The Emigrants (1992)

W.G. Sebald ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 57-71
Author(s):  
Uwe Schütte
Keyword(s):  
Forced Migration ◽  
Collective Responsibility ◽  
Modern Life ◽  
Survivor Syndrome ◽  
Repressed Memories ◽  
The Holocaust

In this chapter, Schütte analyses the work that transformed Sebald’s career. The Emigrants is a collection of four stories which reflect on the suffering of the victims of Nazi terror. They explore the tragic phenomenon of ‘survivor syndrome’, where victims repress the burden of escaping persecution before being compelled to end their lives. Two of the narratives, Dr Henry Selwyn and Paul Bereyter, end in forms of redemptive suicide as the characters are troubled by long-repressed memories and feelings of collective responsibility for the Holocaust. Reflecting on the title, Schütte argues that Sebald, thinly cloaked as the narrator, believed the loss of one’s homeland as a result of forced migration to be a paradigmatic experience of modern life.

Traumatic Hand-Me-Downs: The Holocaust, Where Does it End?

2000 ◽  
Vol 81 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mayer Waxman
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder ◽  
Traumatic Stress ◽  
Maladaptive Behavior ◽  
Clinical Group ◽  
Children Of Holocaust Survivors ◽  
Post Traumatic Stress ◽  
Survivor Syndrome ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Post Traumatic

The author looks at children of Holocaust survivors as a distinct clinical group. These patients often display symptoms resembling those found in concentration-camp-survivor syndrome. Common symptoms include depression, anxiety, maladaptive behavior, and symptoms of personality disorder and even post traumatic stress disorder. The author reviews theories explaining the phenomenon and discusses treatment implications for both mental-health professionals and for clergy.

Resistance and Repetition: The Holocaust in the Art, Propaganda, and Political Discourse of Vietnam War Protests

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-132
Author(s):  
Perry Johansson
Keyword(s):  
Vietnam War ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Social Democratic Party ◽  
Contemporary History ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Repressed Memories ◽  
Trauma Memory ◽  
War Criminals ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
History Of

The Western European protest movement against the American War in Vietnam stands out as something unique in contemporary history. Here finally, after all the senseless horrors of the twentieth century, reason speaks, demanding an end to Western atrocities against the poor South. But in the rosy fog of humanistic idealism and youthful revolution lies the unanswered question, why did this and not any other conflicts, before or after, render such an intense, widespread reaction? Taking Sweden as a case in point, this article employs the concepts of resistance, trauma, memory, and repetition to explore why the Vietnam movement came into being just as the buried history of the Holocaust resurfaced in a series of well-publicized trials of Nazi war criminals. It suggests that the protests of the radical young Leftists against American “imperialism” and “genocide” were informed by repressed memories of the Holocaust. The Swedish anti-war protests had unique and far-reaching consequences. The ruling Social Democratic Party, in order not to lose these younger Left wing voters to Communism, also engaged actively against the Vietnam War. And, somewhat baffling for a political party often criticized for close ties to Nazi Germany during WWII, its messaging used the same rhetoric as the Far Left, echoing Nazi anti-Semitic propaganda.

Journeys from the Abyss

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Kushner
Keyword(s):  
Forced Migration ◽  
History And Memory ◽  
Holocaust Studies ◽  
Heritage Sites ◽  
Spheres Of Influence ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Jewish Refugee ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Performance ◽  
And Migration

This book explores Jewish refugee movements before, during and after the Holocaust, placing them in a longer history of forced migration from the 1880s to the present. It does not deny that there were particular issues facing Jews escaping from Nazism, but it emphasises that there are deeper trends that shed light on responses to and the experiences of these refugees and other forced migrants from war, poverty, genocide and ethnic cleansing. It argues that those interested in Holocaust studies and migration studies have much to learn from each other. This study focuses on three particular types of refugee movement – women, children and ‘illegal’ boat migrants. Whilst there is focus on British spheres of influence, the scope is global including Europe, Africa, the Middle East, the Americas, South Asia and Australasia. The approach is historical but incorporates many different disciplines including geography, anthropology, cultural and literary studies and politics. State as well as popular responses are integrated and the auto/biographical practice of the refugees themselves are highlighted throughout this book. Films, novels, museums, heritage sites and memorials are incorporated in this study alongside more traditional sources allowing exploration of history and memory. Many neglected refugee movements are covered and themes such as gender, childhood, place, space, legality, the politics of naming, and performance add to its richness.

scholarly journals Braunschweig: A Historiography of Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katelyn McGirr
Keyword(s):  
Collective Identity ◽  
Collective Responsibility ◽  
Collective Guilt ◽  
National Socialist ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
The Holocaust

Reviewed through the theoretical lens of the Intentionalist and Functionalist perspectives, this historiography essay discusses ordinary Germans' reactions to the National Socialist regime, the prevalence of German anti-Semitism, the legitimacy of collective responsibility and collective guilt, and how memory and historical approaches to the discourses of the Holocaust influenced German collective identity.

Commemorating Failure: Unsuccessful Rescue of Jews in German Film and Literature, 1945–1960*

2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 96-112
Author(s):  
Kobi Kabalek
Keyword(s):  
Collective Responsibility ◽  
German Population ◽  
German Film ◽  
Moral Transformation ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Moral Debate ◽  
Nazi Persecution ◽  
The Common ◽  
Film And Literature

Abstract Scholars have so far interpreted postwar depictions of Germans saving Jews from Nazi persecution mainly as apologetic references that allowed Germans to avoid addressing problematic aspects of their history. Yet although such portrayals appear in many postwar German accounts, depictions of successful rescues of Jews are relatively rare in literary and filmic works produced between 1945 and the early 1960s. This article argues that in presenting failed rescue of Jews, several German authors aimed to contribute to the re-education and moral transformation of the German population. The article’s first part shows that narratives of failed rescue were considered particularly useful for arousing Germans’ empathy with the Nazis’ Jewish victims. The article’s second part examines those works that went further and tailored stories of unsuccessful rescue to criticize Germans for not doing more to resist the regime. Although these works presented Germans as victims, as was common in many contemporaneous depictions, it would be misleading to view them merely as apologetic accounts. Rather, the widespread reluctance to commemorate the persecution of Jews urged several authors to retain the common image of Germans as victims in order to avoid alienating their audience. At the same time, using narratives of failed rescue, these writers and filmmakers explored new ways to allow Germans to speak about the Holocaust and reflect on their conduct. Attempts to both arouse a moral debate and avoid directly speaking about Germans’ collective responsibility might seem irreconcilable from today’s perspective, but not for Germans of the 1940s and 1950s.

Introduction: Migration and the Holocaust

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Kushner
Keyword(s):  
Forced Migration ◽  
The Self ◽  
Space And Place ◽  
Migration Studies ◽  
Jewish Refugees ◽  
The Holocaust

The Introduction places the study in wider historiographical, theoretical and methodological context. It explores approaches to Jewish refugees from Nazism as well as refugee and forced migration studies in general and how the two rarely connect because of the self-contained nature of the former and the ahistorical tendency of the former. The memory of refugee movements is outlined as is the concept of the journey and concepts such as naming, the concept of illegality, performativity, space and place which inform the study as a whole. It also highlights the importance of incorporating the voices of refugees in the movements, many of them totally neglected to date, covered in this study.

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