Pub Date : 2021-10-02DOI: 10.1080/25785648.2021.1981727
T. Kaplan
ABSTRACT During the 1930s and early 1940s, members of the Jewish community, converts, and men and women of partial Jewish heritage across German-controlled Europe wrote tens of thousands of petitions. As tools to redress grievances and request support, these petitions ranged from rushed appeals for exemptions from deportations to elaborate protest entreaties to fascist officials. Too readily dismissed by scholars as ‘sham possibilities,’ petitioning practices and the question of their ‘success’ were multi-layered phenomena. Even petitioners who ultimately failed could use the often lengthy petitioning process to buy time and prepare other responses such as going into hiding. This rereading of entreaties submitted in Central Europe and occupied France reveals the widespread existence of trans-European networks that connected families and communities, created unique transnational spaces, and profoundly shaped reactions during the genocide. As part of integrated histories, these transnational petitions demonstrate the need to eschew oversimplified binaries of resistance versus collaboration in favor of more complex taxonomies.
{"title":"Reinterpreting Jewish Petitioning Practices During the Shoah: Contestation, Transnational Space, and Survival","authors":"T. Kaplan","doi":"10.1080/25785648.2021.1981727","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/25785648.2021.1981727","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT During the 1930s and early 1940s, members of the Jewish community, converts, and men and women of partial Jewish heritage across German-controlled Europe wrote tens of thousands of petitions. As tools to redress grievances and request support, these petitions ranged from rushed appeals for exemptions from deportations to elaborate protest entreaties to fascist officials. Too readily dismissed by scholars as ‘sham possibilities,’ petitioning practices and the question of their ‘success’ were multi-layered phenomena. Even petitioners who ultimately failed could use the often lengthy petitioning process to buy time and prepare other responses such as going into hiding. This rereading of entreaties submitted in Central Europe and occupied France reveals the widespread existence of trans-European networks that connected families and communities, created unique transnational spaces, and profoundly shaped reactions during the genocide. As part of integrated histories, these transnational petitions demonstrate the need to eschew oversimplified binaries of resistance versus collaboration in favor of more complex taxonomies.","PeriodicalId":422357,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Holocaust Research","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125332607","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-03DOI: 10.1080/25785648.2021.1949929
A. Bărbulescu
ABSTRACT This article explores the ghettos in Transnistria from a social perspective with the goal of reconstructing the responses of ghettoized Jews to the limitations imposed by the Romanian authorities. The hypothesis I propose argues that survival was a matter of recategorizing interaction in order to make the social reality more predictable. The approach is both historical and sociological, with emphasis put on Ervin Goffman’s analytical interactionist frame and his theorization of the total institution. While the article considers official documents, in order to analyze the victims as social actors invested with agency, oral sources are given preeminence.
{"title":"The Underlife of Transnistria’s Ghettos: Recategorizing and Reframing Social Interaction","authors":"A. Bărbulescu","doi":"10.1080/25785648.2021.1949929","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/25785648.2021.1949929","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article explores the ghettos in Transnistria from a social perspective with the goal of reconstructing the responses of ghettoized Jews to the limitations imposed by the Romanian authorities. The hypothesis I propose argues that survival was a matter of recategorizing interaction in order to make the social reality more predictable. The approach is both historical and sociological, with emphasis put on Ervin Goffman’s analytical interactionist frame and his theorization of the total institution. While the article considers official documents, in order to analyze the victims as social actors invested with agency, oral sources are given preeminence.","PeriodicalId":422357,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Holocaust Research","volume":"89 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121200947","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-03DOI: 10.1080/25785648.2021.1945189
Benjamin Grilj
ABSTRACT Although in the focus of antisemitic and National Socialistic propaganda, our level of knowledge about the ‘Ostjuden’ (Eastern Jews) relates almost to the time before World War I, it was precisely the war that drove Galician and Bukovinian Jews from their homeland and reshaped this group. Because of the collapsed bureaucracy, increasing antisemitism, and mutual mistrust, it is difficult to identify this group within the city: ordinary registration forms were often not completed. This contribution defines the Viennese ‘Ostjuden’ on basic of the birth registers of the Jewish Community. The given information about the parents provides a more comprehensive picture of origin, social status, place of residence, and so on. Most of them – neither the refugees, nor those who had left the successor states of the former Austrian monarchy – were denied Austrian citizenship and were not seeking to return to their ‘homelands.’ The status of designated statelessness posed an existential risk for those affected after the National Socialists came to power. Therefore, this article explores the extent of the effect of the Nazis’ murder machinery and whether they managed to escape.
{"title":"Multigenerational Experiences of Flight: The Case of Jewish Refugees from Galicia and Bukovina in Vienna and Lower Austria, 1918–1941","authors":"Benjamin Grilj","doi":"10.1080/25785648.2021.1945189","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/25785648.2021.1945189","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Although in the focus of antisemitic and National Socialistic propaganda, our level of knowledge about the ‘Ostjuden’ (Eastern Jews) relates almost to the time before World War I, it was precisely the war that drove Galician and Bukovinian Jews from their homeland and reshaped this group. Because of the collapsed bureaucracy, increasing antisemitism, and mutual mistrust, it is difficult to identify this group within the city: ordinary registration forms were often not completed. This contribution defines the Viennese ‘Ostjuden’ on basic of the birth registers of the Jewish Community. The given information about the parents provides a more comprehensive picture of origin, social status, place of residence, and so on. Most of them – neither the refugees, nor those who had left the successor states of the former Austrian monarchy – were denied Austrian citizenship and were not seeking to return to their ‘homelands.’ The status of designated statelessness posed an existential risk for those affected after the National Socialists came to power. Therefore, this article explores the extent of the effect of the Nazis’ murder machinery and whether they managed to escape.","PeriodicalId":422357,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Holocaust Research","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114647591","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-03DOI: 10.1080/25785648.2021.1943160
Denisa Nešťáková
ABSTRACT As a client state of Nazi Germany, the Slovak Republic was granted a number of benefits. One such alleged benefit was the allowing of correspondence between the deported Slovak Jews and those who remained in Slovakia. This article investigates the highly censored letters sent by Slovak Jews shortly after their deportation, in which they manage to code essential information on the destruction of Slovak Jewry. By examining these letters, which supposedly present the ‘good life’ of the Slovak Jews in their ‘new home,’ this article explores which information was ‘officially’ provided to Jews in Slovakia under the dictates of wartime propaganda and through the control of the enforced local Jewish Council—the Jewish Center—and what knowledge was actually being gathered. Such analysis, which specifically concerns the letters sent from Auschwitz-Birkenau, reveals the knowledge of the remaining Slovak Jewish community following the deportations to camps and ghettos in occupied Poland in 1942. By analyzing these letters alongside additional sources, such as postwar testimonies, the article sheds light on the impact these letters had the reactions and decisions made by the Jews who remained in Slovakia.
{"title":"Greetings from Auschwitz: Smuggled Information about the Destruction of Slovak Jewry","authors":"Denisa Nešťáková","doi":"10.1080/25785648.2021.1943160","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/25785648.2021.1943160","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT As a client state of Nazi Germany, the Slovak Republic was granted a number of benefits. One such alleged benefit was the allowing of correspondence between the deported Slovak Jews and those who remained in Slovakia. This article investigates the highly censored letters sent by Slovak Jews shortly after their deportation, in which they manage to code essential information on the destruction of Slovak Jewry. By examining these letters, which supposedly present the ‘good life’ of the Slovak Jews in their ‘new home,’ this article explores which information was ‘officially’ provided to Jews in Slovakia under the dictates of wartime propaganda and through the control of the enforced local Jewish Council—the Jewish Center—and what knowledge was actually being gathered. Such analysis, which specifically concerns the letters sent from Auschwitz-Birkenau, reveals the knowledge of the remaining Slovak Jewish community following the deportations to camps and ghettos in occupied Poland in 1942. By analyzing these letters alongside additional sources, such as postwar testimonies, the article sheds light on the impact these letters had the reactions and decisions made by the Jews who remained in Slovakia.","PeriodicalId":422357,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Holocaust Research","volume":"45 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121556833","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-03DOI: 10.1080/25785648.2021.1940767
Lola Serraf
ABSTRACT This article examines Jewish-American author Shalom Auslander’s 2012 novel Hope: A Tragedy, whose main character Solomon Kugel is ‘sick of the Holocaust’ and dreams of moving to a place ‘unburdened by the past, unencumbered by history.’ Desperately trying to escape the images of concentration camps imposed on him since he was a child, Kugel finds himself trapped in memories of the Shoah, especially when he finds a malodorant, angry, and ‘terribly old’ Anne Frank living in his attic. The following article focuses on the ethics of forgetting explored in the novel, in relation to Björn Krondorfer’s 2008 article ‘Is Forgetting Reprehensible? Holocaust Remembrance and the Task of Oblivion,’ which argues that ‘deliberate performative practices of forgetting might benefit communities affected by a genocidal past.’ I reflect on how particular forms of oblivion (or lack thereof) are explored in Auslander’s text, as some characters are paralyzed by their inability to forget and others destroyed by the guilt of wanting to forget. I argue that this text illustrates several contemporary Jewish writers’ desire to break away from the trauma of the Shoah, highlighting the detrimental effects of an overwhelming, painful past on younger generations.
{"title":"Anne Frank Still in the Attic: Ethics of Forgetting in Shalom Auslander’s Hope: A Tragedy","authors":"Lola Serraf","doi":"10.1080/25785648.2021.1940767","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/25785648.2021.1940767","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article examines Jewish-American author Shalom Auslander’s 2012 novel Hope: A Tragedy, whose main character Solomon Kugel is ‘sick of the Holocaust’ and dreams of moving to a place ‘unburdened by the past, unencumbered by history.’ Desperately trying to escape the images of concentration camps imposed on him since he was a child, Kugel finds himself trapped in memories of the Shoah, especially when he finds a malodorant, angry, and ‘terribly old’ Anne Frank living in his attic. The following article focuses on the ethics of forgetting explored in the novel, in relation to Björn Krondorfer’s 2008 article ‘Is Forgetting Reprehensible? Holocaust Remembrance and the Task of Oblivion,’ which argues that ‘deliberate performative practices of forgetting might benefit communities affected by a genocidal past.’ I reflect on how particular forms of oblivion (or lack thereof) are explored in Auslander’s text, as some characters are paralyzed by their inability to forget and others destroyed by the guilt of wanting to forget. I argue that this text illustrates several contemporary Jewish writers’ desire to break away from the trauma of the Shoah, highlighting the detrimental effects of an overwhelming, painful past on younger generations.","PeriodicalId":422357,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Holocaust Research","volume":"35 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130475844","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-04-03DOI: 10.1080/25785648.2021.1899512
Robert Deam Tobin
ABSTRACT According to the French writer Alain de Benoist, Julius Evola's writings ground all major strands of radical-, new-, far- and alt-right thinking in Europe and beyond. His appealingly evocative and romantic vision of the world seems to offer an alternative to the liberal globalization that has left so many dissatisfied. Evola (1898-1974) rose to prominence with the publication of Revolt against the Modern World in 1934, which secured his position as a major intellectual in Mussolini's fascist Italy and attracted the attention of thinkers in Germany associated with the Conservative Revolution. After the Second World War, philosophers such as Russia's Aleksandr Dugin and France's Guillaume Faye adopted Evola's critiques of liberalism (reminiscent of Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Ernst Jünger, and Carl Schmitt). Nowadays, Italy's CasaPound and Hungary's Jobbik party rely on him for their ideology; far-right presses in Hungary (Arktos), Germany (Antaios), and Russia (Velesova sloboda) publish him enthusiastically. The Austrian Identitarian Martin Sellner tweets praise about him, the American Alt-Rightist Richard Spencer promotes him, while former Trump adviser Bannon champions him. Evola frames his analysis of race as a celebration of difference; because Evola argues racial difference is cultural and spiritual, rather than purely biological, his followers claim they are not crudely racist. Simultaneously, Evola's fanciful speculations about sun-loving Hyperboreans from the North and their Aryan descendents allows for side-trips to Atlantis, neopaganism, eastern religion and New Age thought that give his writings a countercultural edge. Similarly, his views on gender (inspired by Otto Weininger and Hans Blüher) emphasize difference between the sexes, with ascetic and warrior identities for men, while women fall into the roles of lover or mother, which has a barely suppressed erotic allure for many readers, including gay ones. In an era primed for a critique of liberal globalization, the Evolian vision of differences offers a seductive alternative.
{"title":"The Evolian Imagination: Gender, Race, and Class from Fascism to the New Right","authors":"Robert Deam Tobin","doi":"10.1080/25785648.2021.1899512","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/25785648.2021.1899512","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT According to the French writer Alain de Benoist, Julius Evola's writings ground all major strands of radical-, new-, far- and alt-right thinking in Europe and beyond. His appealingly evocative and romantic vision of the world seems to offer an alternative to the liberal globalization that has left so many dissatisfied. Evola (1898-1974) rose to prominence with the publication of Revolt against the Modern World in 1934, which secured his position as a major intellectual in Mussolini's fascist Italy and attracted the attention of thinkers in Germany associated with the Conservative Revolution. After the Second World War, philosophers such as Russia's Aleksandr Dugin and France's Guillaume Faye adopted Evola's critiques of liberalism (reminiscent of Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Ernst Jünger, and Carl Schmitt). Nowadays, Italy's CasaPound and Hungary's Jobbik party rely on him for their ideology; far-right presses in Hungary (Arktos), Germany (Antaios), and Russia (Velesova sloboda) publish him enthusiastically. The Austrian Identitarian Martin Sellner tweets praise about him, the American Alt-Rightist Richard Spencer promotes him, while former Trump adviser Bannon champions him. Evola frames his analysis of race as a celebration of difference; because Evola argues racial difference is cultural and spiritual, rather than purely biological, his followers claim they are not crudely racist. Simultaneously, Evola's fanciful speculations about sun-loving Hyperboreans from the North and their Aryan descendents allows for side-trips to Atlantis, neopaganism, eastern religion and New Age thought that give his writings a countercultural edge. Similarly, his views on gender (inspired by Otto Weininger and Hans Blüher) emphasize difference between the sexes, with ascetic and warrior identities for men, while women fall into the roles of lover or mother, which has a barely suppressed erotic allure for many readers, including gay ones. In an era primed for a critique of liberal globalization, the Evolian vision of differences offers a seductive alternative.","PeriodicalId":422357,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Holocaust Research","volume":"3 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123866293","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-04-03DOI: 10.1080/25785648.2021.1901403
Manuela Achilles, Hannah Winnick
ABSTRACT The ‘Unite the Right’ rally on 11 and 12 August 2017, shook the city of Charlottesville, Virginia, and spurred a national conversation about the long history of racial oppression in the United States and the future of its democracy. This article reviews the Transatlantic Partnership on Memory, Responsibility and Transformation, a collaboration between the Heinrich Böll Foundation North America and the Center for German Studies at the University of Virginia. Launched in response to the violent rally on the university's grounds and in downtown Charlottesville, the partnership adds a transnational dimension to antiracist pedagogy and Holocaust education. Through interdisciplinary projects, it challenges students to translate classroom learnings into hands-on practice of participatory democratic citizenship in local communities. The partnership's aim is to situate the study of memory and history in contemporary discussions of racial justice and responsible citizenship and to animate students to find urgency and relevance in the specific lessons of the Holocaust and in broader, transnational legacies of systemic oppressions. Starting with a discussion of the initiative's origins in the aftermath of far-right violence, this article offers some of the lessons learned through the partnership, as well as recommendations for others who might wish to explore similar pedagogical practices and programing.
2017年8月11日至12日的“团结右翼”(Unite The Right)集会震撼了弗吉尼亚州夏洛茨维尔市，引发了一场关于美国悠久的种族压迫历史和民主未来的全国性讨论。这篇文章回顾了关于记忆、责任和转变的跨大西洋伙伴关系，这是海因里希Böll北美基金会和弗吉尼亚大学德国研究中心之间的合作。这一伙伴关系是为了应对发生在该大学校园和夏洛茨维尔市中心的暴力集会而发起的，为反种族主义教学法和大屠杀教育增添了跨国维度。通过跨学科项目，它挑战学生将课堂学习转化为当地社区参与性民主公民的实践。该伙伴关系的目的是将记忆和历史研究置于当代关于种族正义和负责任的公民身份的讨论中，并激励学生从大屠杀的具体教训和更广泛的系统性压迫的跨国遗产中找到紧迫性和相关性。本文首先讨论了该倡议在极右翼暴力事件之后的起源，并提供了通过该伙伴关系获得的一些经验教训，以及对其他可能希望探索类似教学实践和规划的人的建议。
{"title":"Memory, Responsibility, and Transformation: Antiracist Pedagogy, Holocaust Education, and Community Outreach in Transatlantic Perspective","authors":"Manuela Achilles, Hannah Winnick","doi":"10.1080/25785648.2021.1901403","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/25785648.2021.1901403","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The ‘Unite the Right’ rally on 11 and 12 August 2017, shook the city of Charlottesville, Virginia, and spurred a national conversation about the long history of racial oppression in the United States and the future of its democracy. This article reviews the Transatlantic Partnership on Memory, Responsibility and Transformation, a collaboration between the Heinrich Böll Foundation North America and the Center for German Studies at the University of Virginia. Launched in response to the violent rally on the university's grounds and in downtown Charlottesville, the partnership adds a transnational dimension to antiracist pedagogy and Holocaust education. Through interdisciplinary projects, it challenges students to translate classroom learnings into hands-on practice of participatory democratic citizenship in local communities. The partnership's aim is to situate the study of memory and history in contemporary discussions of racial justice and responsible citizenship and to animate students to find urgency and relevance in the specific lessons of the Holocaust and in broader, transnational legacies of systemic oppressions. Starting with a discussion of the initiative's origins in the aftermath of far-right violence, this article offers some of the lessons learned through the partnership, as well as recommendations for others who might wish to explore similar pedagogical practices and programing.","PeriodicalId":422357,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Holocaust Research","volume":"56 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127703118","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-04-03DOI: 10.1080/25785648.2021.1901496
M. Kahn
ABSTRACT This article takes a transatlantic approach to the history of the Far Right by examining the American influence on German neo-Nazism from the 1970s through the 1990s. The main argument reveals a disturbing yet hitherto unacknowledged reality, which has implications for the way we understand the global Far Right today: the strengthening of Germany’s neo-Nazi movements would have been unthinkable without US involvement. In the decades after Hitler, when East and West Germans struggled to suppress Nazism, American neo-Nazis exploited the US right to free speech and the increasing ease of global communications to circumvent restrictive German censorship laws and ship propaganda across the Atlantic Ocean. In so doing, they contributed to the expansion of a worldwide network of Holocaust deniers and galvanized a new, younger generation of neo-Nazis on both sides of the Berlin Wall who turned their hatred not only against Jews but also against the immigrants and asylum seekers who arrived in the context of postwar mass migration to Europe. In exposing these transatlantic far-right entanglements, the article makes several interventions into the study of German history, Holocaust memory, and antisemitism. First, it speaks to recent historiographical approaches that aim to analyze the role of the long taboo concepts of ‘race’ and ‘racism’ in German efforts to come to terms with the Nazi past. Second, it reconsiders the triumphalist Cold War narrative of America’s influence on post-Hitler Germany; not only does it highlight the failure of US denazification efforts to eradicate the racist mentalities of the Third Reich, but it also reveals that American actors played a crucial role in re-Nazifying Germany. Finally, it encourages historians to examine the politics of racism, xenophobia, and Holocaust denial beyond nation-state borders as a means to better understand the resurgence of global far-right extremism today.
{"title":"The American Influence on German Neo-Nazism: An Entangled History of Hate, 1970s–1990s","authors":"M. Kahn","doi":"10.1080/25785648.2021.1901496","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/25785648.2021.1901496","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article takes a transatlantic approach to the history of the Far Right by examining the American influence on German neo-Nazism from the 1970s through the 1990s. The main argument reveals a disturbing yet hitherto unacknowledged reality, which has implications for the way we understand the global Far Right today: the strengthening of Germany’s neo-Nazi movements would have been unthinkable without US involvement. In the decades after Hitler, when East and West Germans struggled to suppress Nazism, American neo-Nazis exploited the US right to free speech and the increasing ease of global communications to circumvent restrictive German censorship laws and ship propaganda across the Atlantic Ocean. In so doing, they contributed to the expansion of a worldwide network of Holocaust deniers and galvanized a new, younger generation of neo-Nazis on both sides of the Berlin Wall who turned their hatred not only against Jews but also against the immigrants and asylum seekers who arrived in the context of postwar mass migration to Europe. In exposing these transatlantic far-right entanglements, the article makes several interventions into the study of German history, Holocaust memory, and antisemitism. First, it speaks to recent historiographical approaches that aim to analyze the role of the long taboo concepts of ‘race’ and ‘racism’ in German efforts to come to terms with the Nazi past. Second, it reconsiders the triumphalist Cold War narrative of America’s influence on post-Hitler Germany; not only does it highlight the failure of US denazification efforts to eradicate the racist mentalities of the Third Reich, but it also reveals that American actors played a crucial role in re-Nazifying Germany. Finally, it encourages historians to examine the politics of racism, xenophobia, and Holocaust denial beyond nation-state borders as a means to better understand the resurgence of global far-right extremism today.","PeriodicalId":422357,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Holocaust Research","volume":"123 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127047249","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-04-03DOI: 10.1080/25785648.2021.1911133
Atina Grossmann
ABSTRACT Written and revised in stages, from the “BC,” pre-COVID “Age of Trump” era to an uncertain current transitional moment in February 2021, the article considers questions about shifting approaches to research, teaching, and public engagement in Holocaust Studies and the history of National Socialism. It argues that, precisely in order to deepen and focus understanding of the Nazi legacy in the “Age of Trump,” especially among diverse politically attuned students, we can no longer think the Holocaust outside of a more comparative history of genocide, war, displacement, and extreme violence across time and place. The article suggests two specific arenas of inquiry that seem especially suitable for this ongoing rethinking and repositioning of Nazism and the Holocaust in comparative studies of trauma and resistance. First, a focus on expanding the chronological and geographical parameters to highlight the global dimensions of flight and rescue, especially in non-Western colonial or semi-colonial regions. Secondly, recent scholarship on gender—a “Holocaust #MeToo” moment—revealing still mostly untold stories about sexual violence and coercion as well as instrumental sexuality, desire, and even love during the Holocaust, opens up questions that can both integrate and differentiate histories of Nazism and the Holocaust in comparative studies and contemporary experience.
{"title":"Holocaust Studies in Our Age of Catastrophe","authors":"Atina Grossmann","doi":"10.1080/25785648.2021.1911133","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/25785648.2021.1911133","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Written and revised in stages, from the “BC,” pre-COVID “Age of Trump” era to an uncertain current transitional moment in February 2021, the article considers questions about shifting approaches to research, teaching, and public engagement in Holocaust Studies and the history of National Socialism. It argues that, precisely in order to deepen and focus understanding of the Nazi legacy in the “Age of Trump,” especially among diverse politically attuned students, we can no longer think the Holocaust outside of a more comparative history of genocide, war, displacement, and extreme violence across time and place. The article suggests two specific arenas of inquiry that seem especially suitable for this ongoing rethinking and repositioning of Nazism and the Holocaust in comparative studies of trauma and resistance. First, a focus on expanding the chronological and geographical parameters to highlight the global dimensions of flight and rescue, especially in non-Western colonial or semi-colonial regions. Secondly, recent scholarship on gender—a “Holocaust #MeToo” moment—revealing still mostly untold stories about sexual violence and coercion as well as instrumental sexuality, desire, and even love during the Holocaust, opens up questions that can both integrate and differentiate histories of Nazism and the Holocaust in comparative studies and contemporary experience.","PeriodicalId":422357,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of Holocaust Research","volume":"49 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124872597","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-04-03DOI: 10.1080/25785648.2021.1899511
D. Myers
ABSTRACT Antisemitism, which has been called the “longest hatred,” appeared to be on a sharp decline in the United States in the early years of the new century. Over the past five years, antisemitism has surged to life, registering a 100% increase in reports of antisemitic incidents in the United States between 20016—18. That period coincides, and not by accident, with the presidency of Donald Trump, who declared himself to be a friend of Jews and a strong supporter of the state of Israel, has lapsed into stereotypical representations of Jews as beholden to money and loyal only to their own. In this way, the boundary between philosemitism and antisemitism became hard to trace. It is especially noteworthy that Trump arrogated to himself the right to define Jews, a move that calls to mind the infamous declaration of the mayor of Vienna in the late nineteenth century, Karl Lueger: “Who is a Jew—that I determine.” This paper explores the naming of Jews not only in the context of Trump's declarations, but also policy formulations such as his Executive Order on antisemitism and the IHRA definition.
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