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Antisemitism and Holocaust Remembrance

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Book cover Perceptions of the Holocaust in Europe and Muslim Communities

Part of the book series: Muslims in Global Societies Series ((MGSS,volume 5))

Abstract

Juliane Wetzel examines the relationship between antisemitism and Holocaust remembrance. She offers an explanation for the persistence of antisemitism after 1945. Wetzel discusses that despite a taboo against open antisemitism, precisely because of Auschwitz, feelings of guilt led to the phenomenon of antisemitism – so called secondary antisemitism – exposing a failure to come to terms with the past and resulting in Holocaust denial and the minimisation of the Holocaust. The trivialisation of the Holocaust by comparing Israel to Nazi Germany and antisemitic tropes such as “Jews talk too much about the Holocaust”, as well as the reversal of perpetrators and victims in relation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have become a widespread phenomenon across Europe. The Middle East conflict has become a backdrop for the projection of antisemitic sentiments, often related to the Holocaust. These feelings can be expressed even by those who present themselves as anti-antisemites and anti-racists. This leads to challenges in Holocaust education, even more so in classrooms with a significant number of students with migrant backgrounds whose parents came to Europe after 1945. Myths about the Holocaust are prominent not only in Arab media but also in the Internet. Wetzel highlights the difficulty of respecting the singularity of the Holocaust with regard to other atrocities and totalitarian regimes.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See Anti-Defamation League (2009a), 8: 45% of the interviewed Germans and 55% of those from Austria agreed to the following item “Jews still talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust” as “probably true.”

  2. 2.

    “Antisemitisch motivierte Gewalttaten” (antisemitically motivated violent acts). The data were provided by the German Ministry of Interior (Department ÖS II 4), based on information from the Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt).

  3. 3.

    For example the pogrom in Kielce/Poland in July 1946 (Gross 2006). For the mass emigration of Jewish survivors in the immediate aftermath of the Kielce pogrom, see Königseder and Wetzel (1994) (English edition: Königseder and Wetzel 2001).

  4. 4.

    Can also be found online on the Eurozine website (Leggewie 2009b).

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Correspondence to Juliane Wetzel .

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Wetzel, J. (2013). Antisemitism and Holocaust Remembrance. In: Jikeli, G., Allouche-Benayoun, J. (eds) Perceptions of the Holocaust in Europe and Muslim Communities. Muslims in Global Societies Series, vol 5. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5307-5_3

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