Between Obsession, Routine, and Contestation: Remembering the Holocaust in Europe today

24 February 2015
While countries around the globe are moving the Holocaust to the centre of their historical and memorial consciousness, Germany is beginning to wonder if enough is enough. In this panel discussion, we will discuss the causes and possible implications of such scepticism.

Recent publications in Germany suggest the Germans may have had enough of Hitler and the Holocaust. As Harald Welzer put it, "Hitler can be forgotten", while Ulrike Jureit complained elegantly that the Holocaust Memorial was more of marker of the 1968 generation's pathological identification with Jewish victims than of anything else. Christian Meier wrote a book on the virtues of forgetting, echoing complaints from other quarters about a "hypertrophy of memory". This raises a question about a possible German memory Sonderweg.

While countries around the globe are moving the Holocaust to the centre of their historical and memorial consciousness, Germany is beginning to wonder if enough is enough. What has prompted this wave of scepticism? Where will it lead? What will happen to European Holocaust memory if Germany, surely the trendsetter in most aspects of Holocaust memorialisation, becomes engulfed in doubts? Or are these doubts not something far more positive: namely the first reactions to a perceived need to move away from routine and ritual to a more future-oriented memory work? 

This panel discussion will bring together  academics specialising in German history to discuss these important questions. 

Panellists

• Professor Bill Niven (Nottingham Trent)
• Professor Mary Fulbrook (UCL German)
• Dr Francois Guesnet (UCL Hebrew & Jewish Studies)
• Dr Andrew Pearce (UCL Institute of Education)
• Chair: Paul Salmons (UCL Centre for Holocaust Education)

Note: Registration is required to attend this event.

For further information about this event please contact Julia Wagner.