Abstract: The European soccer clubs FC Bayern Munich, Austria Vienna, Ajax Amsterdam, and Tottenham Hotspur (London) are known as “Jew Clubs,” although none of them is explicitly Jewish. This study approaches the conundrum of identity performances, (e.g., Jew as self and “Jew” as other) from a transnational perspective. Using the “Jew Clubs” as case studies, I unpack the connection between collective memories and identity formations in post-Holocaust societies through the lens of sports. With the help of a wide range of primary sources and archival material such as fanzines, fan performances, street art, photographs, films, monuments, and museums, this study illustrates how soccer cultures function as a key site for the construction of collective memories and collective identities. As such, this dissertation joins the extant and growing international scholarship on sport and fan cultures, popular culture, Judaic studies, memory cultures, performance studies, museum studies, and German studies. The work also enhances our understanding of antisemitism, philosemitism, and gentile-Jewish relationships. Chapter 1 examines the “Jew Club” as memory culture and provides a detailed analysis of FC Bayern Munich’s “rediscovery” of its German-Jewish former club president Kurt Landauer in the early 21st century. By analyzing how the club’s turn to Landauer overshadowed the club’s role in expelling its Jewish members, this chapter puts forward the argument that memory is always also a form of forgetting. Chapter 2 illustrates how the “Jew Club” FK Austria Vienna (FAK) functions as a “cultural code,” that, in the interwar period, became associated with stereotypically “Jewish” features such as modernity, cosmopolitanism, and rootlessness. It analyzes the puzzling case of a “Jew Club” that is now supported by a neo-Nazi fan base. Finally, this chapter claims that a new “cultural code” emerges, as the club embraces its “Jew Club” identity to counter neo-Nazi fans. Chapter 3 assesses the “Jew Club” as fan performance. It analyzes how Ajax Amsterdam’s supporters developed their identity as “Super Jews” in reaction to the antisemitic taunts by rival fans. The chapter is grounded in a thorough discussion of fan and club cultures, as well as the transformations of Dutch memory culture and Dutch antisemitism. It argues that fan performances offer a particular opportunity to engage with the unmastered history of the Holocaust. Chapter 4 addresses the “Jew Club” as a problem by discussing the case of Tottenham Hotspur. It analyzes the debates about Spurs fans’ appropriation of the term “Yid,” which had previously been used by antisemitic rival supporters. This chapter introduces a new model of linguistic appropriation, which alters our understanding of linguistic reclamation. Ultimately, by engaging Jewish perspectives, it argues that the “Jew Club” offers a unique space for anti-antisemitic agency. The conclusion summarizes the findings of this study, identifies the similarities and differences among the four case studies, and applies the study’s results to reconsider the concept of a “(negative) German-Jewish symbiosis.” In essence, this study illuminates the ways sport clubs and fan cultures perform memory cultures and thus function as an important societal arena for constructing collective identities. The work clarifies the common features and distinctive characteristics of “Jew Clubs” from a transnational perspective. It shows how “soccer” serves as a contested space for questions of identity, subjectivity, and belonging, with implications reaching far beyond the stadium gate.
Abstract: Holocaust memory in Europe is shifting and diversifying, often in conflicting ways. This report is the culmination of a comparative and multidisciplinary study aimed at exploring these contemporary shifts in Holocaust memory in five European countries that played very different roles during the Holocaust, and whose post-WWII histories differed too: Poland, Hungary, Germany, England and Spain.
The study took place from 2019-2022 and offers a snapshot of Holocaust memory at the start of the 21st century. In addition to the rise of far-right political parties, antisemitic incidents and crises around immigration and refugees, this period was also overshadowed by the Covid pandemic and its ensuing economic instability. Our central guiding question was: How do experiences of the present relate to the memory of the Holocaust? Do they supersede it, leading to the gradual fading from memory of the mass-murder that shook the twentieth century? Do they reshape it, shedding new light on its lessons? Is the meaning assigned to present-day events shaped by its metaphors and symbols, or perhaps the present and the past engage in multidirectional dialogue over diverse memory platforms?
To explore this question and other questions about the extent to which Holocaust memory is present in European public discourses, the circumstances in which it surfaces, and the differences in its expressions in the countries we examined, we focused on three complementary domains that serve as memory sites: the public-political, Holocaust education and social media.
We used a between/within analysis matrix of the countries and the domains, to understand how Holocaust memory is expressed in these countries. We found that while the memory of the Holocaust remains alive, in some places
it is struggling for relevance. A common memory practice that surfaced across domains was “relationing the Holocaust,” a variant of multidirectional memory. We also found that a distinguishing aspect of Holocaust memory relates to the political left-right identification of subgroups within countries. There were also interactions
between domains and countries, for example, in the countries we explored in Western Europe, teachers’ attitudes about the Holocaust corresponded to those of their political establishment, but this was not the case in Central and Eastern Europe.
This report is intended for Holocaust and memory scholars, educators, commemorators, policymakers, journalists and anyone interested in deciphering the complex intersections of past and present. The report culminates with a series of recommendations for various policymakers, NGOs, educational organizations and social media moderators.
Abstract: In the early years of the 21st century it appeared that the memory of the Holocaust was secure in Western Europe; that, in order to gain entry into the European Union, the countries of Eastern Europe would have to acknowledge their compatriots' complicity in genocide. Fifteen year later, the landscape looks starkly different. Shedding fresh light on these developments, The Perversion of Holocaust Memory explores the politicization and distortion of Holocaust remembrance since 1989.
This innovative book opens with an analysis of events across Europe which buttressed confidence in the stability of Holocaust memory and brought home the full extent of nations' participation in the Final Solution. And yet, as Judith M. Hughes reveals in later chapters, mainstream accountability began to crumble as the 21st century progressed: German and Jewish suffering was equated; anti-Semitic rhetoric re-entered contemporary discourse; populist leaders side-stepped inconvenient facts; and, more recently with the revival of ethno-nationalism, Holocaust remembrance has been caught in the backlash of the European refugee crisis.
The four countries analyzed here – France, Germany, Hungary, and Poland – could all claim to be victims of Nazi Germany, the Allies or the Communist Soviet Union but they were also all perpetrators. Ultimately, it is this complex legacy which Hughes adroitly untangles in her sophisticated study of Holocaust memory in modern Europe.
Abstract: Raoul Wallenberg is widely remembered for his humanitarian activity on behalf of the Hungarian Jews in Budapest at the end of World War II, and is known as the Swedish diplomat who disappeared into the Soviet Gulag in 1945. While he successfully combated Nazi racial extermination politics, he fell victim to Stalinist communism – yet another barbaric, totalitarian regime of the 20th century.
Given Wallenberg’s biography, his mission and his unresolved fate it is no wonder that Wallenberg became a figure of mythic dimensions. It is the mixture of heroics and victimhood, as well as the seemingly endless potential of possible adaptations that secures this historic figure and his mythic after-narratives its longevity. While it is without doubt the man behind the myth who deserves credit – first the man’s realness gives the myth credibility – it is the myth that secures the man’s popularity. The man and his myth depend on each other.
In this article, I will give an overview of how Wallenberg was perceived and described by survivors, in popular scholarly literature, how he has been researched by historians, and how he has been presented in different media. It will become apparent that the narrators have sought to satisfy different needs, e.g. psychological, political, and commercial ones. The narrators’ intention and attitude towards the historic person and the myth which surrounds him is of primary importance. I will show how different approaches to, and uses of, the myth exist side by side and nourish one another. And yet they can all simultaneously claim existence in their own right. By providing examples from different times and places, I like to illustrate that the popular images of Wallenberg are far less one-sided, stereotypical and homogeneous than they are often portrayed and hope to draw attention to the great potential that the Wallenberg narrative has today, as his 100th anniversary approaches in 2012.
Abstract: Kristallnacht, 1938, was a defining moment, changing the course of history. Can the Jewish heritage destroyed before and during World War II be reconstructed? This paper will link eschatological thought and the relevant Mishnaic texts, in particular the value of holiness and its attributes both in time and place. Can a synagogue be de-sanctified? Is the value in the material or the use?
Reviewing these tragic events, the possible criteria for reconstructing the architectural components of Jewish life should be considered, through the evidence of history, the record of events, values of the past, and the new realities of the future. Another significant concern is not so much in understanding the changing and diverse values of a community but the approaches toward the interpretations of these values. In this debate, where existential or historical models play a major role, Judaism tends toward the former, recalling events over time and the allegory in the facts.
What remained in Europe were the ruins, the memory of places and events, and the resilience of the human spirit. However, there are compounded memories and multiple voices, ever changing, challenging the identities of real and virtual communities. How do we evaluate the facts and the extended contexts over time that demand renegotiation of their meaning and interpretation?
On current projections, the Jews may become an insignificant number in European society over the course of the twenty-first century. Can these buildings, as reconstructed, live without the spirit of the people; can new people inhabit the reconstructions, or is the ruin the true manifestation of the course of history? The divergent case studies of the three ShUM cities, Speyer, Worms, and Mainz, in Germany provide a glimpse into the debate and an appraisal of the moment in time.
There are common attitudes facing recovery and reconstructions for uprooted communities after tragedies that leave scars on history. The case studies of Jewish heritage reconstruction and the considerations of impermanence provide another perspective to the restorations of the Bamiyan Buddhas and together a chilling evidence to the consequences of racism.
Abstract: Für das Working Paper führte ich 18 qualitative Interviews mit nach Deutschland eingewanderten russischsprachigen Jüdinnen*Juden, Russlanddeutschen und Russinnen*Russen. Thematisiert wurden dabei ihre Haltungen zu Migration und eigenen Migrationserfahrungen, zu ihrer Religiosität, zum Zusammenleben mit Jüdinnen*Juden im Herkunftsland und in Deutschland, zu (eigenen) Diskriminierungserfahrungen und zu Israel. Die Erinnerungskultur und das Sprechen über den Zweiten Weltkrieg waren in der Sowjetunion von anderen Narrativen geprägt als in Westeuropa und den USA, der Holocaust spielte eine untergeordnete Rolle. Die jüdischen und die russlanddeutschen Interviewten berichten auch von ihren Bemühungen, ihre Zugehörigkeit zur jeweiligen Minderheit in der früheren Sowjetunion möglichst zu verbergen. Die jüdischen Interviewten gingen mit ihrem Jüdischsein in Deutschland deutlich offener um, machten dafür aber Erfahrungen mit Antisemitismus. Von Diskriminierungserfahrungen berichten die Interviewten gruppenübergreifend, teilweise aufgrund antislawischer Ressentiments, teilweise einfach durch Behörden, die beispielsweise berufliche Qualifikationen nicht anerkannten. Die eigenen Migrationserfahrungen, auch das machen die Interviews deutlich, führen nicht unbedingt zu Solidarität mit anderen Zugewanderten. Ein Teil der Befragten fühlt sich gerade Geflüchteten gegenüber benachteiligt und/oder sieht sie als Bedrohung.
Abstract: Two years after the Tunisian people overthrew an entrenched dictatorship, the country seems to be definitively turning a new page in its history. Its diminutive Jewish community continues to fade away, a vestige from another time now remembered only through writing. This article analyses how four francophone Jewish writers of Tunisian origins, Catherine Dana, Colette Fellous, Corine Scemama-Ammar, and Brigitte Smadja ‘write/return’ to Tunisia in the 1990s and 2000s. Given their own interrupted experience in Tunisia, they end up remembering through and on behalf of others, including elders, grandmothers and mothers, and siblings. Along with (re)visiting the houses and graves of their elders during the last decades of Ben Ali's rule, they negotiate a role for themselves in the complex diasporic identity that emerged after Tunisian Jewry's post-independence migrations. Nevertheless, I argue that the writing of return provides no simple resolution for the rupture experienced by the last generation of Jewish women born in Tunisia before the great exile in the 1960s. Rather physical return to contemporary Tunisia and its inscription in French transforms these women into inadvertent mediators between the past and present, homeland and diaspora, oral history and writing.
Abstract: Since the early 2000s, Poland has experienced a remarkable Jewish revival, largely driven by non-Jewish Poles with a passionate new interest in all things Jewish. Klezmer music, Jewish-style restaurants, kosher vodka, and festivals of Jewish culture have become popular, while new museums, memorials, Jewish studies programs, and Holocaust research centers reflect soul-searching about Polish-Jewish relations before, during, and after the Holocaust. In Resurrecting the Jew, Geneviève Zubrzycki examines this revival and asks what it means to try to bring Jewish culture back to life in a country where 3 million Jews were murdered and where only about 10,000 Jews now live.
Drawing on a decade of participant-observation in Jewish and Jewish-related organizations in Poland, a Birthright trip to Israel with young Polish Jews, and more than a hundred interviews with Jewish and non-Jewish Poles engaged in the Jewish revival, Resurrecting the Jew presents an in-depth look at Jewish life in Poland today. The book shows how the revival has been spurred by progressive Poles who want to break the association between Polishness and Catholicism, promote the idea of a multicultural Poland, and resist the Far Right government. The book also raises urgent questions, relevant far beyond Poland, about the limits of performative solidarity and empathetic forms of cultural appropriatio
Abstract: Das Holocaust- und Zweit-Weltkriegs-Gedenken und die daraus erwachsenen Erzählungen haben auch in der Schweiz ihre Spuren hinterlassen. Die vorhandenen „Denkmäler“ sind jedoch nicht allein materieller oder monumentaler Natur. Das jeweils Sagbare und Unsagbare zeigt sich auch im musikalischen und literarischen Schaffen, in Biografien und Selbstzeugnissen, in Spiel- und Dokumentarfilmen, in Ortsbildern, Lehrmitteln und Schulstunden sowie in Debatten über Restitutions- oder Rehabilitierungsforderungen. In diesem Buch werden unterschiedliche Aspekte und Modi der kulturellen Erinnerung versammelt, und gleichzeitig stellen die darin zur Sprache kommenden Erzählweisen ein Plädoyer der transnationalen Lesart von Holocaust-Gedenken dar. Aus dem semantische wie territoriale Grenzen überschreitenden Wissen lässt sich einiges für die eigene Disposition lernen. Deswegen geht dieser Sammelband von der Schweiz aus, trägt aber ebenso Beispiele vor, die dänische, deutsche, israelische, österreichische, schwedische oder ungarische Belange berühren.
