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The Hugo Valentin Centre Master Thesis in Holocaust and Genocide Studies Making Room for the Holocaust? Entangled Memory Regimes and Polarized Contestation about the Greek 1940s in Thessaloniki Student: Dimitrios Tziogkas Term and year: Spring 2021 Credits: 45 Supervisor: Tomislav Dulić Word count: 31.011 Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................... 2 Acknowledgements .................................................................................................. 3 Introduction .............................................................................................................. 4 Research Overview .................................................................................................. 5 Research Design..................................................................................................... 14 Theory .................................................................................................................... 14 Research Questions ................................................................................................ 24 Method ................................................................................................................... 25 Empirical Analysis ................................................................................................. 31 Renaming the Chrysochoou Street......................................................................... 31 Left-Right Cleavage and Political Polarization ..................................................... 36 Tropes and Narratives of the “National Repertoire” .............................................. 52 Memory Layering .................................................................................................. 71 Conclusions ............................................................................................................ 77 Literature and Sources ........................................................................................... 82 Appendix ................................................................................................................ 97 Abstract The present thesis offers a new perspective on Holocaust memory in Greece by examining the ways in which divergent mnemonic representations about the Greek 1940s, as evidenced in polarized public contestation, influence the position of Holocaust in contemporary Greek collective memory. Adopting a micro-level case- study approach, the thesis focuses on the process of renaming a street in Salonika (or Thessaloniki), by examining public discourses around the issue. On the basis of theoretical elaborations in the area of collective memory, and through an application of Kubik and Bernhard's conceptualization of the politics of memory, a qualitative evaluation of Holocaust memory in Salonika is presented by attempting to categorize the memory regime emerging. It is assessed that the memory regime pertaining to the Holocaust is affected by the salience of pre-established memory regimes, occupies a secondary status in the wider mnemonic field and, what is more, is not unified. In such context, a problematic tendency to actually distort the historical record of the Holocaust, in the form of downplaying the complicity of local elites in the implementation of the Nazi genocidal policy, is also detected and explained as a repercussion of the specific dynamics at play whenever political actors engage in discussions about the Greek 1940s. All things considered, the study demonstrates that the official institutionalization of Holocaust memory on a commemorative level, a phenomenon observed during the past twenty years, should not be equated to the emergence of a cosmopolitan Holocaust memory in the country. Keywords: Holocaust in Salonika, Greek 1940s, National Resistance, Greek Civil War, Collaboration, Second World War, Collective memory, Memory regime, Mnemonic field, Holocaust distortion 2 Acknowledgements I will always feel grateful to those who were directly and indirectly involved in the process of writing this master thesis. It would be impossible to undertake this project without their support, advice, and active engagement. I am especially thankful to my supervisor, Tomislav Dulić, Associate Professor in Holocaust and Genocide Studies and Director of the Hugo Valentin Centre, Department of History, Uppsala University, for his patience and invaluable guidance during each phase of this work. His challenging comments were a source of continuous reflection for me and fundamentally improved every aspect of the present study. I also wish to thank Associate Professor Roland Kostić at the Hugo Valentin Centre, Department of History, Uppsala University. I am grateful for his constant encouragement, while his intriguing suggestions provided me with a basic sense of orientation, especially in the earlier stages of this process. On a rather personal note, I want to express my gratitude to my family for supporting me in so many different ways. Their understanding and encouragement made it all possible. Dimitrios Tziogkas Uppsala, May 2021 3 Introduction The Second World War was the context in which the genocide of the European Jews was perpetrated and, as a result, memory of the Holocaust has, throughout the decades, been embedded in national narratives which represent attempts to assess in a holistic way the war years. In the case of Greece, memory of the Holocaust cannot be adequately examined without reference to those, official or unofficial, narratives which have shaped the way political elites and society view the events of the “Greek 1940s”. In this connection, and as illuminated in the research overview section that follows, the establishment of specific narratives focused on the German occupation, the Resistance, and the Civil War, and the historical and political context in which the state and different political groups endorsed the one or the other hermeneutic representation of the past, both before and after 1974, have been quite aptly analyzed (Mazower 2000a; Siani-Davies and Katsikas 2009; Apostolou 2011; Voglis and Nioutsikos 2017; Avgeridis 2017; Voglis 2007; Tzoukas 2012). What is missing is an analytical focus on an aspect of the whole issue that is of crucial importance in the context of any insightful assessment of Holocaust memory in contemporary Greece: An in-depth problematization and a systematic empirical examination of the ways in which these existing narratives of the Greek 1940s, which tend to dominate both academic debates and public political discourses, actually affect the status of Holocaust memory today in Greece are needed. Such a “below the surface” investigation of Holocaust memory is attempted by the present thesis, in a year in which Greece assumes the presidency of IHRA and commemorates the 200th anniversary of its “War of Independence”. Accordingly, the study aims at evaluating whether the official institutionalization of Holocaust memory, in line with international standards formulated in the context of the process of Europeanization of Holocaust memory, and the growing public awareness with regard to the Holocaust, phenomena observed in Greece during the last twenty years, have come along with a parallel development of a “negative memory” of the Holocaust, that is, of mnemonic representations that, in our case, acknowledge and examine the Greek national collective's complicity in the genocide of the Greek Jews. As pointed out, to examine Holocaust memory in such an insightful way, and in any national context, one should 4 focus on the narratives surfacing in the museums, monuments, commemorations, and public discourses pertaining to the Holocaust (Radonić 2017, 270-271). Furthermore, what is also necessitated is a serious consideration of the potential effect politicized debates about the 1940s, especially those focused on the issue of collaboration, may have on Holocaust memory. More specifically, an objective of the present thesis is to investigate whether the recurrent polarization between Left-Right whenever the Greek 1940s are discussed poses impediments to the development of self-reflective memory, enables the adoption of defensive strategies on the part of some mnemonic actors, and is at the background of the articulation of problematic positions which are tantamount to Holocaust distortion. The study's “point of entry” into the investigation of the aforementioned complex issues is the renaming of Chrysochoou Street in the city of Salonika. The renaming proposal, which was framed in a way that reflected a high symbolism in the area of Holocaust memory, gave rise to an intense debate, centered around important events of the 1940s, inside the municipal council but also among representatives of the local society and in the press. Taking into consideration the general absence of micro-level empirical studies of the specific dynamics which shape political discourses about the Greek 1940s, the main contribution of the present thesis is to demonstrate that public debates on the course of which different actors choose distinct strategies, articulate different historical representations, and made use of preexisting narratives and features of the national repertoire, may provide an ideal basis of analysis for any attempt to shed light into interesting peculiarities of Holocaust memory in Greece. Research Overview On a general note, while delving into relevant research focused on Holocaust memory in Greece, one can