Eastern European Holocaust Studies. Interdisciplinary Journal of the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center 2 (2024), 2

Titel der Ausgabe 
Eastern European Holocaust Studies. Interdisciplinary Journal of the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center 2 (2024), 2
Weiterer Titel 
Museum

Erschienen
Berlin 2024: Walter de Gruyter
Preis
Open Access

 

Kontakt allgemein

Land
Ukraine
Ort
Kyiv
Von
Florian Hoppe, Geisteswissenschaften, De Gruyter Oldenbourg

Das neue Heft der EEHS ist erschienen, komplett im Open Access - wir wünschen anregende Lektüre!

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Andrea Pető:
Museums that Matter. Editorial Introduction
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/eehs-2024-0054/html

Tali Nates, Mirjam Zadoff:
Introduction
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/eehs-2024-0053/html

Bjorn Krondorfer, Steve Carr, Tali Nates and Andrea Pető:
“We had to be aware that people are thinking about this for the first time”: Interview with Gabriela Bulišová and Mark Isaac
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/eehs-2024-0050/html

Katarzyna Taczynska:
“The Chance of a Lifetime.” Interview with Professor Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett on the 10th Anniversary of the Grand Opening of POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/eehs-2024-0040/html

Mirjam Zadoff:
Interview with Katrin Antweiler
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/eehs-2024-0052/html

Tali Nates:
Interview with Dr. Roni Mikel-Arieli
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/eehs-2024-0048/html

Katarzyna Taczyńska:
Competition of Memories? The Memory of the Łódź/Litzmannstadt Ghetto in Contemporary Museums in Łódź
There is no individual museum dedicated to the Łódź Ghetto in which 200,000 Jews were confined. However, there are institutions actively working to preserve the memory of the Jewish community in Łódź. This article focuses on two recently established museums in the city: the Radegast Station, founded in 2009, and the Museum of Polish Children, established in 2021. The aim is to analyze the mechanisms that led to the creation of these historical museums and explore their specific functions. I am interested not only in how these institutions shape and present the Jewish heritage, but also in the conceptualisation of the social role of these institutions and the analysis of their presence in the public space. To achieve this, I examine local micro-interactions within the current framework of Poland’s politics of history. Given that nationalism is the predominant ideology of modernity, my text demonstrates how nationalist discourses impact the commemoration of the Łódź/Litzmannstadt Ghetto and influence the remembrance of Second World War.
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/eehs-2023-0026/html

Borbála Klacsmann:
Invisibilizing Responsibility: The Holocaust Museums of Slovakia and Hungary
Facing and coming to terms with the past in post-Holocaust Europe has not only been a moral imperative but also a challenge in scientific, political and social senses. This process was delayed significantly in socialist countries. A part of the development of a post-socialist commemorative structure was the establishment of Holocaust museums which not only serve as a memento of the past but also provide an institutional framework for memorialization, research and education about the Holocaust. However, nationalist political forces jeopardize this process by attempting to whitewash the past in order to preserve a positive picture of the nation. In this paper, I compare the permanent exhibitions of three museums from Slovakia and Hungary in order to illuminate how this struggle influences their exhibition narratives and activities. After examining the narrative strategies of the exhibitions and conducting interviews with museum personnel of the Holocaust Memorial Center (Budapest), the House of Jewish Excellencies (Balatonfüred) and the Sereď Holocaust Museum, it can be inferred that especially the way collaboration, perpetration, and in general, the role of the local non-Jewish population is depicted (or obscured), is inextricably intertwined with political agendas.
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/eehs-2023-0027/html

Valerio Angeletti, Lorenzo Posocco and Micol Meghnagi:
Fossil Memory: Unaltered Narratives of Resistance and Deportation in the Oldest Italian Holocaust and Resistance Museums
In Italy, after the victory of Giorgia Meloni’s post-fascist party, “Fratelli d’Italia,” several studies began to discuss whether or not the country has come to terms with the memory of fascism, its role as an inspirer of Nazism, and the collaboration with Nazi Germany in the Holocaust. Especially the latter, scholarly literature pointed out, has failed to receive the attention it deserves. This article argues that this is particularly true with regard to public history, the way historical information and events are interpreted and presented to the general public, and focuses on public museums exhibiting the Holocaust and resistance. Evidence for this article comes from two in-depth case studies regarding the oldest yet unaltered Liberation Museum in Rome and the Museum-Monument to Racial and Political Deportees in the Nazi Lagers in Carpi. The article contends that within these museums, the narration of resistance prevails, whilst evidence of Italy’s past collaborationism remains hidden and unexhibited. In essence, these museums emphasise national heroism and sidestep Italian accountability in the Holocaust.
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/eehs-2023-0025/html

Lorenzo Posocco , Valerio Angeletti and Micol Meghnagi:
Nationalism, Italy and the Exhibition of the Holocaust: Findings of a Study on the Recently built Museums of Campagna and San Donato
In recent years, Italy has seen a proliferation of Holocaust Museums and Memorials. This article focuses on two recent additions: the Museum of the Twentieth Century and the Shoah in San Donato Val di Comino (Frosinone), and the Memory and Peace Museum Giovanni Palatucci Study Center in Campagna (Salerno). It uses qualitative methods including in-depth interviews, direct observation, analysis of information panels, other audio and visual elements, and is guided by a theoretical framework rooted in theories of nationalism. The research findings show that these museums present an overly positive narrative of Italy’s role in the Holocaust lacking critical examination and perpetuating the myth of the “good Italian” already identified by other scholars. The museums emphasize favourable conditions for Jewish internees without considering factual evidence that could have provided a more balanced perspective. Additionally, they fail to acknowledge Italian collaboration with Nazi Germany, both, at the exhibition sites and elsewhere. Both museums highlight a Christian salvific narrative, stressing the role of Christian Italians saving Jews, and perpetuating stereotypes of Jews as passive victims. Additionally, Jews are excluded from the notion of “Italianness” and portrayed as “others.” Also, fascism is excluded, deemed incompatible with the idealized Italian Christian civilization proposed by the museums.
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/eehs-2023-0028/html

Micol Meghnagi , Lorenzo Posocco and Valerio Angeletti:
Contested Memories in the Border Town of Trieste: A Comparative Analysis of the Risiera di San Sabba and The Foiba di Basovizza
This article analyses the Risiera di San Sabba, the museum of the only Nazi concentration camp in Italy with a crematorium, and the Foiba di Basovizza, the prominent memorial commemorating the mass killing of Italians carried out by Yugoslav Partisans, examining how they exhibit Italian complicity with Nazi Germany and shed light on the politics of memory in Italy’s post-war history. Through a theoretical framework grounded on theories of nationalism, the argument that will be put forward is that the mentioned museums represent fascism as an alien object and Italians as victims/freedom fighters, neglecting Italy’s direct involvement in the Holocaust. Concluding remarks will suggest that the historical lack of critical analysis enabled the juxtaposition of the memory of the Holocaust with the Foibe, paving the ground for the proliferation of post-fascist historical accounts and their institutionalisation as manifest in Italy’s current political landscape.
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/eehs-2023-0029/html

Ruth Leiserowitz:
Representations of the Holocaust in the Jewish Museum in Kaliningrad
In November 2018, the reconstructed synagogue was inaugurated in Kaliningrad (Russian Federation) on the site of the house of worship destroyed on the night of the pogrom of 1938, Kristallnacht. Since 2022, a small Jewish Museum has also opened in the active synagogue, the centerpiece of which is a thematically conceptualized permanent exhibition. In the following article, the initial situation, mission, and thematic expectations for the creation of the permanent exhibition are described. It was desired that it should have an identity-forming and identity-promoting effect on the Jews of the Kaliningrad congregation and the entire region. Furthermore, it should be educational and entertaining for the population and tourists of the area, but also represent a place of remembrance of the former Jewish life and the Holocaust for the Jewish visitors of the region. Subsequently, the chosen exhibition media are described, as well as the selection of narratives and their respective media implementation. The text also sheds light on the object from the perspective of Jewish cultural heritage: The Kaliningrad region is one of the Eastern European post-displacement areas in which German traces (including German-Jewish traces) are regarded as a dissonant heritage. The authorized heritage discourse does not accept the consequences of the Holocaust here and ignores the city’s Jewish heritage. How can Jewish cultural heritage be made visible under these conditions? How can the new museum contribute to a change?
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/eehs-2024-0008/html

Ran Zwigenberg, Zuzanna Dziuban:
Exchanging “Mementos of Death”: Holocaust Remains in Poland and Japan
In 1962, a Japanese delegation of peace activists visited Auschwitz-Birkenau where they participated in the annual ceremony commemorating the liberation of the camp. As part of the ceremony, the delegation engaged in an exchange of Hiroshima and Auschwitz “memontos,” receiving from the Polish side, amongst others, an urn containing ashes of the victims of the camp. The exchange was the first of several that included Holocaust urns, most of which are now in Japan, and a part of a much broader phenomenon of material dispersal of human remains instituted by Polish museums established at the former Nazi camps. In this paper, we take a critical look at this practice, its development, directionalities and meanings. Tracing the journey of the urns and their various uses, we argue, reveals the complex politics and cultural landscape of the transnational commemoration of World War II in its very local meanings in Poland, Japan and beyond.
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/eehs-2024-0024/html

Bjorn Krondorfer:
Holocaust⁎⁎⁎Gulag: Repressing, Rescuing, and Regulating Recalcitrant Legacies. Report on the International Roundtable Symposium
Is it possible to bring into conversation two different traumatic legacies that occurred in the twentieth century in Europe? How can we engage in productive conversation about two totalitarian systems that repressed, incarcerated, dehumanized, and murdered people deemed enemies of the state or unworthy of living? These were some of the challenging questions addressed in the roundtable symposium “Holocaust⁎⁎⁎Gulag: Repressing, Rescuing, and Regulating Recalcitrant Legacies.” The symposium aimed at addressing specific aspects of the difficult and painful histories of the Holocaust and the Gulag, and to probe how these long-lasting legacies intrude into contemporary society, culture, religion, and politics.
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/eehs-2024-0025/html

Irina Makhalova, Irina Rebrova:
(Post)War Trials of Nazi Perpetrators and Their Auxiliaries in the Soviet Union: History and Ongoing Debates
The article briefly outlines the current state of scholarly literature devoted to ongoing debates on the history and role of war- and postwar open and closed trials of Nazi perpetrators and their auxiliaries in the Soviet Union. Having become partly available for historians more than two decades ago, these trials proceedings constitute a unique source for analyzing various aspects of the Second World War on the Eastern front, including the Holocaust. This article describes the legal basis for prosecuting Nazi criminals (in the 1940s) and Soviet collaborators (mainly from the 1940s until the 1970s) and summarizes ongoing debates concerning the nature and peculiarities of both closed and open Soviet war crimes trials with an outline of the main topics for further research.
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/eehs-2024-0051/html

Borbala Klacsmann:
“The Jews’ last march in their life” – An unknown Holocaust photo from Dubno
In this source publication I analyze a photograph taken by a Hungarian soldier serving in the Eastern front, which depicts the Jews of Dubno marching toward the Surmychi airfield where the Nazis massacred them. The image is an example of photos taken during the war and then stashed away, only to resurface again when the generation which survived the war, passed away. Today, several similar images are available in public collections and internet databases, and enrich our knowledge about the local events of the Holocaust.
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/eehs-2024-0036/html

Brigitte Bailer
Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Widerstandes (ed.), Wir hätten es nicht ausgehalten, dass die Leute neben uns umgebracht werden. Hilfe für verfolgte Juden in Österreich 1938–1945, Berlin: 2023, edited in cooperation with Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand: Stille Helden. Widerstand gegen die Judenverfolgung in Europa 1933–1945
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/eehs-2024-0004/html

Herbert Randall:
Starving the Wolf: Olga Stefan’s Gestures of Resistance
This review discusses Olga Stefan’s 2019 documentary Gestures of Resistance, featuring interviews with Holocaust survivors who highlight lesser-known resistance movements from Central and Eastern Europe.
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/eehs-2024-0010/html

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