Memory and Forgetting in the Post-Holocaust Era : The Ethics of Never Again

Alejandro Baer

ISBN 10: 1472448944 / ISBN 13: 9781472448941

Published by Taylor & Francis Ltd Nov 2016, 2016

About this Item

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: Memory and Forgetting in the Post-Holocaust Era : The Ethics of Never Again
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd Nov 2016
• Publication Date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1472448944
• ISBN 13: 9781472448941
• Binding: Buch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 241W x 163H x 17D millimeters 241 millimeters width by 163 millimeters height by 17 millimeters depth
• Weight: 408 grams

About this title

Synopsis

To forget after Auschwitz is considered barbaric. Baer and Sznaider question this assumption not only in regard to the Holocaust but to other political crimes as well. The duties of memory surrounding the Holocaust have spread around the globe and interacted with other narratives of victimization that demand equal treatment. Are there crimes that must be forgotten and others that should be remembered?

In this book the authors examine the effects of a globalized Holocaust culture on the ways in which individuals and groups understand the moral and political significance of their respective histories of extreme political violence. Do such transnational memories facilitate or hamper the task of coming to terms with and overcoming divisive pasts? Taking Argentina, Spain and a number of sites in post-communist Europe as test cases, this book illustrates the transformation from a nationally oriented ethics to a trans-national one. The authors look at media, scholarly discourse, NGOs dealing with human rights and memory, museums and memorial sites, and examine how a new generation of memory activists revisits the past to construct a new future. Baer and Sznaider follow these attempts to manoeuvre between the duties of remembrance and the benefits of forgetting. This, the authors argue, is the "ethics of Never Again."

About the Author

Alejandro Baer is Associate Professor of Sociology, Stephen C. Feinstein Chair and Director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota, USA.

Natan Sznaider is a Full Professor of Sociology at the Academic College of Tel-Aviv-Yaffo, Israel.