Lecture 4 - Holocaust remembrance policies in Europe

1. Introduction: Why study remembrance policies?

• Definition of remembrance / memory policies as the ways states, institutions, schools, museums, and political actors frame and transmit the memory of the past.
• Importance of studying not only the history of the Holocaust itself, but also how this history has been remembered, silenced, transformed, or instrumentalized over time.
• Link between Holocaust remembrance and the construction of a shared European consciousness based on democracy, peace, and fundamental rights.

2. France: From silence to recognition

• Immediate post-war France focused primarily on the memory of:
  • prisoners of war,
  • forced labourers,
  • resistance fighters.
• The fate of deported Jews remained largely marginal in official memory for decades.
• Key role of the Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine in collecting archives and documenting the persecution of Jews during the Occupation.
• Early historical work by survivors and witnesses helped establish the factual basis for later scholarship.
• Under Charles de Gaulle, official memory emphasized French unity and resistance rather than Vichy collaboration.
• Slow emergence of public recognition through:
  • works on the Vel d'Hiv roundup,
  • films such as Le Chagrin et la Pitie,
  • the trials of Klaus Barbie, Paul Touvier, and Maurice Papon.
• Major turning point: Jacques Chirac's 1995 speech, officially recognizing the responsibility of the French state in the persecution and deportation of Jews.
• Ongoing tensions, including attempts by far-right actors to minimize Vichy responsibility.

3. Poland: Between communist narrative, national martyrdom, and difficult debates

• Post-war Poland was marked by the near-destruction of Polish Jewry and by the communist political system.
• Holocaust remembrance was initially absorbed into a broader narrative of Polish suffering under Nazi occupation, with little specific attention to the Jewish dimension.
• Auschwitz became a central example of how memory could be politically framed:
  • under communism, it was presented mainly as a symbol of anti-fascist struggle and Polish/national martyrdom;
  • the specifically Jewish dimension of Auschwitz was long underemphasized.
• The Cold War context shaped the interpretation of Nazi crimes.
• After 1989, major changes occurred in Auschwitz museography and public discourse:
  • greater visibility of Birkenau,
  • stronger recognition of the extermination of the Jews,
  • shift in symbolic representation.
• Important debate around Jedwabne:
  • publication of research on the massacre,
  • public controversy,
  • official acknowledgment by President Aleksander Kwasniewski in 2001.
• More recent political developments have shown the fragility of these advances and the persistence of memory conflicts in Poland.

4. Germany: Remembrance in the context of division and reunification

• In both East Germany (GDR) and West Germany (FRG), teaching about Nazism and the Holocaust was shaped by Cold War political goals.
• In East Germany:
  • the regime promoted an official anti-fascist identity,
  • Nazism was often presented as a problem of the capitalist West.
• In West Germany:
  • Nazism was framed within the broader concept of totalitarianism,
  • this also served as a way to criticize communist East Germany.
• The session highlighted that Holocaust teaching and remembrance are never neutral: they reveal contemporary political priorities.
• After reunification, Germany developed a strong memory culture, but Perrin noted ongoing concerns:
  • unresolved far-right dynamics,
  • the rise of the AfD,
  • the limits of older memory frameworks in confronting new forms of extremism.

5. Holocaust remembrance and European integration

• Holocaust remembrance was presented as a key part of Europe’s post-war moral and political foundation.
• The session emphasized that the Shoah is not only a Jewish history or a national history, but also a European history.
• Every European country, in different ways, is connected to this past.
• Teaching the Holocaust helps build:
  • a common democratic culture,
  • awareness of the dangers of hatred and exclusion,
  • a shared responsibility toward historical truth.

6. Discussion and comparative reflections

• Students raised questions about:
  • the place of remembrance in the European Union,
  • comparisons between France and Poland,
  • the role of political changes in countries such as Hungary,
  • the effects of German reunification on memory culture.
• A Greek participant also contributed an example showing the late institutional recognition of Holocaust remembrance in Greece, especially from 2004 onward.
• The session ended with a reflection on the importance of transmitting survivors' stories now that living witnesses are disappearing.