Abstract: This book addresses the issues of memory (a more suitable word would be Marianne Hirsh’s term of postmemory) of the Holocaust among young Poles, the attitudes towards Jews and the Holocaust in the comparative context of educational developments in other countries. The term “Jews” is, as rightly noted Joanna Tokarska-Bakir (2010) a decontextualized term used here in the meaning of Antoni Sułek (2010) as a collective “symbolic” entity. The focus was on education (transmitting values), attitudinal changes and actions undertaken to preserve (or counteract) the memory of Jews and their culture in contemporary Poland. The study to which the book primarly refers was conducted in 2008 and was a second study on a national representative sample of Polish adolescents after the first one undertaken in 1998. The data may seem remote from the current political situation of stepping back from the tendency to increase education about the Holocaust which dominated after 1989 and especially between 2000 and 2005, nonetheless they present trends and outcomes of specific educational interventions which are universal and may set examples for various geopolitical contexts.
The focus of this research was not primarily on the politics of remembrance, which often takes a national approach, although state initiatives are also brought to the attention of the reader, but rather on grassroots action, often initiated by local civil society organizations (NGOs) or individual teachers and/or students. This study has attempted to discover the place that Jews have (or do not have) in the culture of memory in Poland, where there lived the largest Jewish community in pre-war Europe, more than 90% of which was murdered during the Holocaust. The challenge was to show the diversity of phenomena aimed at integrating Jewish history and culture into national culture, including areas of extracurricular education, often against mainstream educational policy, bearing in mind that the Jews currently living in Poland are also, in many cases, active partners in various public initiatives. It is rare to find in-depth empirical research investigating the ensemble of areas of memory construction and the attitudes of youth as an ensemble, including the evaluation of actions (programmes of non-governmental organisations and school projects) in the field of education, particularly with reference to the long-term effects of educational programmes. The assumption prior to this project was that the asking of questions appearing during this research would stimulate further studies.
The book is divided into three parts: Memory, Attitudes and Actions. All three parts of the book, although aimed at analysing an ongoing process of reconstructing and deconstructing memory of the Holocaust in post-2000 Poland, including the dynamics of the attitudes of Polish youth toward Jews, the Shoah and memory of the Shoah, are grounded in different theories and were inspired by various concepts. The assumption prior to the study was that this complex process of attitudinal change cannot be interpreted and explained within the framework on one single academic discipline or one theory. Education and the cultural studies definitely played a significant role in exploring initiatives undertaken to research, study and commemorate the Holocaust and the remnants of the rich Jewish culture in Poland, but the sociology, anthropology and psychology also played a part in helping to see this process from various angles.
Abstract: The main issue explored in this thesis is how and why food is used as a channel through which everyday identities are informed and elaborated. The thesis explores when, how and in which circumstances food and the activities involved in its preparation, consumption and exchange can be used as vehicles for identities. My ethnographic focus is on the Jewish population of Thessaloniki, the largest and most economically viable city of Northern Greece. The Jewish past of this city is quite remarkable: the Thessalonikian Jews remained a significant part of the overall population and existed continuously until early twentieth century. Dramatic events during the twentieth century and in particular the coming of Asia Minor refugees in 1922-3 and the Second World War in 1939-45 caused significant upheavals and resulted in a radical reduction of the city's Jewish population. My ethnographic data confirm that this turbulent history is reflected in the construction of present-day Thessalonikian Jewish identities. Food and the associated activities like preparing, serving, eating, talking and remembering through food are explored as meaningful contexts in which the Jews of Thessaloniki make statements about their past, create their present, construct or reject collective identifications, express their fears and preoccupations, imagine their future. The identities of my informants were multiple and complex. Being Jewish interacted with being Sephardic, Thessalonikian and Greek. In the thesis I argue that food was a way of experiencing and expressing these identities. I use the term "community" cautiously since it fails to reflect the complexity of Thessalonikian Jewish experiences and the varying degrees of identification by individuals with that community. Different degrees of belonging are considered in relation to gender, age, economic and social status. Therefore, the ambivalence or often the reluctance of Jewish people living in Thessaloniki to be identified as members of "a community" is an important theme of the thesis. Another important theme discussed is the tension and the overlapping between religion and tradition meaning kosher diet and Sephardic food as it is translated and perceived by the Jewish people themselves.
Abstract: Despite the increasingly diverse societal landscape in Greece for more than three decades within a context of migration, understandings of its fragile histories are still limited in shaping a sense of belonging that is open to ‘otherness’. While Greek communities have utilised history as a pathway to maintain identity, other parallel histories and understandings do not resonate with ‘Greekness’ for most, such as the case of Greek Jewry. Critical historical perspectives can benefit from tracing ‘re-membering’ as a feminist practice in the reassessment of societal values of inclusivity. Histories of violence and injustice can also include elements of ‘difficult histories’ and must be embraced to seek acknowledgement of these in promoting social change and cultural analysis for public humanities informing curation and curricula. Between eduscapes, art heritage spaces, an entry into contested and conflictual histories can expand a sense of belonging and the way we imagine our own connected histories with communities, place and nation. Greek Jews do not constitute a strong part of historical memory for Greeks in their past and present; in contrast to what is perceived as ‘official’ history, theirs is quite marginal. As a result, contemporary Greeks, from everyday life to academia, do not have a holistic understanding in relation to the identities of Jews in Greece, their culture or the Holocaust. Given the emergence of a new wave of artistic activism in recent years in response to the ever-increasing dominance of authoritarian neoliberalism, along with activist practices in the art field as undercurrents of resistance, in this intervention I bring together bodies of works to create a dialogic reflection with historical, artistic and feminist sources. In turn, the discussion then explores the spatiotemporal contestations of the historical geographies of Holocaust monuments in Greece. While interrogating historical amnesia, I endeavour to provide a space to engage with ‘difficult histories’ in their aesthetic context as a heritage of healing and social justice.
Abstract: In several of Sjón’s works, there is a preoccupation with the Second World War, especially the issues and ideologies at stake in the run-up to the conflict and in its aftermath. This is evident, for instance, in his trilogy CoDex 1962 and in his most recent novel Korngult hár, grá augu (Red Milk). The issues addressed in these texts are, for instance, the fate of the Jewish immigrant in Iceland, and the peculiar circumstances of the rise of neo-Nazism in post-war Iceland. The memory of the war in Iceland is in many ways at odds with the narratives established elsewhere in Europe. The particular circumstances of the country—occupied by allied forces from 1940 onwards, with its concomitant incursion of modernity, urbanisation, and creation of wealth in what had historically been a very poor country—have greatly influenced how the war is memorialised, or more to the point rather, not memorialised in Iceland. This chapter looks at how Sjón’s novels engage with the ruling national narrative and go against that memory by telling an alternative history of the war, focussing on transnational and marginalised histories and cultures that historically have been ignored in Icelandic cultural memory.
Topics: Memory, Jewish Neighbourhoods, Jewish Space, Jewish Heritage, Oral History and Biography, Holocaust, Holocaust Commemoration, Holocaust Memorials, Holocaust Survivors, Holocaust Survivors: Children of, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial
Abstract: In 1905, Yiddish poet and Glasgow union activist Avrom Radutsky described the Jewish population of Scotland as ‘a mere drop in the ocean’. Nevertheless, by 1920 this drop had swelled to 20,000 people, centred primarily (though by no means exclusively) around the Gorbals in Glasgow. The area was characterised by vibrant community life, but also cramped low-quality housing, poor sanitation and harsh economic inequality. Many of Glasgow’s Jews began to climb a social ladder that would lead them out of the Gorbals and towards more spacious residences in the south-west of the city, but maintained regular contact with its streets, shops and places of worship. Large-scale demolition of the neighbourhood in the 1960s mean that the Gorbals looks very different today, and the Jews are gone. The Jewishness of this space, however, still remains: a remembered or imagined presence in the minds of second and third generations, celebrated through community outreach, or romantically evoked in popular narratives. Equally, an absence of Jewish life in today’s Gorbals has been paralleled by the emergence of wide-ranging and socially minded virtual networks of shared memory. Through analysis of contemporary accounts and archival sources, oral histories, fieldwork interviews, and lively online discussion groups, this article examines how this former densely populated Jewish neighbourhood now functions as an important lieu de memoire, but in a significantly different way to Eastern Europe’s pre-war Jewish spaces. At the geographical edges of more traumatic histories, the Gorbals instead provides an affective link for contemporary, assimilated Scottish Jews, while at the same time the area’s Jewish history becomes part of a wider virtual online community – signifying an emotional connection to immigrant narratives and grounding personal and social histories.
Abstract: In 2017 a conflict erupted among the Bosniaks in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was related to identity and self-image, in particular the role of Bosnian Muslims during World War II. Highly sensitive but seldom discussed issues were brought to the fore. Had not Muslim forces massacred Serb villages? Did not Croat and Muslim Ustasha kill most of the Jews in Bosnia? Why, then, regard antisemitic collaborators as national role models?
Reactions varied from condemnation to arguments that Muslims acted in self-defence. Even antisemitic rhetoric appeared. There was a divide between a liberal, secular opinion and religious-national views within the ruling party or the Islamic Community. Apparently, a certain continuity existed between Muslim elites during World War II and those in power since 1990. In the 1930s, Bosnian Muslims were familiar with currents in the Middle East, the ideas of the Muslim Brotherhood and the anti-Jewish message of the Mufti of Jerusalem. The organization Young Muslims, inspired by Islamist ideas from Egypt, was violently supressed by the Communists 1945–48, but reappeared in 1990, forming the nucleus of the Party of Democratic Action, led by Alija Izetbegović. After the war, high-level contacts with the Muslim Brothers were cordial and regular.
The crisis revealed tensions between the religious foundation of Bosniak identity and the building of a modern nation. Parts of society had been nurturing a discourse of martyrdom where history had to be ignored or revised.
Topics: Holocaust, Holocaust Commemoration, Holocaust Education, Holocaust Memorials, Holocaust Survivors, Holocaust Survivors: Children of, Holocaust Survivors: Grandchildren of, Memory, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Jewish Museums, Jewish Heritage, Museums
Abstract: In this article, we reconceptualize how contemporary Holocaust memory functions through the metaphors of common currency and ‘zombie memory.’ As currency, Holocaust memory is a medium of exchange that is perceived as a commodity produced to satisfy political wants or needs. For the most part, however, Holocaust memory lays dormant until triggered into life by specific events with particular characteristics that associate in the popular imaginary with the Holocaust – a mode of operation we call ‘zombie memory.’ We illustrate this dynamic of Holocaust memory by analyzing how the Holocaust has been referred to and discussed in light of current developments such as COVID-19, the rise of VOX in Spain, and political discourse in England about past and present mass atrocities. We demonstrate how the Holocaust is evoked in discursive occasions beyond those commemorative moments wherein it is by definition the focus of attention: how it is analogically utilized to express concerns, to push towards a specific policy goal, or to politically criticize others. As such, we underline how Holocaust memory can be converted within and between cultures, contributing to understanding and justification of domestic political actions. Situated in Holocaust studies, memory studies, and public discourse analysis, this research attests to the ongoing social process of negotiation over meaning-making.
Abstract: Depuis 2012, l’histoire de la mémoire du génocide des Juifs est étudiée en terminale (série L, ES) dans le cadre du chapitre portant sur « L’historien et les mémoires de la Seconde Guerre mondiale ». Si les enseignants sont sollicités chaque année à l’occasion de journées commémoratives pour transmettre à leurs élèves la mémoire de la Shoah, porteuse d’un enjeu civique, l’introduction dans les programmes de ce sujet d’histoire relève d’une ambition pédagogique qui doit nécessairement s’articuler à la recherche scientifique. Dans cette perspective, cet article fait le point sur les récentes avancées historiographiques concernant l’histoire de la mémoire du génocide des Juifs en France qui permettent d’affiner un découpage chronologique que plusieurs manuels scolaires présentent de façon caricaturale. Il convient ainsi de remplacer le schéma narratif classique polarisé autour de « oubli/mémoire/temps du devoir de mémoire » par une périodisation qui prend en compte les traces -éparses mais significatives- de la mémoire du génocide dans la société française dès les années 1950, ce qui relativise fortement la thèse de son oubli. Les années 1970 et surtout 1980 sont marquées par des mises en récit publiques du génocide qui le situent dans un horizon commun de plus en plus partagé en le référant à des enjeux contemporains (lutte contre le négationnisme et l’antisémitisme, lutte contre l’extrême droite, reconnaissance et réparations dues aux victimes, reconnaissance officielle de la participation active de Vichy, exercice de la justice pour les crimes contre l’humanité). La prise en compte de cette mémoire dans les années 1990 par un État qui reconnait sa responsabilité historique dans le crime génocidaire entraîne de nombreuses actions publiques qui se déclinent sous différentes formes (commémorations, mémoriaux, voyages scolaires). L’Ecole est alors mobilisée comme un acteur privilégié de la transmission de cette mémoire qui est investie d’enjeux éducatifs fondés sur la promotion des valeurs des droits de l’homme et du vivre ensemble.
Abstract: Bulgarian Jews to a large extent escaped the horrors of the Holocaust, yet their opposition to the antisemitic policies of Bulgarian governments during the war led a disproportionate number of them to join left-wing opposition groups and eventually perish in the anti-fascist struggle. Fallen Jewish partisans, relatively well-known during the socialist period, were nevertheless commemorated first and foremost as communists, rather than as heroes from one of Bulgaria's minorities. The communist post-war regime's reluctance to recognize Jewish anti-fascist activity separately and the mass exodus of Bulgarian Jews to Israel, as well as the persistent antisemitism within the Eastern Bloc, all contributed to the marginalization of the memory of Jewish anti-fascism before the collapse of communism. The 1989 transition resulted in further neglect of Jewish suffering and martyrdom as the very premise of their heroic actions – anti-fascism – was erased and replaced by the new anti-communist mnemonic canon. Post-1989 Bulgaria even gradually rehabilitated controversial figures from the pre-1944 ruling elite by virtue of their anti-communist credentials. Curiously, a single fallen female Jewish partisan, Violeta Yakova, has received public attention that has evaded her fellow martyrs. Her name resurfaced as Bulgarian nationalists began organizing the annual Lukov March – a torch-lit procession commemorating a pro-fascist interwar general assassinated by Yakova. The case of the Bulgarian-Jewish partisan can therefore provide a much-needed revisiting of the way that Jewish anti-fascism has been commemorated and reveal the complex dynamics of contemporary memory politics, antisemitism, and right-wing populism in Bulgaria.
Abstract: In recent years, the fate of the Jews in Bulgaria during the Second World War has aroused the research interest of humanities scholars from various disciplines, with a number of studies published (see e.g., and many of the following cited (Avramov 2012. “Спасение” и падение. Микроикономика на държавния антисемитизъм в
България, 1940–1944 [“Rescue” and fall. Microeconomics of State Anti-semitism in Bulgaria, 1940–1944]. Sofia: Sofia University “St. Kl. Ohridski; Daneva 2013; Krsteva 2015; Koleva 2017)). Many rely on research on the construction of memory. At the same time, fewer research efforts seem to have focused on how the topic has become politicized in the years since 1989 (see e.g. Benatov 2013. “Debating the Fate of Bulgarian Jews during
World War II.” In Bringing the Dark Past to Light the Reception of the Holocaust in Postcommunist Europe, edited by John-Paul Himka, and Joanna Beata Michlic, 108–31. University of Nebraska Press; Ragaru 2020. Et les Juifs bulgaresfurent sauvе…Une histoire des savoirs sur la Shoah en Bulgarie. Paris: Science Po). The aim of this paper is to offer precisely this perspective on the topic of non/rescue, and in the last ten years. Politicization has traditionally been understood as the process of attributing salience to an issue of public interest through various channels such as political discourse and media, and in the presence of the multiple and diverse opinions associated with it (deWilde, Pieter. 2011. “No polity for old politics? A framework for analyzing the politicization of European
integration.” Journal of European Integration 33 (5): 559–75; de Wilde, Pieter, Anna Leupold, and Henning Schmidtke. 2016. “Introduction: the differentiated politicisation of European governance.” West European Politics 39 (1): 3–22). In some texts on the politicization of the migration crisis in Bulgaria in the years since 2012, the author shows how a topic can be politicized in the absence of political debate and in the context of a dominant
populist understanding, multiplied by various power actors – politicians, institutions, media and intellectuals (see e.g. Otova, Ildiko, and Evelina Staykova. 2022. Migration and Populism in Bulgaria. London: Routledge). For the purposes of this paper, by politicization the author will understand the blurring of ideological differences of interpretations of who the savior is in a populist consensus around the construction of the rescue narrative
for foreign policy use, but mostly as a nation-building narrative. The focus of this article is on the last ten years, in which the political interpretations and actions surrounding the commemoration of the 70th in 2013 and 75th in 2018 and the 80th anniversary in 2023 of the events surrounding the so-called rescue of Bulgarian Jews are particularly interesting. It is during these last years that populism has become the norm for the political scene in Bulgaria. Populism is not the obvious entrance to the topic, but it is the political framework within which the politicization of the topic of the rescue is developing, and a possible theoretical entrance. Populism became a persistent part of Bulgarian political life more than a decade after the beginning of the democratic changes of 1989. There are
several key factors involved in this process-exhaustion of the cleavages of the transition period, but especially the transformation of party politics into symbolic ones (Otova, Ildiko, and Evelina Staykova. 2022. Migration and Populism in Bulgaria. London: Routledge). Symbolic politics deal more with emotions and less with ratio and facts;
they build narratives that are often nationally affirming. The article does not claim to be exhaustive, especially in its presentation of historical facts. The limits of this rather political science approach are many. On the other hand, however, it adds to the research effort with a missing glimpse into the interpretations of the no/rescue theme and could open the field for further in-depth research.
Abstract: W polityce historycznej propagowanej przez Obóz Zjednoczonej Prawicy ważne miejsce zajmuje martyrologia narodu, m.in. zbrodnie popełniane na ludności polskiej przez Niemców, Sowietów czy Ukraińców. Działania władz sprawiają wrażenie, że te próbują zrównać los Żydów i Polaków w czasie wojny, a nawet wymazać z kolektywnej pamięci zbrodnie popełniane w czasie wojny na Żydach przez ich polskich sąsiadów. Nie jest to zabieg nowy, ponieważ również w czasach PRL starano się ukrywać wstydliwe karty dziejów Polski. Jednak po 2015 r. narracja promowana przez Zjednoczoną Prawicę na temat postaw Polaków wobec Zagłady idzie dalej: nie tylko przemilcza się sprawy trudne, ale na wszelkie sposoby promuje postawy świadczące o bohaterstwie i ofiarności Polaków w ratowaniu Żydów, usiłując tym samym przekonać opinię publiczną w kraju i zagranicą, że były to postawy powszechne. Parafrazując znany wiersz Czesława Miłosza i esej Jana Błońskiego, powinniśmy powiedzieć, że nie „Biedni Polacy patrzą na getto”, lecz „Dzielni Polacy ratują getto”. Artykuł jest próbą komentarza na temat polityki historycznej po 2015 r. w kontekście stosunków polsko-żydowskich w czasie okupacji niemieckiej na podstawie literatury przedmiotu oraz wypowiedzi i doniesień medialnych.
Abstract: The European soccer clubs FC Bayern Munich, Austria Vienna, Ajax Amsterdam, and Tottenham Hotspur (London) are known as “Jew Clubs,” although none of them is explicitly Jewish. This study approaches the conundrum of identity performances, (e.g., Jew as self and “Jew” as other) from a transnational perspective. Using the “Jew Clubs” as case studies, I unpack the connection between collective memories and identity formations in post-Holocaust societies through the lens of sports. With the help of a wide range of primary sources and archival material such as fanzines, fan performances, street art, photographs, films, monuments, and museums, this study illustrates how soccer cultures function as a key site for the construction of collective memories and collective identities. As such, this dissertation joins the extant and growing international scholarship on sport and fan cultures, popular culture, Judaic studies, memory cultures, performance studies, museum studies, and German studies. The work also enhances our understanding of antisemitism, philosemitism, and gentile-Jewish relationships. Chapter 1 examines the “Jew Club” as memory culture and provides a detailed analysis of FC Bayern Munich’s “rediscovery” of its German-Jewish former club president Kurt Landauer in the early 21st century. By analyzing how the club’s turn to Landauer overshadowed the club’s role in expelling its Jewish members, this chapter puts forward the argument that memory is always also a form of forgetting. Chapter 2 illustrates how the “Jew Club” FK Austria Vienna (FAK) functions as a “cultural code,” that, in the interwar period, became associated with stereotypically “Jewish” features such as modernity, cosmopolitanism, and rootlessness. It analyzes the puzzling case of a “Jew Club” that is now supported by a neo-Nazi fan base. Finally, this chapter claims that a new “cultural code” emerges, as the club embraces its “Jew Club” identity to counter neo-Nazi fans. Chapter 3 assesses the “Jew Club” as fan performance. It analyzes how Ajax Amsterdam’s supporters developed their identity as “Super Jews” in reaction to the antisemitic taunts by rival fans. The chapter is grounded in a thorough discussion of fan and club cultures, as well as the transformations of Dutch memory culture and Dutch antisemitism. It argues that fan performances offer a particular opportunity to engage with the unmastered history of the Holocaust. Chapter 4 addresses the “Jew Club” as a problem by discussing the case of Tottenham Hotspur. It analyzes the debates about Spurs fans’ appropriation of the term “Yid,” which had previously been used by antisemitic rival supporters. This chapter introduces a new model of linguistic appropriation, which alters our understanding of linguistic reclamation. Ultimately, by engaging Jewish perspectives, it argues that the “Jew Club” offers a unique space for anti-antisemitic agency. The conclusion summarizes the findings of this study, identifies the similarities and differences among the four case studies, and applies the study’s results to reconsider the concept of a “(negative) German-Jewish symbiosis.” In essence, this study illuminates the ways sport clubs and fan cultures perform memory cultures and thus function as an important societal arena for constructing collective identities. The work clarifies the common features and distinctive characteristics of “Jew Clubs” from a transnational perspective. It shows how “soccer” serves as a contested space for questions of identity, subjectivity, and belonging, with implications reaching far beyond the stadium gate.
Abstract: Holocaust memory in Europe is shifting and diversifying, often in conflicting ways. This report is the culmination of a comparative and multidisciplinary study aimed at exploring these contemporary shifts in Holocaust memory in five European countries that played very different roles during the Holocaust, and whose post-WWII histories differed too: Poland, Hungary, Germany, England and Spain.
The study took place from 2019-2022 and offers a snapshot of Holocaust memory at the start of the 21st century. In addition to the rise of far-right political parties, antisemitic incidents and crises around immigration and refugees, this period was also overshadowed by the Covid pandemic and its ensuing economic instability. Our central guiding question was: How do experiences of the present relate to the memory of the Holocaust? Do they supersede it, leading to the gradual fading from memory of the mass-murder that shook the twentieth century? Do they reshape it, shedding new light on its lessons? Is the meaning assigned to present-day events shaped by its metaphors and symbols, or perhaps the present and the past engage in multidirectional dialogue over diverse memory platforms?
To explore this question and other questions about the extent to which Holocaust memory is present in European public discourses, the circumstances in which it surfaces, and the differences in its expressions in the countries we examined, we focused on three complementary domains that serve as memory sites: the public-political, Holocaust education and social media.
We used a between/within analysis matrix of the countries and the domains, to understand how Holocaust memory is expressed in these countries. We found that while the memory of the Holocaust remains alive, in some places
it is struggling for relevance. A common memory practice that surfaced across domains was “relationing the Holocaust,” a variant of multidirectional memory. We also found that a distinguishing aspect of Holocaust memory relates to the political left-right identification of subgroups within countries. There were also interactions
between domains and countries, for example, in the countries we explored in Western Europe, teachers’ attitudes about the Holocaust corresponded to those of their political establishment, but this was not the case in Central and Eastern Europe.
This report is intended for Holocaust and memory scholars, educators, commemorators, policymakers, journalists and anyone interested in deciphering the complex intersections of past and present. The report culminates with a series of recommendations for various policymakers, NGOs, educational organizations and social media moderators.
Abstract: In the early years of the 21st century it appeared that the memory of the Holocaust was secure in Western Europe; that, in order to gain entry into the European Union, the countries of Eastern Europe would have to acknowledge their compatriots' complicity in genocide. Fifteen year later, the landscape looks starkly different. Shedding fresh light on these developments, The Perversion of Holocaust Memory explores the politicization and distortion of Holocaust remembrance since 1989.
This innovative book opens with an analysis of events across Europe which buttressed confidence in the stability of Holocaust memory and brought home the full extent of nations' participation in the Final Solution. And yet, as Judith M. Hughes reveals in later chapters, mainstream accountability began to crumble as the 21st century progressed: German and Jewish suffering was equated; anti-Semitic rhetoric re-entered contemporary discourse; populist leaders side-stepped inconvenient facts; and, more recently with the revival of ethno-nationalism, Holocaust remembrance has been caught in the backlash of the European refugee crisis.
The four countries analyzed here – France, Germany, Hungary, and Poland – could all claim to be victims of Nazi Germany, the Allies or the Communist Soviet Union but they were also all perpetrators. Ultimately, it is this complex legacy which Hughes adroitly untangles in her sophisticated study of Holocaust memory in modern Europe.
