UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM (WASHINGTON, D.C.)

Author(s):  
Mariya M. Sirotinskaya ◽  

The article is aimed at examining how the United States Memori- al Museum in Washington, D.C., preserves the memory of the Holocaust, what educational technologies are recommended for teachers. Transmission of the Holocaust memory is still very important, as even nowadays attempts are made to deny the fact of systematic persecution and destruction of Jews or underrate its scale. The museum communicates, in the historical context, traditional nar- rative – Hitler’s rise to power, Nazi Jewish policy. Emphasis is put on German ideology and propaganda. Great attention is paid to the historical sources, not only official ones, – to the diaries, letters, memoirs, photographs, interviews with the camp prisoners who have survived, as well as to the artifacts, audio- and video materials. The online exhibition “Americans and the Holocaust” reveals events in Germany as seen through the lens of different U.S. periodi- cals. Concrete recommendations are made to the educators – to avoid simple answers to complex questions and the comparison of suffering, to show that the Holocaust was not inevitable, to take into consideration an age-appropriate approach, etc. The author shares the views of the researchers who come to the conclusion: the reconstruction of the Holocaust in the museum determines our perception of the past and, therefore, deepens our understanding of the present.

The article describes visitors’ interpretation and understanding of the narrative about the Holocaust in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Visitors comments were the material for the analysis, used methodology was discourse analysis. Different discourses were singled out in visitors’ comments. Differences between visitors’ comments given in different years were ascertained. Age differences and differences among narratives of various groups of the Museum visitors were shown. It can be concluded that the Museum fulfills various functions. Besides being a place of commemoration, it accomplishes its educational function and serves as a source of information about the Holocaust.


2018 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 77
Author(s):  
Allan Figueroa Deck

SUMMARY: This article explores the way in which the event of Medellín as well as the document have played a significant part in the unfolding of pastoral and social ministries with and for Hispanic/Latinos in the United States over the past fifty years. The reception in the United States of Medellín in the wider context of the follow-up to the Second Vatican Council has been wide and deep in terms of several developments outlined here. Faith-based social ministries in Hispanic/Latino communities in the form of grass root community organizations in the tradition of Saul Alinsky found inspiration in Medellin’s option for the poor and pastoral de conjunto. Many other examples of Medellín’s impact are placed in the wider historical context of the past fifty years, the half century in which Hispanics/Latinos emerged as the majority of U.S. Catholics under the age of 35.RESUMO: Este artigo investiga a forma pela qual tanto o evento como o documento de Medellín tiveram papel significativo na evolução dos ministérios pastorais e sociais da população de origem latino-americana dos Estados Unidos nos últimos cinquenta anos. A recepção de Medellín nos Estados Unidos, dentro do contexto mais amplo que se seguiu ao Concílio Vaticano II, foi ampla e profunda, e é aqui delineada em seus muitos desdobramentos. Naquelas comunidades de origem latino-americana, na forma de organizações comunitárias de base conforme a tra­dição de Saul Alinsky, os ministérios sociais de cunho confessional foram influen­ciados pela opção pelos pobres e pela pastoral de conjunto lançadas por Medellín. Vários outros exemplos do impacto causado por Medellín são aqui situados no seu contexto histórico mais amplo da última metade de século, período no qual a população de origem latino-americana despontou como majoritária entre todos os católicos norte-americanos na faixa etária até 35 anos.


Author(s):  
Jason Lustig

A Time to Gather: Archives and the Control of Jewish Culture examines Jewish archives in Germany, the United States, and Israel/Palestine and argues that historical records took on potent value in modern Jewish life as both sources of history and anchors of memory, precisely because archives presented one way of transmitting Jewish culture and history from one generation to another. Creating archives was one means for Jews to take control of their history, especially after the Holocaust, when efforts at archive restitution removed looted archives from the hands of perpetrators. Such efforts also raised complex questions of who could actually “own” this history. This book contends that twentieth-century Jewish archival efforts served as a proxy for wide-ranging struggles over the meaning and control of Jewish culture: whether in Israel’s claims to be a successor to European Jewry, the reality of American Jewry’s rising prominence, or the question of the continued vitality of Jewish life in Germany after the Holocaust, gathering archives was a means to assert dominance over Jewish culture by making claims of ties to the past and constituting a kind of “birth certificate” or legitimization of communal life. A Time to Gather presents archive making as a metaphor with the dispersion and gathering of documents falling in the context of the Jews’ long diasporic history. In the end, a rising urgency of archival memory in Jewish life and the importance of history’s traces meant archives were powerful but contested symbols of control of the past, present, and future.


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