Growing In The Shadow Of Antifascism: Remembering The Holocaust In State-Socialist Eastern Europe

Description

Reined into the service of the Cold War confrontation, antifascist ideology overshadowed the narrative about the Holocaust in the communist states of Eastern Europe. This led to the Western notion that in the Soviet Bloc there was a systematic suppression of the memory of the mass murder of European Jews. Going beyond disputing the mistaken opposition between “communist falsification” of history and the “repressed authentic” interpretation of the Jewish catastrophe, this work presents and analyzes the ways as the Holocaust was conceptualized in the Soviet-ruled parts of Europe. The authors provide various interpretations of the relationship between antifascism and Holocaust memory in the communist countries, arguing that the predominance of an antifascist agenda and the acknowledgment of the Jewish catastrophe were far from mutually exclusive. The interactions included acts of negotiation, cross-referencing, and borrowing. Detailed case studies describe how both individuals and institutions were able to use antifascism as a framework to test and widen the boundaries for discussion of the Nazi genocide. The studies build on the new historiography of communism, focusing on everyday life and individual agency, revealing the formation of a great variety of concrete, local memory practices. Cover Front Matter Half Title Title Page Copyrigth Page Table of Contents Figures Acronyms and Abbreviations Acknowledgments Introduction Part One: Historiography Chapter 1: Edition of Documents from the Ringelblum Archive Political Censorship Editorial Changes as Internal Censorship? Conclusion Chapter 2: “A Great Civic and Scientific Duty of Our Historiography” Miroslav Kárný Holocaust Witness and Scholar Class Struggle and Imperialism, or the Persecution and Murder of the Jews? Conclusion Chapter 3: The Conflicted Identities of Helmut Eschwege Conclusion Part Two: Sites of Memory Chapter 4: Parallel Memories? Mutually Exclusive Memories? Screaming Silences? Memorialization of World War IIin Public Spaces Marginalized Memory? Martyr Memorial Servicesin the Jewish Community Conclusions Chapter 5: Holocaust Narrative(s) in Soviet Lithuania Agency and Power: Creating the Ninth Fort Museum Creation of a Commemorative Idiom Medialization of the Ninth Fort as a Site of Memoryin Soviet Lithuania: Conclusions Post Scriptum: Changes in the Memorialization in the 1980s Chapter 6: Memory Incarnate: Jewish Sites in Communist Polandand the Perception of the Shoah “The Ground is Burning Beneath My Feet” New Legal Framework Such Profanation is Unacceptable Open Door to the Abyss A Turning Point The Final Years Part Three: Artistic Representations Chapter 7: Writing a Soviet Holocaust Novel Literature and the Holocaust in the Soviet Union:The Example of Rybakov Heavy Sand: Finding Facts and Making Use of Soviet Realist Templates Heavy Sand: The Soviet Holocaust Narrative and Its Discontents Conclusion: Remembering and Forgetting the Holocaust in the USSR Chapter 8: Commissioned Memory: Official Representationsof the Holocaust in Hungarian Art Introduction: Official Memory Politics and State Funded Projects The Hungarian Memorial in Mauthausen Victors vs. Victims: A Non-Commissioned Hungarian Plan Victors vs. Victims: The Yugoslav Memorial 1965, Auschwitz: The Permanent Hungarian Exhibition 1965, Hungarian National Gallery Conclusion Chapter 9: Towards a Shared Memory? The Hungarian Holocaustin Mass-Market Socialist Literature, 1956–1970* The Kádárist Cultural Landscape Jews and Non-Jews: Responsibility and Guilt Narrative Strategies Fate and Memory Official Criticism and the Issue of Reception Conclusions: Towards a Shared Holocaust Memory? Part Four: Media and Public Debate Chapter 10: Distrusting the Parks: Heinz Knobloch’s Journalismand the Memory of the Shoah in the GDR Heinz Knobloch Herr Moses in Berlin Meine liebste Mathilde Der beherzte Reviervorsteher Conclusion Chapter 11: “We Pledge, as if It Was the Highest Sanctum, to Preservethe Memory”: Sovetish Heymland, Facets ofHolocaust Commemoration in the Soviet Union and theCold War Yiddish in Postwar Soviet Union Towards a Straightening of the Lopsided Historical Record A Monument over Babyn Yar Commemoration Activities in Popervāle, Latvia Commemoration Activities in Medzhybizh, Ukraine Conclusion Chapter 12: “The Jewish Diaries . . . Undergo One Edition after theOther”: Early Polish Holocaust Documentation, EastGerman Antifascism, and the Emergence of HolocaustMemory in Socialism The Jewish Historical Institute and Antifascist Literature in the GDR The Three Books The Censors’ Verdict on the Polish Books The Intended Role of the Books in the East GermanPress Debate and their Effect The Perception of the Books Diffusion of Knowledge into Artistic, Documentary, and Educational Projects Conclusion Conclusions Making Sense of the Holocaust in Socialist EasternEurope Discursive Frameworks for Addressing the Holocaust Eastern Europe in its Diversity Making Sense of the Holocaust with Agency Demarginalizing Eastern Europe List of Contributors Index Back cover