Abstract: Was bleibt, wenn die Zeuginnen und Zeugen der nationalsozialistischen Verbrechen gestorben sein werden? Seit Jahren ist diese Frage in allen gesellschaftlichen, wissenschaftlichen und pädagogischen Debatten über den Umgang mit der NS-Geschichte präsent. Was bleibt, sind die Zeugnisse, die Überlebende in ganz unterschiedlicher Form abgelegt haben: ihre Berichte, ihre literarischen, musikalischen und bildnerischen Verarbeitungen, ihre lebensgeschichtlichen Erzählungen, ihre Zeugenaussagen vor Gericht. Sie vermitteln eindrücklich die Auswirkungen und Schrecken der nationalsozialistischen Verfolgung. Aber sind sie Garanten dafür, dass die spezifische Erfahrungsgeschichte der NS-Opfer auch künftig in der öffentlichen Erinnerungskultur und in der Bildung bewahrt werden wird? Welchen Stellenwert haben sie in der Geschichtsforschung zu Nationalsozialismus und Holocaust? Und wie lassen sie sich in der Bildungspraxis am besten einsetzen? Die Veranstaltungsreihe „Entdecken und Verstehen. Bildungsarbeit mit Zeugnissen von Opfern des Nationalsozialismus“ der Stiftung „Erinnerung, Verantwortung und Zukunft“ (EVZ) ist diesen Fragen nachgegangen. In fünf Seminaren wurden neueste Forschungsergebnisse sowie konkrete Bildungsmodule zu den wichtigsten Zeugnisformen vorgestellt und diskutiert. Die Resultate der Reihe sind in diesem Band dokumentiert
Abstract: Soviet historiography ignored the Jewish role in World War II, for reasons shall explore. Yet the topic is very important to Soviet and post-Soviet Jews (as well as to others), in part precisely because it was ignored by the Soviets. This is manifested in the number of articles and books published on the subject in the former Soviet Union (FSU) and the Soviet Jewish diaspora, few of them by professional historians. One way of supplementing amateur historiography and filling in gaps in our knowledge is by taking oral testimonies from participants in the war. This has been done successfully by some popular historians in the United States. Oral history has serious limitations, of course. It should probably not be used to establish facts, especially at a distance of more than fifty years and in regard to events fraught with great meanings and emotions. Oral history allows for embellishment, cover-ups, falsifications and distortions. However, it can be most useful in establishing perceptions, that is, not so much what happened — though that should not be dismissed — but what people think happened, or think now happened then.
Abstract: Krakow's Jews, scattered around the world, reminisce about their hometown. The main reasons for returning to Krakow are recurring images of the past and the urge to see their life story as a coherent whole. The returnees rediscover their hometown through their own traces of memory, although there are shared stops on the way. These are the places associated with their childhood and their family history, but also with the heritage of Krakow's Jews and the Holocaust. Such diverse stops on the trail of memories show dual identity of the city – the city of a once glorious past but also stigmatised by blood, murder and loss. The absence of the families of the murdered Jewish community is equivalent to the lack of natural environment of commemoration. Those returning are looking for a new commemorative milieu, and everyone who remembers will also become part of it (e.g. their school friends, teachers, neighbours etc.). Finally, the returnees are coming back home – to the house where they were born, but one that is not home anymore.
Abstract: For the first time in a single volume, Opening the Drawer brings together illustrated profiles of three generations of Poles who discovered their hidden Jewish identity in often surprising ways. Drawing on interviews with child survivors of the Holocaust; the post-war second generation; and the post-Communist third generation, these voyages of discovery are not simply variations on a theme, but memorable depictions of unearthing long-buried family histories and secrets. They include the stories of an outstanding Catholic priest, a former anti-Semitic football hooligan, students, academics and renowned writers. Each generation has confronted a specific Polish environment which shaped their lives. The profiles reveal the particular Polish contradictions in coming to terms with their upbringing. Although not all embraced some form of Jewish identity, some merely sought the secrets of their past while retaining their previous identity. In a sharp departure from the past, many Poles are expressing a deep, sympathetic interest in the phenomenon of emerging Jews by flocking to Jewish museums and cultural festivals. Until recently, Poland was regarded as a tragic land of ghosts where Jewish life had ceased to exist. But these wide-ranging profiles reflect a growing spectrum of communal activities that paint a different picture.
Abstract: Bu çalışmada, İstanbul’un tarihsel kentsel kimliğinde gömülü olan etkin varlıklarına rağmen, Cumhuriyet’in inşasıyla birlikte kimliklerini ait oldukları kentin “azınlığı, ötekisi, yabancısı” olarak sancılı süreçler boyunca yeniden kurmak zorunda kalan Rumların, Yahudilerin ve Ermenilerin kendi kimlik, benlik algıları kamusal, politik ve özel alan düzlemlerinde gündelik hayat pratikleri üzerinden çözümlenmeye çalışılmıştır. İstanbul kentindeki “gayrimüslim-azınlık” kimliklerinin bu inşa süreci farklı kuşak, sosyal sınıf ve cinsiyet değişkenleriyle incelenmiştir. Doktora tezi kapsamında dört yıl gibi bir süreye yayılan saha çalışması; İstanbul’un Rumlarının, Yahudilerinin ve Ermenilerinin yaşantılarını, deneyimlerini, azınlık olmaktan kaynaklı sorunlarını, kimi zaman da avantaja dönüşen halleri kendi seslerinden görünür hâle getirebilmek amacıyla niteliksel araştırma tekniklerinden derinlemesine mülakat, odak grup ve sözlü tarihin kullanıldığı geniş ölçekli bir araştırmaya dayanmaktadır.
Abstract: Bu çalışmada İstanbul’un Rum, Yahudi ve Ermenilerinin Lozan Antlaşması’ndan sonra azınlık olarak kendi kimliklerini ve gündelik hayatlarını yeniden inşa etme süreçleri, tarihsel arka planı dikkate alarak, kolektif belleğin oluşumu ve kamusal/politik/özel alanın inşası çerçevesinde analiz edilmektedir. Bu bağlamda özetle, Cumhuriyetin kuruluşundan bugüne kadar gayrimüslim azınlıkların çoğunluktan farklı olan dini-etnik kimliklerinin kentteki inşa süreçleri, pratikleri ve bu inşa sürecini etkileyen dinamikler; eşit vatandaş ve azınlık olma arasında yaşadıkları siyasi ve sosyal çelişkiler; bu çelişkili durumlar karşısında ürettikleri kimlik stratejileri; hem devletle hem de geniş toplumla kurdukları ilişkiler gündelik hayat pratikleri üzerinden çözümlenmeye çalışılmıştır. İstanbul kentindeki “gayrimüslim-azınlık” kimliklerinin bu inşa süreci farklı kuşak, sosyal sınıf ve cinsiyet değişkenleriyle incelenmiştir. Tez çalışmasında İstanbul’un gayrimüslimlerinin yaşantılarını, deneyimlerini, azınlık olmaktan kaynaklı sorunlarını kendi seslerinden görünür hale getirebilmek amacıyla niteliksel araştırma tekniklerinden derinlemesine mülakat, odak grup ve sözlü tarih kullanılmıştır. Çalışmada İstanbul’un üç azınlık cemaatinin azınlık kimliklerinin oluşumunda kolektif belleklerindeki travmalar ve bu travmaların çeşitli stratejilerle kuşaklararası aktarımı; mekansal aidiyetlerini ve kimliklerini oluşturan tarihsel, kültürel ve iktisadi dinamikler; gayrimüslim azınlık kimliği ile uğranılan dışlanma ve ayrımcılıkların vatandaşlık ve ulusal aidiyetin oluşumu üzerindeki etkileri; kamusal, politik ve özel alanda gayrimüslim azınlık olmanın anlamı ve giderek azalan nüfusları ile İstanbul’da mekanda büzüşme ve dağılma halleri analiz edilmektedir. Tez çalışması, yukarıda açıklanan çerçevede üç cemaati, sınıf, cinsiyet ve kuşak kriterleri ile karşılaştırmalı olarak analiz etmeye olanak veren, niteliksel araştırma tekniklerinin kullanıldığı geniş ölçekli bir araştırmaya dayanmaktadır.
Abstract: The ways in which memories of the Holocaust have been communicated, represented and used have changed dramatically over the years. From such memories being neglected and silenced in most of Europe until the 1970s, each country has subsequently gone through a process of cultural, political and pedagogical awareness-rising. This culminated in the ’Stockholm conference on Holocaust commemoration’ in 2000, which resulted in the constitution of a task force dedicated to transmitting and teaching knowledge and awareness about the Holocaust on a global scale. The silence surrounding private memories of the Holocaust has also been challenged in many families. What are the catalysts that trigger a change from silence to discussion of the Holocaust? What happens when we talk its invisibility away? How are memories of the Holocaust reflected in different social environments? Who asks questions about memories of the Holocaust, and which answers do they find, at which point in time and from which past and present positions related to their societies and to the phenomenon in question? This book highlights the contexts in which such questions are asked. By introducing the concept of ’active memory’, this book contributes to recent developments in memory studies, where memory is increasingly viewed not in isolation but as a dynamic and relational part of human lives.
Contents: Introduction: the Holocaust as active memory; Linking religion and family memories of children hidden in Belgian convents during the Holocaust, Suzanne Vromen; Collective trajectory and generational work in families of Jewish displaced persons: epistemological processes in the research situation, Lena Inowlocki; In a double voice: representations of the Holocaust in Polish literature, 1980-2011, Dorota Glowacka; Winners once a year? How Russian-speaking Jews in Germany make sense of WWII and the Holocaust as part of transnational biographic experience, Julia Bernstein; Women’s peace activism and the Holocaust: reversing the hegemonic Holocaust discourse in Israel, Tova Benski and Ruth Katz; ’The history, the papers, let me see it!’ Compensation processes: the second generation between archive truth and family speculations, Nicole L. Immler; From rescue to escape in 1943: on a path to de-victimizing the Danish Jews. Sofie Lene Bak; Finland, the Vernichtungskrieg and the Holocaust, Oula Silvennoinen; Swedish rescue operations during the Second World War: accomplishments and aftermath, Ulf Zander; The social phenomenon of silence, Irene Levin; Index.
Abstract: mmediately after the Holocaust, it seemed inconceivable that a Jewish community would rebuild in Germany. What was once unimaginable has now come to pass: Germany is home to one of Europe’s most vibrant Jewish communities, and it has the fastest growing Jewish immigrant population of any country in the world outside Israel. By sharing the life stories of members of one Jewish family—the Kalmans—Y. Michal Bodemann provides an intimate look at what it is like to live as a Jew in Germany today. Having survived concentration camps in Poland, four Kalman siblings—three brothers and a sister—were left stranded in Germany after the war. They built new lives and a major enterprise; they each married and had children. Over the past fifteen years Bodemann conducted extensive interviews with the Kalmans, mostly with the survivors’ ten children, who were born between 1948 and 1964. In these oral histories, he shares their thoughts on Judaism, work, family, and community. Staying in Germany is not a given; four of the ten cousins live in Israel and the United States.
Among the Kalman cousins are an art gallery owner, a body builder, a radio personality, a former chief financial officer of a prominent U.S. bank, and a sculptor. They discuss Zionism, anti-Semitism, what it means to root for the German soccer team, Schindler’s List, money, success, marriage and intermarriage, and family history. They reveal their different levels of engagement with Judaism and involvement with local Jewish communities. Kalman is a pseudonym, and their anonymity allows the family members to talk with passion and candor about their relationships and their lives as Jews.
Abstract: Once regarded as a vibrant centre of intellectual, cultural and spiritual Jewish life, Lithuania was home to 240,000 Jews prior to the Nazi invasion of 1941. By war's end, less than 20,000 remained. Today, 4,000 Jews reside there, among them 108 survivors from the camps and ghettos and a further 70 from the Partisans and Red Army. Against a backdrop of ongoing Holocaust denial and a recent surge in anti-Semitic sentiment, this thesis presents the history and experiences of a group of elderly survivors in modern-day Vilnius through the lens of their stories and memories, their special places and their biographical objects. Incorporating interdisciplinary elements of cultural anthropology, social geography, psychology, narrative and sensory ethnography, it is informed, at its core, by an overtly spiritual approach. Drawing on the essentially Hasidic belief that everything in the material world is imbued with sacred essence and that we, as human beings, have the capacity through our actions to release that essence, it explores the points of intersection where the individual and the collective collide, illuminating how history is lived from the inside. Glimpses of the personal, typically absent from the historical record, are afforded prominence here: a bottle of perfume tucked into a pocket before fleeing the ghetto, a silent promise made beside a mass grave, a pair of shoes fashioned from parachute material in the forest. By tapping the material for meaning, a more embodied, emplaced, experiential level of knowing, deeper and richer than that achieved through traditional life history (oral testimony and written documents) methods, can emerge. In moving beyond words and gathering a bricolage of story, legend, artefact, document, monument and landscape, this research suggests a multidimensional historiography that is of particular relevance in grasping the lived reality of survivors in Lithuania where only the faintest traces of a once thriving Jewish heritage now remain.
Abstract: Once regarded as a vibrant centre of intellectual, cultural and spiritual Jewish life, Lithuania was home to 240,000 Jews prior to the Nazi invasion of 1941. By war's end, less than 20,000 remained. Today, approximately 4,000 Jews reside there, among them 108 survivors from the camps and ghettos and a further 70 from the Partisans and Red Army.
Against a backdrop of ongoing Holocaust dismissal and a recent surge in anti-Semitic sentiment, Holocaust Legacy in Post-Soviet Lithuania presents the history and experiences of a group of elderly Holocaust survivors in modern-day Vilnius. Using their stories and memories, their places of significance as well as biographical objects, Shivaun Woolfson considers the complexities surrounding Holocaust memory and legacy in a post-Soviet era Lithuania. The book also incorporates interdisciplinary elements of anthropology, psychology and ethnography, and is informed at its heart by a spiritual approach that marks it out from other more conventional historical treatments of the subject.
Holocaust Legacy in Post-Soviet Lithuania includes 20 images, comes with comprehensive online resources and weaves together story, artefact, monument and landscape to provide a multidimensional history of the Lithuanian Jewish experience during and after the Holocaust.
Abstract: This study is an ethnographic account of the Jewish community of Thessaloniki and a description and analysis of oral histories gathered during my fieldwork in 1994. The thesis looks at the intersection of history, memory, and identity by analysing how identities and memories are shaped by historical experiences and how identities shape memories of historical experiences. Thessaloniki has undergone tremendous changes in the twentieth century. The demographic, political, and architectural landscape has radically altered. In the context of my thesis, the most relevant changes concern the ethnic and religious composition of Thessaloniki's population, the city's incorporation into the Greek nation-state (1912), the subsequent introduction of nationalism, and the annihilation of 48,000 Salonikan Jews during the Second World War. The thesis explores how these historical changes and 'events' are represented in individual narratives of Jews in Thessaloniki and in the realm of Jewish communal memory, how these historical changes have affected the formulations of Jewish communal and individual identity and memory, and how Jewish memory relates to the general landscape of memory in contemporary Greece. In chapters one and two, I discuss the theoretical framework and methodology of this thesis. Discussions on ethnicity, nationalism, memory, and certain themes of the 'anthropology of Greece' form the theoretical background of this study. The methodology applied consists of ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviewing. Chapter three presents a historical overview of the history of Thessaloniki and its Jewish community, and discusses the position of minorities in contemporary Greece. I describe the current structure and organisation of the community and look at some demographic developments of the Salonikan Jewish population in chapter four. I then proceed to a detailed account of the interviews which constitutes the main part of the thesis. Chapter five deals with the pre-war past, chapters six and seven with the experience of the war, and chapter eight with the post-war period. In chapter nine I look at perception of boundaries and notions of 'us' and 'them' among Salonikan Jews. In the conclusions, I examine the changes of post-war Jewish memorial practices in the context of the changing 'memory-scape' of the city of Thessaloniki.
Abstract: This book traces the mixing of musical forms and practices in Istanbul to illuminate multiethnic music-making and its transformations across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It focuses on the Jewish religious repertoire known as the Maftirim, which developed in parallel with "secular" Ottoman court music. Through memoirs, personal interviews, and new archival sources, the book explores areas often left out of those histories of the region that focus primarily on Jewish communities in isolation, political events and actors, or nationalizing narratives. Maureen Jackson foregrounds artistic interactivity, detailing the life-stories of musicians and their musical activities. Her book amply demonstrates the integration of Jewish musicians into a larger art world and traces continuities and ruptures in a nation-building era. Among its richly researched themes, the book explores the synagogue as a multifunctional venue within broader urban space; girls, women, and gender issues in an all-male performance practice; new technologies and oral transmission; and Ottoman musical reconstructions within Jewish life and cultural politics in Turkey today.
Abstract: This absorbing book of interviews takes one to the heart of modern German Jewish history. Of the eleven German Jews interviewed, four are from West Berlin, and seven are from East Berlin. The interviews provide an exceptionally varied and intimate portrait of Jewish experience in twentieth-century Germany. There are first-hand accounts of the Weimar Republic, the Nazi era, the Holocaust, and the divided Germany of the Cold War era. There are also vivid descriptions of the new united Germany, with its alarming resurgence of xenophobia and anti-Semitism. Some of the men and women interviewed affirm their dual German and Jewish identities with vigor. There is the West Berliner, for instance, who proclaims, "I am a German Jew. I want to live here." Others describe the impossibility of being both German and Jewish: "I don't have anything in common with the whole German people." Many confess to profound ambivalence, such as the East Berliner who feels that he is neither a native nor a foreigner in Germany: "If someone asks me, 'Who are you?' then I can only say, 'I am a fish out of water.'" Uncertain, angry, resolute, anguished-the diverse testimonies of these people provide startling evidence that "the history of German Jews is not over
Abstract: Anthropological analysis of the construction of history and tradition has focused on the role of the past in expressing group identities and interests. It has done so primarily in contexts where group identities are relatively clearly marked, as in nationalist movements or colonial situations. In many places, however, including many modern urban settings, group identities are ambiguous and poorly defined. In such contexts, standard approaches to the construction of the past are difficult to apply. This article contains a consideration of one such case, the Jewish community of Copenhagen, Denmark. A variety of Jewish accounts of the rescue of the Danish Jews from the Nazis in 1943 are analyzed. Emerging from a complex and deeply fragmented community, these narratives defy abstraction into a group version of the event. Thematically, however, all address problems of sameness and difference endemic to Danish Jewish life. A focus on such thematic issues allows a cultural analysis of the construction of the past, even where group identities are fragmented and incoherent.
