Memory
and Amnesia
The Holocaust in Germany
Memory and Amnesia
The Holocaust in Germany
Editors: Gilad Margalit
& Yfaat Weiss
(In Hebrew)
by Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House Ltd.
2005
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This collection of articles
is being published on the sixtieth anniversary of the
end of World War II and the defeat of the Nazis, as
the last members of the generation of murderers and
victims are dying out. Now the Holocaust is turning
from a living memory into a historical episode. The
book examines contemporary questions primarily related
to how Germans cope with the Holocaust and how the topic
is represented in the German public debate, collective
memory, and culture.
The book, written by culture, society and history researchers
from Israel, Europe and the United States, reveals the
ways in which Germans deal with the annihilation of
the Jews since 1945 as an unresolved tension between
the moral and political necessity to remember and the
desire to forget and make others forget. This tension
undoubtedly has an impact on Germany’s image as
a country and society, but especially in the globalization
era, it has repercussions for the way in which the memory
of the Holocaust is shaped beyond its borders as well.
The Holocaust’s place in German culture has increased
in recent decades, as compared with the 1950s and 1960s,
and is reflected in the fact that the public is delving
more into the topic and holding more commemoration events.
In contrast, the public has also been increasingly examining
the fate of the Germans during World War II –
an endeavor that presents them as victims of Nazism
and the victorious allied forces. Presenting the German
people during the Third Reich as a victim constitutes
a sometimes conscious effort to grant the Germans an
identical status to that of the Jewish Holocaust victims
in the public conscience and memory, thereby obscuring
the uniqueness of the breakdown of civilization at Auschwitz,
and easing the burden of guilt and embarrassment born
by generations of Germans.
The book Memory and Amnesia:
The Holocaust in Germany provides the Israeli
reader with a first-time glimpse into the views of some
of the most eminent historians, culture researchers,
film researchers, sociologists and social psychologists
who deal with this subject in Israel and abroad.
Presentations of the Publication
September
5, 2005
Dr. Yfaat Weiss and Gilad
Margalit (editors)
Memory and Amnesia: The Holocaust in Germany
Participants: Dr. Yfaat Weiss, Haifa University, Dr.
Gilad Margalit, Haifa University, Prof. Yehuda Shenhav,
Tel Aviv University and The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute,
Dr. Ilana Hamerman, Writer, Translator and Editor, Prof.
Moshe Zimmermann, Hebrew University
Location:
The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, Jabotinski 34,
Jerusalem
Hebrew
Progam: Invitations and Details
May 1,
2005
Dr. Yfaat Weiss and Gilad Margalit
(editors)
Memory and Amnesia: The Holocaust in Germany
Participants: Dr. Yfaat Weiss, Haifa University, Dr.
Gilad Margalit, Haifa University, Dr. Galili Shachar,
Hebrew University
Moderator: Prof. Jacob Barnai, Haifa University
Location: University of Haifa
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