The Strength of Remembrance: Commemorating the Holocaust During the First Decade of Israel

Surviving a Distant Past: A Case Study of the Cultural Construction of Trauma Descendant Identity

“…In these studies, the survivor is depicted as both more involved and vocal in the public domain of the first decades of the state than originally documented. Those who were silent are said to have chosen silence as the only way to build a new future, or as free agents adopting the New Hebrew discourse of their homeland (Ofer 2000). In addition, in-depth interviews with children of survivors highlight the presence of nonverbal and fragmentary knowledge of the Holocaust in the survivor home (Kidron unpublished data).…”

Agents of memory in the post-witness era: Memory in the Living Room and changing forms of Holocaust remembrance in Israel

“…Much has been written about Israeli collective memory of the Holocaust and the deep changes it has undergone over the years. From the end of the WWII up to the mid-1960s, collective memory of the Holocaust was ambivalent and limited—ambivalent in its attitude toward what was perceived as Jewish passivity and victimhood and hence limited to the commemoration of heroic fighters, that is, partisans and those who fought in the ghetto uprisings (Ofer, 2000). Governed at that time by a statist political culture that positioned the state as a central actor in promoting national identity, Holocaust remembrance was constituted within very rigid official paradigmatic structures (Handelman, 2004; Ofer, 2000).…”

“…From the end of the WWII up to the mid-1960s, collective memory of the Holocaust was ambivalent and limited—ambivalent in its attitude toward what was perceived as Jewish passivity and victimhood and hence limited to the commemoration of heroic fighters, that is, partisans and those who fought in the ghetto uprisings (Ofer, 2000). Governed at that time by a statist political culture that positioned the state as a central actor in promoting national identity, Holocaust remembrance was constituted within very rigid official paradigmatic structures (Handelman, 2004; Ofer, 2000). However, following the Eichmann trial in 1961 and with the coming of age of second-generation survivors in the 1970s, social and public remembrance of the Holocaust in Israel gradually underwent significant changes (Arad, 2003).…”

“…By the late 1980s, reflecting these changes, a number of significant new forms of remembrance joined the pantheon of remembrance activities in Israel. These include, to cite a few, the official remembrance protocol entitled “Every person has a name” (Ofer, 2000); educational and commemorative trips to death camps in Poland (Ben-Amos and Hoffman, 2011); and the establishment of archival video collections of survivor testimonies (Kushner, 2006). Finally, the major renovations that took place at Yad Vashem (completed in 2005) reflect this shift away from grand narratives and toward an emphasis on the individual and on the individual stories (Goldman, 2006).…”

“…The transition from witness to post-witness memory, and concomitantly the generational transition of memory, is of particular significance in Israel, where survivors have come to play a pivotal role in Holocaust remembrance and where Holocaust remembrance has become a central part of the cultural and political landscape (Arad, 2003; Lustick, 2017; Ofer, 2000; Young, 1993). Since the early 2000s, many new state and, particularly, non-state commemorative initiatives have emerged.…”