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.
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 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: Even though the self-critical dealing with the past has not been an official criteria for joining the European union, the founding of the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research and the Holocaust-conference in Stockholm at the beginning of 2000 seem to have generatedinformal standards of confronting and exhibiting the Holocaust during the process called “Europeanization of the Holocaust”. This is indicated by the fact that the Holocaust Memorial Center in Budapest opened almost empty only weeks before Hungary joined the European Union although the permanent exhibition had not been ready yet. The Croatian case, especially the new exhibition that opened at the KZ-memorial Jasenovac in 2006, will serve in order to examine how the “Europeanization of the Holocaust” impacts on a candidate state. The memorial museum resembles Holocaust Memorial Museums in Washington, Budapest etc., but, although it is in situ, at the site of the former KZ, the focus clearly lies on individual victim stories and their belongings, while the perpetrators and the daily “routine” at the KZ are hardly mentioned. Another problem influenced by the international trend to focus on (Jewish) individuals and moral lessons rather than on the historical circumstances is that the focus on the Shoa blanks the fact that Serbs had been the foremost largest victim group. The third field, where the influence of “European standards” on the Croatian politics of the past will be examined, is the equalization of “red and black totalitarianism” at the annual commemorations in Jasenovac. While this was already done during the revisions era of President Franjo Tudman during the 1990, today it perfectly matches EU-politics, as the introduction of the 23rd of August, the anniversary of the Hitler-Stalin-pact, as a Memorial day for both victims of Nazism and Stalinism shows.
Abstract: There is a rich body of literature examining the contribution of Holocaust museums to the Holocaust memorial culture by focusing on their educative, awareness-raising, and memorializing functions. In this context, ample attention has been devoted to these museums’ exhibitions, educatory activities, reenactment practices, digital strategies, as well as their historical and architectural narratives. This article brings a novel perspective to the literature by giving an account of how Holocaust museums act as a medium through which individuals contribute to the Holocaust memorial culture from a Constructivist perspective. It argues that Holocaust museums do not treat individuals as passive recipients of the Holocaust memorial culture, but actors who could exercise agential capacities in relation to the Holocaust memorial culture. This argument is illustrated by case studies of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), the Berlin Jewish Museum, and the Anne Frank House. It is shown that these museums offer platforms through which individuals actively contribute to the Holocaust memorial culture by encouraging them to conduct and share their Holocaust-related research, donating Holocaust-related objects, and engaging in social activities to diffuse related norms and messages.
Abstract: This book explores the Holocaust exhibition opened within the Imperial War Museum (IWM) in 2000; setting out the long and often contentious debates surrounding the conception, design, and finally the opening of an important exhibition within a national museum in Britain. It considers a process of memory-making through an assessment of Holocaust photographs, material culture, and survivor testimonies; exploring theories of cultural memory as they apply to the national museum context. Anchored in time and place, the Holocaust exhibition within Britain's national museum of war is influenced by, and reflects, an international rise in Holocaust consciousness in the 1990s. This book considers the construction of Holocaust memory in 1990s Britain, providing a foundation for understanding current and future national memory projects. Through all aspects of the display, the Holocaust is presented as meaningful in terms of what it says about Nazism and what this, in turn, says about Britishness. From the original debates surrounding the inclusion of a Holocaust gallery at the IWM, to the acquisition of Holocaust artefacts that could act as 'concrete evidence' of Nazi barbarity and criminality, the Holocaust reaffirms an image of Britain that avoids critical self-reflection despite raising uncomfortably close questions. The various display elements are brought together to consider multiple strands of the Holocaust story as it is told by national museums in Britain
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: The research studies dedicated to the memory of the Second World War have become a research priority in Europe, particularly after the fall of the communist regime and the re-establishment of the balance of power between the East and the West, in close connection with the social, cultural, and identity-based policies promoted by the European Union. The main objective of such studies is to understand the manner in which the Second World War is remembered, starting from the assumption that “the past is always practiced in the present, not because the past imposes itself, but because subjects in the present fashion the past in the practice of their social identity” (Friedman, 1994 quoted by Kapralski, 2017, 2). Research efforts have been mostly aimed at the study of war “narratives” in general and the Holocaust narrative in particular, the latter becoming the dominant narrative in Europe after the 1990s. Following this line of research, the current study seeks to outline the agenda of commemorative events dedicated to the memory of the Holocaust in Romania, as well as the actors and the narratives they promote, relying on a corpus of 116 online press contents commemorating the Holocaust, as published in the online edition of Adevărul, in the period between March 2015 and March 2020.
