About Us and Our Neighbours: History Textbooks in the Republic of Moldova, Romania and Ukraine

Author(s): Sergiu Musteaţă / Language(s): English

The principal research question pursued by this work is as follows: How do the Republic of Moldova, Romania, and Ukraine present one another in their history curricula and textbooks? How do the history textbooks of each of these three countries present the relationship between majorities and minorities?This book is thus focused on two main objectives: first, to generate improved understanding of the state of the discipline of history in these countries via discussion of reforms to and debates around history curricula in each country, and second, to shed light on the ways in which history textbooks in each of the three countries represent the other two and their peoples.Curriculum development and textbook production in all three countries still remain centralised. Textbooks are produced by state and private publishing houses. Most textbooks are curriculum-based and developed according to the guidelines issued by the Ministries of Education. Through their textbook publishing policy, these ministries control the content and quality of textbooks. History curricula and textbooks in all three countries have progressed, but we still encounter many problems. Among them are the following:• the content of curricula and history textbooks continues to place too much emphasis on national aspects to the detriment of the world, regional, and local dimensions of history;• it reflects the history of wars and violence instead of giving more space to periods of peaceful coexistence, cooperation and cultural communication, or of mutual enrichment between various social groups as well as between nations;• it neglects regional history and cultural and historical links with neighbouring countries;• as it stands, it causes problems in history education and the development of ethnic identity, as well as the relationship between “Us” and “Others”;• it leads to or accepts poor textbook design.The relationship between national and European history remains a closely debated topic in all three societies. Their shared reality, as evidenced by this study, is that all three countries are currently not presenting one another in any meaningful way in their history textbooks at all educational levels. In all three countries, history education and textbooks are dominated by political history and narratives of victimisation. National histories do not pay attention to their neighbours.History textbooks play an important part in the process of collective identity formation, building a relationship with the past and creating an image of the “other”. The content of textbooks determines, in many cases, students' attitudes to their neighbours. Therefore, in order to improve the situation in history education and to develop a tolerant approach to “others” in history textbooks, there is a great need for joint efforts by politicians, professionals and members of civil society in Moldova, Romania and Ukraine.

Activist Memory and Human Rights: The Commemoration of the Roma Genocide in Lithuania

Author(s): Dovilė Budrytė / Language(s): English Issue: 77/2022

This paper will focus on the intersection between the emerging memory of the Roma genocide and the human rights agenda in Lithuania. Transnational Roma genocide memory culture can be described as an activist memory. Various memory entrepreneurs fostering Roma genocide memory, especially NGOs, link remembrance to human rights (specifically, the human rights abuses experienced by the Roma communities) and the need to fight antigypsyism. Despite the rapid increase in Romani memorial practices in Europe during the last two decades and the development of activist memory regimes, similar phenomena in Lithuania so far has attracted very little scholarly attention. The paper sets out to address this gap in the literature on activist memory of the Roma genocide in Lithuania. Lithuania’s Roma community was severely affected by the Holocaust. Memorial practices focusing on the Roma genocide intensified around 2015, when, following a march by Roma activists and Holocaust survivors in Auschwitz-Birkenau, the European Parliament passed a resolution recognizing a memorial day commemorating the Roma genocide during World War II. In 2019, the Lithuanian government added the commemoration of the Roma genocide to its calendar of commemorative days. This paper will trace the development of the activist memory of the Roma genocide in Lithuania, and it will focus on the following questions: 1) What is activist memory, and what is its relationship to Holocaust memory? 2) Which actors started the creation of activist Roma genocide memory in Lithuania? Which strategies did they use? Were these strategies effective? 3) What is the relationship between the practices of the memorialization of the Roma genocide and human rights, specifically, the fight against strong societal prejudice against Roma in Lithuania? It is argued that the emerging Roma memory regime in Lithuania has found a way to coexist with the local narrative about the Jewish Holocaust. The insertion of the stories about Roma suffering into the Holocaust narrative has helped to hybridize this narrative, turning it into a story about multiple traumas. The hybridization of the Jewish Holocaust narrative was significantly affected by international actors who promoted the inclusion of the narrative about the experiences of the Roma into the Jewish Holocaust narrative. Cooperation involving the Roma and Jewish communities in the coalition to promote human rights facilitated the emergence of his hybrid Holocaust memory. / Šis straipsnis analizuoja, kaip besiformuojanti romų genocido atmintis yra susijusi su žmogaus teisių skatinimu Lietuvoje. Tarptautinė romų genocido atminties kultūra gali būti vadinama aktyvia atmintimi. Įvairūs atminties veikėjai, ypač nevyriausybinės organizacijos, besirūpinančios romų genocido atmintimi, sieja atminimą su žmogaus teisėmis (tiksliau sakant, su žmogaus teisių pažeidimais, kuriuos patiria romų bendruomenės) ir būtinybe kovoti prieš romafobiją. Nepaisant spartaus romų atminties veiklų augimo Europoje per pastaruosius du dešimtmečius ir aktyvios atminties režimų vystymosi, panašūs reiškiniai, vykstantys Lietuvoje, susilaukė labai nedaug akademinės visuomenės dėmesio. Šiuo darbu siekiama šią spragą literatūroje apie romų genocido atmintį Lietuvoje bent kiek pataisyti. Lietuvos romų bendruomenė buvo stipriai paveikta Holokausto. Atminimo procesai, susiję su romų genocidu, sustiprėjo apie 2015 metus, kai po romų aktyvistų ir žmonių, išgyvenusių Holokaustą, žygio į Aušvicą, Europos Parlamentas paskelbė rezoliuciją, skirtą romų genocidui per Antrąjį pasaulinį karą atminti. 2019 metais Lietuvos Vyriausybė įtraukė romų genocido minėjimą į atmintinų dienų sąrašą. Šiame darbe nagrinėjami tokie klausimai: 1) Kas yra aktyvi atmintis ir koks jos santykis su Holokausto atmintimi? 2) Kurie veikėjai pradėjo kurti romų genocido atmintį Lietuvoje? Kokias strategijas jie naudojo? Ar šios strategijos buvo efektyvios? 3) Koks romų genocido atminties praktikų ir žmogaus teisių santykis (tiksliau pasakius, kaip atmintis veikia kovą su itin neigiamomis visuomenės nuostatomis romų atžvilgiu Lietuvoje)? Argumentuojama, kad besiformuojantis romų atminties režimas Lietuvoje rado būdą susigyventi su vietiniu naratyvu apie žydų Holokaustą. Į Holokausto naratyvą įtraukti pasakojimai apie romų kentėjimą padėjo hibridizuoti šį naratyvą, paverčiant jį pasakojimu apie daugelį trauminių patirčių. Naratyvo apie žydų Holokaustą hibridizacijai stiprų poveikį darė tarptautiniai veikėjai, kurie skatino įtraukti romų patirtis į naratyvą apie žydų Holokaustą. Romų ir žydų bendruomenių bendradarbiavimas žmogaus teisių gynimo koalicijoje įgalino šios hibridinės Holokausto atminties susiformavimą.

Address Unknown: Reshaping the Jewish Living Space and Social Mobility in the Slovak State (1939–1945)

Author(s): Michala Lônčíková / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2020

Social mobility is a relatively common phenomenon in society; however, in the period of the Slovak State (1939–1945) it was predominantly caused by the economic and social engineering of the single ruling Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party. Anti-Semitism was made one of the main pillars of the internal state policy. Systematic pauperisation of the Jewish community gradually affected each perspective of everyday life of Jews in Slovakia, including the limitation of Jewish people’s living space. This practice led to involuntary moving out from houses and flats in designated urban zones. Subsequently, this process culminated in the Aryanization of the housing formerly owned by Jews. The main aim of this contribution is to analyse spatial and social consequences of the reshaping of the Jewish housing opportunities with special interest in the entangled social mobilities of both Jews and Gentiles, which will be mainly exemplified through selected cases from the Banská Bystrica district.

Adolescent Political Turmoil: A Review of Anti-Semitism in Interwar Romanian High Schools

Author(s): Anca Filipovici / Language(s): English Issue: 3 (19)/2018

ADORNO AND KIEFER ON THE DILEMMAS OF REPRESENTATION

Author(s): Ștefan Gaie / Language(s): English Issue: 39/2017

Adorno’s famous statement ”To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric” has aroused a series of controversies caused, as we will try to show in this paper, by being much misquoted and used out of the philosopher’s context of thinking. Beginning from a proper understanding of these words, the present study aims to get a closer look at Anselm Kiefer’s early creation in order to show that, for the philosopher and the artist, the stake is the same: questioning the post-Holocaust artistic representation.

Afektywny kicz holokaustowy – wprowadzenie

Author(s): Jacek Leociak,Marta Tomczok / Language(s): Polish Issue: 17/2021

The article addresses the issues of various types of abuse in the presentation of the Holocaust in literature, art, and music. Kitsch is both ubiquitous and extremely difficult to define, and the Holocaust kitsch should not be separated from kitsch as a general category. The question is whether it is possible to talk at all about the appropriateness/inappropriateness of presentations of the Holocaust and where to look for benchmarks, standards, or criteria. The boundaries between evident abuse and artistically justification by provocation are sometimes difficult to define, as are the boundaries between aesthetic experimentation, which is intended to deepen the cognitive value of the presentation, and a trick calculated for commercial success. The presentation of the Holocaust falls within the field of tension between the “ethical content and literary form”, as Berel Lang puts it. The authors of the article suggest looking at the Holocaust kitsch from the perspective of the category of affect, pointing to various examples of the use of narrative techniques, which generate high-intensity emotions for the public, but which highlight the author himself, his writer, his emotional state, his concern or his transgressions. The presented world of the Holocaust becomes a pretext, background or decoration for showing the “Holocaust experiences” of the writer or poet himself. This narcissist characteristic seems to be one of the most pronounced manifestations of modern Holocaust kitsch. The authors’ analyses also lead to the conclusion that Holocaust kitsch should be seen outside ethics and aesthetics as a tool for social influence and impact.

Aftereffects - The representation of the Holocaust, its universal moral implication and the trans generational transformation of the trauma based on the Israeli documentary film OY MAMA

Author(s): Liat Steir-Livny / Language(s): English Issue: 01/2017

The Holocaust has found ample expression in Israeli documentary cinema throughout the years. The case study of the paper is the documentary film Oy Mama (Noa Maiman; Orna Ben-Dor Niv, 2010). In the documentary, third generation Holocaust survivor Maiman explores the way the trauma of her 95-year-old grandmother, Fira, influenced the second and third generation, and the way it combines in the life of Fira’s Peruvian caregiver, Magna, and Magna’s 5-year-old daughter, Firita, who are about to be deported from Israel. The paper will analyze the complex combination it generates between generations, past and present, Jewish-Israelis and research, which questions the trans generational transformation of the trauma, the paper will show how Maiman claims that the Holocaust shaped the identity of the second and third generation in her family. The paper will also show how through the combination of Fira’s, Magma’s and Firita’s stories, Noa asks, not only to commemorate a familial Holocaust story, but also to enable the viewers to interpret the present through the past, hoping it will help the plea of the foreign worker.

Agency and the Holocaust: Essays in Honor of Debórah Dwork

Thomas Kühne, Mary Jane Rein (eds.) Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2020, 246 pp.

Author(s): Loredana-Andrada Iordache / Language(s): English Issue: 13/2020

Akcia Reinhardt a deportácie slovenských Židov do lublinskej oblasti v dokumentoch

Author(s): Ján Hlavinka,Michal Schvarc / Language(s): Slovak Issue: 4/2021

In 1942, the regime of Hlinka's Slovak People's Party deported more than 57,000 Jews to territory under the control of the Third Reich. Of these, 40,000 Jews were deported to the General Government´s Lublin District, where Operation Reinhardt, one of the biggest extermination operations of the Holocaust, was just beginning. Its central elements were Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka death camps. Therefore, the vast majority of Jews deported from Slovakia in 1942 fell victim to extermination Operation Reinhardt. The article presents a set of documents that characterize deportations of Slovak Jews to the Lublin District, as well as Operation Reinhardt itself.

Akcja „Reinhardt” w świetle najnowszej niemieckiej literatury przedmiotu

Author(s): Stephan Lehnstaedt / Language(s): Polish Issue: 13/2017

Akcja „Reinhardt” to niemieckim określenie maskujące, za którym kryje się wymordowanie w latach 1942–1943 co najmniej 1,8 mln Żydów w obozach zagłady w Bełżcu, Sobiborze i Treblince. Spośród Żydów skierowanych do tych obozów przeżyło mniej niż 150 osób. Dwie z nich to ocaleni z Bełżca, pozostali zaś mniej więcej po połowie przeszli przez obozy zagłady w Sobiborze i Treblince. Prawie wszyscy wyjechali po wojnie z Polski – do Izraela albo do Stanów Zjednoczonych.

Alexander Prusin (1955–2018)

Author(s): Orel Beilinson / Language(s): Polish Issue: 14/2018

Alexander Prusin przyszedł na świat w 1955 r. we Lwowie jako syn Wiktora i Witii. Po wyjeździe na Zachód obronił doktorat na Uniwersytecie w Toronto, a następnie rozpoczął pracę w Instytucie Techniki Górniczej w Nowym Meksyku, gdzie wykładał przez ostatnie 17 lat. Był wybitnym uczonym, który słynął z dogłębnych i rozległych badań nad jednym z najkrwawszych okresów w historii Europy, czyli połową XX w.

Alexandra Klei und Katrin Stoll (Hrsg.): Leerstelle(n)? Der deutsche Vernichtungskrieg 1941–1944 und die Vergegenwärtigung des Geschehens nach 1989

Author(s): Daniel Logemann / Language(s): German Issue: 4/2020

Review of: Daniel Logemann - Leerstelle(n)? Der deutsche Vernichtungskrieg 1941–1944 und die Vergegenwärtigung des Geschehens nach 1989. Hrsg. von Alexandra Klei und Katrin Stoll. Neofelis Verlag. Berlin 2019. 266 S., Ill. ISBN 978-3-95808-227-4. (€ 25,–.)

Alvin H. Rosenfeld, Kres Holokaustu

Author(s): Justyna Majewska / Language(s): Polish Issue: 12/2016

The review of: Alvin H. Rosenfeld, Kres Holokaustu, tłum. Renata Czekalska, Agnieszka Kuczkiewicz-Fraś, Kraków: Księgarnia Akademicka, 2013, 256 s.

Američtí zachránci ve stínu Nicholase Wintona

Author(s): Radovan Lovčí / Language(s): Czech Issue: 1/2022

The heroes of the book "Vzdorovali nacistům: Sharpovi a jejich válka", originally published in English as "Defying the Nazis: The Sharps’ War" (Boston, Beacon Press 2016), are the Unitarian reverend Waitstill Sharp (1902–1985) and his wife, Martha Sharp (1905–1999) of Massachusetts. Both received outstanding credit for humanitarian missions commissioned by the American Unitarians to provide asylum, on the eve of and during the Second World War, to those at risk in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and Vichy France. The author of the book is the American publicist and documentary filmmaker Artemis Jukowsky, the Sharps’ grandson. In his biography he concludes that his grandparents saved at least 125 lives and significantly helped hundreds of others at risk. Jukowsky uncovers in a popular and readable style a fascinating story that remains in the shadow of Sir Nicholas Winton’s famed rescue mission, but much remains unsaid of the post-war fate of the Sharps and the story of their private lives.

Amikor antiszemita eszmék és zsidó törvények találkoznak. Magyarország esete

Author(s): Jehuda Hartman / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 1/2018

An Immovable Property Restitution Legislation Database

ESLI'S Initiative to Bring Present and Future Meaning to the Terezin Declaration Commitments

Author(s): Kristen Nelson,Rajika L. Shah / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

The 2009 Terezin Declaration reflects the will of 47 nations to continue to enhance their efforts to right the wrongs committed against groups persecuted during World War II. These commitments are not only important with respect to bringing justice to those affected by persecution during the Holocaust, but also are important from the standpoint of transitional justice as now understood, including as a way of reducing the likelihood of future genocides or mass atrocities. The European Shoah Legacy Institute (ESLI) was established to monitor progress and advocate for the principles enshrined in the Terezin Declaration, in particular that of immovable (real) property restitution. ESLI’s latest project – the immovable property database initiative – will provide a much needed and long overdue dynamic tool for claimants, heirs, scholars, governments, NGOs – any stakeholder – to help navigate current property restitution issues by confronting the path through the past which brought us to current state of affairs.. When completed, the online database will be a user-friendly, public-access comparative repository of legislation and international and domestic case law (both past and present) from every country that has endorsed the Terezin Declaration. Using the online database to examine the often thorny and emotionally charged issue of heirless property, in particular, is emblematic of how the content can be used to drive the conversation for solutions forward and possibly give rise to intertwined policy-related questions.

AN INCLUSIVE MODEL OF MEMORY WORK IN POLAND: BRIDGE TO POLAND AS A CASE STUDY

Author(s): Leora Tec,Jolanta Ambrosewicz-Jacobs / Language(s): English Issue: 70/2021

The memory of World War II in Poland is sometimes plagued by an us/them mentality or a competition of suffering. This paper will attempt to answer several questions: how are non-Jews contributing to Holocaust memorialization in Poland today? How can recognizing this contribution serve to heal rifts and change deep-seated stereotypes? We will present a case study, based on participant observation, of Bridge To Poland, which emphasizes memory work conducted by non-Jewish Poles. Bridge To Poland’s latest project in conjunction with the Grodzka Gate-NN Theatre Centre, The Neshoma Project: Conversations with Poles Rescuing Jewish Memory, highlights those whom Tec calls “Rescuers of Memory”. Exposing people to their work, Tec believes, results in breaking down negative stereotypes about non-Jewish Poles and building bridges between people.

An Overview of the Law on Rehabilitation From the Point of View of Holocaust Victims and Other Victims of Nazi Terror

Author(s): Radovan Lazić / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2015

Law on Property Restitution and Compensation stipulates that its provisions apply to confiscated property provided that the owner of that property is rehabilitated. In this case, the request for the return of property must be accompanied by a court decision on the rehabilitation or proof that the application for rehabilitation was submitted. The first Serbian Rehabilitation Act was passed in 2006. According to the Law on Rehabilitation, from December 2011, persons who have been deprived of a right (to life, to freedom of movement, to property...) because of political activism, ideological or religious beliefs and national origin before the entry into force of this Act can be rehabilitated. However, the question is how the provisions of this law are applied to the victims of the Holocaust and other victims of Nazi terror. Does this law take into account the victims, does it provide any satisfaction to the victims of the Holocaust and other victims of the occupiers and various quisling formations? What consequences the implementation of the Rehabilitation Act may have on the property rights of persons who, in the course of World War II, acquired property that was previously forcibly taken away (factual and legal violence) from their rightful owners? What consequences the implementation of this law may have on the rights of the victims of the Holocaust and their heirs and what consequences the implementation of this law may have on the rights of the victims of the Holocaust who have no heirs?

Analiza polskiego i austriackiego przekazu medialnego wokół 72. rocznicy wyzwolenia byłego niemieckiego obozu koncentracyjnego KL Gusen

Author(s): Anna Przybyll / Language(s): Polish Issue: 26/2018

This article concerns the media coverage of the 72nd anniversary of the liberation of the German Nazi concentration camp KL Gusen in 2017. It was attended by the representatives of the Polish and Austrian authorities, i.e. the Secretary of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Jan Dziedziczak, the Undersecretary of State in the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage Magdalena Gawin and – for the fi rst time – by Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen. The revival of remembrance about KL Gusen has become one of the priorities in the politics of memory pursued by the current Polish government. For Poles, the Gusen camp is of special signifi cance because it was built with the intent of destroying the Polish intelligentsia. The Austrian government sees Polish efforts to commemorate their victims in the context of nationalist and protectionist tendencies in Poland. A just fi ght for historical truth is overshadowed by the mutual lack of understanding in the countries, which both suffered under German occupation between 1939 and 1945.

Anatomia donosu ks. Stanisława Trzeciaka na ks. Tadeusza Pudra

Author(s): Jan Grabowski,Dariusz Libionka / Language(s): Polish Issue: 13/2017

The materials presented in the article include documentation of the German Special Court (Sondergericht) in Warsaw proceedings against Tadeusz Puder, a Catholic priest of Jewish origin arrested by the Gestapo in the spring of 1941. His imprisonment was a consequence of a denunciation made by Fr. Stanisław Trzeciak, one of the leading Polish anti-Semites. Sentenced to several months in prison, Puder managed to escape from the prison hospital in autumn 1942 and survive in hiding. He died a few days after the liberation of Warsaw in a car accident. Despite the cooperation with the German security police, Trzeciak was among the victims of mass executions during the Warsaw Uprising in August 1944. The introduction of the article presents a broader context of Trzeciak’s anti-Semitic activity and the reasons for his personal hatred for Puder, as well as unknown details of collaborative attempts in the first months of German occupation.