Abstract: В статье рассматриваются фольклорные версии, объясняющие ненависть Гитлера к евреям. Рассматриваемые тексты зафиксированы в основном на территориях, входивших в черту оседлости, от людей старшего возраста, которые или сами контактировали с евреями, преимущественно до войны, или много слышали о них из уст родителей. Версии сводятся к одной из трех объяснительных стратегий: среди ближайших родственников Гитлера или его сослуживцев был еврей, на которого Гитлер был сильно обижен и по этой причине стал мстить всему народу; или ненависть вызвана особенностями самих евреев, которые, согласно этническим стереотипам славян, умнее, хитрее, ленивее немцев и славян, а также могут понимать немецкий язык. Наконец, Катастрофа может объясняться евангельскими событиями. Во всех трех случаях в рассказах о причинах, повлекших Холокост, используются разработанные традицией механизмы осмысления окружающего мира: этноконфессиональные стереотипы, сюжетные клише традиционной квазиисторической фольклорной прозы, объединенные с попытками индивидуальной интерпретации.
Abstract: Статья посвящена активистам памяти о Холокосте в современной России. Материалом для статьи послужили 20 интервью с активистами памяти о Холокосте, записанные на бывших оккупированных территориях (Северный Кавказ, Калмыкия, Брянская и Псковская области) в 2020–2023 гг. Несмотря на возрастающий интерес memory studies к мемориальному активизму, сами активисты памяти – их мотивы, их социальные и биографические характеристики – до сих пор не становились объектом специального интереса исследователей. Российские активисты памяти о Холокосте не принадлежат к одной этнической группе и не объединены общими политическими взглядами. В статье показано, что многих активистов объединяет «отделенность» от локального сообщества: несмотря на разный социальный и этнический бэкграунд, они являются для местного сообщества «чужими» по тем или иным параметрам. Эта «отделенность» связана как с природой локального активизма в целом, так и со статусом Холокоста в советско-российской культуре памяти, где поддержание памяти о его жертвах не является обычным и самоочевидным занятием. Нередко стимулом к активизму становится столкновение с иной, «космополитичной» культурой памяти, где Холокост мыслится как одно из важнейших событий Второй мировой войны и существует моральный императив помнить о его жертвах. В статье также выделены и проанализированы мотивы активизма.
Abstract: Представленное в статье исследование посвящено репрезентации памяти о Холокосте в медиа Центрально-Восточной и Северной Европы во втором десятилетии XXI века (на примере Германии, Австрии, Польши, Литвы, Латвии, Эстонии, Швеции, Дании, Норвегии). В соответствии с гипотезой авторов, в каждом из этих государств существует особая память о Второй мировой войне, которая встраивается в национальные нарративы, но сочетается с глобальной памятью о Холокосте (механизм, ранее описанный Д. Леви и Н. Шнайдером). Сравнение образа Холокоста в различных публикациях СМИ позволило выяснить общие интерпретации и национальную специфику нарратива о трагедии, уточнить его значение для разных социальных групп. Целью исследования стало выявление особенностей сочетания глобальной и локальной памяти о Холокосте в Центрально-Восточной и Северной Европе в 2010-е гг. Источниками исследования являются отобранные по ключевым словам материалы СМИ 2011, 2018 и 2020 гг. Методологическую основу работы составляет концепция «мест памяти» П. Нора и развивающая ее концепция «общих мест памяти» в интерпретации Р. Трабы, через призму которой можно рассматривать память о Холокосте в различных национальных контекстах, а также дискурс-анализ (в соответствии с подходом Э. Лаклау и Ш. Муфф). В результате исследования было определено, что память о Холокосте играет большую роль для национальных нарративов. Она встраивается в цепочки эквивалентности с другими событиями локальной и всемирной истории, сопоставляется с геноцидами других народов. Через дискурс о Холокосте происходит формирование представлений о Второй мировой войне и праворадикальных движениях. При этом в публикациях проявляется и глобальная память о Холокосте, противодействие его релятивизации. Эта последняя тенденция связана прежде всего с деятельностью переживших Холокост граждан самих рассматриваемых в работе стран.
Abstract: Статья посвящена актуальным практикам памяти Холокоста в разных городах России. Исследование построено на полевых материалах, собранных в результате экспедиций, которые состоялись в 2020–2023 гг. в рамках проекта «Еврейские коммеморативные практики и современный культ Победы». Экспедиционная работа велась в разных городах на Западе и Юге России. Участники проекта посетили более 20 населенных пунктов, в которых записали несколько сотен интервью с членами еврейских общин, краеведами, работниками культуры и другими людьми, интересующимися памятью об оккупации и Холокосте. Внимание автора статьи привлекло то, что в разных городах по-разному рассказывали о посещении памятников жертвам Холокоста, особенно то, что в одних городах для жителей был важен день расстрела, а в других его даже не знали. Автор статьи задалась вопросом: в какие дни в разных населенных пунктах проходят акции памяти погибших евреев и от чего зависит выбор дня посещения памятника. Проанализировав собранный материал, она выделила три модели, к которым тяготеют практики поминовения жертв Холокоста: поминовение в день расстрела (или другой вариант: в традиционные поминальные еврейские дни); поминовение в контексте памяти о Великой Отечественной войне – в День Победы или день освобождения города; поминовение в контексте международной памяти о Холокосте – 27 января или на Йом ха-Шоа.
Abstract: This study develops a novel analytical framework to advance studies of monuments. It does so by systematically integrating four elements of a monument’s assemblage – design, surroundings, rituals, and narratives – to examine their combined potential affective impact on visitors’ bodily and emotional engagement with monuments and the past these represent. These four elements will be applied in the comparison of two Dutch Second World War monuments, the National Monument on Dam Square and the National Holocaust Monument of Names. The article reflects on who or what shapes these monuments’ four elements and what kind of potential affective experiences they engender. The results show that the Holocaust Names Monument creates a sacred space for personal and active Holocaust remembrance. In contrast, the National Monument allows more profane, non-commemorative behaviour, except on 4 May, when the Annual Remembrance Day turns it into a sacred site, evoking collective sentiment and remembering of diverse victims. Despite these differences, both monuments seek to foster empathy for individual victims and a sense of responsibility through reflection. These similarities and differences have emerged over time, reflecting the influence of both individual and institutional actors involved in the monument’s design and management, as well as broader socio-political shifts in commemoration.
Abstract: Historical commissions have played an important role in the most recent efforts to garner restitution and reparations for Holocaust victims and their families. Several dozen Holocaust commissions were convened in the late‑1990s and early‑2000s in European countries where histories of collaboration and complicity with the Nazi regime were either under‑documented or suppressed in the official discourse. This essay examines the Holocaust commissions from a historiographical perspective with special attention given to the methodological and rhetorical strategies they employed when confronted by the traumatic experiences and memories of victims and survivors. While the work of these commissions was shaped and influenced, to varying degrees, by external political forces and interest groups, this essay explores the ways in which “the politics of history” entered into their written reports and, consequently, obscured and silenced fundamental aspects of Holocaust history. Three commissions, in particular, are held up for scrutiny (i.e., Austria’s Jabloner Commission, the International Commission for Holocaust‑Era Insurance Claims, and France’s Mattéoli Commission), and an assessment of their work is given against the backdrop of ongoing debates within the field of trauma studies and in response to questions concerning the Holocaust and the “limits of representation.”
Abstract: The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum received two million visitors in 2019, making it the most heavily visited museum in Poland. This entry situates tourism at Auschwitz within the broader context of Holocaust tourism by providing an historical account of the phenomenon. It begins with those visitors to the camp before 1945 who were not tourists (Nazi officials, local suppliers, engineers), drawing attention to tourism’s ethical ambiguity. Since the museum’s 1947 opening, tourists have encountered a site undergoing continual development, its exhibition spaces and its messaging evolving from the Stalinist era through the Cold War to the present period. This chapter considers how shifts in the site’s memory politics, especially regarding the representation of different victim groups, have led to unresolved tensions that still surface during the tour. It then considers some present-day challenges to the legitimacy of tourism at Auschwitz, such as visitor behaviour or the difficulties in providing an appropriate, authentic, and informative experience to large crowds. Finally, the chapter reviews different scholarly approaches to Holocaust tourism, such as dark tourism theory and empirical visitor research, before concluding with questions for future research into Auschwitz tourism.
Abstract: The chapter addresses the key problem of Polish collective memory of Auschwitz, that is, how Poles perceive the former camp, in a wider context of Polish memory of World War II, Nazi camps, and the Holocaust. It presents and discusses results of surveys representative of Poland’s population, particularly two designed by the authors and conducted in 2020. The surveys show that the war is the major theme of Polish collective memory, and Nazi camps in general and Auschwitz in particular belong to top Polish lieux de mémoire. Auschwitz evokes in Poles mostly general and universalist associations with destruction, murder, crematoria, gas chambers, and death. The Holocaust is spontaneously associated with Auschwitz only rarely. On the other hand, the camp is the most frequently associated site of the destruction of Jews. The Polish collective memory of Auschwitz hinges upon a poor awareness of the number, nationality, and countries of origin of the camp’s victims. However, Poles are aware of the major historical functions of the camp and share different symbolic meanings of it. Some survey results suggest that a cosmopolitan Holocaust memory focusing on Auschwitz developed among Poles while others indicate that the Polish memory of Auschwitz has nationalist characteristics.
Abstract: This article examines how rescuers of Jews during the Holocaust are represented in the Polish elementary school core curriculum and history textbooks, offering a critical assessment of the current approach to Holocaust education in Poland.
The inclusion of the Holocaust as a distinct educational topic in schools in Poland is a relatively recent development, marking a shift from earlier decades when it was marginalized or instrumentalized for political purposes. The article traces the evolution of Holocaust education in Poland and highlights the changes introduced after the 2015 parliamentary elections, when the Law and Justice (PiS) government, within its historical policy, began emphasizing Poland’s ‘heroic past’ and the rescue of Jews. This narrative, the authors argue, risks overshadowing the complexities of Polish–Jewish relations during World War II. Trojański and Szuchta demonstrate that current curricula and textbooks often present a simplified, hero-centered narrative that neglects the broader historical context, including collaboration, blackmail, and violence against Jews. Such omissions contradict recent scholarship and hinder the ability of students to understand the multifaceted nature of the Holocaust. Because elementary school materials shape foundational historical knowledge, this imbalance has lasting implications. Finally, the article briefly notes the early steps taken by the new government to broaden the historical framework, but emphasizes that meaningful change will require time, resources, and careful revision of teaching materials.
Abstract: This article examines how local complicity in the Holocaust is negotiated, silenced, and revealed through the spatial memoryscape of Rajgród, a small town in northeastern Poland where Poles participated in the murder of their Jewish neighbors in the summer of 1941. Using a microhistorical lens, it analyzes how knowledge, denial, and memory are inscribed in physical spaces and communal practices, rendering space a cultural text. Drawing on personal and municipal records and ethnographic fieldwork, the article shows how Catholicism, nationalism, and ritual symbolism shape collective remembrance and moral hierarchies of suffering in post-socialist Eastern Europe.
Abstract: The past is never past, wrote William Faulkner. The great American writer had in mind his native Mississippi, but he might as well have written those words about Poland. Indeed, among history-conscious Poles, the findings of historians have had far-reaching social and political consequences that transcend the esoteric discussions of scholars. This was corroborated in recent times by the emergence of a discourse in Poland over what some have called polityka historyczna (Geschichtspolitik, or history policy), which focuses on the question of whether historians who write of the less glorious episodes in Polish history are actually acting against the interests of the nation. Many Polish historians, including the best-known scholars among them, have protested against this suggestion, which poses a clear danger to the fidelity of their discipline. The dissolution of the Communist regime in Poland at the end of the 1980s made possible the deconstruction of every aspect of contemporary history. The process of reconstruction, begun in earnest, proved to be complex and painful. This was particularly the case when dealing with the bitterest chapters in the millennial story of Polish-Jewish relations, which were, and continue to be, the subject of popular and intellectual discussion as well as serious scholarly research. Out of this process emerged a new understanding of history, one that renders much of the earlier canon on the topic virtually obsolete. It had, in fact, been under way for some years even before the collapse of Communism – especially in the pages of Poland’s extraordinarily vibrant underground press and also, to an impressive extent given the prevailing censorship, in those of Poland’s legally operated independent Catholic press. Polish émigré journals were also regularly smuggled into Poland and had significant influence. Nevertheless, it was only with the collapse of the old regime and the birth of Poland’s Third Republic that this activity could be carried out without interference and Poland could finally undergo its own Vergangenheitsbewältigung (coming to terms with the past). This chapter discusses the evolution of Poland’s confrontation with the destruction of Polish Jewry.
Abstract: The terrain of the past remains a battleground in Ukraine, where policymakers, interest groups, and individuals continue to use and abuse history for contemporary gains. The recent escalation of Russian violence has only exacerbated these processes. Apart from discussions of Ukraine and Russia’s historical relations and the Holodomor, nothing looms larger than the Holocaust in Ukraine’s ongoing memory wars, whether in discussions and denials of local collaboration and complicity in anti-Jewish violence or exercises in comparative and/or competitive suffering. This article examines the Holocaust as it played out in Ukraine and the evolving memoryscapes that emerged in its wake, homing in on two major massacres, Babyn Yar and Bohdanivka, and their memorial afterlives in Soviet Ukraine (ca. 1945–91) and independent Ukraine (1991–today). While this project briefly engages the well-trod topics of local collaboration and competitive suffering, as evidenced in competing monuments on the site of Babyn Yar itself and the larger commemorative landscape of Kyiv, it draws attention to understudied sites like Bohdanivka, which fell within the Romanian occupation zone during the war.
Abstract: Holocaust Memorial Day 2026 reached more people than ever before, with millions engaging across the UK through national moments of remembrance, education and community activity. From Light the Darkness to events in schools, workplaces and public spaces, this year showed the growing impact of coming together to remember, learn and stand against all prejudice today.
Central to this was the Light the Darkness campaign, which saw 230 buildings and landmarks illuminated in purple at 8pm as part of a nationwide act of remembrance – an increase from 200 in 2025. Delivered in partnership with Ocean Outdoor and supported by JCDecaux, Global and Bauer Media, the campaign appeared on 3,000 billboards across the UK, generating over 10 million impacts\*. HMDT’s radio advert aired more than 900 times across Global’s network, reaching a further 14 million impacts.
Engagement also grew at community level, with 3,800 organisations marking HMD – up from 3,500 the previous year. This was mirrored by a surge in digital participation on the day, with social media interactions across HMDT’s Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn rising by 140%, from 10,000 in 2025 to 24,000 in 2026.
Crucially, the 2026 impact data highlights the reversal of a decline over the past two years in secondary school participation, which had previously attracted national concern. More than 1,000 secondary schools marked Holocaust Memorial Day this year – 17% of the total number of secondary schools nationwide, which increased from just 9% last year. This was further bolstered by the reach of the charity’s educational film, *It began with words*, which was viewed by over 130,000 pupils, helping ensure that the lessons of the Holocaust remain central to younger generations.
To take a deeper look at the key moments behind this year’s commemoration, read our Impact Report for Holocaust Memorial Day 2026. From a special event hosted by Their Majesties The King and Queen to acts of remembrance in communities across the UK, the report captures the scale and significance of HMD 2026.
Abstract: The interest in the Holocaust – Nazi Germany's concentrated attempt to exterminate European Jewry – has become increasingly noticeable in the Scandinavian countries during the last decades, with a growing number not only of dissertations, monographs and other publications, but also public debates and controversies relating to this event. This new upsurge of interest in the Holocaust reflects the dynamics and the contested nature of collective memories of wartime Scandinavia more broadly. This article highlights, broadly speaking, the development of Holocaust historiography in Scandinavia; the changing perspectives, interpretations, debates and focus from the immediate post-war years to the present day. It argues that, despite the fact that the Holocaust was truly a European-wide phenomenon transcending national borders, Holocaust studies have mainly been produced as nation-centred histories. Only with the end of the Cold War and with a paradigmatic shift from ‘the event’ to ‘the memory’ has a new form of Holocaust remembrance begun, ‘the cosmopolitanization of Holocaust remembrance’, which transcends borders and makes memory cultures coincide. In Scandinavian historical cultures and historiography, then, the 1990s marks the starting point of a process by which Holocaust remembrance has become officially embedded into European memory.
Abstract: Since the end of the Cold War, most European nations – including those in Eastern Europe – have reassessed their role in the Holocaust. Although the Finnish scholarly community, as well as the wider public, is now beginning to participate in this process, Finland has been one of the last countries in Europe to recognize that it cannot assume a total immunity or innocence in this Europe-wide event. This article examines the ways in which the Holocaust has entered Finnish historiography over the last decades. Holmila and Silvennoinen's argument is two-fold. First, they hold that there are many contextual matters, such as the absence of visible anti-Semitism, which have for a long time worked as a sufficient barrier to keep Finland disconnected from the Holocaust. Second, they argue that there are important theoretical and methodological underpinnings, especially the so-called ‘separate war thesis’, which has been utilized as a convenient, if no longer tenable, explanation that Finland was very different from all other Axis nations. They also seek to point out the directions in which the Finnish scholarly community is now going in its search for a more nuanced approach to the Holocaust.
