Ljiljana Radonic

Post-communist invocation of Europe: memorial museums’ narratives and the Europeanization of memory

ABSTRACT How do post-communist memorial museums in East-Central Europe tell stories about double occupation (by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union), collaboration, the Holocaust and victim narratives, and how have these narratives been influenced by accession to the European Union? How do the museums reference trends set by Holocaust memorial museums? The article shows that one group of museums invokes Europe and the Europeanization of the Holocaust. Other museums seek to contain certain aspects of the memory of Nazism so that it cannot compete with stories of Soviet crimes. Both incorporate elements from Holocaust memorial museums, indicating how universalized Holocaust remembrance is.

Von der friedfertigen Antisemitin zur queer-theoretischen Post-Zionistin

Jahrzehntelang hat die ‚neue Frauenbewegung‘ ein positives Bild von ‚der Frau‘ im NS gezeichnet, was oft zu einer den Holocaust verharmlosenden Argumentation fuhrt(e). Obwohl Frauen als Denunziantinnen, Fursorgerinnen oder KZ-Aufseherinnen an der Ausgrenzung und Vernichtung von Judinnen und Juden begeistert mitwirkten, wurden sie in feministischen Schriften oft als auf die Mutterrolle reduzierte ‚Gebarmaschinen‘ dargestellt – ein feministischer Fall von Tater(innen)-Opfer-Umkehr. Doch befriedigt Antisemitismus bei Frauen und Mannern die gleichen Bedurfnisse? Und wie passt der Antizionismus der Queer-Ikone Judith Butler in dieses Bild?

Conflicting Memories in “Unified Europe” – Standards of Remembrance in the Center and at the Periphery

Recent years have witnessed a growth in the interdisciplinary study of collective memory, especially in relation to the Shoa.1 In this chapter, recent trends in the universalization and “Europeanization of the Holocaust” as a negative founding myth of post-1945 Europe will be discussed – as well as their tense relation to the new postcommunist national narratives in Eastern Europe. This will be accomplished through the case study of Croatia – a seldom example of a country that had been running death camps on its own in World War II besides the Third Reich. Thus, “European memory standards” and their focus on the individual victim will be addressed. Last, but not least, I will discuss whether these standards apply differently at the center of this development and at its periphery, for example in Ukraine.