Abstract: To date, scholars have mainly focussed on the history of the Kindertransport. This thesis is the first to examine extensively how the Kindertransport has been remembered in Britain, and to compare British memory of this event with memory in the other English-speaking host nations which took in the refugee children (Kinder), namely America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. ‘Kindertransport’ is understood here as referring not just to the actual rescue of children with mainly Jewish origins from Nazism that took place between 1938 and 1940, but also the effects it had, such as transplantation to strange environments. There is yet to be a true exploration of how the memories of the Kinder and these nations’ memories of the Kindertransport developed. Any comparison of these various host countries must consider the degree to which memory of the Kindertransport is not uniform, and the extent to which it is shaped by factors such as the role of these countries in the Second World War, and – above all – nationally conditioned memory discourses. Increasingly, according to memory scholars, Holocaust memory operates in a transnational, even global network. This thesis will assess this expectation against the empirical evidence. Is it more the case that host nations remember the Kindertransport in essentially national terms, even where they are aware of its transnational history? In order to assess this question, this thesis will examine a representative cross-section of different genres including testimony, museum exhibitions, memorials, and novels. I argue that the Kindertransport is much more nationally focussed and celebratory in Britain than in other host nations, where this memory is more transnational in focus. However, there are signs that national memory in Britain is beginning to develop in a more self-critical direction.
Abstract: En dépit de quelques zones d’ombre sur le rôle de certains acteurs grecs, l’histoire de la destruction du cimetière juif de Thessalonique est aujourd’hui bien documentée. À la suite des travaux menés par plusieurs historiens, il est en effet établi que la vaste nécropole juive de Thessalonique a été détruite à partir du 6 décembre 1942, sur ordre de l’occupant allemand, à l’instigation de certaines franges de la population chrétienne locale et des autorités municipales qui convoitaient depuis longtemps cet espace de quelque trente-cinq hectares, d’une grande richesse historique, archéologique et épigraphique, situé initialement hors les murs, de la via Egnatia à la colline des « Quarante-Églises », mais bloquant l’extension de la ville vers l’est depuis la démolition de la muraille orientale de la Selanik ottomane à la fin du xixe siècle. Durant les deux semaines qui suivirent l’ordre final de démolition donné par Max Merten, le conseiller civil du commandement militaire allemand de Thessalonique-Égée (Befehlshaber Saloniki-Ägäis), des centaines d’employés rasèrent le vieux cimetière juif dont les pierres tombales furent livrées au pillage puis utilisées comme matériaux de construction. C’est ainsi que nombre de dalles et de stèles funéraires furent disséminées dans toute la ville et qu’elles s’offrent encore aujourd’hui au regard, dispersées à divers endroits de l’ancienne « petite Jérusalem », voire dans les environs.
Au-delà de quelques rappels indispensables pour comprendre dans quelles circonstances le plus vaste cimetière juif sépharad…
Abstract: W artykule poddałam analizie strategie obrazowania Zagłady w inicjatywach upamiętniają-cych społeczności żydowskie w lokalnej Polsce. Zagłada Żydów jest przykładem trudnej pa-mięci, która podważa grupowe wartości i normy społeczne, co w przypadku lokalnych spo-łeczności wiąże się z doświadczeniami „bycia blisko Zagłady”. Pozycja względem cierpieniaspołeczności żydowskiej stała się punktem wyjścia zróżnicowanych postaw (współ)odpowie-dzialności i (współ)uczestnictwa członków lokalnych społeczności w zagładzie Żydów. Czę-sto pamięć o tych wydarzeniach pozostawała przedmiotem lokalnego przekazu potocznegopo wojnie. W związku z tym w powojennych miejscowościach, do Zagłady zamieszkiwanychprzez liczne społeczności żydowskie, uformowały się specyiczne wspólnoty pamięci cha-rakteryzujące się zmową milczenia dotyczącą lokalnej historii i kultury żydowskiej. W ostat-nim czasie w tak ukształtowanych przestrzeniach społecznych można zaobserwować corazwięcej inicjatyw upamiętniających, które przywołują różne aspekty lokalnego dziedzictważydowskiego. W składających się na upamiętnianie praktykach i produktach pamięci grupaopowiada zwykle o sobie samej. Przywoływanie – głównie przez nieżydowskich mieszkań-ców – historii i kultury Żydów w przestrzeniach mniejszych miejscowości jest zatem sytuacjąproblematyczną etycznie. W artykule analizuję składające się na upamiętnienie praktyki (dnipamięci, wykłady, inscenizacje, spacery) i produkty pamięci (książki, ilmy dokumentalne,wystawy w lokalnych muzeach, pomniki) dotyczące zagłady lokalnych Żydów pod względemformy, treści i zaangażowanych w nie aktorów społecznych. Pozwala to scharakteryzować, jakgrupa postrzega samą siebie bądź chce być postrzegana w kontekście przywoływanej histo-rii Zagłady. Ważne pozostaje, co w konkretnym wizerunku przeszłości pozostaje nieobecnei przemilczane. W artykule wyróżniam trzy strategie obrazowania zagłady Żydów: 1) neu-tralizowania i zamykania trudnych tematów; 2) równoważenia, wyłączania i podporządko-wywania historii zagłady Żydów; 3) włączenia i uznania pamięci żydowskiej. Zastosowałamkrytyczną analizę dyskursu, odwołując się m.in. do analizy przemocy ilosemickiej ElżbietyJanickiej i Tomasza Żukowskiego. Przywołuję wyniki m.in. socjologicznych badań jakościo-wych zrealizowanych studiów przypadków w Bobowej, Dąbrowie Tarnowskiej i Rymanowie(2010–2016). Przeprowadziłam wówczas analizę danych zastanych, indywidualne wywiadypogłębione oraz wywiady grupowe, jak i obserwację uczestniczącą.
Abstract: Over the last 20 years the perception of the Holocaust in Bulgarian society, including by various
historians, is perhaps one of the most complex subjects in the national public space, and even
beyond. The lack of consensus regarding the assessment and perception, as well as in the
presentation and interpretation of historical facts, i.e. of the stories about what happened and what
did NOT happen, prevents a structured history of the events from 1940 to 1944 in the Kingdom of
Bulgaria. In various versions, that are often diametrically opposed, the persecution of Jews is
presented using a hybrid mixture of facts from Bulgarian history of the same period (political,
military, economic relations with Germany and Italy, the partisan resistance movement and
relations with Soviet Russia, the specifics of political parties and political life in Bulgaria, actions
of the Royal Palace and the Parliament), which either have nothing to do with the so-called ‘Jewish
question’ or are only indirectly related to it. False theories of the ‘salvation of the Jews’ continue to
be fabricated from this hybrid mixture of facts into an amalgam, which has many followers who
believe these historical legends and myths over the past two decades.
In this article I will look at some of these recent theories and discuss the reasons for their spread
and, possible motives for the persistent desire within certain circles to impose on society these
“alternate” interpretations of the salvation of the Jews.
Abstract: The article is devoted to the formation of historical memory about the past in modern Ukraine and the place the Holocaust takes in this memory. The paper analyses research-academic, pedagogical and memorial aspects of commemoration of the fate of Ukrainian Jews in times of the Holocaust. Much space is allocated to the comparison
of formal (State) and informal (work of NGOs) approaches to research and education on the topic concerned. The main feature of the so called formal approach to Holocaust research lies in “ignoring” scholarly, historiographic papers on the topic, marginalizing the issue. Despite the certain gains in informal Holocaust studies, this topic is still on the margin of popular opinion in the modern Ukrainian society. However the situation is gradually changing. The mentioned situation is in sharp contrast with the recent events in informal Holocaust education in Ukraine. Over the past decade significant results have been gained owing to the activities of scholarly and educational NGOs
in the country, among them Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies. One can trace continuous educational seminars for teachers, publication of textbooks and manuals, competitions of students’ research and art works. Many teachers began teaching the concerned topic within their self-developed courses, not waiting for the facilities from
the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine. Therefore, the author believes that such high intensity and quality of informal education began to exercise influence on the formal approaches to Holocaust education in Ukraine. And not only on the approaches to the mentioned topic, but also on the tendencies of ethnocentrism and monocultural
and monoethnic views that are, unfortunately, still prevailing in Ukrainian formal education. The gains of informal Holocaust education undermine the given tendencies and pave the way for multicultural education, which defines the future of Ukraine. Modern Ukrainian tendencies for memorialization of the memory about the Holocaust
are somewhat similar to the situation in educational sphere. The similarity lies, first and foremost, in the activities by NGOs and elements of civic society, who, also not waiting for the actions on behalf of the government, find themselves the financial means (mostly abroad) to mark and commemorate the sites of mass execution and
murder of Ukrainian Jews during the Nazi occupation. Though in most cases this is a responsibility of governmental institutions. The author believes, that such attitude on behalf of the government to preservation of the memory about the Holocaust in Ukraine in all the concerned aspects (research-academic, educational, memorial) is
a result of catastrophic lack of understanding or desire to understand that Ukrainian history is not monoethnic but multicultural and that the responsibility for memory about the past includes also the fate of Ukrainian Jews in times of the Holocaust as a constituent part of Ukrainian WWII history.
Abstract: This article examines the ways in which Jewish personal belongings that have been appropriated by gentiles during, and in the aftermath of, the Holocaust have been identified, demanded back, passed down from generation to generation, and commodified. Focusing on Biłgoraj and Izbica (Poland), and Mir and Iŭje (Belarus), our objective is to determine whether the Jewish identity of personal belongings appropriated by local non-Jewish communities during, or in the aftermath of, ‘Holocaust by bullets,’ survived in the postwar communities in which they have been circulating, and define what role they played for the postwar relations between Jews and non-Jews.
Topics: Antisemitism, Antisemitism: Christian, Antisemitism: Far right, Cemeteries, Jewish - Christian Relations, Jewish Perceptions of Antisemitism, Nationalism, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Holocaust, Holocaust Commemoration, Holocaust Memorials, Memory
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: This dissertation investigates the postwar development of the Hollandsche Schouwburg, an in situ Shoah memorial museum in Amsterdam, within the fields of memory, heritage and museum studies. During World War II, over forty-six thousand Jews were imprisoned in this former theater before being deported to the transit camps. In 1962, it became the first national Shoah memorial of the Netherlands and in 1993, a small exhibition was added. In the spring of 2016, the National Holocaust Museum opened, which consists of the Hollandsche Schouwburg and a new satellite space across the street.
This dissertation deals with the question how this site of painful heritage became an important memorial museum dedicated to the memory of the persecution of the Dutch Jews. I argue that this former theater was not a site of oblivion before 1962 but rather a material reminder of the persecution of the Jews which at that time was not an articulated part of the hegemonic memory discourse of the war in the Netherlands. The memorial was gradually appropriated by important Jewish institutions through the installment of Yom HaShoah, an educational exhibition and a wall of names. These are analyzed not by focusing on material authenticity, but instead a case is made for latent indexicality: visitors actively produce narratives by searching for traces of the past. This entails an ongoing creative process of meaning-making that allows sites of memory to expand and proliferate beyond their borders. An important question therefore is how the Hollandsche Schouwburg affects its direct surroundings.
Abstract: In early 2018, the Polish parliament adopted controversial legislation criminalising assertions regarding the complicity of the ‘Polish Nation’ and the ‘Polish State’ in the Holocaust. The so-called Polish Holocaust Law provoked not only a heated debate in Poland, but also serious international tensions. As a result, it was amended only five months after its adoption. The reason why it is worth taking a closer look at the socio-cultural foundations and political functions of the short-lived legislation is twofold. Empirically, the short history of the Law reveals a great deal about the long-term role of Jews in the Polish collective memory as an unmatched Significant Other. Conceptually, the short life of the Law, along with its afterlife, helps capture poll-driven, manifestly moralistic and anti-pluralist imaginings of the past, which I refer to as ‘mnemonic populism’. By exploring the relationship between popular and political images of the past in contemporary Poland, this article argues for joining memory and populism studies in order to better understand what can happen to history in illiberal surroundings.
Abstract: Culture is the cornerstone where societies have always supported their respective identities. It is a way of life, as long as it expresses not only the values, but also the education, the art, and the daily life of all those who live and work in a society. Thessaloniki has been a multicultural city, gathering populations from different nations and religions over time. The city was a refuge destination for many persecuted Jews in Europe, between 1492 and 1943, which led to the creation of a large Jewish community. As a result, the long tradition combined with the several elements of Jewish cultural interest attracts a large number of tourists from Israel every year. This paper presents the main research results conducted in Thessaloniki regarding tourists’ from Israel motivations and characteristics, but also their main elements of interest. Thessaloniki has all the essential elements, such as history, tradition, monuments, infrastructure, and services for the development of cultural tourism. These, however, need to be improved, so that the city of Thessaloniki becomes a more popular tourist destination for Israelis.
Abstract: In this paper I critically examine the conflation of Turk with Muslim, explore the Turkish experience of Nazism, and examine Turkey's relation to the darkest era of German history. Whereas many assume that Turks in Germany cannot share in the Jewish past, and that for them the genocide of the Jews is merely a borrowed memory, I show how intertwined the history of Turkey and Germany, Turkish and German anti-Semitism, and Turks and Jews are. Bringing together the histories of individual Turkish citizens who were Jewish or Dönme (descendants of Jews) in Nazi Berlin with the history of Jews in Turkey, I argue the categories “Turkish” and “Jewish” were converging identities in the Third Reich. Untangling them was a matter of life and death. I compare the fates of three neighbors in Berlin: Isaak Behar, a Turkish Jew stripped of his citizenship by his own government and condemned to Auschwitz; Fazli Taylan, a Turkish citizen and Dönme, whom the Turkish government exerted great efforts to save; and Eric Auerbach, a German Jew granted refuge in Turkey. I ask what is at stake for Germany and Turkey in remembering the narrative of the very few German Jews saved by Turkey, but in forgetting the fates of the far more numerous Turkish Jews in Nazi-era Berlin. I conclude with a discussion of the political effects today of occluding Turkish Jewishness by failing to remember the relationship between the first Turkish migration to Germany and the Shoah.
