Abstract: This chapter situates France’s diverse Jewish community, the largest in Europe, in relation to Holocaust memory, exile from North Africa, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, anti-Semitism and cultural (co-)production. The chapter begins by historically contextualising contemporary anti-Semitism and goes on to explore cultural representations, including Jewish-Muslim artistic collaborations. Contemporary anti-Semitism in France is driven by three main motivations which sometimes overlap, namely radical Islam, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and old anti-Jewish stereotypes. Education and cultural production (particularly collaborative, that is, through Jewish–Muslim cooperation) are particularly important in combating the conflation between Jews and Zionists, and in expressing solidarity between Jews and Muslims, who are both victims of racism in France albeit in the differing forms of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.
Abstract: Warto zwrócić uwagę na przestrzenie lokalne – przedwojenne sztetle, małe miejscowości zamieszkiwane przed wojną przez liczne społeczności żydowskie. To w nich wyraźniej widać następstwa Zagłady. Po wojnie przestały istnieć tam całe wspólnoty żydowskie, a po ich wielowiekowej obecności pozostały domy, sklepy, przed-mioty codziennego użytku; wojnę przetrwało, choć w różnym stanie, żydowskie dziedzictwo materialne – dawne synagogi, cmentarze, książki, przedmioty kultu religijnego. Wielu badaczy wskazuje na fakt, że nieżydowscy mieszkańcy odnieśli korzyści na skutek Holokaustu – przejęli majątki należące kiedyś do Żydów oraz pozycje społeczne zajmowane kiedyś przez nich Ten fakt, jak również namacalność Zagłady w przestrzeniach dawnych sztetli(masowe groby, niezamknięte getta, egzekucje) i różne postawy wobec ludobójstwa oraz jego ofiar miały wpływ na kondycję tworzących się po wojnie społeczności – szczególnie w wymiarze tożsamościowym. Następstwa Zagłady złożyły się na ramy trudnej przeszłości, które do dziś kształtują postawy wobec Żydów oraz pamięć o Holokauście w dawnych sztetlach. Co ważne, przestrzenie te zachowały w dużym stopniu swój urbanistyczny układ – do dziś stoją tam przedwojenne domy i kamienice, pozostały też elementy żydowskiego dziedzictwa materialnego – najczęściej dawne synagogi oraz żydowskie cmentarze. Pamięć o wojnie, o dawnych sąsiadach, o postawach członków grupy własnej jest wciąż podtrzymywana jako część lokalnego kontekstu.
Abstract: Kolektivní monografie o podobách antisemitismu v Čechách a na Slovensku analyzuje diskursivní a vizuální formy obrazu Žida v české a slovenské většinové společnosti. Příspěvky se zabývají otázkou, jak se v průběhu 20. a 21. století utvářel pojem „Žid“ nebo „židovský“ a jak se v souvislosti s tímto „cizím“ obrazem utvářel obraz „nás“ samotných. Autoři jednotlivých studií se ve svých analýzách tematicky obrací k otázce kontinuity a transformace těchto zrcadlových obrazů a zároveň zkoumají vztah identity a (politické) moci. Badatelé na příkladu Protektorátu Čechy a Morava, válečného slovenského státu, komunistického Československa, ale také soudobých reálií přesvědčivě ukazují, že antisemitismus není vázaný na skutečného nebo domnělého nepřítele, nýbrž na (sebe)legitimizační konstrukty. Předkládaná kniha je založena na využití dobového tisku, orálněhistorických životopisných rozhovorů, pamětí a archivních dokumentů. Také proto je publikace určena nejenom akademické obci a učitelské veřejnosti, ale všem zájemcům o fenomén antisemitismu, jeho projevy a vývoj ve 20. století a v současnosti.
Abstract: This article analyzes contemporary antisemitism and Holocaust distortion in Eastern Europe. The main argument is that Brown and Red, Nazism and Communism, respectively are not at all equal. In Eastern Europe, in particular, antisemitic ideology is grounded on the rehabilitation of anticommunist national “heroes.” The history of the Holocaust is thereby distorted. Based on Maurice Halbwachs’s theory of “social frameworks,” the author shows how “competitive martyrdom,” the “Double Genocide” ideology, and “Holocaust obfuscation” are intertwined. Empirically, the paper examines these concepts in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Hungary, Serbia and Croatia, and Romania.
Abstract: In this article the term 'resentment', as used by Friedrich Nietzsche and then redefined by Max Scheler, is employed to explain anti-Semitic attitudes in Poland. The resentful attitude is based on the emotion of jealousy, which leads to a desire to degrade anyone with whom comparisons are made, in order to increase feelings of self-worth. This characteristic of the term was used to description of the group's attitudes. In this article, modern anti-Semitism is portrayed as an inseparable element of a wider Catholic-nationalist ideology, which creates the image of (symbolic) Jews as morally inferior and unfairly competing with (symbolic) Poles. In research conducted between 1992 and 2012 the author finds correlations between strong nationalist feelings and attitudes of jealousy and a desire to degrade Jewish people. The image produced by the empirical data is one in which the Jews are the enemy, directed by their own national (sic!) interests, and desiring to take advantage of the Poles, who are honest and idealistic, driving by theirs declarations and values, even against their own, actual interests.The author hopes the article can be a starting point for discussing the idea of resentment as a theoretical tool in research devoted not only to anti-Semitism, but also to xenophobia and attitudes to other groups in the democracy.
Abstract: Although the Holocaust ended more than fifty years ago, its impact continues to be an enduring trauma in the 21st century. Most of the survivors have passed away, but the second and third generations continue to carry this dark inheritance within their lives. Historians have reflected upon the destruction visited upon the European landscape, and we have come to see that even in America significant changes have taken place within that community. Germany continues to be a puzzle. Immediately after the war, the prevailing attitude saw all Germans as evil, and the occupying forces were forbidden to fraternize. Yet it is not in the nature of soldiers to remain distant from the people around them, and that wall disappeared far quicker than the ‘Wall’ built by the Communists to separate East and West Germany. Later, distinctions began to be made between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Germans, partially through the ‘denazification’ courts and later by the general public. Once business ties were re-established the attitude towards the Germans began to change. Eventually, wealthy German tourists were accepted, even though sly jokes about them continued. But Germany itself had to undergo dramatic changes, which continue to be played out in a country which now holds a commanding position in the European Community.
Abstract: In march 1998, the Vatican released a long-awaited statement on the Catholic Church and the Holocaust. In a preface to the document, entitled We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah, Pope John Paul II expressed his hope that it would ‘help to heal the wounds of past misunderstandings and injustices’. Eighteen months after the publication of the document, it seems now possible to conclude that, however sincere the Vatican’s intentions, the pope’s hopes will almost certainly not be realized. Indeed, far from healing, the document has succeeded largely in re-opening, if not actually deepening, old wounds. Not only did it divide the Catholic intellectual and journalistic communities. More importantly, I think, it bewildered and frustrated many Jewish readers and bitterly disappointed others. It also called forth a literary response from Jewish intellectuals and organizations that, while especially vigorous in the immediate wake of the document’s publication, had force and feeling to last more than a year. Since the energy driving these responses appears to have subsided, it seems possible now to undertake a comprehensive survey of Jewish reaction to We Remember and to attempt to account for its intensity and duration.
Abstract: On the materials of the field expedition in the Biešankovičy rajon of Vitebsk region of Belarus in 2016, dedicated to the relations between Belarusians and Jews, there was a reconstruction of the history of Shtetlekh on the basis of oral testimonies of Jewish and non-Jewish population. The tragic events of the Second World War and the Catastrophe of the Jews that took place in Belarus along with the direct inter-ethnic relations served the main object rather than the background of the research work.
According to the research results we can state that the Belarusian official discourse of the politics of memory about the Catastrophe creates a model of non-identification, denial and mitigation of certain problems of the historical memory related to this tragedy. In the Belarusian ideological rhetoric it is still spoken only about the tragedy of the Soviet people and about the national socialist policy of genocide, which was aimed at the destruction of the Slavs and other peoples. Sometimes under the “others” Jews are meant. Moreover, often in the official discourse at the highest level, the “peculiar nature” of the final solution to the question and the specific
genocide of the Jews are denied, and their “victims” are ranked together with the losses of Belarusians etc.
Though the return of the memory of the Shoah happens to be in today’s Belarus, this process is quite slow and faces a number of difficulties connected with the integration of the memory of the Belarusian and Jewish historical narratives regarding the Second World War. These difficulties of integration of the memory of the Belarusian and Jewish historical narratives regarding World War II in general and the Shoah in particular happen in the consequence of the emergence of the strategies of the “national commemoration”, in the framework of which cultural memory and the conflict of the interpretations of the Catastrophe are constructed.
Contrary to the official Belarusian politics of memory, residents of Beshankovichy, Ula and their surroundings identify the Jews as victims of the German occupation authorities. What is different about it is that this determination takes place against the background of sustainable practice of suppression or mitigation and, paradoxically, sometimes even denying of the tragedy of the Catastrophe, which came as a result of the official Soviet and post-Soviet state policies of memory that has been active for decades in the background of a traumatic experience which occurred due to the reluctance of some Belarusians to admit both guilt for the participation in the events of the Shoah and the responsibility for its consequences.
Abstract: The robbery and restitution of Jewish property are two inextricably linked social processes. It is not possible to understand the lawsuits and international agreements on the restoration of Jewish property of the late 1990s without examining what was robbed and by whom. In this volume distinguished historians first outline the mechanisms and scope of the European-wide program of plunder and then assess the effectiveness and historical implications of post-war restitution efforts. Everywhere the solution of legal and material problems was intertwined with changing national myths about the war and conflicting interpretations of justice. Even those countries that pursued extensive restitution programs using rigorous legal means were unable to compensate or fully comprehend the scale of Jewish loss. Especially in Eastern Europe, it was not until the collapse of communism that the concept of restoring some Jewish property rights even became a viable option. Integrating the abundance of new research on the material effects of the Holocaust and its aftermath, this comparative perspective examines the developments in Germany, Poland, Italy, France, Belgium, Hungary and the Czech Republic.
CONTENTS
List of Abbreviations
Preface
Part I: Introduction
Introduction: A History without Boundaries: The Robbery and Restitution of Jewish Property in Europe
Constantin Goschler and Philipp Ther
Part II: The Robbery of Jewish Property in Comparative Perspective
Chapter 1. The Seizure of Jewish Property in Europe: Comparative Aspects of Nazi Methods and Local Responses
Martin Dean
Chapter 2. Aryanization and Restitution in Germany
Frank Bajohr
Chapter 3. The Looting of Jewish Property in Occupied Western Europe: A Comparative Study of Belgium, France, and the Netherlands
Jean-Marc Dreyfus
Chapter 4. The Robbery of Jewish Property in Eastern Europe under German Occupation, 1939–1942
Dieter Pohl
Chapter 5. The Robbery of Jewish Property in Eastern European States Allied with Nazi Germany
Tatjana Tönsmeyer
Part III: The Restitution of Jewish Property in Comparative Perspective
Chapter 6. West Germany and the Restitution of Jewish Property in Europe
Jürgen Lillteicher
Chapter 7. Jewish Property and the Politics of Restitution in Germany after 1945
Constantin Goschler
Chapter 8. Two Approaches to Compensation in France: Restitution and Reparation
Claire Andrieu
Chapter 9. The Expropriation of Jewish Property and Restitution in Belgium
Rudi van Doorslaer
Chapter 10. Indifference and Forgetting: Italy and its Jewish Community, 1938–1970
Ilaria Pavan
Chapter 11. “Why Switzerland?” – Remarks on a Neutral’s Role in the Nazi Program of Robbery and Allied Postwar Restitution Policy
Regula Ludi
Chapter 12. The Hungarian Gold Train: Fantasies of Wealth and the Madness of Genocide
Ronald W. Zweig
Chapter 13. Reluctant Restitution: The Restitution of Jewish Property in the Bohemian Lands after the Second World War
Eduard Kubu and Jan Kuklík Jr.
Chapter 14. The Polish Debate on the Holocaust and the Restitution of Property
Dariusz Stola
Part IV: Concluding Remarks
Conclusion: Reflections on the Restitution and Compensation of Holocaust Theft: Past, Present, and Future
Gerald D. Feldman
Notes on Contributors
Select Bibliography
Index
Topics: Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Antisemitism, Holocaust, Holocaust Survivors, Holocaust Survivors: Children of, Holocaust Commemoration, Memory, Memorial, Post-War Reconstruction, Post-1989, Jewish Renewal, Post-War Jewish History
Abstract: The Holocaust (Shoah) Immovable Property Restitution Study is the first-ever comprehensive
compilation of all significant legislation passed since 1945 by the 47 states that participated in
the 2009 Prague Holocaust Era Assets Conference and endorsed the 2009 Terezin Declaration
that came out of the Prague conference.
The Terezin Declaration (and its companion document, the 2010 Guidelines and Best Practices,
endorsed by 43 countries) focuses in substantial part on the treatment of immovable (real)
property restitution: private, communal, and heirless property. The Study examined private,
communal, and heirless property as discrete components of each country’s restitution efforts
from 1944 to 2016.
Ukraine endorsed the Terezin Declaration in 2009, but it did not endorse the 2010
Guidelines and Best Practices.
As part of the European Shoah Legacy Institute’s Immovable Property Restitution Study,
a Questionnaire covering past and present restitution regimes for private, communal and
heirless property was sent to all 47 Terezin Declaration governments in 2015. As of 13
December 2016, no response from Ukraine has been received.
Abstract: The Holocaust (Shoah) Immovable Property Restitution Study is the first-ever comprehensive
compilation of all significant legislation passed since 1945 by the 47 states that participated in
the 2009 Prague Holocaust Era Assets Conference and endorsed the 2009 Terezin Declaration
that came out of the Prague conference.
The Terezin Declaration (and its companion document, the 2010 Guidelines and Best Practices,
endorsed by 43 countries) focuses in substantial part on the treatment of immovable (real)
property restitution: private, communal, and heirless property. The Study examined private,
communal, and heirless property as discrete components of each country’s restitution efforts
from 1944 to 2016.
Russia endorsed the Terezin Declaration in 2009, but declined to endorse the 2010
Guidelines and Best Practices. In 2012, the Russian Foreign Ministry stated that “the
[Terezin] declaration does not contain principles that are essential to our country. We
consider it important to deal with these issues on the basis of post-war settlement
principles fixed in the Yalta and Potsdam conferences of the Allied powers. We would
like to emphasize that it’s necessary to regard the Holocaust era as fixed in the
declaration, which means from 1933-1945.”
As part of the European Shoah Legacy Institute’s Immovable Property Restitution Study,
a Questionnaire covering past and present restitution regimes for private, communal and
heirless property was sent to all 47 Terezin Declaration governments in 2015. As of 13
December 2016, no response from Russia has been received
Abstract: The Holocaust (Shoah) Immovable Property Restitution Study is the first-ever comprehensive
compilation of all significant legislation passed since 1945 by the 47 states that participated in
the 2009 Prague Holocaust Era Assets Conference and endorsed the 2009 Terezin Declaration
that came out of the Prague conference.
The Terezin Declaration (and its companion document, the 2010 Guidelines and Best Practices,
endorsed by 43 countries) focuses in substantial part on the treatment of immovable (real)
property restitution: private, communal, and heirless property. The Study examined private,
communal, and heirless property as discrete components of each country’s restitution efforts
from 1944 to 2016.
Poland endorsed the Terezin Declaration in 2009. In 2010, 43 of the countries that
endorsed the Terezin Declaration approved nonbinding Guidelines and Best Practices for
the Restitution and Compensation of Immovable (Real) Property Confiscated or
Otherwise Wrongfully Seized by the Nazi, Fascists and Their Collaborators during the
Holocaust (Shoah) Era between 1933-1945, Including the Period of World War II
(“Terezin Best Practices”). Poland initially agreed to the Terezin Best Practices but then
withdrew its support.
Poland is one of a handful of countries with a government office dedicated to Jewish
Diaspora and post-Holocaust issues. As of March 2016, Mr. Sebastian Rejak holds the
post of Special Envoy of the Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs for Relations with the
Jewish Diaspora.
As part of the European Shoah Legacy Institute’s Immovable Property Restitution Study,
a Questionnaire covering past and present restitution regimes for private, communal and
heirless property was sent to all 47 Terezin Declaration governments in 2015. As of 13
December 2016, no response from Poland has been received.
