This book provides an analysis of the forms and functions of Holocaust memorialisation in human rights museums by asking about the impact of global memory politics on how we imagine the present and the future. It compares three human rights museums and their respective emplotment of the Holocaust and seeks to illuminate how, in this specific setting, memory politics simultaneously function as future politics because they delineate a normative ideal of the citizen-subject, its set of values and aspirations for the future: that of the historically aware human rights advocate. More than an ethical practice, engaging with the Holocaust is used as a means of asserting one’s standing on "the right side of history"; the memorialisation of the Holocaust has thus become a means of governmentality, a way of governing contemporary citizen-subjects. The linking of public memory of the Holocaust with the human rights project is often presented as highly beneficial for all members of what is often called the "global community". Yet this book argues that this specific constellation of memory also has the ability to function as an exercise of power, and thus runs the risk of reinforcing structural oppression. With its novel theoretical approach this book not only contributes to Memory Studies but also connects Holocaust memory to Studies of Global Governmentality and the debate on decolonising memory politics.

In May 1933, a young man named Rudolf Schwab fled Nazi-occupied Germany. His departure allegedly came at the insistence of a close friend who later joined the Party. Schwab eventually arrived in South Africa, one of the few countries left where Jews could seek refuge, and years later, resumed a relationship in letters with the Nazi who in many ways saved his life. From Things Lost: Forgotten Letters and the Legacy of the Holocaust is a story of displacement, survival, and an unlikely friendship in the wake of the Holocaust via an extraordinary collection of letters discovered in a forgotten trunk. Only a handful of extended Schwab family members were alive in the war's aftermath. Dispersed across five continents, their lives mirrored those of countless refugees who landed in the most unlikely places. Over years in exile, a web of communication became an alternative world for these refugees, a place where they could remember what they had lost and rebuild their identities anew. Among the cast of characters that historian Shirli Gilbert came to know through the letters, one name that appeared again and again was Karl Kipfer. He was someone with whom Rudolf clearly got on exceedingly well-there was lots of joking, familiarity, and sentimental reminiscing. ""That was Grandpa's best friend growing up,"" Rudolf's grandson explained to Gilbert; ""He was a Nazi and was the one who encouraged Rudolf to leave Germany. . . . He also later helped him to recover the family's property."" Gilbert takes readers on a journey through a family's personal history wherein we learn about a cynical Karl who attempts to make amends for his ""undemocratic past,"" and a version of Rudolf who spends hours aloof at his Johannesburg writing desk, dressed in his Sunday finest, holding together the fragile threads of his existence. The Schwab family's story brings us closer to grasping the complex choices and motivations that-even in extreme situations, or perhaps because of them-make us human. In a world of devastation, the letters in From Things Lost act as a surrogate for the gravestones that did not exist and funerals that were never held. Readers of personal accounts of the Holocaust will be swept away by this intimate story.

In this revised edition of A Short History of the Spanish Civil War, Julian Casanova tells the gripping story of the Spanish Civil War. Written in elegant and accessible prose, the book charts the most significant events and battles alongside the main players in the tragedy. Casanova provides answers to some of the pressing questions (such as the roots and extent of anticlerical violence) that have been asked in the 70 years that have passed since the painful defeat of the Second Republic. Now with a revised introduction, Casanova offers an overview of recent historiographical shifts; not least the wielding of the conflict to political ends in certain strands of contemporary historiography towards an alarming neo- Francoist revisionism. It is the ideal introduction to the Spanish Civil War.

Born into poverty in Russian Poland in 1911, Zosa Szajkowski (Shy-KOV-ski) was a self-made man who managed to make a life for himself as an intellectual, first as a journalist in 1930s Paris, and then, after a harrowing escape to New York in 1941, as a scholar. Although he never taught at a university or even earned a PhD, Szajkowski became one of the world's foremost experts on the history of the Jews in modern France, publishing in Yiddish, English, and Hebrew. His work opened up new ways of thinking about Jewish emancipation, economic and social modernization, and the rise of modern anti-Semitism. But beneath Szajkowski's scholarly success lay a shameful secret. In the aftermath of the Holocaust, the scholar stole tens of thousands of archival documents related to French Jewish history from public archives and private synagogue collections in France and moved them, illicitly, to New York. There, he used them as the basis for his pathbreaking articles. Eventually, he sold them, piecemeal, to American and Israeli research libraries, where they still remain today. Why did this respectable historian become an archive thief? And why did librarians in the United States and Israel buy these materials from him, turning a blind eye to the signs of ownership they bore? These are the questions that motivate this gripping tale. Throughout, it is clear that all involved-perpetrator, victims, and buyers-saw what Szajkowski was doing through the prism of the Holocaust. The buyers shared a desire to save these precious remnants of the European Jewish past, left behind on a continent where six million Jews had just been killed by the Nazis and their collaborators. The scholars who read Szajkowski's studies, based largely on the documents he had stolen, saw the treasures as offering an unparalleled window into the history that led to that catastrophe. And the Jewish caretakers of many of the institutions Szajkowski robbed in France saw the losses as a sign of their difficulties reconstructing their community after the Holocaust, when the balance of power in the Jewish world was shifting away from Europe to new centers in America and Israel. Based on painstaking research, Lisa Leff reconstructs Szajkowski's story in all its ambiguity by taking us backstage at the archives, revealing the powerful ideological, economic and scientific forces that made Holocaust-era Jewish scholars care more deeply than ever before about preserving the remnants of their past.

Czestochowa was the home of the eighth largest Jewish community in Poland. After 1765, when there were 75 Jews in Czestochowa, the community grew steadily. With emancipation in 1862, many Jews migrated to Czestochowa and contributed to its industrial and commercial growth. In 1935, there were 27,162 Jews out of a total population of 127,504. When the Nazis deported Jews to Czestochowa to work in its munition factories, the Jewish population exceeded 50,000. Almost all perished in Treblinka. Anti-Jewish feeling was spurred on by the Church and Fascist groups that organized boycotts of Jewish stores and incited pogroms intended to drive the Jews out of the city. The Jewish labor movement fought unemployment and poor working conditions. Impoverished families were aided by community charitable funds. Jewish philanthropists established the non-sectarian "Jewish Hospital," progressive schools, two gymnasia and the "New Synagogue." During election seasons, the entire Jewish political spectrum, from the socialist parties to the ultra-Orthodox, competed in the self-governing body, and in the Municipal Council. By 1901, stylishly dressed men and women mixed in the streets with poor religious Jews in their traditional garb. A popular press, libraries, theaters, cinema, sporting events and youth movements gave Czestochowa Jews a variety of cultural choices to suit their politics, artistic taste, and modes of leisure. Public life transformed a dreary factory town into one of the most colorful and celebrated Jewish communities in Poland before and after the First World War.

The Israeli-West-German Reparations Agreement from September 10, 1952, is considered an event of paramount importance in the history of the State of Israel due to its dramatic and far-reaching implications in multiple spheres. Moreover, this agreement marked a breakthrough in international law. It recognized the right of one country to claim compensation from another, in the name of a people scattered around the globe, and following events that took place at a time when neither polity existed. Post-Holocaust Reckonings studies this historical chapter based on an enormous variety of sources, some of which are revealed here for the first time, and it is the first comprehensive research work available on the subject. Researchers, lecturers, teachers, students, journalists, politicians and laymen who are curious about history and political science might take a great interest in this book. The subject of indemnification for damages resulting from war or war crimes would also be of interest to societies and communities worldwide who have experienced or are currently experiencing human and material tragedies due to national, ethnic or religious conflicts.