HOLOCAUST PUBLIC MEMORY in POSTCOMMUNIST ROMANIA STUDIES in ANTISEMITISM Alvin H
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Yellow Star, Red Star: Holocaust Remembrance After Communism'
H-Judaic Rice on Subotić, 'Yellow Star, Red Star: Holocaust Remembrance after Communism' Review published on Monday, June 29, 2020 Jelena Subotić. Yellow Star, Red Star: Holocaust Remembrance after Communism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2019. Illustrations. 328 pp. $29.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-5017-4240-8. Reviewed by Monika Rice (Gratz College) Published on H-Judaic (June, 2020) Commissioned by Barbara Krawcowicz (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) Printable Version: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=54856 Holocaust commemoration as an expansion of Holocaust memory studies entered scholarship in the 1990s with the seminal works of Tom Segev (The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust [1991]), James Young (The Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning in Europe, Israel, and America [1993]), and Peter Novick (The Holocaust in American Life [1999]). Michael Steinlauf’s groundbreaking work on Holocaust memory in Eastern Europe, Bondage to the Dead: Poland and the Memory of the Holocaust (1996), complemented these works that dealt, mostly, with Western and Israeli Holocaust remembrance. Since then, the field of Holocaust memory has proliferated in the last two decades, transforming the Holocaust from an event remembered as committed by specific historical agents (Germans and their collaborators) to a symbol of universal evil.[1] The memory of the destruction of European Jews, or, perhaps, its postmemory (considering that its carriers are second and third postwar generations), has acquired cosmopolitan and global qualities, which involve its “universalization, de-territorialization, decontextualization and mediatization.”[2] Surprisingly not included in this globalized trend of Holocaust memory are the countries of Eastern Europe, where the mass murder of the Jews took place. -
Constructions and Instrumentalization of the Past: a Comparative Study on Memory Management in the Region
CBEES State of the Region Report 2020 Constructions and Instrumentalization of the Past A Comparative Study on Memory Management in the Region Published with support from the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies (Östersjstiftelsen) Constructions and Instrumentalization of the Past A Comparative Study on Memory Management in the Region December 2020 Publisher Centre for Baltic and East European Studies, CBEES, Sdertrn University © CBEES, Sdertrn University and the authors Editor Ninna Mrner Editorial Board Joakim Ekman, Florence Frhlig, David Gaunt, Tora Lane, Per Anders Rudling, Irina Sandomirskaja Layout Lena Fredriksson, Serpentin Media Proofreading Bridget Schaefer, Semantix Print Elanders Sverige AB ISBN 978-91-85139-12-5 4 Contents 7 Preface. A New Annual CBEES Publication, Ulla Manns and Joakim Ekman 9 Introduction. Constructions and Instrumentalization of the Past, David Gaunt and Tora Lane 15 Background. Eastern and Central Europe as a Region of Memory. Some Common Traits, Barbara Trnquist-Plewa ESSAYS 23 Victimhood and Building Identities on Past Suffering, Florence Frhlig 29 Image, Afterimage, Counter-Image: Communist Visuality without Communism, Irina Sandomirskaja 37 The Toxic Memory Politics in the Post-Soviet Caucasus, Thomas de Waal 45 The Flag Revolution. Understanding the Political Symbols of Belarus, Andrej Kotljarchuk 55 Institutes of Trauma Re-production in a Borderland: Poland, Ukraine, and Lithuania, Per Anders Rudling COUNTRY BY COUNTRY 69 Germany. The Multi-Level Governance of Memory as a Policy Field, Jenny Wstenberg 80 Lithuania. Fractured and Contested Memory Regimes, Violeta Davoliūtė 87 Belarus. The Politics of Memory in Belarus: Narratives and Institutions, Aliaksei Lastouski 94 Ukraine. Memory Nodes Loaded with Potential to Mobilize People, Yuliya Yurchuk 106 Czech Republic. -
Political Antisemitism in Romania? Hard Data and Its Soft Underbelly Shafir, Michael
www.ssoar.info Political antisemitism in Romania? Hard data and its soft underbelly Shafir, Michael Veröffentlichungsversion / Published Version Zeitschriftenartikel / journal article Empfohlene Zitierung / Suggested Citation: Shafir, M. (2012). Political antisemitism in Romania? Hard data and its soft underbelly. Studia Politica: Romanian Political Science Review, 12(4), 557-603. https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-445667 Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Dieser Text wird unter einer CC BY-NC-ND Lizenz This document is made available under a CC BY-NC-ND Licence (Namensnennung-Nicht-kommerziell-Keine Bearbeitung) zur (Attribution-Non Comercial-NoDerivatives). For more Information Verfügung gestellt. Nähere Auskünfte zu den CC-Lizenzen finden see: Sie hier: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/deed.de Political Antisemitism in Romania? 557 Political Antisemitism in Romania? Hard Data and its Soft Underbelly MICHAEL SHAFIR As in many other former communist countries of East Central Europe1, antisemitism in Romania resurged almost concomitantly with the demise of the former regime2. Empirical research on antisemitism, however, emerged only considerably later and did not take off as a main focus until the establishment of the National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania ”Elie Wiesel” (INSHREW) in 2005. This does not imply that the subject of Jews, attitudes to Jews measured by instruments such as stereotypic perceptions and/or ”social distance”, or attitudes toward controversial Romanian historical figures linked to the country’s antisemitic past was not tangentially or even directly tackled on occasion. What lacked until 2005, however, was an effort to systematically (among other instruments, employing a standard questionnaire capable of rendering comparative results) place under focus the phenomenon in its synchronic and diachronic unfolding. -
The Holocaust and International Norm Socialization: the Case of Holocaust Education in Romania
CFE Working paper series No. 38 The Holocaust and International Norm Socialization: The Case of Holocaust Education in Romania Anamaria Dutceac Segesten Anamaria Dutceac Segesten Språk- och Litteraturcentrum, Lunds universitet [email protected] CFE Working papers are available at the website of the Centre for European Studies www.cfe.lu.se CFE Working paper series No. 38 Anamaria Dutceac Segesten is a visiting scholar teaching both at Lund University and Malmö Högskola. Her research interests cover identity and conflict, symbolic politics with a particular focus on myths, as well as European studies, especially the role of the European Union as a global actor and the distinction between East and West, old and new Europe. Anamaria will obtain her PhD in political science from the University of Maryland at College Park, USA. Centre for European Studies at Lund University: Box 201: Phone +46 (0)46-222 88 19 SE-221 00 LUND Fax: +46 (0)46-222 32 11 Sweden E-mail: [email protected] CFE Working paper series is published by Centre for European Studies at Lund University © 2008 Anamaria Dutceac Segesten, and CFE Editor: Barbara Törnquist-Plewa 2 ABSTRACT The present paper first uses norm lifecycle theory to examine the appearance of the Holocaust as a symbolic event affecting the behavior of international actors in matters of human rights and even humanitarian intervention. Then the paper employs the literature on the political uses of history to highlight the mechanism of norm socialization and institutionalization in the case of Holocaust education in Romania. The paper concludes that norms are important ingredients in defining the identity of states in international arena and that because they play a role in determining membership in various organizations norms can directly affect state’s domestic politics. -
Slovenské Národné Stredisko Pre Ľudské Práva
SLOVAK NATIONAL CENTRE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS ALTERNATIVE REPORT on the implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination Bratislava, Slovakia, 2012 Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 3 Article 2 ...................................................................................................................................... 5 Article 3 .................................................................................................................................... 10 Article 5 .................................................................................................................................... 17 Article 7 .................................................................................................................................... 39 2 Introduction The Slovak National Centre for Human Rights (hereinafter referred to as the “Centre”) as an independent and non-profit legal entity is a specialized national institution that promotes the observance of the principle of equal treatment and develops its activities in combating discrimination. The Centre was established by the Act of the Slovak National Council No. 308/1993 Coll. on the Establishment of the Slovak National Centre for Human Rights, which became effective on 1 January 1994 (hereinafter referred to as the “Act“). At that time the Centre performed mainly tasks in the area of research and education, gathered -
Denying Genocide Or Denying Free Speech? a Case Study of the Application of Rwanda’S Genocide Denial Laws Yakaré-Oulé (Nani) Jansen
Northwestern Journal of International Human Rights Volume 12 | Issue 2 Article 3 Spring 2014 Denying Genocide or Denying Free Speech? A Case Study of the Application of Rwanda’s Genocide Denial Laws Yakaré-Oulé (Nani) Jansen Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/njihr Part of the Human Rights Law Commons, and the International Law Commons Recommended Citation Yakaré-Oulé (Nani) Jansen, Denying Genocide or Denying Free Speech? A Case Study of the Application of Rwanda’s Genocide Denial Laws, 12 Nw. J. Int'l Hum. Rts. 191 (2014). http://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/njihr/vol12/iss2/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Northwestern University School of Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Northwestern Journal of International Human Rights by an authorized administrator of Northwestern University School of Law Scholarly Commons. Vol. 12:2] Yakaré-Oulé Jansen Denying Genocide or Denying Free Speech? A Case Study of the Application of Rwanda’s Genocide Denial Laws Yakaré-Oulé (Nani) Jansen * I. INTRODUCTION ¶1 Rwanda is widely considered a poster child for post conflict development. Since the 1994 genocide, in which an estimated 800,000 people lost their lives, 1 the country has gone through a rapid process of socio-economic development. In the last 10 years, Rwanda’s GDP growth has averaged 7.4 %, nearly double the regional average. 2 Rwanda is the only country in Sub-Saharan Africa that is on track to meet its health related millennium development goals 3 and the only country in the world where women hold a majority of seats in the national legislature. -
FINAL REPORT International Commission on the Holocaust In
FINAL REPORT of the International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania Presented to Romanian President Ion Iliescu November 11, 2004 Bucharest, Romania NOTE: The English text of this Report is currently in preparation for publication. © International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania. All rights reserved. DISTORTION, NEGATIONISM, AND MINIMALIZATION OF THE HOLOCAUST IN POSTWAR ROMANIA Introduction This chapter reviews and analyzes the different forms of Holocaust distortion, denial, and minimalization in post-World War II Romania. It must be emphasized from the start that the analysis is based on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s definition of the Holocaust, which Commission members accepted as authoritative soon after the Commission was established. This definition1 does not leave room for doubt about the state-organized participation of Romania in the genocide against the Jews, since during the Second World War, Romania was among those allies and a collaborators of Nazi Germany that had a systematic plan for the persecution and annihilation of the Jewish population living on territories under their unmitigated control. In Romania’s specific case, an additional “target-population” subjected to or destined for genocide was the Romany minority. This chapter will employ an adequate conceptualization, using both updated recent studies on the Holocaust in general and new interpretations concerning this genocide in particular. Insofar as the employed conceptualization is concerned, two terminological clarifications are in order. First, “distortion” refers to attempts to use historical research on the dimensions and significance of the Holocaust either to diminish its significance or to serve political and propagandistic purposes. Although its use is not strictly confined to the Communist era, the term “distortion” is generally employed in reference to that period, during which historical research was completely subjected to controls by the Communist Party’s political censorship. -
Between the Stereotypical Images Of
On the path from the stereotypical depiction of ‘the other’ to reconciliation through the recognition of a true picture of ‘us’ History education in Europe since the 1950s through case studies of France and Germany, and Slovakia Maria Micudova 347852 [email protected] Faculty of History, Culture and Communication Drs. Jeroen Euwe Drs. Martijn Lak FOREWORD This research project did not develop easily and before the reader gets the chance to read the outcome of my Master study year at Erasmus University, I would like to thank from the heart to all without whom there would possibly be nothing to read. My biggest thank belongs to Jeroen Euwe, my thesis supervisor and coordinator of the research workshop. Thank you very much for your valuable advice, for your guidance and explanations, for your encouragement and patience, for all your help since the difficult beginnings up until this point. My big thank also belongs to Martijn Lak, a coordinator of the research workshop, and in the beginnings of the research also a co-supervisor of this research project. Thank you for all your advices, help and sometimes somewhat stricter approach which was necessary to make things move in the right direction. I would also like to thank to the EUROCLIO team, above all to Steven, my internship supervisor. Big thank also belongs to Dr. Rolf Wittenbrock, PhDr. Rainer Riemenschneider and PhDr. Rainer Bendick, who were of incredible help in obtaining my primary sources. Even though I cannot namely thank to everyone that somehow influenced me during this year, I would like to thank all the professors of all my classes since the beginning of September 2010 and also to my favorite classmates, who were always supporting me and helping me to get through the year at a foreign university. -
Eriksabofinalproject
1 TEMPTATION TO EXIST: A FEMINIST INQUIRY INTO THE FATE OF ROMANI WOMEN OF THE FORMER CZECHOSLOVAKIA By ERIK SABO Integrated Studies Project Submitted to Dr. Connie Blomgren In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts – Integrated Studies Athabasca, Alberta August, 2009 2 Table of Contents FOREWORD............................................................................................................................................... 3 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................................... 4 Analytical framework ............................................................................................................................... 6 HISTORY OF THE ROMA OF THE FORMER CZECHOSLOVAKIA: ROMA—THE PROBLEM .......................... 9 Fascism (1936‐1945): Problem: Roma People. Solution: The Final Solution (Endlosung) ....................... 9 Communism (1945‐1989): Problem: Roma People. Solution: Homo Sovieticus ..................................... 12 Towards the EU and democracy: Problem: Roma People. Solution: Ignorance ..................................... 12 EU accession: Problem: Roma People. Solution: Dear Copenhagen…Copenhagen, where are you? .... 14 STORY OF THE ROMA WOMEN: A CIRCLE OF MARGINALITY ............................................................... 18 Romani gender roles: Abuse as a tradition ............................................................................................. 19 -
Institution and Inclination in the Post-Socialist Space: Genocide As “Memory Intervention”
MISCELLANEA POSTTOTALITARIANA WRATISLAVIENSIA 6/2017 DOI: 10.19195/2353-8546.6.6 DANA DOLGHIN* University of Amsterdam (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) Institution and Inclination in the Post-Socialist Space: Genocide as “Memory Intervention” Institution and Inclination in the Post-Socialist Space: Genocide as “Memory Intervention”. This article investigates memory discourses around communism in Ukraine and Romania and the manner in which account- ability for the past has been mobilized to shape authoritative trauma based memorializations, public appropriations, and increasingly standardized manners of indexing the past. In the last decade, both countries have gone through successive attempts — through memory legislation, historical commis- sions and historiography — to include these negative historical narratives into an ideational redress in the postsocialist period. Alongside national connotations, I argue that trauma based political projects around memory have become an important site where the narrative of a “European” state is produced. In both national contexts, representations have appropriated and benefitted from more liberal-cen- ter representations of memory, which now match the pan-European paradigm of “totalitarianism” introduced by the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism passed by European Council. This article focuses however on one of the consequences of this transnational dynamics of for representing a renewed, European political space, namely the usage of and appeal to legal notions of memory, such as “genocide”, in both public discourse and historiography. Keywords: remembrance, European memory, legalism, trauma Учреждение и склонность в постсоциалистическом пространстве: геноцид как «вмешательство в память» В этой статье исследуются дискурсы памяти, сформированные вокруг коммунизма в Украине и Румы- нии и способы мобилизации ответственности за прошлое для формирования авторитетных мемориализаций на основе травм, государственных ассигнований и все более стандартизи- рованных способов индексирования прошлого. -
Reception of the Final Report of the International Commission for Investigation of the Romanian Holocaust (“Wiesel Commission”)
Mariana Hausleitner who refused military service on religious southern Ukraine, the rehabilitation of com- grounds. munism. Selected publications: Die Rumäni- sierung der Bukowina. Die Durchsetzung des Translation from the German by John Kenney nationalstaatlichen Anspruchs Großrumäni- ens 1918-1944, München 2001 [The Romania- About the author: nization of Bukovina. The enforcement of the nation-state claim of Greater Romania 1918- Mariana Hausleitner, Ph.D., is a lecturer on 1944], Munich 2001; Deutsche und Juden in the Cultural and Historical Studies depart- Bessarabien 1814-1941. Zur Minderheiterpoli- ment at the Free University of Berlin. She tik Russlands und Großrumäniens, München is currently curator of the exhibit “Order 2005. [The Germans and the Jews in Bessarabia and Crime: The Police in the Nazi State” at 1814-1941. On the minority policy of Russia the German Historical Museum in Berlin. and Greater Romania], Munich 2005. e-mail: [email protected] Reception of the Final Report of the International Commission for Investigation of the Romanian Holocaust (“Wiesel Commission”) by William Totok, Berlin he history of the scholarly and journalistic jeopardize Romania’s intended European in- Treception of the events of the years 1941 to tegration, an international commission for the 1944 is part of the history of the Romanian Ho- investigation of the Holocaust was created in locaust. The creation of an international com- the fall of 2003. One year later, acting under mission in the autumn of 2003, which investi- the chairmanship of Nobel Peace Prize winner gated the Romanian Holocaust and one year Elie Wiesel, the commission presented its final later issued its final report, was preceded by report, which was subsequently published on scores of press campaigns, in which there was the internet in both English and Romanian. -
Michael Shafir, “The Nature of Postcommunist Antisemitism in East Central Europe: Ideology’S Backdoor Return” in Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism (JCA), Vol
PROOF ONLY of Michael Shafir, “The Nature of Postcommunist Antisemitism in East Central Europe: Ideology’s Backdoor Return” in Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism (JCA), vol. 1, no. 2, Fall 2018, pp. 33-61. The final version (version of record) is available exclusively from the publishers at: http://journals.academicstudiespress.com/index.php/JCA/article/view/116 JCA 2018 DOI: 10.26613/jca/1.2.12 PROOF: The Nature of Postcommunist Antisemitism in East Central Europe: Ideology’s Backdoor Return Michael Shafir Abstract This article analyzes contemporary antisemitism and Holocaust distortion in Eastern Europe. The main argument is that Brown and Red, Nazism and Communism, respec- tively are not at all equal. In Eastern Europe, in particular, antisemitic ideology is grounded on the rehabilitation of anticommunist national “heroes.” The history of the Holo- caust is thereby distorted. Based on Maurice Halbwachs’s theory of “social frameworks,” the author shows how “competitive martyrdom,” the “Double Genocide” ideology, and “Holocaust obfuscation” are intertwined. Empirically, the paper examines these concepts in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Hungary, Serbia and Croatia, and Romania. Keywords: Double Genocide, Holocaust Distortion, East European antisemitism, Holocaust, Gulag, anticommunism, national identity INTRODUCTION everywhere subjected the Holocaust to oblivion We are currently facing a huge struggle over or, at best, to manipulation. To use Shari Cohen’s history and collective memory of the twenti- terminology,2 they indulged in “state-organized eth century. Antisemitism plays a crucial role national forgetting.” in this struggle, as we see tendencies to com- New regimes are engaged in what has pare or equate the Holocaust to the history of been termed the search for a “usable past.” As Communism.