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National Policy, Global Memory: The Commemoration of the “Righteous” from Jerusalem to Paris, 1942-2007
Author(s): Gensburger, Sarah
Date: 2016
Topics: Holocaust Memorials, Holocaust, Holocaust Commemoration, Israel-Diaspora Relations, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Policy
Abstract: Since 1963, the state of Israel has awarded the title of “Righteous among the Nations” to individuals who risked their lives sheltering Jews during the Holocaust. This distinction remained solely an Israeli initiative until the late 1990s, when European governments began developing their own national categories, the most prominent of which was the “Righteous of France,” honoring those who protected Jews during the Vichy regime. In National Policy, Global Memory, Sarah Gensburger uses this dramatic episode to lend a new perspective to debates over memory and nationhood. In particular, she works to combine two often divergent disciplines—memory studies and political science—to study “memory politics” as a form of public policy.
Visiting history, witnessing memory: A study of a Holocaust Exhibition in Paris in 2012
Author(s): Gensburger, Sarah
Date: 2019
Topics: Holocaust Commemoration, Holocaust Memorials, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Museums, Memory
Abstract: Over the past 20 years, the number of memorial museums and memory exhibitions has increased exponentially and the commemoration of the Holocaust paved the way for this increase. This evolution has given rise to a significant amount of research. However, two questions remain largely unanswered: how are the protocols of memorial exhibitions planned and constructed in concrete terms? And then how do the visitors to these exhibitions use and appropriate this material? The search for the ‘visitor’s gaze’ which is at the heart of contemporary museum studies has only rarely been extended to memorial museums and exhibitions, even those dealing with Holocaust-related topics. This article aims to address this goal. It is thus situated at the crossroads of memory studies and museum studies. Based on extensive empirical material but within the limits of a case study, it focuses on the exhibition C’étaient des enfants. Déportation et sauvetage des enfants juifs à Paris, which was held at the Hotel de Ville in Paris, in 2012. In so doing, it aims to consider some of the underlying assumptions that often go unexamined in the scholarly work on Holocaust memory exhibitions and highlights the centrality of the witnessing memory mechanism as the main way of appropriating the exhibition.