The Palgrave Handbook of Britain and the Holocaust

Description

This handbook is the most comprehensive and up-to-date single volume on the history and memory of the Holocaust in Britain. It traces the complex relationship between Britain and the destruction of Europe’s Jews, from societal and political responses to persecution in the 1930s, through formal reactions to war and genocide, to works of representation and remembrance in post-war Britain. Through this process the handbook not only updates existing historiography of Britain and the Holocaust; it also adds new dimensions to our understanding by exploring the constant interface and interplay of history and memory. The chapters bring together internationally renowned academics and talented younger scholars. Collectively, they examine a raft of themes and issues concerning the actions of contemporaries to the Holocaust, and the responses of those who came ‘after’. At a time when the Holocaust-related activity in Britain proceeds apace, the contributors to this handbook highlight the importance of rooting what we know and understand about Britain and the Holocaust in historical actuality. This, the volume suggests, is the only way to respond meaningfully to the challenges posed by the Holocaust and ensure that the memory of it has purpose. : Preface Untitled : Contents : List of Contributors : List of Figures 1 Britain and the Holocaust: An Introduction Britain and the Holocaust The ‘Holocaust’ in Britain Reading This Volume Conclusion Part I Political Contexts 2 British Interwar Fascism and Anti-fascism Proto-fascists and Parafascists The Emergence of the British Union of Fascists The BUF and Antisemitism: Challenging a Consensus The East End Campaign and Anti-fascism New Directions 3 The Agenda of British Refugee Policy, 1933–48 Context and Priorities Pre-war Policy Wartime Policy The Response to the Holocaust Post-war Policy Conclusion Part II Refugees in Britain: 1933–39 4 The Immigration and Reception of Jewish Refugees from the Third Reich The Preconditions for Emigration to Britain Emigration to Britain from the Third Reich, 1933–38 Emigration to Britain from the Third Reich, 1938–39 5 ‘I Remember Their Labels Round Their Necks’ Britain and the Kindertransport Part III War and Holocaust 6 Knowledge in Britain of the Holocaust During the Second World War Chronology of Knowledge The Structured and Regular Arrival of Information The Role of Information Gatekeepers Explaining Response Conclusion 7 The Unlikely Tale of a Hero Named Coward: Uncomfortable Truths and the Necessary War Coward the Hero The Evolution of Coward’s Story Coward at the I.G. Farben Trial The Password Is Courage Coward in Context Conclusion 8 Belsen and the British The Military at Belsen Medical Care After Liberation ‘the Search in Belsen’ Belsen as a Death Camp Part IV Punishment and Memory 9 ‘Where, Exactly, Is Auschwitz?’ British Confrontation with the Holocaust Through the Medium of the 1945 ‘Belsen’ Trial Initial Encounters with Belsen Justice Delayed Investigating Belsen The Trial The Belsen Verdicts Conclusion 10 Campaigning for Justice: Anti-Fascist Campaigners, Nazi-Era Collaborator War Criminals and Britain’s Failure to Prosecute, 1945–1999 Nuremberg Trials and European Volunteer Workers The Holocaust and Shifting Public Consciousness Anti-Fascism and the War Crimes Campaign of the 1980s Prosecuting the Accused Conclusions: A Failure of Memory 11 Selective Histories: Britain, the Empire and the Holocaust Selective History in British Memory European Continuities of Violence Extreme Violence in the British Empire Concluding Remarks Part V Cultural Representations 12 Beyond the Cesspit Beneath: The BBC and the Holocaust 13 British Cinema and the Holocaust Belsen and the Liberated Camps From the Postwar Period to the 1970s: Traces, Fragments and Co-financing Into the Twenty-First Century Conclusion 14 British Holocaust Literature War-Crimes Trials The Kindertransport The Occupation of the Channel Islands Testimony Poetry The Novel Conclusion Part VI The Holocaust in British Society 15 A Defining Decade? Swastikas, Eichmann and Arson in 1960s Britain The “Swastika Epidemic” A Far Right, or Another Conspiracy? Eichmann Synagogue Arson Conclusion: A Defining Decade? 16 The Legacy of the Holocaust, Jewish History and British Antisemitism: The ‘Jew Murderer’ and the Murder of the Jews 17 ‘I Belong Here. I Know I Ought Never to Have Come Back, Because It Has Proved I’ve Never Been Away’: Kitty Hart-Moxon’s Documentaries of Return The Evolution of Kitty Hart-Moxon’s Holocaust Testimony Kitty Hart-Moxon’s Documentaries of Return Part VII Public Pedagogy 18 Holocaust Education in England: Concerns, Controversies and Challenges Teachers’ and Students’ Knowledge and Understanding of the Holocaust Accounting for Limitations in Teachers’ and Students’ Knowledge and Understanding Implications for Commemoration, Memory and Education Final Thoughts: Securing the History and Memory of the Holocaust 19 Holocaust Representation in the Imperial War Museum, 2000–2020 The Imperial War Museum, the IWMHE, and Discourses of National Identity Narrating the Holocaust in the IWMHE Conclusion 20 Negotiating Memory and Agency: David Cesarani and the Imperial War Museum’s Holocaust Exhibition (2000) A Public Appeal: Bringing the Holocaust Home ‘Man’s Inhumanity to Man’ The Exhibition’s Opening Foyer: Defining the Holocaust The Upper Floor: Tinkering at the Edges The Lower Floor: The War Versus the Holocaust Towards a Conclusion Part VIII Institutional Memory 21 From Celebrating Diversity to British Values: The Changing Face of Holocaust Memorial Day in Britain Establishment and Early Years HMD and Other Genocides Changing the Agenda? Conflict, Genocide and British Identity From Active Citizenship to British Values 2010-Present Conclusion 22 Visions of Permanence, Realities of Instability: The Prime Minister’s Holocaust Commission and the United Kingdom Holocaust Memorial Foundation A Brief History of the Project to Date One: Between the International and National Two: Between the Unique and the Permeable Three: Between Jewish and Non-Jewish Meaning Four: Between the Memorial/Learning Centre and Its Surroundings Conclusion Part IX Postscript 23 Britishness, Brexit, and the Holocaust ‘New’ Labour, ‘New Britishness’ The Holocaust and Britishness in Labour’s Second and Third Terms Institutionalising British Values and Commissioning Holocaust Memory Brexit, Identity and Democracy Britishness, the Holocaust, and ‘Democracy’ Coda Index