2014/12/01 by Laura Jockusch · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis #Vietnamese History and Culture Studies #Communism, Protests, Social Movements
paper · doi:10.1093/ahr/119.5.1787
openalex publication_date 2014/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Before 1993 no European country had an official commemoration ceremony devoted to the Nazi genocide of European Jews. In the decade that followed, several European states institutionalized such a ceremony. By the turn of the century Holocaust recognition had become what Tony Judt called the “entry ticket” into Europe (Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945 [2005], p. 803). Rebecca Clifford's book seeks to explain why and how this happened. By looking at public Holocaust commemoration in post-Cold War France and Italy, Clifford explores the conflicts and debates that drove the creation of official commemorations in those two countries, both of which struggled with the memory of collaboration and occupation, and muffled their wartime traumas and responsibilities with myths of collective resistance. This book makes three important points. First, it demonstrates the intricate ways in which the past was invoked in the public sphere to serve the needs of the present. Focusing on the interconnection between the legacies of fascism and resistance and the memory of the Holocaust, the book convincingly shows that official Holocaust commemoration was shaped by the social and political concerns of the 1990s. It served as a tool to fight contemporary problems such as historical revisionism, antisemitism, and the rise of the extreme Right. It also strengthened national unity and identity by expressing a commitment to human rights, antiracism, and tolerance, while answering the quest for a shared European past in an era of growing European integration.