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The Lontsky Street Prison Memorial Museum: An Example of Postcommunist Holocaust Negationism
Author(s): Himka, John-Paul
Editor(s): Karlsson, Klas-Göran; Stenfeldt, Johan; Zander, Ulf
Date: 2015
Topics: Holocaust: Distortion and Inversion, Holocaust: Legacies, Remembering and Attitudes Towards, Communism, Main Topic: Holocaust Legacies and Memorial, Memorials (other than Holocaust memorials)
Abstract: The Lontsky Street prison museum in Lviv was opened to the public in 2009 and is one of the fruits of the nationalist historical politics of the presidency of Viktor Iushchenko (2005-10). Its full title is The National Museum-Memorial of the Victims of the Occupying Regimes “Prison on Lontsky Street.” It is devoted to the history of the repressions conducted here by the Soviet authorities (1939-41, 1944-91) and by the German authorities (1941-44). The presentation is extremely one-sided. Its chief focus is on the bloody events of June 1941, when the NKVD massacred thousands of political prisoners in Lviv’s three main prisons. It passes over in silence the bloody pogrom that transpired at these same three sites on 1 July 1941, in which the chief perpetrators were militiamen of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). Members of OUN do figure prominently in the exhibition halls, but only as victims of both the Nazi and communist regimes.
Obstacles to the Integration of the Holocaust into Post-Communist East European Historical Narratives
Author(s): Himka, John-Paul
Date: 2008
Topics: Holocaust: Legacies, Remembering and Attitudes Towards, Holocaust: Education, Holocaust: Denial, Main Topic: Holocaust Legacies and Memorial
Abstract: Factors that have made it difficult for post-communist East European societies to integrate the Holocaust into their historical cultures include the communist heritage, which downplayed the specifically Jewish Holocaust; sensitivity to charges that a nation was complicit in the murder of the Jews; the framing of East European histories as national narratives into which it is difficult to incorporate the experience of other nations; the feeling that Jewish suffering is recognized, while that of other East Europeans is not; the positive re-evaluation of the interwar and wartime politics and culture after the collapse of communism; the survival and revival of anti-Semitism, with new inputs from the Middle East and from Western Holocaust deniers; the construction in the West of the Holocaust as a centrepiece of twentieth-century history; the influence of East European diasporas; the embedment of the discourse on the Holocaust in the political divide between nativists and Westernizers; the deployment of accusations of Holocaust collaboration as an instrument of foreign policy; and debate over the restitution of confiscated Jewish property. Often these factors come together into a reinforcing discursive structure. The essay’s conclusion suggests how to overcome these obstacles to the integration of the Holocaust into East European histories.
The Reception of the Holocaust in Postcommunist Ukraine
Author(s): Himka, John-Paul
Editor(s): Himka, John-Paul; Michlic, Joanna Beata
Date: 2013
Topics: Main Topic: Holocaust Legacies and Memorial, History and Historiography: Holocaust, Post-Communist Transitions, Holocaust: Legacies, Remembering and Attitudes Towards
Debates in Ukraine over nationalist involvement in the Holocaust, 2004–2008
Author(s): Himka, John-Paul
Date: 2011
Topics: Main Topic: Holocaust Legacies and Memorial, History and Historiography: Holocaust, Holocaust: Legacies, Remembering and Attitudes Towards, Holocaust: Memorials, Memory
Abstract: The article concerns debate about the memory of the Holocaust in Ukraine. It covers the period 2004–2008.