The Perversion of Holocaust Memory

The Perversion of Holocaust Memory PDF Author: Judith M. Hughes
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350281883
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
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.

The Perversion of Holocaust Memory

The Perversion of Holocaust Memory PDF Author: Judith M. Hughes
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350281883
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 160

Get Book

Book Description
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.

Perverse Memory and the Holocaust

Perverse Memory and the Holocaust PDF Author: Jan Borowicz
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1003833454
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
Perverse Memory and the Holocaust presents a new theoretical approach to the study of Polish memory bystanders of the Holocaust. Drawing on psychoanalytic theory, it examines representations of the Holocaust in order to explore the perverse mechanisms of memory at work, in which surface a series of phenomena difficult to remember: the pleasure derived from witnessing scenes of violence, identification with the German perpetrators of violence, the powerful fear of revenge at the hands of Jewish victims, and the adoption of the position of genocide victims. Moving away from the focus of previous psychoanalytic studies of memory on questions of mourning, melancholy, repressed memory, and loss, this volume considers the transformation of the collective identity of those who remained in the space of past Holocaust events: bystanders, who partook in the events and benefited from the extermination of the Jews. A critique of ‘perverse memory’ that hampers attempts to work through what is remembered, this book will be of interest to scholars across the social sciences working in the fields of Holocaust studies, memory studies, psychoanalytic studies, and cultural studies.

The Memory Monster

The Memory Monster PDF Author: Yishai Sarid
Publisher: Restless Books
ISBN: 1632062720
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 143

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Book Description
The controversial English-language debut of celebrated Israeli novelist Yishai Sarid is a harrowing, ironic parable of how we reckon with human horror, in which a young, present-day historian becomes consumed by the memory of the Holocaust. Written as a report to the chairman of Yad Vashem, Israel’s memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, our unnamed narrator recounts his own undoing. Hired as a promising young historian, he soon becomes a leading expert on Nazi methods of extermination at concentration camps in Poland during World War II and guides tours through the sites for students and visiting dignitaries. He hungrily devours every detail of life and death in the camps and takes pride in being able to recreate for his audience the excruciating last moments of the victims’ lives. The job becomes a mission, and then an obsession. Spending so much time immersed in death, his connections with the living begin to deteriorate. He resents the students lost in their iPhones, singing sentimental songs, not expressing sufficient outrage at the genocide committed by the Nazis. In fact, he even begins to detect, in the students as well as himself, a hint of admiration for the murderers—their efficiency, audacity, and determination. Force is the only way to resist force, he comes to think, and one must be prepared to kill. With the perspicuity of Kafka’s The Trial and the obsessions of Delillo’s White Noise, The Memory Monster confronts difficult questions that are all too relevant to Israel and the world today: How do we process human brutality? What makes us choose sides in conflict? And how do we honor the memory of horror without becoming consumed by it? Praise for The Memory Monster: “Award-winning Israeli novelist Sarid’s latest work is a slim but powerful novel, rendered beautifully in English by translator Greenspan…. Propelled by the narrator’s distinctive voice, the novel is an original variation on one of the most essential themes of post-Holocaust literature: While countless writers have asked the question of where, or if, humanity can be found within the profoundly inhumane, Sarid incisively shows how preoccupation and obsession with the inhumane can take a toll on one’s own humanity…. it is, if not an indictment of Holocaust memorialization, a nuanced and trenchant consideration of its layered politics. Ultimately, Sarid both refuses to apologize for Jewish rage and condemns the nefarious forms it sometimes takes. A bold, masterful exploration of the banality of evil and the nature of revenge, controversial no matter how it is read.” —Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review “[A] record of a breakdown, an impassioned consideration of memory and its risks, and a critique of Israel’s use of the Holocaust to shape national identity…. Sarid’s unrelenting examination of how narratives of the Holocaust are shaped makes for much more than the average confessional tale.” —Publishers Weekly “Reading The Memory Monster, which is written as a report to the director of Yad Vashem, felt like both an extremely intimate experience and an eerily clinical Holocaust history lesson. Perfectly treading the fine line between these two approaches, Sarid creates a haunting exploration of collective memory and an important commentary on humanity. How do we remember the Holocaust? What tolls do we pay to carry on memory? This book hit me viscerally, emotionally, and personally. The Memory Monster is brief, but in its short account Sarid manages to lay bare the tensions between memory and morals, history and nationalism, humanity and victimhood. An absolute must-read.” —Julia DeVarti, Literati Bookstore (Ann Arbor, MI) “In Yishai Sarid’s dark, thoughtful novel The Memory Monster, a Holocaust historian struggles with the weight of his profession…. The Memory Monster is a novel that pulls no punches in its exploration of the responsibility—and the cost—of holding vigil over the past.” —Eileen Gonzalez, Foreword Reviews

The Abuse of Holocaust Memory

The Abuse of Holocaust Memory PDF Author: Manfred Gerstenfeld
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789652180766
Category : Holocaust denial
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description


Remembering to Forget

Remembering to Forget PDF Author: Barbie Zelizer
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226979724
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
There is no more gruesome and tragic record in the history of the twentieth century than the photographs taken at the liberation of the concentration camps in Germany after World War II. Our memory of the Holocaust has been shaped by these images, and they are seared into our collective consciousness as brutal evidence of the atrocity of war and the evil of which humanity is capable. In her new book, Barbie Zelizer reveals the unique significance of the concentration camp photographs while being mindful of Leon Wieseltier's call to be strangers to these images. "If we are not strangers," he wrote, "if the names of the killers and the places of the killing and the numbers of the killed fall easily from our tongues, then we are not remembering to remember, but remembering to forget." Zelizer shows how the photographs have become the basis of our memory of the Holocaust and how they have affected our presentations and perceptions of contemporary history's subsequent atrocities.

Holocaust Memory in a Globalizing World

Holocaust Memory in a Globalizing World PDF Author: Jacob S. Eder
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783835319158
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description


Holocaust Angst

Holocaust Angst PDF Author: Jacob S. Eder
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190237848
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
In the face of an outpouring of research on Holocaust history, Holocaust Angst takes an innovative approach. It explores how Germans perceived and reacted to how Americans publicly commemorated the Holocaust. It argues that a network of mostly conservative West German officials and their associates in private organizations and foundations, with Chancellor Kohl located at its center, perceived themselves as the "victims" of the afterlife of the Holocaust in America. They were concerned that public manifestations of Holocaust memory, such as museums, monuments, and movies, could severely damage the Federal Republic's reputation and even cause Americans to question the Federal Republic's status as an ally. From their perspective, American Holocaust memorial culture constituted a stumbling block for (West) German-American relations since the late 1970s. Providing the first comprehensive, archival study of German efforts to cope with the Nazi past vis-à-vis the United States up to the 1990s, this book uncovers the fears of German officials-some of whom were former Nazis or World War II veterans-about the impact of Holocaust memory on the reputation of the Federal Republic and reveals their at times negative perceptions of American Jews. Focusing on a variety of fields of interaction, ranging from the diplomatic to the scholarly and public spheres, the book unearths the complicated and often contradictory process of managing the legacies of genocide on an international stage. West German decision makers realized that American Holocaust memory was not an "anti-German plot" by American Jews and acknowledged that they could not significantly change American Holocaust discourse. In the end, German confrontation with American Holocaust memory contributed to a more open engagement on the part of the West German government with this memory and eventually rendered it a "positive resource" for German self-representation abroad. Holocaust Angst offers new perspectives on postwar Germany's place in the world system as well as the Holocaust culture in the United States and the role of transnational organizations.

Marking Evil

Marking Evil PDF Author: Amos Goldberg
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781782386193
Category : Collective memory
Languages : en
Pages : 367

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Book Description
Talking about the Holocaust has provided an international language for ethics, victimization, political claims, and constructions of collective identity. As part of a worldwide vocabulary, that language helps set the tenor of the era of globalization. This volume addresses manifestations of Holocaust-engendered global discourse by critically examining their function and inherent dilemmas, and the ways in which Holocaust-related matters still instigate public debate and academic deliberation. It contends that the contradiction between the totalizing logic of globalization and the assumed uniqueness of the Holocaust generates continued intellectual and practical discontent.

Entangled Memories

Entangled Memories PDF Author: Marius Henderson
Publisher: Universitatsverlag Winter
ISBN: 9783825366780
Category : Collective memory
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In a global age, Holocaust commemoration has undergone a process of cosmopolitanization which manifests itself on many levels such as in the emergence of a supranational Holocaust memory and in a transnationally inflected canon of Holocaust art. The objective of the collection is to explore the entangled migrating memories of the Holocaust in North America, Western and Eastern Europe, and Israel by investigating two thematic aspects: First, the specifics of national commemorative cultures and their historical variability and, second, the interplay between national, local and global perspectives in the medial construction of the historical event. Entangled Memories opens up a range of perspectives by re-conceptualizing the practices, conditions, and transformations of Holocaust remembrance within the framework of a dynamic global cultural, intellectual, literary and political history.

Renegotiating Postmemory

Renegotiating Postmemory PDF Author: Maria Roca Lizarazu
Publisher: Dialogue and Disjunction: Stud
ISBN: 164014045X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
With the disappearance of the eyewitness generation and the globalization of Holocaust memory, this book interrogates key concepts in Holocaust and trauma studies through an assessment of contemporary German-language Jewish authors.