemorativas, del genocidio de los judíos europeos en España, así como políticas públicas de memoria e iniciativas del movimiento memorialista en recuerdo de los republicanos españoles deportados. Esta consolidación del recuerdo de dos eventos históricos, distinguibles analíticamente – el Holocausto de los judíos europeos y el encarcelamiento en campos de concentración nazi del exilio republicano español – pero solapados en el tiempo pasado y amalgamados en muchas de las expresiones memoriales del presente, como fuente de políticas públicas de memoria, recurso en conflictos por la interpretación común del pasado, y fundamento de producción de identidades nacionales, étnicas, ideológicas y activistas es el sustrato material que ha motivado la realización de la presente tesis...
Abstract: La presenza della memoria della Shoah nel discorso pubblico italiano si è profondamente modificata negli ultimi decenni, innanzitutto a partire da uno sviluppo storiografico iniziato nel 1988, cinquantesimo anniversario delle leggi razziali del fascismo. Più tardi, nel 2001, è stato introdotto per legge il Giorno della memoria (27 gennaio), data che ha prodotto un riconoscimento ufficiale nel calendario civile italiano degli eventi della Shoah, ma anche una ritualizzazione e sovrapproduzione del ricordo. Paradossalmente, inoltre, la legge italiana istitutiva del 27 gennaio non contiene la parola “fascismo”. È in seguito prevalsa nel discorso pubblico la commemorazione costante dei “Giusti”, cioè dei salvatori degli ebrei, a discapito del ricordo degli italiani che arrestarono gli ebrei nel 1943-1945, collaborando con i tedeschi alla loro deportazione. La più recente fase della “postmemoria” lascia intravedere un possibile superamento della monumentalizzazione, ad esempio attraverso la posa delle “pietre di inciampo” nelle città italiane ed europee, che ricordano le singole vittime nei luoghi del loro arresto. Fioriscono inoltre narrazioni, che intrecciano storia e letteratura, prodotte da una terza generazione anche non ebraica. Ma la memoria degli eventi della Shoah, per essere “autentica”, deve continuare a nutrirsi sia di racconto che di storia.
Abstract: During World War II, Bosnia and Hercegovina was occupied by the Ustashe-led Independent State of Croatia, a Nazi collaborator par excellence. Ustashe, mostly Croats, Muslims-Bosniaks, and domestic Germans, overwhelmingly participated in the annihilation of more than 85 % of the Bosnian Jewish population during the Shoah. Beside the physical destruction of the community, these Nazi collaborators plundered Jewish assets in an estimated value of over one billion US dollars and robbed priceless cultural artifacts along with the communal archives. While witness accounts agree that looting of most movable property (books, artwork, and other valuables) was carried out in the first days of occupation by the Nazis themselves, the robbery of Jewish property (apartments, houses, businesses) as well as torture and killings of domestic Jews was committed by the Ustashe. What complicates the restitution in this country is the state and memory politics, but also the inexistence of a central registry of stolen items that could be claimed. Moreover, it is of the essence that the GLAM institutions (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) within Bosnia and the former Yugoslavia region engage in conducting detailed provenance research of their respective collections.
Abstract: The Holocaust is the Philoktetes wound tormenting every European country occupied by Hitler’s armies between 1939 and 1945. Paradoxically, it may be the Germans who feel this pain the least, as they have nowhere left to escape the curse of their role as perpetrators. This article presents the results of research on the memory of the events in Hungary, the last theatre of Hitler’s European campaign against the Jews. The researchers returned to the sites of the drama that unfolded in the summer of 1944, searching for traces of the vanished Jewish life in both the physical and social-psychological spaces, where the void created by the destruction of the Jews is filled with fear, distrust, confusion, silence, and cognitive dissonance. Based on the research findings, it can be stated that 80 years after the Holocaust, in Hungarian villages, small towns, and Budapest, both within and outside the current national borders, today, in Macbeth’s words, “nothing is, but what is not”.
Abstract: This paper presents two digital public history resources—online maps—that are concerned with the everyday lives and reminiscences of Jewish people in two cities in the United Kingdom: London and Manchester. Using techniques derived from Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and the spatial humanities more broadly, these resources take the form of interactive maps which compile recordings of oral history interviews with background research, documentary photographs, and historical maps. Drawing on the work of Raphael Samuel and Pierre Nora, and the insights derived from space syntax urban research and what we have termed ‘memory mapping,’ we discuss the tensions between memory, which in Nora’s sense refers to the past as it is recalled informally and colloquially, and history, the academic study of the past. Digital mapping technologies, we argue, shape new opportunities for exploring the relationship between these two modes of historical thinking. Through a consideration of specific examples taken from the two maps, we discuss how bringing these materials into dialogue with cartographic maps opens new avenues for spatially and historically situated research into memory.
