scholarly journals The Resilience of the Nation Sate:Cosmopolitanism, Holocaust Memory and German Identity

2011 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 38-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Welch ◽  
Ruth Wittlinger
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Collective Memory ◽  
Theoretical Terms ◽  
Holocaust Memory ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
German Identity ◽  
Recent Trends ◽  
Berlin Republic

The aim of this paper is to offer a critique of the proposal of “methodological cosmopolitanism“ in theoretical terms and to substantiate this critique by providing an account of the dynamics of collective memory and identity in postunification Germany. In the first part, we look at the arguments about methodological cosmopolitanism and their derivative, the idea of cosmopolitan memory, illustrated by the case of Holocaust memory. In the second part we look at the case of Germany: firstly at its postwar experience of the attempted construction of “postnational“ identity, and then at more recent trends, contemporaneous with the Berlin Republic, towards a “normalization“ of national identity in Germany. The Holocaust plays a crucial, but different, role in each phase, we suggest. In the conclusion we return to more general themes, asking what the German case tells us about the cosmopolitanization thesis more generally.

scholarly journals Is it OK to laugh about it yet? Hitler Rants YouTube parodies in Hebrew

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liat Steir-Livny
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Defence Mechanism ◽  
German Film ◽  
Holocaust Memory ◽  
Cultural Field ◽  
Current Affairs ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Do So

The Holocaust was and remains a central trauma in Israel’s collective memory. For many years, the perception was that a humorous approach to the Holocaust might threaten the sanctity of its memory. Official agents of the Holocaust memory continue to believe in this approach, but since the 1990s, a new unofficial path of memory began taking shape in tandem with it. It is an alternative and subversive path that seeks to remember – but differently. In the last decade, YouTube has become a major cultural field including new humorous representations and images of the Holocaust. The article analyses a virtual phenomenon – “Hitler Rants” (or “Hitler Reacts”) parodies in Hebrew. These are internet memes in which surfers take a scene from the German film Downfall (Oliver Hirschbiegel 2004), showing Hitler ranting at his staff as the end of WWII approaches, and they add parodic subtitles in which Hitler rants about completely different things – current affairs and pesky little details. The incompatibilities between the visuals, the German screaming, and the subtitles turn Hitler into a ludicrous individual. The article objects to the notion that views the parodies as “cheapening” the Holocaust, and rather claims that they underscore humour’s role as a defence mechanism. Israelis, who live in a society in which the Holocaust memory is intensive and creates constant anxiety, seek to lessen reactions of tension and anxiety, even for a few minutes, and they do so through humour.

scholarly journals The Collective Memory of the Holocaust Among Mountain Jews in Modern Israel: Sderot (Case Study)

2020 ◽  
pp. 151-183
Author(s):  
Mateusz Majman
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Jewish Community ◽  
Intergenerational Transmission ◽  
Doctoral Dissertation ◽  
German Occupation ◽  
Holocaust Memory ◽  
Anthropological Study ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Access To Knowledge

This paper discusses the preliminary findings of a historical, sociological, and anthropological study of the Mountain Jewish community currently living in the Israeli city of Sderot. It is part of a broader study being conducted in Israel for the purpose of my doctoral dissertation. Its aim is to explore what Marianne Hirsch refers to as "the generation of post-memory" among members of the target group by examining their access to knowledge, the memory of trauma, and its intergenerational transmission among the Post-Soviet aliyah generation. The study focuses on the evolution of attitudes among this group, as well as the growth and consolidation of awareness about the Shoah in contemporary Israel. The work examines the transmission of Holocaust memory from generation to generation and the influence of both independent and dependent factors on its course. A distinction is made between people whose ancestors were direct victims and survivors and those whose families managed to escape the sphere of the German occupation.

The Mastered Past? Collective Memory Trends in Germany since Unification

2010 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Langenbacher
Keyword(s):  
Collective Memory ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Collective Memories ◽  
The Past ◽  
Memory Work ◽  
Holocaust Memory ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Second Period

The Federal Republic of Germany—both before and after 1989—has been influenced deeply by collective memories of the Nazi period and the Holocaust, a seemingly "unmasterable past." In a first phase after unification, memory trends, which had their origin in the mid 1980s, continued, but a second period, beginning around the 1999 move of the capital back to Berlin, however, witnessed the erosion of this older trend and the delayed rise of new memory dynamics. Substantively, there have been three vectors of memory concerning Nazi crimes, German suffering, and the period of division, especially regarding the German Democratic Republic. In this article, I outline the major collective memory dynamics and debates, first from a qualitative and then from a more quantitative perspective where I analyze the holdings of the German National Library. I conclude that an intense period of memory work characterized the postunification years, but the peak of concern was reached several years ago and the German future will be much less beholden to the past. Given inevitable normalizing trends and the unintended consequences of the hegemony of Holocaust memory, Germany's difficult historical legacy increasingly appears to be disappearing or even mastered.

Grandparents Reveal Their Secrets: A New Holocaust Narrative for the Young ‘Third Generation’ in Israel

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yael Darr
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
First Generation ◽  
Third Generation ◽  
Master Narrative ◽  
Safe Distance ◽  
Domestic Sphere ◽  
Holocaust Memory ◽  
Very Young Children ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
New Type

Since the 1990s, a new type of Holocaust story has been emerging in Israeli children's literature. This new narrative is directed towards very young children, from preschool to the first years of elementary school, and its official goal is to instil in them an authentic ‘first Holocaust memory’. This essay presents the literary characteristics of this new Holocaust narrative for children and its master narrative. It brings into light a new profile of both writers and readers. The writers were young children during the Holocaust, and first chose to tell their stories from the safe distance of three generations. The readers are their grand-children and their grand-children's peers, who are assigned an essential role as listeners. These generational roles – the roles of a First Generation of writers and of a Third Generation of readers – are intrinsically familial ones. As such, they mark a significant change in the profile of yet another important figure in the Israeli intergenerational Holocaust discourse, the agent of the Holocaust story for children. Due to the new literary initiatives, the task of providing young children with a ‘first Holocaust memory’ is transferred from the educational authority, where it used to reside, to the domestic sphere.

Daniella Doron, Jewish Youth and Identity in Postwar France: Rebuilding Family and Nation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2015. xv + 309 pp.

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Indiana University ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The Future ◽  
Jewish Youth ◽  
Jews In France

This chapter reviews the book Jewish Youth and Identity in Postwar France: Rebuilding Family and Nation (2015), by Daniella Doron. Jewish Youth and Identity in Postwar France examines how the French Jews shifted from immediate relief and rehabilitation activities following the Holocaust to longer-term efforts aimed at establishing communal stability and unity. Doron highlights the important role played by Jewish youth in these efforts, arguing that they can serve as a lens through which to study larger concerns such as the future of Jews in France, the reconstruction of families, and ideas about national identity in the reestablished republic. Doron shows that there were competing visions for reconstruction and that hope for the future was often complicated by anxiety and an underlying sense of crisis.

scholarly journals On Becoming a Non-Jewish Holocaust Writer: Yann Martel’s Beatrice and Virgil

Humanities ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
Rachel F. Brenner
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Jewish Identity ◽  
Personal Life ◽  
Holocaust Memory ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The World ◽  
Family Level ◽  
History Of ◽  
Religious Origins

To appraise Martel’s non-Jewish perspective of Holocaust thematic, it is important to assess it in the context of the Jewish relations with the Holocaust. Even though the Jewish claim to the uniqueness of the Holocaust has been disputed since the end of the war especially in Eastern Europe, the Jewish response determined to a large extent the reception of the disaster on the global scene. On a family level, the children of survivors have identified themselves as the legitimate heirs of the unknowable experience of their parents. On a collective level, the decree of Jewish annihilation constructed a Jewish identity that imposed an obligation to keep the Holocaust memory in the consciousness of the world. Martel proposes to supersede the history of the Holocaust with a story which would downplay the Jewish filiation with the Holocaust, elicit an affiliative response to the event of the non-Jewish writer and consequently integrate it into the memory of humanity at large. However, the Holocaust theme of Beatrice and Virgil refuses to assimilate within the general memory of humanity; rather, the consciousness of the event, which pervades the post-Holocaust world, insists on its constant presence. The omnipresence of the Holocaust blurs the distinctions between the filiative (Jewish) and affiliative (non-Jewish) attitudes toward the Jewish tragedy, gripping the writer in its transcendent horror. Disregarding his ethnic or religious origins, the Holocaust takes over the writer’s personal life and determines his story.

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