HHoollooccaauusstt MMeemmoorryy ffoorr tthhee MMiilllleennnniiuumm LLaarriissssaa FFaayyee AAllllwwoorrkk Royal Holloway, University of London Submission for the Examination of PhD History 1 I Larissa Allwork, hereby declare that this thesis and the work presented in it is entirely my own. Where I have consulted the work of others, this is always clearly stated. Signed: L.F. Allwork Date: 15/09/2011 2 Abstract Holocaust Memory for the Millennium fills a significant gap in existing Anglophone case studies on the political, institutional and social construction of the collective memory of the Holocaust since 1945 by critically analyzing the causes, consequences and ‘cosmopolitan’ intellectual and institutional context for understanding the Stockholm International Forum on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research (26 th January-28 th January 2000). This conference was a global event, with ambassadors from 46 nations present and attempted to mark a defining moment in the inter-cultural construction of the political and institutional memory of the Holocaust in the United States of America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe and Israel. This analysis is based on primary documentation from the London (1997) and Washington (1998) restitution conferences; Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research primary sources; speeches and presentations made at the Stockholm International Forum 2000; oral history interviews with a cross-section of British delegates to the conference; contemporary press reports, as well as pre-existing scholarly literature on the history, social remembrance and political and philosophical implications of the perpetration of the Holocaust and genocides. It is through the mediation of these interdisciplinary sources that, Holocaust Memory for the Millennium explores the inter- relationships between the global and the national, offering a specifically British political, cultural and historical perspective on the organization, implementation, impact as well as ‘cosmopolitan’ intellectual and institutional context for the Stockholm International Forum 2000. For this was a conference of global significance, which simultaneously promoted the remembrance of the Holocaust as a specific historical event, as well as drawing attention to the ‘universal’ lessons of the Jewish catastrophe for a contemporary world still wracked by the anguished political, legal, philosophical and above all, human questions posed by the continuing recurrence of genocide at the dawn of the twenty-first century. 3 Contents Acknowledgements 5 Abbreviations 7 Preface: Terms and Definitions 8 Introduction: Holocaust Memory for the Millennium 12 Chapter 1: “Money ought not to be the last memory of the Holocaust” : The Historical Context for the Stockholm International Forum (2000). 44 Chapter 2: The International Task Force and the Organization and Media Reception of the Stockholm International Forum (2000). 89 Chapter 3: The Legacies of the Stockholm International Forum 2000: The Subsequent Stockholm Conferences and the First Decade of the International Task Force. 141 Chapter 4: Post-Millennial Holocaust Memory Work: Implementing the Stockholm Declaration (2000): The International Task Force British/Lithuanian ‘Liaison Project’. 190 Chapter 5: The Intellectual and Institutional Context for Understanding the Stockholm International Forum 2000: The ‘Cosmopolitan’ Potentials of the SIF 2000 and the Limits of the ‘New Cosmopolitanism’. 244 Conclusion 311 Bibliography 327 4 Acknowledgements Thanks must first go to Royal Holloway’s History department for their generous granting of a Thomas Holloway Research Scholarship to fund this doctorate as well as a Helen Cam Travel Award for expenses incurred on a research trip to Central and Eastern Europe in 2008. I would also like to thank my supervisor, Zoë Waxman who has offered me invaluable intellectual advice and has supported me since the start of my career as a History undergraduate at Mansfield College, Oxford. During Zoë’s maternity leave, I was supervised by David Cesarani and I am extremely grateful for his insightful and astute comments on the research process and my chapter drafts. I have also been fortunate to benefit from the intellectual stimulation offered by Royal Holloway’s Holocaust Research Centre and the helpful comments given at my upgrade and on chapter five by my advisor, Dan Stone. For intellectual discussions and debates in more relaxed surroundings, I would also like to thank my research colleagues Esther Jilovsky, Andy Pearce, Dan Tilles, Anna Solarska, Rachel Pistol and Becky Jinks. It also goes without saying that this thesis could not have been written without the consent of my interviewees who generously gave their time during the research process: Suzanne Bardgett, David Cesarani, Ben Helfgott, Paul Levine and Stephen Smith. I would also like to thank Eva Fried at The Living History Forum in Sweden for her assistance with Stockholm International Forum publications, Lev Libeskind at the ITF, as well as Rachel Kostanian and Lukas Dünser at the Vilna Gaon State Jewish Museum in Lithuania for offering me a guided tour of their ‘Catastrophe’ exhibition during my stay in Vilnius in the summer of 2010. I was also privileged to gain a Fellowship to the HEF’s Fourteenth Annual Summer Institute on the Holocaust and Jewish Civilization at Northwestern University, Illinois (22 nd June- 3rd July 2009), where I not only met some wonderful people but I also benefitted from the tuition offered by Doris Bergen, Roger Brooks, Dagmar Herzog, Sara Horowitz, Paul Jaskot, Stuart Liebman, John K. Roth, Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern and James Waller. Closer to home, I was also fortunate to be offered a bursary to attend Gurminder K. Bhambra and Robert Fine’s informative and thought provoking 5 ‘Theory for a Global Age’ Summer School at Warwick University (6 th -10 th July 2009). The insights from this course have been inscribed in Chapter 5 which explores the ‘cosmopolitan’ intellectual and institutional context for interpreting the Stockholm International Forum (2000). Furthermore, I would also like to thank Matt Feldman, Sally Sokoloff, Cathy Smith and the whole History team at Northampton University for offering me a temporary part-time lecturing post in the summer of 2010 and the spring of 2011. Well wishes go to my students for engaging in my classes on the ‘Holocaust and its Histories’, ‘Empires through History’ and ‘Conflict and Diplomacy in the Twentieth Century’. I would also like to recognize that this version of Holocaust Memory for the Millennium has been significantly shaped by the close reading and helpful comments offered by my PhD examiners, David Feldman and Isabel Wollaston. Finally, the writing of this thesis has also greatly benefitted from the support of my family and friends. Affectionate appreciation goes out to Fran Turner, Alex Roberts, Miranda Gill, May Ahmed, Polly Bull, Eloise Donnelly, Abigail Etchells and Jess He. I would also like to thank John and Elizabeth Ripley, Peter Darch, Peter Rowlands, Lorraine Shakesheff, Rachael Wallach, Rob Marriott, Joost Krijaen and Mark Celinscak for their friendship and support. However, the biggest thank-you of all must go to my Mum, Faye, my Dad, Stephen, my Brother, Bryn and my Nan, Eileen. Your unwavering love, generosity and patience have made the completion of this thesis possible. 6 Abbreviations Some of the most commonly cited abbreviations used throughout this thesis are: AROE Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (Raphael Lemkin, 1944) AWG ITF Academic Working Group EU European Union EWG ITF Education Working Group HMD Holocaust Memorial Day, usually preceded by a country, eg. UK HMD. HMGA The Holocaust and Memory in the Global Age (Levy and Sznaider, 2002) HMM Holocaust Memory for the Millennium ICC International Criminal Court IMT International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg ITF Task Force for International Co-Operation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research IWM Imperial War Museum, London, UK. LCNG London Conference on Nazi Gold LJCC London Jewish Cultural Centre MMWG ITF Memorials and Museums Working Group NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization OSCE Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe OT The Origins of Totalitarianism (Hannah Arendt, 1951) QGG The Question of German Guilt (Karl Jaspers, 1947) RH Rethinking the Holocaust (Yehuda Bauer, 2001) SIF Stockholm International Forum, followed by year (2000, 2001, 2003, 2004). UNDHR United Nations Declaration on Human Rights UNGC United Nations Genocide Convention USHMM United States Holocaust Memorial Museum WCHA Washington Conference on Holocaust Era Assets WJRO World Jewish Restitution Organization 7 Preface Terms and Definitions In this historical analysis of the causes, consequences and intellectual context for understanding the Stockholm International Forum 2000 (SIF 2000), the term ‘Holocaust’ refers to the Nazi regime and its collaborators mass murder of almost six million Jews in the ghettos, concentration camps and extermination sites of Nazi occupied Europe and the Soviet Union during the Second World War. 1 As Gerd Korman has noted it was not until 1957-1959 that the Third Reich’s extreme physical, spiritual and cultural assault on the Jews was widely referred to as the ‘Holocaust’, 2 a word from an ancient Greek translation of Hebrew Scripture meaning a sacred, burnt offering to God. 3 Prior to this time, Jewish communities across the globe had used a number of different terms to refer to the ‘Holocaust’ or