Description
Book SynopsisA long-overdue study of the East German view of the Holocaust over the years 1946-1989. Stated Memory: East Germany and the Holocaust investigates communist Germany's attempt to explain the Holocaust within a framework that was at once German and Marxist. The book probes the contradictions and self-deceptionsarising from East Germany's official self-understanding as an enlightened, modern society in which Jewishness did not constitute "difference" or otherness. The study examines East German historiography of the Holocaust, includingits reflection in schoolbooks; analyzes East German concentration camp memorials; discusses the situation of Jews who remained in East Germany; and surveys East German cinematic and literary responses to the Nazi murder of the Jews. The book shows that regardless of the sincerity of the individuals involved in constructing these various forms of memory, the state attempted to orchestrate Holocaust discourse for its own purposes. Thomas C. Foxis professor of German at the University of Alabama. He has written extensively on East German literature and the Holocaust.
Trade ReviewEspecially valuable to scholars and students of German studies, but intensely interesting to the educated public as well. -- Nancy A. Lauckner, Univ. of Tennessee
Shows how...the Holocaust, antisemitism, and Nazism always were viewed through the lens of communist theory....Inclusion of the treatment of the Holocaust in East German literature and film adds an important dimension to this work. * CHOICE *
Fox writes with style and verve. [The study] should proivde new impetus for specialists in East German and Holocaust studies. * GERMANIC NOTES AND REVIEWS *
Those familiar with the scholarly work on the role of the Holocaust within the GDR's foundling narrativeof antifascism will ... gain a more complex and historicized understanding of the East German Holocaust discourse. * JEGP *
An excellently researched study, methodologically advanced and marked by good critical judgment. * FILMBLATT *
Because of the richness of its documentation, this work constitutes ... an excellent reference work on the recent past of Germany. * ETUDES GERM. *
Table of ContentsINtroduction: Stating German Holocaust Memory The State of Memory: The Holocaust in East German Historiography The Texture of Memory: East German Concentration Camp Memorials In the Melting Pot of Socialism: East German Jews Berlin, Moscow, and the Imagined Jerusalem: The Holocaust in East German Literature and Film Epilogue: Stated Memory Index
