Women’s Holocaust Narratives in the Yugoslav Jewish Almanac
Women’s Holocaust Narratives in the Yugoslav Jewish Almanac

Author(s): Žarka Svirčev
Subject(s): History, Fascism, Nazism and WW II, History of the Holocaust
Published by: Institut za filozofiju i društvenu teoriju
Keywords: Holocaust ; Jewish Almanac; Entangled Memory; Gendered Testimony; Cultural Memory
Summary/Abstract: The Jewish Almanac [Jevrejski almanah] (1954–1971) was the most significant vehicle of self-representation for the Jewish community in socialist Yugoslavia. It was a multidisciplinary and secularly oriented publication that was aimed at the broader, transnational community. One of the Almanac’s distinctive roles was commemorating and memorializing World War II. The Almanac served as a hybrid memorialization platform, intersecting diverse memory formations. The concepts or strategies of memorialization are organized by genres. In articles and essays, memorialization is consistent with the state’s official narrative. The prevailing mnemonic narrative emphasizes the antifascist struggle, the heroic discourse of the partisans’ liberation movement, and the collective suffering. In the context of Yugoslav brotherhood and unity, the memory of the victims of fascism did not acknowledge their ethnic origin. The state’s politics of remembrance did not address the Holocaust. This tendency is also noted by the authors of the Bibliography of Jewish Almanac, Biljana Albahari and Vesna Trijić pointing out that “there are few articles about the Holocaust in Europe in The Jewish Almanac. Much more common were the texts about Jews who participated as fighters in the Second World War. Memories and written biographies of national heroes were recorded [...] Of particular documentary importance are the appendices designed in imitation of collective biographies, with names, brief biographical notes, and photographs of the dead”.

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