Divided societies, tormented pasts, and unrepentant perpetrators. Why are some countries more intent on vanquishing uncomfortable pasts than others? How do public and often unsightly attempts at memorialisation both fail the victims and valorize their oppressors? This book offers fresh and original perspectives on dictatorship, fascism and victimization from the bloodiest decades in Europe's, Australia's and Central America's colonial and modern history. Chapters include analyses of Francoist memorials in Spain, assessments of the El Mozote massacre in El Salvador, the forgetting of frontier colonial violence in Tasmania, Romania's treatment of its Roma populations in the midst of Holocaust memorialization in Bucharest's urban development, and whether or not the Holocaust continues to serve as an instructional model or impossible aspiration for cross-cultural genocide memorialization strategies. In an era of ongoing political, ethnic and religious conflict, and unrepentant insurgent activity around the world, this collection reminds readers that genocidal actions, wherever and whenever they occurred, must be held to account by more than rhetoric and concrete memory. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Genocide Research.

Deportations by train were critical in the Nazis' genocidal vision of the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question." Historians have estimated that between 1941 and 1944 up to three million Jews were transported to their deaths in concentration and extermination camps. In his writings on the "Final Solution," Raul Hilberg pondered the role of trains: "How can railways be regarded as anything more than physical equipment that was used, when the time came, to transport the Jews from various cities to shooting grounds and gas chambers in Eastern Europe?" This book explores the question by analyzing the victims' experiences at each stage of forced relocation: the round-ups and departures from the ghettos, the captivity in trains, and finally, the arrival at the camps. Utilizing a variety of published memoirs and unpublished testimonies, the book argues that victims experienced the train journeys as mobile chambers, comparable in importance to the more studied, fixed locations of persecution, such as ghettos and camps.

Deportations by train were critical in the Nazis' genocidal vision of the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question." Historians have estimated that between 1941 and 1944 up to three million Jews were transported to their deaths in concentration and extermination camps. In his writings on the "Final Solution," Raul Hilberg pondered the role of trains: "How can railways be regarded as anything more than physical equipment that was used, when the time came, to transport the Jews from various cities to shooting grounds and gas chambers in Eastern Europe?" This book explores the question by analyzing the victims' experiences at each stage of forced relocation: the round-ups and departures from the ghettos, the captivity in trains, and finally, the arrival at the camps. Utilizing a variety of published memoirs and unpublished testimonies, the book argues that victims experienced the train journeys as mobile chambers, comparable in importance to the more studied, fixed locations of persecution, such as ghettos and camps.

Divided societies, tormented pasts, and unrepentant perpetrators. Why are some countries more intent on vanquishing uncomfortable pasts than others? How do public and often unsightly attempts at memorialisation both fail the victims and valorize their oppressors? This book offers fresh and original perspectives on dictatorship, fascism and victimization from the bloodiest decades in Europe's, Australia's and Central America's colonial and modern history. Chapters include analyses of Francoist memorials in Spain, assessments of the El Mozote massacre in El Salvador, the forgetting of frontier colonial violence in Tasmania, Romania's treatment of its Roma populations in the midst of Holocaust memorialization in Bucharest's urban development, and whether or not the Holocaust continues to serve as an instructional model or impossible aspiration for cross-cultural genocide memorialization strategies. In an era of ongoing political, ethnic and religious conflict, and unrepentant insurgent activity around the world, this collection reminds readers that genocidal actions, wherever and whenever they occurred, must be held to account by more than rhetoric and concrete memory. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Genocide Research.

During the Nazi regime many children and youth living in Europe found their lives uprooted by Nazi policies, resulting in their relocation around the globe. "The Young Victims of the Nazi Regime" is a significant attempt to represent the diversity of their experiences, covering a range of non-European perspectives on the Second World War and aspects of memory. The book is unique in that it places the experiences of children and youth in a transnational context, shifting the conversation of displacement and refuge to countries that have remained under-examined in a comparative context. Featuring essays from a wide range of international experts in the field, it analyses these themes in three sections: the flight and migration of children and youth to countries including England, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Kenya, and Brazil; the experiences of children and youth who remained in Nazi Europe and became victims of war, displacement and deportation; and finally the challenges of rebuilding lives and representing war traumas in the immediate and recent post-war periods respectively. In its comparisons between Jewish and non-Jewish experiences and how these intersected and diverged, it revisits debates about cultural genocide through the separation of families and communities, as well as contributing new perspectives on forced labour, families and the Holocaust, and Germans as war victims.

During the Nazi regime many children and youth living in Europe found their lives uprooted by Nazi policies, resulting in their relocation around the globe. "The Young Victims of the Nazi Regime" is a significant attempt to represent the diversity of their experiences, covering a range of non-European perspectives on the Second World War and aspects of memory. The book is unique in that it places the experiences of children and youth in a transnational context, shifting the conversation of displacement and refuge to countries that have remained under-examined in a comparative context. Featuring essays from a wide range of international experts in the field, it analyses these themes in three sections: the flight and migration of children and youth to countries including England, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Kenya, and Brazil; the experiences of children and youth who remained in Nazi Europe and became victims of war, displacement and deportation; and finally the challenges of rebuilding lives and representing war traumas in the immediate and recent post-war periods respectively. In its comparisons between Jewish and non-Jewish experiences and how these intersected and diverged, it revisits debates about cultural genocide through the separation of families and communities, as well as contributing new perspectives on forced labour, families and the Holocaust, and Germans as war victims.

The Holocaust in the Twenty-First Century: Relevance and Challenges in the Digital Age challenges a number of key themes in Holocaust studies with new research. Essays in the section “Tropes Reconsidered” reevaluate foundational concepts such as Primo Levi’s gray zone and idea of the muselmann. The chapters in “Survival Strategies and Obstructions” use digital methodologies to examine mobility and space and their relationship to hiding, resistance, and emigration. Contributors to the final section, “Digital Methods, Digital Memory,” offer critical reflections on the utility of digital methods in scholarly, pedagogic, and public engagement with the Holocaust.Although the chapters differ markedly in their embrace or eschewal of digital methods, they share several themes: a preoccupation with the experiences of persecution, escape, and resistance at different scales (individual, group, and systemic); methodological innovation through the adoption and tracking of micro- and mezzohistories of movement and displacement; varied approaches to the practice of Saul FriedlÄnder’s “integrated history”; the mainstreaming of oral history; and the robust application of micro- and macrolevel approaches to the geographies of the Holocaust. Taken together, these chapters incorporate gender analysis, spatial thinking, and victim agency into Holocaust studies. In so doing, they move beyond existing notions of perpetrators, victims, and bystanders to portray the Holocaust as a complex and multilayered event.

The American-Jewish philosopher Berel Lang has left an indelible impression on an unusually broad range of fields that few scholars can rival. From his earliest innovations in philosophy and meta-philosophy, to his ground-breaking work on representation, historical writing, and art after Auschwitz, he has contributed original and penetrating insights to the philosophical, literary, and historical debates on ethics, art, and the representation of the Nazi Genocide. In honor of Berel Lang's five decades of scholarly and philosophical contributions, the editors of Ethics, Art and Representations of the Holocaust invited seventeen eminent scholars from around the world to discuss Lang's impact on their own research and to reflect on how the Nazi genocide continues to resonate in contemporary debates about antisemitism, commemoration and poetic representations. Resisting what Alvin Rosenfeld warned as "the end of the Holocaust", the essays in this collection signal the Holocaust as an event without closure, of enduring resonance to new generations of scholars of genocide, Jewish studies, and philosophy. Readers will find original and provocative essays on topics as diverse as Nietzsche's reputed Nazi leanings, Jewish anti-apartheid activists in South Africa, wartime rescue in Poland, philosophical responses to the Holocaust, hidden diaries in the Kovno Ghetto, and analyses of reactions to trauma in classic literary works by Bernhard Schlink, Sylvia Plath, and Derek Walcott.

The American-Jewish philosopher Berel Lang has left an indelible impression on an unusually broad range of fields that few scholars can rival. From his earliest innovations in philosophy and meta-philosophy, to his ground-breaking work on representation, historical writing, and art after Auschwitz, he has contributed original and penetrating insights to the philosophical, literary, and historical debates on ethics, art, and the representation of the Nazi Genocide. In honor of Berel Lang's five decades of scholarly and philosophical contributions, the editors of Ethics, Art and Representations of the Holocaust invited seventeen eminent scholars from around the world to discuss Lang's impact on their own research and to reflect on how the Nazi genocide continues to resonate in contemporary debates about antisemitism, commemoration and poetic representations. Resisting what Alvin Rosenfeld warned as "the end of the Holocaust", the essays in this collection signal the Holocaust as an event without closure, of enduring resonance to new generations of scholars of genocide, Jewish studies, and philosophy. Readers will find original and provocative essays on topics as diverse as Nietzsche's reputed Nazi leanings, Jewish anti-apartheid activists in South Africa, wartime rescue in Poland, philosophical responses to the Holocaust, hidden diaries in the Kovno Ghetto, and analyses of reactions to trauma in classic literary works by Bernhard Schlink, Sylvia Plath, and Derek Walcott.

The Holocaust in the Twenty-First Century: Relevance and Challenges in the Digital Age challenges a number of key themes in Holocaust studies with new research. Essays in the section “Tropes Reconsidered” reevaluate foundational concepts such as Primo Levi’s gray zone and idea of the muselmann. The chapters in “Survival Strategies and Obstructions” use digital methodologies to examine mobility and space and their relationship to hiding, resistance, and emigration. Contributors to the final section, “Digital Methods, Digital Memory,” offer critical reflections on the utility of digital methods in scholarly, pedagogic, and public engagement with the Holocaust.Although the chapters differ markedly in their embrace or eschewal of digital methods, they share several themes: a preoccupation with the experiences of persecution, escape, and resistance at different scales (individual, group, and systemic); methodological innovation through the adoption and tracking of micro- and mezzohistories of movement and displacement; varied approaches to the practice of Saul FriedlÄnder’s “integrated history”; the mainstreaming of oral history; and the robust application of micro- and macrolevel approaches to the geographies of the Holocaust. Taken together, these chapters incorporate gender analysis, spatial thinking, and victim agency into Holocaust studies. In so doing, they move beyond existing notions of perpetrators, victims, and bystanders to portray the Holocaust as a complex and multilayered event.