The Holocaust is often invoked as a benchmark for talking about human rights abuses from slavery and apartheid to colonialism, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. Western educators and politicians draw seemingly obvious lessons of tolerance and anti-racism from the Nazi past, and their work rests on the implicit assumption that Holocaust education and commemoration will expose the dangers of prejudice and promote peaceful coexistence. Holocaust Memory and Racism in the Postwar World, edited by Shirli Gilbert and Avril Alba, challenges the notion that there is an unproblematic connection between Holocaust memory and the discourse of anti-racism. Through diverse case studies, this volume historicizes how the Holocaust has shaped engagement with racism from the 1940s until the present, demonstrating that contemporary assumptions are neither obvious nor inevitable. Holocaust Memory and Racism in the Postwar World is divided into four sections. The first section focuses on encounters between Nazism and racism during and immediately after World War II, demonstrating not only that racist discourses and politics persisted in the postwar period, but also, perhaps more importantly, that few people identified links with Nazi racism. The second section explores Jewish motivations for participating in anti-racist activism, and the varying memories of the Holocaust that informed their work. The third section historicizes the manifold ways in which the Holocaust has been conceptualized in literary settings, exploring efforts to connect the Holocaust and racism in geographically, culturally, and temporally diverse settings. The final section brings the volume into the present, focusing on contemporary political causes for which the Holocaust provides a benchmark for racial equality and justice. Together, the contributions delineate the complex history of Holocaust memory, recognize its contingency, and provide a foundation from which to evaluate its moral legitimacy and political and social effectiveness. Holocaust Memory and Racism in the Postwar World is intended for students and scholars of Holocaust and genocide studies, professionals working in museums and heritage organizations, and anyone interested in building on their knowledge of the Holocaust and the discourse of racism.

The Holocaust is often invoked as a benchmark for talking about human rights abuses from slavery and apartheid to colonialism, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. Western educators and politicians draw seemingly obvious lessons of tolerance and anti-racism from the Nazi past, and their work rests on the implicit assumption that Holocaust education and commemoration will expose the dangers of prejudice and promote peaceful coexistence. Holocaust Memory and Racism in the Postwar World, edited by Shirli Gilbert and Avril Alba, challenges the notion that there is an unproblematic connection between Holocaust memory and the discourse of anti-racism. Through diverse case studies, this volume historicizes how the Holocaust has shaped engagement with racism from the 1940s until the present, demonstrating that contemporary assumptions are neither obvious nor inevitable. Holocaust Memory and Racism in the Postwar World is divided into four sections. The first section focuses on encounters between Nazism and racism during and immediately after World War II, demonstrating not only that racist discourses and politics persisted in the postwar period, but also, perhaps more importantly, that few people identified links with Nazi racism. The second section explores Jewish motivations for participating in anti-racist activism, and the varying memories of the Holocaust that informed their work. The third section historicizes the manifold ways in which the Holocaust has been conceptualized in literary settings, exploring efforts to connect the Holocaust and racism in geographically, culturally, and temporally diverse settings. The final section brings the volume into the present, focusing on contemporary political causes for which the Holocaust provides a benchmark for racial equality and justice. Together, the contributions delineate the complex history of Holocaust memory, recognize its contingency, and provide a foundation from which to evaluate its moral legitimacy and political and social effectiveness. Holocaust Memory and Racism in the Postwar World is intended for students and scholars of Holocaust and genocide studies, professionals working in museums and heritage organizations, and anyone interested in building on their knowledge of the Holocaust and the discourse of racism.

In the Shadow of Hitler chronicles the experiences of Alabama Jews as they worked to overcome their own divisions in order to aid European Jews before, during, and after the Second World War. In this extensive study of how southern Jews in the United States responded to the Nazi persecution of European Jews, Dan J. Puckett recounts the divisions between Alabama Jews in the early 1930s. As awareness of the horrors of the Holocaust spread, Jews across Alabama from different backgrounds and from Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox traditions worked to bridge their internal divisions in order to mount efforts to save Jewish lives in Europe. Only by leveraging their collective strength were Alabama's Jews able to sway the opinions of newspaper editors, Christian groups, and the general public as well as lobby local, state, and national political leaders. Puckett's comprehensive analysis is enlivened and illustrated by true stories that will fascinate all readers of southern history. One such story concerns the Altneuschule Torah of Prague and describes how the Nazis, during their brutal occupation of Czechoslovakia, confiscated 1,564 Torahs and sacred Judaic objects from communities throughout Bohemia and Moravia as exhibits in a planned museum to the extinct Jewish race. Recovered after the war by the Czech Memorial Scrolls Trust, the Altneuschule Torah was acquired in 1982 by the Orthodox congregation Ahavas Chesed of Mobile. Ahavas Chesed re-consecrated the scroll as an Alabama memorial to Czech Jews who perished in Nazi death camps. In the Shadow of Hitler illustrates how Alabama's Jews, in seeking to influence the national and international well-being of Jews, were changed, emerging from the war period with close cultural and religious cooperation that continues today.