The decades following the fall of the Soviet Union have seen drastic changes in society and culture within Europe. The desire to create a unified, pan-European historical narrative has been challenged by the expansion of the European Union. Previous Western European discourse of history has been confronted by the alternative perspectives of many former Soviet countries, such as Poland, Hungary, and the Baltic states. One of the greatest challenges to a new, inclusive pan-European narrative has been the perceived exclusion of Holocaust recognition in these former Soviet-bloc countries – a topic made more volatile considering the vast majority of the violence of the Holocaust took place in Central and Eastern Europe. Recent governmental decisions regarding the recognition of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe have been extremely disconcerting to Holocaust scholars and survivors, as well as the broad Western European community. But Eastern Europe insists that they are not neglecting Holocaust narratives in their respective countries; instead, they claim the lack of Western recognition of their suffering under Soviet rule has forced them to compensate by focusing their attention on an exploration of Soviet oppression. Eastern European scholars maintain that the best way forward is to embrace a pluralist narrative that recognizes both the victims of the Holocaust and the Soviet project. This thesis analyses the adoption of memory pluralism in two places of cultural memory of one Eastern European city – Riga, Latvia.

No description available.

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of History, 2005. / Title from first page of PDF document. Document formatted into pages; contains [2], 40 p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 38-40).

Holocaust monuments are often catalysts in the ‘nationalization’ of the Holocaust – the process by which Holocaust memory is shaped by its national milieu. Between 2009 and 2011, the Parliament of Canada debated a bill which set out the guidelines for the establishment of a National Holocaust Monument (NHM), which ultimately became a federal Act of Parliament in early 2011. I examine the discourse generated by this bill to understand how the memory of the Holocaust is being integrated into the Canadian identity, and argue that the debate surrounding the NHM has been instrumental in the ‘Canadianisation’ of the Holocaust. I summarise my findings by placing them into dialogue with other national memories of the Holocaust, and identify three distinct features of Holocaust memory in Canada: a centrifugal trajectory originating in the Jewish community, a particular-universal tension rooted in multiculturalism, and a multifaceted memory comprising several conflicting – though not competing – narratives. Monuments de l’Holocauste sont souvent des catalyseurs de la «nationalisation» de l'Holocauste – le processus par lequel mémoire de l'Holocauste est formé par son milieu national. Entre 2009 et 2011, le Parlement du Canada a débattre un projet de loi qui crée les lignes directrices pour la mise en place d'un Monument national de l'Holocauste (MNH), qui est finalement devenu une loi fédérale du Parlement au début de 2011. J'examine le discours généré par ce projet de loi pour comprendre comment la mémoire de l'Holocauste est intégrée dans l'identité canadienne, et soutien que le débat entourant le MNH a joué un rôle déterminant dans la «canadianisation» de l'Holocauste. Je résume mes conclusions en les plaçant dans le dialogue avec d'autres mémoires nationales de l'Holocauste, et d'identifier trois caractéristiques distinctes de mémoire de l'Holocauste au Canada: une trajectoire centrifuge d’origine dans la communauté juive, une tension particulière-universelle enracinée dans le multiculturalisme, et une mémoire à multiples facettes comprenant plusieurs récits contradictories – mais pas compétitifs.

De 1944 à la fin des années soixante, les groupements juifs parisiens organisèrent de multiples rassemblements pour commémorer la Shoah et la participation des Juifs à la défense et à la libération de la France pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Ces cérémonies constituaient un rituel sociopolitique profondément ancré au sein d’un monde juif fortement clivé et politisé (première partie). Les commémorations s’apparentaient également à un vecteur de mémoire en articulant le deuil collectif et les expériences individuelles de la perte, en mettant en récit le passé commémoré et en œuvrant à sa transmission auprès des plus jeunes (deuxième partie). Enfin, les rassemblements étudiés jouaient le rôle de ressource identitaire, permettant aux Juifs de Paris de définir ce qu’ils étaient en se positionnant notamment par rapport à trois pôles d’identification : la France, l’État d’Israël et la tradition religieuse juive (troisième partie). Au vu de cette dense activité commémorative et des fonctions politiques, sociales et culturelles majeures qui lui étaient assignées, il apparaît que la Shoah ne fut en aucun cas passée sous le boisseau au sein de la vie publique juive dont il convient aussi de réévaluer la vitalité dans la France de l’après-guerre. Ces commémorations participèrent à la fabrique et à la reconstruction de la collectivité juive de Paris tant par le souci de leurs organisateurs de renforcer sa cohésion interne que par l’expression et la production des conflits qui la traversaient et la fragmentaient. C’est, pour partie du moins, autour de ses morts que le monde juif parisien revint à la vie au lendemain de la guerre et du génocide. / Between 1944 and the end of the sixties, Parisian Jewish groups organized many gatherings to commemorate the Holocaust and the Jewish contribution to France’s defense and liberation during World War Two. These ceremonies constituted an important sociopolitical ritual within the very divided and politicized Parisian Jewry (part I). Commemorations also served as a carrier of memory by articulating public mourning and individual experiences of loss, narrating the commemorated past, and transmitting it to the youngest members of the community (part II). Lastly, these gatherings played a key role as a source of identity, allowing Parisian Jews to define who they were, especially in relation to three pillars of identification : France, the State of Israel, and the Jewish religious tradition (part III). Given this dense commemorative activity and its major political, social and cultural functions, it is clear that the Holocaust was never kept quiet within French Jewish public life, whose postwar vitality is worth reevaluating. Commemorations contributed to the making of Parisian Jewry not only through their instigators’ efforts to reinforce the community's internal cohesion, but also by virtue of enabling the expression and emergence of conflicts. It is at least in part by gathering around its dead in the aftermath of war and genocide that the Parisian Jewish world returned to life.

Holocaust monuments are often catalysts in the ‘nationalization’ of the Holocaust – the process by which Holocaust memory is shaped by its national milieu. Between 2009 and 2011, the Parliament of Canada debated a bill which set out the guidelines for the establishment of a National Holocaust Monument (NHM), which ultimately became a federal Act of Parliament in early 2011. I examine the discourse generated by this bill to understand how the memory of the Holocaust is being integrated into the Canadian identity, and argue that the debate surrounding the NHM has been instrumental in the ‘Canadianisation’ of the Holocaust. I summarise my findings by placing them into dialogue with other national memories of the Holocaust, and identify three distinct features of Holocaust memory in Canada: a centrifugal trajectory originating in the Jewish community, a particular-universal tension rooted in multiculturalism, and a multifaceted memory comprising several conflicting – though not competing – narratives. Monuments de l’Holocauste sont souvent des catalyseurs de la «nationalisation» de l'Holocauste – le processus par lequel mémoire de l'Holocauste est formé par son milieu national. Entre 2009 et 2011, le Parlement du Canada a débattre un projet de loi qui crée les lignes directrices pour la mise en place d'un Monument national de l'Holocauste (MNH), qui est finalement devenu une loi fédérale du Parlement au début de 2011. J'examine le discours généré par ce projet de loi pour comprendre comment la mémoire de l'Holocauste est intégrée dans l'identité canadienne, et soutien que le débat entourant le MNH a joué un rôle déterminant dans la «canadianisation» de l'Holocauste. Je résume mes conclusions en les plaçant dans le dialogue avec d'autres mémoires nationales de l'Holocauste, et d'identifier trois caractéristiques distinctes de mémoire de l'Holocauste au Canada: une trajectoire centrifuge d’origine dans la communauté juive, une tension particulière-universelle enracinée dans le multiculturalisme, et une mémoire à multiples facettes comprenant plusieurs récits contradictories – mais pas compétitifs.

This spring marked the 70th anniversary of the defeat of the Nazis and the end of the Holocaust in Europe. Memory of this genocide has occupied a central place in Israeli identity since the establishment of the state. This thesis explores the history of Holocaust memory in Israel and examines how public memory is constructed in the present, as the era of the survivor draws to a close and commemorative efforts linked to survivors take on a sense of urgency. The contemporary memorial places examined in this study are part of Yad Vashem, Israel*s premier institution for Holocaust commemoration. The thesis focuses on the museum*s Hall of Names and its analogous web space, the Central Database of Shoah Victims* Names. Specifically, I draw on two concepts from Rhetorical Genre Studies—the chronotope (Bakhtin) and antecedent genre (Jamieson)—to examine the relationship between genre and the making of public memory. The findings of this analysis point to the importance of the antecedent genre of Holocaust testimony in the construction of public memory at Yad Vashem. Through a chronotopic analysis of the Hall of Names and the Central Database, I found that the genre of testimony changed across these spaces to ideologically construct memory in different ways. It is in the Hall of Names and Central Database*s repurposing of the testimonial genre, and the expression of this genre through chronotopic arrangement in each of these locations, that a legacy of social concerns coalesces into the memorial expression of the contemporary moment. This study contributes to scholarship on the rhetorical construction of public memory and Rhetorical Genre Studies. First, it suggests the importance of genre and genre change in considerations of the rhetorical construction of public memory. Second, it suggests additional considerations in determining how context affects genre and vice versa when features of time and space are especially salient for meaning-making. Specifically, these findings suggest additional complexity in the relationship between genre and the chronotope: genre change across contexts may result from a genre*s integration into places with different space/time arrangements.

Since unification the memorial landscape of Berlin and its surrounding territories has shifted and expanded exponentially. The majority of this change has occurred within the past ten years, as commemoration of the Holocaust and educational programmes on the National Socialist period have become not only prevalent, but a necessary and expected contribution to the shaping of German identity and memorial culture. In the past decade memorial museums and sites of remembrance, such as the House of the Wannsee Conference, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, and the former Sachsenhausen and Ravensbrück concentration camps, have contributed to and been impacted by the formation of a globalised memory of the Holocaust. As major and internationally renowned institutions, these sites offer unique insight into the nature of current memorial culture and recent approaches to memorialising and commemorating the past. Through an analysis of their exhibition spaces (online, permanent, temporary) and educational programmes (guided tours, seminars, and workshops), this dissertation will attempt to identify how these sites contribute to the formation of a globalised memory. Though each of these four sites possesses a different connection to the history of the Holocaust, and their own alternative approach to presenting and commemorating this history; this variation will provide insight into the divergent landscape of memorialisation within Germany, while also highlighting the common approaches, and practical issues that are of concern to these institutions. Overall the main aim of this thesis will be to demonstrate how memorialisation of the Holocaust, at sites within Berlin and Brandenburg, is no longer defined and shaped solely by the nation state, but rather is influenced by and contributes to international trends of remembrance and a globalised memory of the Holocaust.

For the last thirty years Swedish institutions, both on governmental and foundational level, have seeked to illuminate the horrors of the Holocaust and antisemitism. A part in this was collection of testimonies from survivors of the Holocaust as to save first-hand accounts from an aging population of survivors. In the middle ground between making said collections accessible and protecting the materials from potential racist and antisemitic attacks, sometimes collections were deemed too vulnerable to be made fully available which has put substantial accounts from the Holocaust behind protective barriers, figuratively speaking. A recent effort of once again intending to bring the Holocaust to the table, the newly established Swedish Holocaust Museum must deal with similar considerations of accessibility versus vulnerability. An aspect that was not as prevalent thirty years ago was digitization of cultural heritage or society in general. This practice of dealing with cultural heritage comes with its own set of considerations – Something that has been discussed in this study.  With a starting point in the Swedish Holocaust Museum, digitization of collections dealing with either Jewish cultural heritage or Holocaust memory has been the focus in this study. Other than the Swedish Holocaust Museum, the Nordic Museum, Uppsala University Library and the Jewish Library has been surveyed through interviews in trying to extract each institutions’ policies and practices regarding digitization of the abovementioned kind. To focus the study Gidlund & Sundbergs (2021) digitization as a societal arrangement was used together with Gamstorps (2020) description of Jewish history and Holocaust history as two sides of the same coin.  It was found that each institutions have limitations as to what they can digitize, be it lack of funds or regulations. In some cases, the limitations halted the digitization of the materials and other institutions tried to find solutions. The Swedish Holocaust Museum, the author argues, is placed in a unique spot in challenging current status quo in making accessible cultural heritage deemed vulnerable.

This research report focuses on the issues for participation in public memory projects, in the light of counter-monument critiques of audiences being ‘rendered passive’. Interviews with people who went on the 2005 March of the Living tour to Holocaust sites in Poland and then to Israel have been analysed in terms of themes and processes of meaningmaking. The written text of some of the material provided to them is also analysed. Meanings in the interviews notably occupied two discursive spaces that seem at odds with each other. The first was the discourse around what is a good way to memorialise – particularly when the memory is one of such enormity as the Holocaust. The second is the discourse around tolerance education – how do we ‘learn lessons’ from the Holocaust? The issues for heritage interpretation and tolerance education are explored.