Shoa and Experience: A Journey in Time [1 ed.] 9781618113115, 9781618113108

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Shoa and

Experience Copyright © 2015. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

A Journey in Time

Shoa and Experience : A Journey in Time, Academic Studies Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central,

The Holocaust: History and Literature, Ethics and Philosophy Series Editor –

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Michael Berenbaum (American Jewish University)

Shoa and Experience : A Journey in Time, Academic Studies Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central,

Shoa and

Experience

A Journey in Time

Copyright © 2015. Academic Studies Press. All rights reserved.

Edit ed b y NI TZ A DAVIDOVI TCH and DA N S OEN

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BOSTON 2015

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: A bibliographic record for this title is available from the Library of Congress.

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ISBN 978-1-618113-10-8 (cloth) ISBN 978-1-618113-11-5 (electronic) Book design by Ivan Grave

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Published by Academic Studies Press in 2015 28 Montfern Avenue Brighton, MA 02135, USA [email protected] www.academicstudiespress.com

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This book is in memory of Kuba Wodislavsky, a Holocaust survivor from Czestochowa, who fought and was wounded in the Israeli War of Independence and established the Holocaust and Heroism Memorial Museum at Ariel at his home together with his wife Irena.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements................................................................ ix About the Authors................................................................. xi Introduction...................................................................... xvii

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T he Trip Experience: Poland and the Polish People as Perceived by Israeli Youth in Light of Their Trips to the Death Camps................................................. 1 Nitza Davidovitch and Dan Soen  Test of Leadership: IDF Delegations to Poland— A A Tool for Promoting Command-Oriented Leadership?................. 26 Nitza Davidovitch, Osnat Ur-Leurer, and Dan Soen T he Pedagogy of Commonness: An Alternative Theory in Teaching about the Holocaust................................... 50 Marek Kaźmierczak

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 yth and Reality: On “Future Generations” M of the Holocaust................................................................. 71 Haim Y. Knobler, Lily Haber, Batya Brutin, and Zvi Zemishlany A13808............................................................................. 81 Ruth Dorot T he Unterlimpurg Synagogue: Issues Involved in Restoring a Demolished Synagogue.......................................136 David Cassuto and Zvi Orgad The Abuse of Holocaust Memory in 2011–2012.........................168 Manfred Gerstenfeld S tudying Judaism, Jewish History, and the Jews: The Experience of Jewish Studies at Academic Campuses in Poland Today..................................................................194 Edyta Gawron

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 emnants of the Holocaust: A Process of Consciousness R Far from Conclusion............................................................211 Zvi Gil Index...............................................................................229

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David Ben-Gurion was the leader who arose and led the dry bones to life in the Land of Israel. In his reports on visits to the death camps, Ben-Gurion wrote: I saw the crematoria where hundreds of thousands and millions of Jews from all European countries were incinerated—from the west, east, south, and north, Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews, of all ethnic groups and political affiliations . . . the few remnants, miraculously saved from the gas chambers, from the forced labor, from torture and torment, from beatings and humiliation—on their behalf I bring you [in the Land of Israel] the greetings of brothers. I have been charged with conveying two wishes. One wish— Jewish unity. Together they died, were tortured, and suffered undifferentiated by clan, descent, or politics. The hangmen made no distinction . . . and the second wish—the State of Israel. This is the last testament of the millions of martyrs who went to their death: We died only because we belonged to a people bereft of homeland and state, and the victory of liberty and justice shall not prevail unless the historical wrong done to our people shall be corrected.

—David Ben-Gurion, as quoted by Michael Bar Zohar in Ben-Gurion Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ Therefore prophesy and say to them: This is what the Sovereign Lord says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel.”

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—Ezekiel 37:11–12

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Acknowledgements

Having concluded our work, we would like to thank the people and institutions that provided us with assistance. Our thanks to the management of the Ariel University of Samaria, who supported and facilitated this multi-year study. Thanks to our research colleagues in Israel and other countries whose scientific collaboration, student exchange programs, and mutual discourse enriched our knowledge in attempting to examine the Holocaust from a global perspective. We were also assisted by the following researchers and people: Professor Stefan Gasiorowski, Professor Edward Dąbrowa, Professor Waldemar Szczerbinski, Dr. Annamaria Orla-Bukowska, Dr. Edyta Gawron, Dr. Przemyslaw Dec, Dr. Marek Kaźmierczak, and Dr Katarzyna Kornacka-Sareło—true leaders and partners, our colleagues from Poland, from the Jagiellonian University in Krakow and the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. Thanks to Ms. Marta Kubica from the Israeli embassy in Poland who founded the Gesher organization for Polish-Israeli student relations; to Ms. Ilona Kozin, Ms. Lili Haber, Brigadier General Amir Haskel, Major Osnat Ur-Leurer, and Ms. Alicia Kobus; to Dr. Gili Schild and Mr. Moti Asulin, who stood by us at the important methodical junctions of this study; and finally a special thanks to Hadar Hazan, our research assistant, whose help was invaluable.

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Acknowledgements

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The constant assistance and support we received served as an inexhaustible source of inspiration, promoting thoughts and actions for the sake of future generations. We hope that this research experience will be utilized to develop additional programs and new insights in Holocaust instruction and public dissemination, as well as for cooperation between institutions, organizations, and public figures who are working diligently to advance the principle of commemoration—in theory and in practice.

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About the Authors

Batya Brutin Dr. Batya Brutin, art historian and curator, focuses on Holocaust art and monuments in Israel and throughout the world. She is the head of the program for Holocaust Teaching in Israeli Society at Beit Berl Academic College, Israel.

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David Cassuto Professor David M. Cassuto studied architecture at the Technion in Haifa, and received his degree in 1963. He has designed dozens of public and residential buildings in Israel and abroad, and published numerous articles on architecture in general and on Jewish art and architecture in particular. He has taught architecture since 1997. From 2004 to 2008, he served as head of the School of Architecture at Ariel University in Samaria, and from 2007 to 2011 he served as president of the Association of Jewish Art in Israel. Currently, he is a member of the Assembly of Yad Vashem and a member of the board of directors of Yad-Ben-Zvi.

Nitza Davidovitch Professor Nitza Davidovich serves in teaching and administrative positions at Ariel University. She is currently the Director of Academic Development

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About the Authors

and Evaluation. Her areas of research interest include academic curriculum development, development of academic instruction, Holocaust awareness and Jewish identity, student exchange programs with Germany and Poland, preservation of the heritage of Jewish sects, and moral education.

Ruth Dorot Dr. Ruth Dorot is a lecturer in art history at Ariel University and is involved in various enrichment programs for the general public. She has served as curator of exhibitions and sits on the editorial board of several professional journals. She is the author of Galut Vehitgalut (Exile and Revelation), as well as The Art of Time, The Art of Place and the soon-to-be published A River Without Banks. Dorot is the recipient of the Israel Efrat Award from Bar Ilan University.

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Edyta Gawron Dr. Edyta Gawron is an assistant professor at the Institute of Jewish Studies and head of the Center for the Study of the History and Culture of Krakow Jews at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. A specialist in twentiethcentury history of Polish Jews and in Holocaust studies, she cooperates with various academic institutions and museums in Poland and abroad. Gawron is president of the board of directors of the Galicia Jewish Heritage Institute Foundation, which oversees the Galicia Jewish Museum in Krakow. She served on the design team that created the museum in the Oskar Schindler’s Factory (Krakow). A member of the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure Project’s Advisory Board, she also serves as a consultant to the Taube Center for the Renewal of Jewish Life in Poland. Gawron is the author of several publications on wartime and postwar history of Jews in Krakow, including the co-authored book Kraków under Nazi Occupation 1939–1945 (2011). She has also published Vlotsheve: Żydzi we Włoszczowie w latach 1867–1942 (Vlotsheve: Jews in Wloszczowa 1867–1942) (2000) and numerous articles concerning the history of Polish Jews in the twentieth century.

Manfred Gerstenfeld Dr. Manfred Gerstenfeld is a former Board Member and Chairman (2000– 2012) of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a Jerusalem-based think

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About the Authors

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tank. He has been an international business strategist for forty years. Dr. Gerstenfeld has been a non-executive board member of the Israel Corporation (a major investment company) and other Israeli companies. Dr. Gerstenfeld had authored seventeen books and edited six. He is a former editor of The Jewish Political Studies Review and various publications on Jewish public affairs. His Ph.D from Amsterdam University analyzes the Jewish attitude toward the environment through the ages. He is a recipient of the Life Time Achievement Award (2012) of the Journal for the Study of Anti-Semitism.

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Zvi Gil Zvi Gil was born in Zdunska-Wola, a township near the city of Lodz, to a well-known and well-to-do family. His grandfather was the head of the local Jewish community and one of the more prominent leaders of the Jewish Orthodox Movement “Agudat Israel” (Union of Israel), as well as a close friend of the Grand Rabbi of Gur. Gil has served in senior positions at the Israel National Broadcasting Service, among them head of radio in Tel Aviv, head of news and sports of Israel Television, and head of international cooperation of the Israel Broadcasting Authority. He has produced and directed numerous documentary films. He holds a BA in political science and international relations (Hebrew University) and an MA in sociology and mass communication (New York University). He was awarded an honorary degree by the Newhouse Communication Center of Syracuse University and has been a lecturer on mass media in various academic institutions in Israel and in the United States. Gil has published six books, including fiction and non-fiction works, some of which address the history of media.

Lili Haber Lili Haber is the chairperson of the Association of Cracowians in Israel and the Association of Polish Jews in Israel. She is devoted to perpetuating the memory of the lost Polish-Jewish community and ensuring that future generations connect to these roots and find inspiration in the magnificent 1,000-year history of the Jewish community in Poland. Haber is fluent in Polish and is involved in many initiatives designed to promote Israeli-Polish relationships.

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About the Authors

Marek Kaz�mierczak Marek Kaźmierczak received his PhD from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, where he also earned an MA in philosophy and an MA in Polish literature and language. He studied for five years at “Artes Liberales” Academy, an individual interdisciplinary liberal arts education program in literary studies, philosophy, and media studies at the Jagiellonian University in Kracow, the University of Silesia, and the University of Warsaw. Kaźmierczak works in the Institute of European Culture (in Gniezno) of Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. His fields of interest include semiology of culture, contemporary philosophy, the relationship of contemporary philosophy and literature, and media studies. Kaźmierczak’s research focuses on representations of the Shoa in popular culture, and his most recent book is entitled Auschwitz on the Internet: Representations of the Holocaust in Popular Culture.

Haim Knobler Professor Haim Y. Knobler, former head of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Mental Health Department, teaches at the Hebrew University Hadassah Medical School in Jerusalem and is the president of the Israeli branch of the Israeli-Polish Mental Health Association.

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Zvi Orgad Zvi Orgad studied graphic design and teaching at the Wizo Haifa Academy of Design and Education. Since 1997, he has worked as a graphic designer and illustrator, and has participated in several art and illustration exhibitions. In 2009, he studied Jewish art at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies. In 2011 and 2012, he studied in the master’s program of the Israel Heritage Department at Ariel University. His main interest is synagogue art, and his thesis work was written about the wooden eighteenth-century Unterlimpurg synagogue.

Dan Soen Professor Dan Soen earned his BA in Oriental Studies at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1955. He earned his PhD at Vienna University in Cultural Anthropology (1959). He has taught in various universities in Israel and abroad (New Zealand, South Africa, and the United States) and has chaired various departments in numerous academic institutions. He has also directed several

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research institutions and published approximately 30 books and 120 articles on social issues in Israel and elsewhere. Soen currently heads the Department of Sociology & Anthropology and is chair of the Dual Major Department at Ariel University. He is also a professor at the graduate school of the Kibbutzim School of Education in Tel Aviv.

Osnat Ur-Leurer Mrs. Osnat Ur-Leurer recently retired from the IDF Education Corps to focus on developing and implementing a range of formal and informal education programs, in Israel and globally. During the final five years of her military service, she was the commander of the “Witnesses in Uniform” program, a unique initiative bringing together IDF soldiers and officers to follow the paths of Jews in Poland and Europe during the Holocaust era. Ur-Leurer holds an MA in Public Policy Management from Bar-Ilan University. She currently guides various missions to Poland, including youth school groups, and she specializes in integrating these journeys into comprehensive educational programs.

Zvi Zemishlany

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Professor Zvi Zemishlany is the Director of Geha Mental Health Center, chairman of the Department of Psychiatry, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University (2010–2012), a former president of the Israeli Psychiatric Association, and the president-elect of the Israeli-Polish Mental Health Association.

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Introduction

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We must see the Holocaust as a giant historical crossroads, from which different roads depart in different directions, where taking each of these roads is self-justified: despair of the world versus belief and desire to repair it, reinforcement of one’s faith in God, or the opposite—loss of faith, the normalcy of Jewish existence, or the opposite—irrevocable proof that this existence is not normal, with the Holocaust providing proof of the unique Jewish destiny . . . to what degree our destiny and our place in the world are essential. —A. B. Yehoshua, The Holocaust: A Crossroads

As time passes, the feeling and recognition grow stronger that it is permissible to speak of the Holocaust as an emotional, cognitive, and moral experience for today’s individuals. The Holocaust experience is a fundamental element in the relationship between Israel and other countries, including those of Europe. This is especially the case with respect to Israel’s relationship with Poland, in whose territory the unprecedented horrors were perpetrated, as well as with Germany, the country that is branded with the mark of Cain. Studying the Holocaust is a moral experience that enfolds an obligation to remember; Holocaust education is both an honor and an obligation for this and future generations, a joint obligation of the family of nations and of education and cultural systems around the world. Over time, the Holocaust has become an academic, artistic, and research experience that embraces different age groups operating in diverse educational settings. The intellectual, emotional, and moral experience that emerges as we engage in Holocaust teaching and learning poses new challenges for research and discovery, and offers an opportunity for a novel view of the Holocaust events through an interdisciplinary lens. This volume summarizes the invaluable insights and lessons learned by Holocaust educators operating in numerous fields and arenas. Its aim is to provide important resources for Holocaust educators and to ensure that the relevancy and appeal of Holocaust programs is continually revised and improved. Special attention is given to the incorporation of multidimensional aspects of learning and experience in Holocaust education in order to enhance students’ understanding on cognitive, emotional, and moral levels. 

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Introduction

In their work, Nitza Davidovitch and Dan Soen review several major programs offering experiential learning about the Holocaust and explore the cognitive and behavioral effects of these programs on learners. The authors present and discuss the results of a comparative study of school journeys to Poland, including the opinions of pupils, parents, school staff members, and counselors regarding the experience and its impact, and explore youngsters’ attitudes toward Poland and Polish people after participating in a trip to Holocaust sites in Poland. Nitza Davidovitch, Osnat Ur-Leurer, and Dan Soen describe “Witnesses in Uniform,” an Israel Defense Force (IDF) project in which groups of soldiers visit Holocaust sites in Poland. The trip itinerary includes visits to sites related to Jewish history in Poland, including death camps and extermination sites, and an overview of Polish history. Ceremonies are held at various locations throughout the trip, team discussions are conducted by team leaders, and meetings are held with the IDF attaché in Poland; the soldiers also attend an evening with families of fallen soldiers, an encounter with a “Righteous Gentile” (a non-Jewish person who aided Jews during the Holocaust at great personal risk), and a testimonial session with the Holocaust survivor who accompanies the group to Poland. Marek Kaźmierczak, writing on “The Pedagogy of Commonness,” offers an alternative theory for Holocaust education. While the official forms of commemoration of the Holocaust are frequently observed, non-official ways of interpreting and understanding the past are also significant. Kaźmierczak proposes the pedagogy of commonness as a bolster to existing trends in teaching about the Holocaust; it is important to think about this alternative, complementary theory because of the influence of new media, mainly social media such as Web 2.0, on the representations of the Holocaust. The diversity of these representations is real, which means that they cannot be treated merely as aleatory “textual” incidents. The Internet reveals how younger generations are thinking about the Holocaust, and findings in these areas have important implications for contemporary discourse on the reception of the Holocaust. Haim Knobler, Lili Haber, Batya Brutin, and Zvi Zemishlany call on Holocaust education to fulfill its obligation to relate to the Holocaust survivors living

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among us. As long as Holocaust survivors are still alive, educational efforts must concentrate on them rather than on members of the “future generations.” The authors urge a thorough understanding of major issues, including the courage required for survival, survivors’ capacity for post-traumatic growth after inconceivable grief and trauma, the unique problems of child survivors, and the concerns of Holocaust survivors who reach old age. The authors argue that it is necessary to continue learning from Holocaust survivors who are still living, and to ensure their well-being. Ruth Dorot focuses on the following problems: should the Holocaust, with all its horrors, be commemorated so that it is remembered, or should it be forgotten so that individuals and society can move on? How is it possible, if at all, to encompass the enormity and intensity of the colossal event simply through a monument, an obelisk, or a commemorative site? Might monuments be used by future generations as an escape from the need to deal with acts of remembrance? Is it right to establish Holocaust memorials or commemorative sites knowing they might end up serving as “fig leaves” for the murderers—a kind of cleansing of the horrific crimes they committed? Can or should atrocities of the scope of the Holocaust be commemorated through art, which deals in aesthetics? Can hell be remembered through beauty? Her chapter addresses these issues through a study of Holocaust monuments and memorial sites. David Cassuto and Zvi Orgad present an account of the story of the survival of decorated wooden panels from a small synagogue in Unterlimpurg, a hamlet in southern Germany. In contrast to the complete destruction of all wall and ceiling murals in the wooden synagogues of Eastern Europe, the Unterlimpurg synagogue survived the hardships of the twentieth century and the Holocaust. By analyzing the ornamentation and attempting to faithfully reconstruct the interior disposition of the synagogue murals, the authors illuminate the Jewish congregation of Unterlimpurg, with its history and customs, contributing to the work of many contemporary scholars to revive obliterated Jewish congregations. Manfred Gerstenfeld analyzes the growing phenomenon of Holocaust distortion, directing his attention to various developments during 2011 and 2012. He discusses many categories of Holocaust distortion: Holocaust

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Introduction

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promotion and justification, denial, deflection and whitewashing, de-Judaization, equivalence, inversion, trivialization, and the obliterating of Holocaust memory. Jewish studies in Poland, along with the revival of Jewish culture, reflect the contemporary Polish attitude to the Jewish heritage; their scale and intensity remains unique in the European context. Edya Gawron explores the growing interest in Jewish studies in Poland as a sign of respect for the role of Jewish Poles in the country’s history, and as an attempt to recreate the missing Jewish part of Poland through research and education, accompanied by a slow but promising revival of Jewish life in Poland. In the final chapter of this volume, Zvi Gil explores the meaning of the Holocaust, with reference to national, Jewish, and universal lessons on the one hand, and the frame of reference of remnants and survivors in the past and present on the other. His chapter demonstrates that the distinction is not merely a matter for research, but is a matter of practice, especially when focusing not only on the disaster that occurred but also on the current revival and the absence of its record as a major chapter in the history of the State of Israel. We hope this book will help Holocaust educators and curriculum developers to design Holocaust education and attune it to the nature and needs of the current generation. It is intended to prepare educators to initiate and lead programs and encounters designed to teach youngsters about the Holocaust from multiple perspectives. Nitza Davidovitch and Dan Soen 

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The Trip Experience: Poland and the Polish People as Perceived by Israeli Youth in Light of Their Trips to the Death Camps Nitza Davidovitch and Dan Soen

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Preface World War II ended on August 15, 1945. Between fifty and seventy-five million people lost their lives in a matter of six years. The entire world required a lengthy process of rehabilitation to recover from one of the greatest tragedies in human history. The following years were devoted to recovery and rebuilding of all that had been destroyed. At first the Holocaust, as one of the catastrophes of this war, was not accorded proper collective attention— neither in the world in general nor in Israel, whose citizens encompassed a very high proportion of Holocaust survivors.1 In fact, in these years, Israel demonstrated an “official disregard of the Diaspora,”2 intentionally avoiding any commemoration of the Holocaust, as a result of the association between the Diaspora and the Holocaust. Commemoration of one was perceived as commemoration of the other. Moreover, on the macro level, the Holocaust was perceived as a national catastrophe, for which silence was the best approach.3 The young State of Israel sought to put an end to the exile, erase it 1 Julia Resnik, “‘Sites of Memory’ of the Holocaust: Shaping National Memory of the Education System in Israel,” Nations and Nationalism 9 (2003): 297–317. 2 Chaim Grossman, “March of the Living,” Kesher Ayin 147 (2005): 12–14 [Hebrew]. 3 Roni Stauber, The Lesson for the Generation of Holocaust and Heroism in Public Thinking in the 1950s ( Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 2000) [Hebrew].

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from memory, and coin a new form of life. Thus, it chose to erase the memory of the Holocaust as well. Besides, the experience of establishing the State of Israel was so deep that, not surprisingly, Israel adopted the ethos of revival or rebirth as its constitutive discourse. This was compatible with the great optimism and future orientation characteristic of Israeli society in the first generation of its political independence.4 It was some thirty years before Israel began to examine its wounds and before it was able to deal with its repressed memories. The Eichmann Trial, and in particular the trauma of the Yom Kippur War a dozen years later, were constitutive events that led to the creation of a Holocaust discourse, which acknowledges the significance of passing on the memory while linking the past to the present and the future.5 Another important fact was the immigration to Israel of many European survivors of the Holocaust. The Jewish population of Israel in the 1960s consisted of large numbers of people who had experienced the Holocaust in person. And personal experience is not to be compared with hearsay. Moreover, gradually, in time, living memories naturally began to disappear, and with the death of Holocaust survivors it gradually became evident that the Jewish Holocaust is a memory that will disappear unless organized efforts are made to preserve it.6 This recognition, that collective memory can only be preserved through active means, led to the formation of formal and informal study programs for teaching the Holocaust. As early as 1963, the Ministry of Education and Culture prepared a formal program on “Holocaust and Heroism” for elementary and secondary schools.7 In the 1970s and 1980s, a new discipline emerged: teaching the Holocaust both formally and informally. Holocaust contents were integrated in the various textbooks. History, literature, civic studies, and Bible all included some reference to this chapter of Jewish history. 4 Eliezer Don Yehiya, “Religious Zionism and Its Positions in Immigration and Absorption Issues in the Yishuv Period,” in Kibbutz Galuyot, ed. Devorah Hakohen ( Jerusalem: Merkaz Shazar, 1998) [Hebrew]. 5 Nurit Graetz, A Captive of Its Dream (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, Ofakim, 1995) [Hebrew]; Charles S. Liebman and Eliezer Don-Yehiya, Civil Religion in Israel (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983); Yael Zerubavel, “The ‘Mythological Sabra’ and Jewish Past: Trauma, Memory, and Contested Identities,” Israel Studies 7 (2002): 115–144. 6 Habbu Knoch, “Searching for Authenticity: Memory, Emotions, and Eyewitness Reports in Contemporary Germany,” Tabur 1 (2008): 10–23. 7 Noah Zevilevitz, Herut, March 25, 1963, http://www.ranaz.co.il/articles/ article1711_19630325.asp [Hebrew].

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 The Trip Experience

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At the same time, institutes for teaching about the Holocaust were established, offering a variety of study programs. In 1988,8 a decision was made to expand the informal curriculum to include a component of experiential learning that would take place on Polish territory—a trip to the actual memorial sites. Since then, Israeli teenagers have been participating in the trip to Poland with their school. The trip to Poland takes place in the eleventh or twelfth grade. It is funded by students’ families. It is part of the curriculum, but is not compulsory. Some 25–33 percent of all students participate. Through experiential learning, students receive a close view of the history of the Jewish people, the diverse culture destroyed, and the beastly cruelty of the Nazi enemy. For eight whole days teenagers tour Poland— eight days of intensive tours of its past. During this time, teens encounter historical Poland, including death camps, death pits, cemeteries, empty synagogues, remnants of Jewish towns, the Warsaw ghetto, and several tourist sites. The specific contents included in the eight days of the trip are a product of the combination of Ministry of Education directives and a methodical model constructed by each school. In the first few years of these trips, the Ministry of Education emphasized ethnocentric Jewish values, but beginning from the early 1990s there has been an attempt to refer to humanist-universal values as well.9 The shift occurred once the Ministry of Education realized that those returning from the trips come back with an intense emotional experience that could serve as a unique educational framework.10 Over the years, it became evident that the encounter with the death experience confirms Israel’s place as the center of life and reinforces connections between individual Jews and their country.11 In addition, the ethnocentricnational component was found to have attracted most of the attention of those   8 Ministry of Education and Culture, “Criteria and Guidelines for Approving Youth Delegations,” Director General Circular (1988) [Hebrew].   9 Ministry of Education and Culture, “Criteria and Guidelines for Approving Youth Delegations,” Director General Circular (1988) [Hebrew]; Ministry of Education and Culture, “Youth Delegations to Poland,” Director General Circular (1991) [Hebrew]; Ministry of Education and Culture, “Youth Delegations to Poland,” Director General Circular (1994) [Hebrew]; Ministry of Education and Culture, “Youth Delegations to Poland—‘Et Ahay Anochi Mevakesh,’” Director General Circular (2005) [Hebrew]. 10 Yair Oron, The Pain of Knowledge: Issues in Instruction of the Holocaust and Genocide (Tel Aviv: Open University, 2003) [Hebrew]. 11 Ibid.

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responsible for school trips. Therefore, an attempt was made to integrate universal meanings within the experiential study program. Over the years, further Director General Circulars were issued, adding to the attempt to improve the program and channel the strong emotional experience toward universal lessons. In 2009, the Ministry of Education recommended that youth delegations include in the trip program encounters with Polish teens in various social-cultural settings, as well as joint attendance of a cultural show.12 This was meant to facilitate face-to-face contact between Israeli and Polish youth. Despite the change in emphasis manifested in the instructions of Director General Circulars, most studies continued to focus on the effect of the trip on Jewish-Israeli identity and on Zionist-national values.13 The issue of one’s attitudes toward others received only minimal attention.14 Moreover, the views of participating teens and their attitudes toward the Polish people by the end of the trip were almost completely neglected in the guidance provided before and during the trip. The purpose of the current study is to examine whether and to what degree the trips help change students’ attitudes toward the Polish people. How are the Polish people perceived following teens’ collective visit? Do participating teens have more positive attitudes than their school peers who remain in Israel? 12 Ministry of Education and Culture, Director General Circular, 2009 [Hebrew]. 13 See for example: Michal Lev, “Impact of Youngsters’ Journey to Poland on Their Cognitive and Emotional Attitudes toward the Holocaust” (master’s thesis, Tel-Aviv University, 1998) [Hebrew]; Shlomo Romi and Michal Lev, “Knowledge, Emotions, and Attitudes of Israeli Youngsters to the Holocaust,” Megamot 42 (2003): 219–239 [Hebrew]; Shlomo Romi and Michal Lev, The Effect of Youth Trips to Poland on Their Views of the Holocaust in the Cognitive and Emotional Dimension, follow-up study (Tel Aviv and Beit Berl: Mofet Institute and Beit Berl College, 2003) [Hebrew]; Nitza Davidovich and Itzhak Kandel, “Joint Trips of Israelis and Germans—Beyond the Experiential Shock,” Kivunim Hadashim 14 (2006): 152–164 [Hebrew]; Tamar Gross, “Influence of the Trip to Poland within the Framework of the Ministry of Education on the Working through of the Holocaust” (master’s thesis, BenGurion University of the Negev, 2000) [Hebrew]; Dan Soen and Nitza Davidovitch, “‘Always Remember!’: Trips to the Valley of Death in Poland—Three Settings, Three Lessons in Israel,” in Holocaust Remembrance: Issues and Challenges, eds. Nitza Davidovitch and Dan Soen, 193–206 ( Jerusalem: Ariel Publishing, 2011) [Hebrew]; Alon Lazar, Julia Chaitin, Tamar Gross, and Dan Bar-On, “A Journey to the Holocaust: Modes of Understanding among Israeli Adolescents Who Visited Poland,” Educational Review 56 (2004): 13–31; Alon Lazar, Julia Chaitin, Tamar Gross, and Dan Bar-On, “Jewish Israeli Teenagers, National Identity, and the Lessons of the Holocaust,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 18 (2004): 188–201. 14 See, for example: Hava Shechter, “The Effect of Youth Trips to Poland on Their Empathy towards the Suffering of Israeli Arabs” (master’s thesis, Haifa University, 2002) [Hebrew].

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This research began, among other things, with emotional issues expressed by the historian Tom Segev, who wrote about his experiences upon joining one of the trips to Poland:

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Before the trip I went to visit Yaakov Barmor [former Israeli diplomat in Warsaw], who had retired. In Poland hatred of the Jews is as natural as a blue sky, said the former diplomat, and he said something of the kind to the students as well . . . Shalmi Barmor [son of Israeli diplomat, then employed at Yad Vashem] knew all there was to know about Polish anti-Semitism. He tried to explain its original causes to the students. He chose the hard way and gave the students a copy of an article published not long before in Ha’aretz by Shabtay Tevet, David Ben-Gurion’s biographer, upon his return from a visit to Poland. Tevet attacked the Poles for concealing from visitors to Auschwitz the fact that most of those murdered there had been Jews. “The Polish people,” wrote Tevet, “are the ultimate victors, and they are those who plundered Jewish property and also inherited Jewish humility and their Holocaust; and they are also profiting from it.” The students read this article and agreed with it; many of them identified the Holocaust with Poland. They looked everywhere for—and sometimes found—swastikas on the walls; my impression was that some of them had brought with them an inner need to find them. Barmor did his best to explain to the students that it was not the Poles who were to blame for elimination of the Jews, and from their point of view—they lost rather than won the war: the German occupation was replaced with the Soviet occupation. Hatred of the Jews in Poland should not be ignored, said Barmor to the students, but emphasized that the Poles see the destruction of the Jews as part of their national disaster as Poles. The students argued with him. I wrote down an unforgettable sentence voiced by one of them: “But someone has to be guilty of the Holocaust; we have to hate someone, and with the Germans we have already become reconciled.”15

Poland: Historical Background The history of Poland is one of constant struggles for independence. From 1772– 1795, Poland was divided three times between Russia, Prussia, and Austria, and lost its independence. At the conclusion of World War I in 1918 and following the Versailles Treaty,16 Poland resumed its independence, but not for long. Its geographical location—between two powerful countries, Germany-Prussia in the 15 Tom Segev, The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust ( Jerusalem: Keter, 1992), 455 [Hebrew]. 16 The peace treaty signed between Germany and the Allied powers at the Paris Peace Conference in the aftermath of World War I, on June 28, 1919.

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west and north and Russia in the east—made it the prey of these countries, who awaited the first opportunity to take another bite.17 At the conclusion of World War I, the Second Polish Republic was established, having been erased from the map during 1794–1918. The Polish people saw their country as a national country, despite the fact that one third of all citizens were not Polish.18 In 1939, Poland was once again occupied, for the fourth time in its history. On September 1, Germany reneged on the promises it gave in the Munich Agreement and invaded Poland. For two weeks, Poland resisted the German army, until the Polish army ceased to exist as an organized military entity.19 Even then, the Polish people continued to fight individually. In particular, residents of the city of Warsaw did not give up even after Poland ceased to exist. The mayor at the time provided this description of Warsaw:

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Hundreds of homes have become mounds of rubble, ancient churches and castles are going up in fire. Priceless art treasures are being destroyed. Our human losses are much more severe. Women and children are dying . . . The hospitals are full of the injured. We are unable to bury all our dead. There are cemeteries all over: in gardens and yards . . . We have no caskets. We are burying those who fell and those who died directly in the earth . . . But we continue to defend ourselves . . . Poland’s isolated capital—Warsaw— is bravely holding off all enemy attacks, on land and from the air.20

Poland was the first victim of the German Blitzkrieg.21 One hundred thousand Polish soldiers lost their lives in the first month of the war (versus ten thousand German soldiers). Poland was once again divided—this time between Germany and the Soviet Union.22 A General Administration (General Gouvernement) was established in that part of Poland not annexed. In 1941, the 17 Joshua Alexander Stengel, World War Two: A War of Extermination (Tel Aviv: Bitan, 1985) [Hebrew]. 18 Eli Tzur, World War Two: The War That Changed the Face of the World ( Jerusalem: Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports, 1995) [Hebrew]. 19 Ibid. 20 Starzyński, in: Katriel Ben Arieh, September 1939 (Tel Aviv: Lavi, 1987), 209 [Hebrew]. 21 Blitzkrieg in German is modern offensive combat. It is based on rapid movement and advance. The advantages of mobility and firepower by motorized vehicles, tanks, and airplanes were utilized with the aim of breaching the enemy’s defenses, taking over key points, and thus reaching a rapid conclusion of the battle. 22 This division followed the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact—signed between German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov on the eve of World War II, on August 23, 1939. In this pact, the countries agreed not to attack each

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Germans reneged on the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement and invaded the Soviet Union. Following the invasion, the District of Galicia was added to the General Administration. Poland was the only country occupied by the Germans where the two sides were unwilling to cooperate after the German occupation. The victors had no interest in such a relationship, as they wished to turn Poland into a German territory, while the Polish people hated the German enemy, who aimed to destroy them. The local Polish population suffered from the German occupation in several ways. Many were deported from areas intended for German residence and were forced to settle in the area of the General Administration. Hundreds of thousands were deported to Germany for forced labor in the weapons and agricultural industries, and many died there due to poor hygiene and nutrition. In Poland, there was a general shortage of food, fuel for heating, and medication, and consequently mortality rates rose significantly. Thousands more died in cruel acts of retaliation initiated by the Germans for various reasons.23 Most non-Jewish Polish victims died of hunger, poor health, or forced labor, or in individual executions wherever they happened to be, and not as a result of transports to concentration camps. However, many Poles died in labor camps (Gemeinschaftslager), and hundreds of thousands died in concentration and death camps as well. Thus, for example, the first non-German prisoners in Auschwitz were Poles, who constituted the majority of prisoners until 1942, when the systematic extermination of Jews at this camp commenced. The first to be killed with gas at Auschwitz were three hundred Poles and seven hundred Russian prisoners of war.24 From the German point of view, the Poles, and primarily those who belonged to the Roman Catholic Church, were subhuman (untermenschen), a group destined to serve the Aryan race—inferior slaves only slightly above the level of the Jews. The general idea of the German occupation was to use Polish territory as a “living space” (Lebensraum) for the Germans, and to turn Poles of

other for a minimum of ten years. The confidential part of the pact included the division of Poland between the two countries. 23 Yad Vashem, Poland ( Jerusalem: Holocaust Information Center, Yad Vashem Central School for Instruction of the Holocaust, 2012) http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%205328.pdf [Hebrew]. 24 Ibid.

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Slavic descent into German servants and slaves. Elimination of the Polish nation was essential for this purpose. The German policy of occupation included various aspects of oppression and terror employed against the Polish people. The Germans created a rift within the population by separating and dividing them into ethnic groups of different racial grades. The intellectual and financial elite was exterminated in order to prevent the possibility of organized resistance and to create circumstances in which the Germans need handle only simple farmers with no leadership.25 In 1939–1940, the Germans employed draconian means against the Poles: citizens suspected of resistance to the German occupation, or those marked by their social status as capable of resisting, were exterminated by the Einsatzgruppen. Tens of thousands of affluent landowners, entrepreneurs, doctors, teachers, and government officials were murdered or sent to concentration camps. As part of the annihilation of Polish culture, the Germans closed or demolished universities, schools, museums, libraries, and laboratories. In order to prevent the emergence of a new intelligentsia, Poles were forbidden to study beyond elementary school. The Germans sought to create an illiterate, obedient population, incapable of resistance.26 In areas annexed to the Third Reich, the goal was to “Germanize” the geographical territory—Polish-speaking elementary schools were closed, street names changed, Polish industries nationalized, and Poles forbidden from accessing public places. Over 325,000 Poles were deported from the annexed territories to those of the General Administration, and all their possessions confiscated. Some 50,000 Polish children meeting Aryan standards were taken from their parents and forcibly given to childless Germans for adoption. As part of the oppression of the Polish population, German authorities performed daily mass executions. Dozens of villages were completely annihilated. A total of one and a half million Poles were taken to perform forced labor on behalf of the Third Reich. They were required to wear a purple patch on their clothes, marked with the letter “P.” They were forbidden to use public transportation 25 Holocaust Memorial Museum, Poles: Victims of the Nazi Era, US Holocaust Memorial Museum, 1998. 26 Michael C. Steinlauf, Bondage to the Dead: Poland and the Memory of the Holocaust (New York: Syracuse University Press, 1997).

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and were subjected to a strict curfew. They were forbidden from having any social interaction with Germans after work. Sexual relations between Germans and Poles were considered a violation of racial purity and punished by death.27 A total of three million (non-Jewish) Poles died as a result of the German rule of Poland—10 percent of the non-Jewish Polish population. Together with the three million Polish Jews murdered, one in every five Poles died as a result of the German occupation.28 In light of the suffering of the Polish nation and the fate of Jews and non-Jews on Polish territory as a result of the Nazi German occupation, it would seem that these nations should identify with each other and find common ground based on their painful past. Moreover, considering the large numbers of Israelis who visit Poland, it would be only natural for Poles and Israelis to form positive attitudes toward each other. However, apparently due to “double memory,”29 things are not so simple.

Israeli-Polish Relations

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Some claim that current Israeli-Polish relations operate as a vicious circle.30 Then again, most Poles believe that as a nation they have always been the most tolerant toward the Jews and that anti-Semitism existed only on the margins of society. They contend that Poland served as a refuge for European Jews for centuries, when they were exiled from almost all other countries.31 But most Jews claim that anti-Semitism is common among Poles,32 who looked on with indifference while the Jewish community was decimated during the war.33 27 Holocaust Memorial Museum, Poles: Victims of the Nazi Era, US Holocaust Memorial Museum, 1998. 28 Yad Vashem, Poland. 29 Piotr Wróbel, “Double Memory: Poles and Jews after the Holocaust,” East European Politics and Societies 11 (1997): 560–574. 30 Ibid. 31 Erica Lehrer, “Can There Be a Conciliatory Heritage?,” International Journal of Heritage Studies 16 (2010): 269–288. 32 For example, former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir said that “The Poles feed on anti-Semitism with their mothers’ milk.” 33 Natalia Aleksiun, “Polish Historiography and the Jewish Holocaust,” Bishvil Hazikaron 34 (1999): 34–42 [Hebrew]; Daniel Blatman, “Polish Self Examination and the Jewish Perspective,” Bishvil Hazikaron 43 (2001): 12–16 [Hebrew]; Joshua Zimmerman, Contested Memories: Poles and Jews during the Holocaust and Its Aftermath (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2003).

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Disagreement concerning historical memories is rampant among scholars as well. Some claim that the Polish narrative of the Holocaust is one of denial—particularly in light of the lack of symmetry between the fate of Jewish and non-Jewish Poles (90 percent versus 10 percent annihilated, respectively).34 In contrast, others say that the unique nature of the Nazi German occupation resulted in disintegration of the foundations and values that held Polish society together. The disintegration of Polish society, combined with the fact that the Poles were not only witnesses of the Nazi horrors but also their victims,35 led to a situation of mutual animosity. According to this approach, the destruction of Polish society and the daily exposure to senseless violence created a situation in which ethics and values disappeared and survival became a major goal. Others claim that, given the circumstances, Polish people did the best they could to protect the Jews.36 Zimmerman, in his book Contested Memories, claims that the various approaches to the issue of Jewish-Polish relations during the Holocaust may be divided in two, namely: the apologetics and the condemnation. The apologizers mainly describe the assistance provided to Jews by Poles and also refer to their passivity as a result of the German oppression on Polish territory. For example, a Polish historian said in 1979: “The murder of the Jews in Poland deeply shocked the Polish people, who denounced it unequivocally. The underground movements and Polish individuals expressed their feelings. Only few agreed to collaborate, these were corrupt people from the criminal world.”37 Despite all the above, the two nations are indeed in contact with each other. The number of Israelis visiting Poland rises each year, as does the number of Poles who visit Israel. Israeli businessmen invest in private industries in Poland, and Poles do business with Israelis. Israeli and Polish scientists visit each other and are cooperating more than ever before.38 Moreover, Jewish culture in Poland is enjoying a revival: “Who would have believed that in Poland of all places, the cradle of anti-Semitism, people would fall in love with Judaism. Young people in Cracow, Warsaw, Lublin, and Gdansk are 34 Joanna Michnic-Coren, “The Troubling Past: The Polish Collective Memory of the Holocaust,” European Bibliography of Slavic and East European Studies 29, no. 1–2 (1999): 75–84. 35 Steinlauf, Bondage to the Dead. 36 Zimmerman, Contested Memories. 37 Luczak, cited in: Zimmerman, Contested Memories. 38 Wróbel, “Double Memory.”

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learning Yiddish, dancing the hora, eating chopped liver, and listening to Hassidic music.”39 Despite the relationships between Polish people and Israelis, the Poles themselves feel that the Jews still see them as “collaborators”: “I know what the Israelis think of us. They associate us only with the death camps. [To them] we are anti-Semitic, collaborating murderers.” In Polish opinion, the Israelis only see them in the context of the death camps: “It is painful for me that you only write about Poland in the context of the death camps. You must remember that those were the Germans. It is also painful that both in America and in Israel people think that we are ‘anti-Semitic’ and ‘dumb,’ even though it is not true. It is important that you get to know our side of history as well. It is important for me. It is important for Poland and it is important for you too.”40 In practice, most Jews who come to Poland do so because of the historical context. While many Israelis travel to Germany as tourists, Israeli visits to Poland are almost always associated with the culture that was erased. Specifically, delegations traveling to Poland primarily encounter historical Poland and memories of the Holocaust. Accordingly, the question is whether the Polish people are right to claim that Israelis see them as collaborators. Are direct encounters capable of generating positive attitudes toward the Polish people? Do preparations for the delegations teach young participants Polish aspects of history? Why is Germany perceived by Israelis as a tourist destination while Poland continues to symbolize death? In order to answer these questions, the attitudes of 1,108 high school participants in various delegations to Poland were examined. The findings portrayed below constitute part of a wider attitude survey on various components of the trip.41 The findings portrayed in this article are taken from the part of the survey that explored respondents’ attitudes toward the Polish people, 39 Gal Horowitz, “The Other Poland,” Yisrael Hayom, November 27, 2011, http://www.israelhayom.co.il/site/newsletter_article.php?id=12117 [Hebrew]. 40 Ibid. Similar statements may also be found in: “Debate on the Pilgrimage of Young Israelis to Poland,” 1993. 41 See: Dan Soen and Nitza Davidovitch, “‘Always Remember!’: Trips to the Valley of Death in Poland—Three Settings, Three Lessons in Israel,” in Holocaust Remembrance: Issues and Challenges, eds. Nitza Davidovitch and Dan Soen, 193–206 ( Jerusalem: Ariel Publishing, 2011) [Hebrew].

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country, and culture following the trip. Each item was formulated as a statement, and participants were asked to rank their agreement on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

Israeli Students’ Attitude to Poland and the Poles The sample The study is based on twelve case studies in Israeli schools, consisting of 1,108 students of state and state religious schools from various parts of the country, chosen to represent a varied socioeconomic cross-section. The twelve case studies included twenty-four schools from the regular educational system and six schools from the special education system.

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TABLE 1: The Case Studies: Description of the Sample of Independent Delegations, March 2009 School model

District

Type of supervision

Cultivation index*

No. of students

 1

Rural education. “Mifgashim” (encounters) program

Haifa

State

3.81

82

 2

Local education. High socioeconomic status. Includes “Mifgashim” (encounters) program

Central

State

1.62

160

 3

Large heterogeneous delegation

Tel Aviv

State

2.18

250

 4

Comprehensive high school. “Mifgashim” program

Jerusalem

State

5.56

32

 5

Municipal high school. “Mifgashim” (encounters) program

Tel Aviv

State

5.20

84

 6

Ort High School

Central

State

5.28

33

 7

Girls’ Ulpana

Central

State religious

3.60

80

 8

Girls’ municipal high school

Tel Aviv

State religious

4.46

52

 9

Boys’ yeshiva

Central

State religious

3.81

32

10

Boys and girls, center and periphery

Central and State religious periphery

9.02

112

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TABLE 1: (Continued) School model

District

Type of supervision

Cultivation index*

No. of students

11

Municipal high school. Medium low socioeconomic status. “Mifgashim” (encounters) program

South

State

4.98

133

12

Mixed high school. Religious and secular and challenged students. On the March of the Living.

North

State, state religious, and special

9.00

58

* Cultivation index: An index developed and employed by the Ministry of Education, profiling the socioeconomic status of the school. It is based on a scale of ten grades, 1 being the lowest. Components included in the index are parents’ education, geographical location, economic status, combination of country of origin and economic hardship.

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Findings As stated, some 1,108 high school students were asked about their views on encounters with Polish teens, their attitudes to Polish people in the past and present, and what the trip facilitates with regard to Poland. Ultimately, the questionnaire examined the following areas: •  Students’ opinions regarding the attitude of Polish people toward Jews in the past; •  Students’ opinions regarding the attitude of Polish people toward Jews in the present; •  The attitudes of respondents toward Polish people today; •  W hat does the trip facilitate in the context of becoming familiar with Poland? •  What is the significance of encounters with Polish people?

Students The most conspicuous point in the findings of the survey held among the students is that their attitude toward Polish people is less negative than might be assumed based on the stereotypical image: only 29 percent have a firm opinion that most of the Polish people acted against the Jews and collaborated with the Nazis during the Holocaust. Only 23 percent hold the opinion that most current-day Poles are anti-Semitic.

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Your current attitude toward Polish people is sympathetic

2.45 3.18

State religious schools State schools

Mean

2.40

Students of

State schools

To what degree do you agree with the following sentences?

3.07

State religious schools

Most current day Poles are anti-Semitic

Mean

Students of

2.18

State schools

To what degree do you agree with the following sentences?

1.98

State religious schools

Most Poles risked their lives to save Jews

Mean

2.64

State Students of

3.13

Mean

State religious

Educational stream

To what degree do you agree with the following sentences?

Most Poles acted against the Jews and collaborated with the Nazis to murder Jews during the Holocaust

To what degree do you agree with the following sentences?

3

3

Median

2

3

Median

2

2

Median

3

3

Median

0.70

0.81

SD

1.12

1.20

SD

0.89

0.81

SD

1.05

1.08

SD

23%

4%

Agree and strongly agree (4–5)

16%

37%

Agree and strongly agree (4–5)

7%

3%

Agree and strongly agree (4–5)

20%

37%

Agree and strongly agree (4–5)

TABLE 2: Students’ Attitudes toward Poland and Polish People (on a scale of 1–5)

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68%

50%

Neutral (3)

28%

32%

Neutral (3)

25%

20%

Neutral (3)

35%

36%

Neutral (3)

9%

46%

Slightly and very slightly (1–2)

56%

32%

Slightly and very slightly (1–2)

69%

77%

Slightly and very slightly (1–2)

44%

27%

Slightly and very slightly (1–2)

14 Nitza Davidovitch and Dan Soen

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Then again, only 19 percent of respondents declared that their attitude toward Polish people is very positive or extremely positive. Thus, it can be said that, on the whole, responses to the questionnaire indicate a fairly reserved attitude toward Polish people. Perusal of the detailed findings shows that there is a great difference between the views of students from the two educational streams. In general, students from general (secular) state-run schools see Polish people in a much more positive light than students of state religious schools. For example, 37 percent of students from the religious stream strongly agree with the assumption that most contemporary Polish people are anti-Semitic. In the general (secular) state-run stream, only 16 percent hold this opinion. Again, in the religious stream, 37 percent of students agree that most Polish people collaborated with the Nazis in eliminating the Jews; in the general state-run stream, only 20 percent hold this opinion. And finally, only 4 percent of students from the state religious stream are sympathetic toward Polish people, versus 20 percent of students from the general state-run stream. Of great interest are the findings regarding two important points: (1) Where do the students see the potential contribution of the trip to Poland? and (2) What is the actual contribution of the trip in practice? As it turns out, 40 percent of students attribute a great deal of significance to encounters with Polish teens during the trip (Table 3). Interestingly, teens’ support of these encounters is significantly higher than that of officeholders (teachers, counselors). In fact, students attribute similar significance to visiting tourist sites and to encounters with Polish teens. This means that despite students’ fairly reserved initial attitude toward Polish people, they have a fairly TABLE 3: Significance of Trip Components as Perceived by Students (on a scale of 1–5) Students

Officeholders

Mean

Significant and very significant (4–5)

Mean

Significant and strongly significant (4–5)

Visiting tourist sites in Poland

3.26

43%

2.97

31%

Encounters with Polish teenagers

3.06

40%

2.83

29%

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large amount of inquisitiveness about them. This has a large significance for planning future trips and undoubtedly holds potential for orienting the trips toward the future rather than only toward the past. As mentioned above, the same holds true for Poland: 43 percent of the students attach significance to expanding the encounters to include today’s Poland. When these findings are compared to answers given to questions purporting to examine aspects dealt with by the trip in practice, a considerable symmetry emerges between the desired and actual situation. For example, it is evident from the above that 40 percent of students attribute great or very great significance to encounters with their Polish peers. About 36 percent are of the opinion that the trips in their present format indeed facilitate encounters with Polish teens. As mentioned, 43 percent would like to visit tourist spots and know Poland better; 41 percent think that the trips actually facilitate better acquaintance with current-day Poland (Table 4). However, it is noteworthy that only 29 percent think that the trips make it possible to develop sustainable relationships with Polish teens in Israel (Table 4). Of great importance is the finding, just mentioned, that a mere 40 percent of students think that the trip should attribute great or very great significance to encounters with Polish teens (Table 3). These two findings are undoubtedly worthy of attention. Adequate planning would make it possible to reach much better results in this area. As mentioned, the answers show that only some 41 percent of students think that the trip facilitates better acquaintance with current-day Poland. If the TABLE 4: What does the trip facilitate in the opinion of participants? (On a scale of 1–5) Officeholders

Students

Mean

To a great or very great degree (4–5)

Mean

To a great or very great degree (4–5)

Becoming more familiar with current-day Poland

3.26

37%

3.21

41%

Holding encounters with Polish teenagers in Poland

3.17

42%

2.94

36%

Developing relationships between Polish and Israeli teenagers in Israel

2.62

22%

2.67

29%

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trips are to be oriented toward the future, as well as the past, it seems that this too is worthy of additional thought and planning. Poland’s current status in the European Union definitely justifies more serious attention to this point by trip planners. Evidence that the potential is being missed is provided less by answers to the questionnaires—which indicate an existing foundation for the development of a positive relationship—and more by recurring offensive incidents involving Israeli students and inappropriate behavior patterns, reported from time to time in the Israeli media.42 These obviously contribute to the deterioration of relations rather than to their improvement! But this, of course, is not enough. The trips are intended to put processes in motion. They serve as an instrument of the state. The question is to what degree they achieve their purpose. Attitudes toward Polish people can be explored by comparing the findings at two points in time—before and immediately after the trip. Questionnaires were administered to respondents both before leaving for the trip and a short while after their return. They indicate two conclusions. One conclusion is that direct encounters with Poland and Polish people have a significant, although not dramatic, positive effect on students of general state-run schools. The second conclusion is that the effect on state religious schools is minute and probably not statistically significant. The latter conclusion is apparently the result of the fact that the religious schools very rarely effected encounters with Polish school students and hardly focused on tourist locations and present-day Poland. Hence, analysis of attitudes toward Poland and the Polish people before and after the trips to Poland will be limited in this article to students of the secular state schools. As is easily evident from Table 5, the most prevalent group among students, both before and after the trip, includes those with a neutral attitude toward Poland. Some three-quarters of secular students belonged to this group before leaving on the trip. This situation—the predominance of the neutral group—remained true after the trip as well. Among secular students, the size of the neutral group diminished by some 7 percent. The table 42 Arik Bachar, “The Other Poland,” Ma’ariv NRG, June 13, 2007 [Hebrew]; Itamar Eichner and Danny Spector, “Extremely Ugly: This Is Our Image in the World,” Tourism, Ynet, January 3, 2012 [Hebrew]; Shofar, Poland: Israeli Students Misbehave, www.shofar.net/site/ Print/ARVersion.asp?id=9479 [Hebrew].

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TABLE 5: Attitudes of State Secular Schools’ Students toward the Polish People

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Your current attitude toward Polish people is . . .

Mean

Median

SD

Positive attitude

Neutral attitude

Negative attitude

Before the trip 3.04

3

0.63

14%

75%

11%

After the trip 3.18

3

0.70

23%

68%

9%

indicates two other interesting characteristics of trip participants: one is the small number of those who demonstrate a positive attitude toward Poland. The second is the statistically significant difference initiated by the trip in this respect. This, then, may be seen as a positive consequence of the trip, which can possibly be construed as an indicator of the efficient achievement of its goals—the fluctuations in the relative size of the two extreme groups: those who demonstrate a positive attitude toward Polish people and those who demonstrate a negative attitude toward them. As reflected in Table 5, the trip seems to have had significant impact on attitudes. Among secular students, the group of those with a neutral attitude toward Poland diminished by 7 percent. It encompassed 76 percent of students before the trip but only 69 percent after the trip. In other words, roughly 9 percent of those demonstrating a neutral attitude toward Poland changed their position. In contrast, the group of those who displayed a positive attitude toward Poland grew from 13 percent before the trip to 23 percent after the trip. This increase of about 77 percent is very substantial. Although among secular students the large majority (69 percent) still has a neutral attitude toward Poland, the trip seems to have had a considerable effect in the positive direction.

Discussion and Conclusion Israeli teenagers are taken to Polish territory in various settings. They receive a close view of the history of the Jewish people, the rich and vibrant culture destroyed, and the cruelty of the Nazi enemy. In the current study, we sought to explore how the visit to Poland affects teens’ perceptions of Poland itself and of its citizens. Findings show that the Poles are not wrong to claim that Israelis

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hold a grudge against them for past events. It seems that analysis of the delegations’ participants shows a negative attitude toward the Polish people, at least among a large segment of the sample. A comparison between the attitudes of teenagers before and after the trip shows a significant but not dramatic change. The most significant impact of the trips is in the change of attitude toward Poland. Yet, despite this change, barely 25 percent display a positive attitude toward Poland after the voyage. The lack of change in attitudes is found in all sorts of groups, but it is particularly conspicuous among school students, as their trip model seems to be long and meticulously planned. The Ministry of Education has many expectations of school trips.43 Nonetheless, the findings show that despite these expectations, students do not display a deep interest to begin with in studying the Polish people and country. Moreover, one third continues to perceive the Polish people as Nazi collaborators, and nearly one quarter believe that most present-day Poles are anti-Semitic. These findings show that in contrast to the official goals of the Ministry of Education,44 trips do not manage to draw the two nations closer. They do not manage to create a balance between the trip experience and a mental break for students, as well as enhancement of the theoretical-educational study experience based on observation of present-day Poland. Neither do they arouse special interest among Israelis in the culture and country they are visiting. It would be no exaggeration to say that for a large number of Israelis, Poland is merely a cemetery—a memorial to that which was and is no longer. These findings are not surprising once the trip program is closely scrutinized—eight whole days in which teenagers travel around Poland, in the regions of the past (i.e., historical Poland). Teenagers visit death camps, death pits, cemeteries, empty synagogues, remnants of Jewish towns, the Warsaw Ghetto, and several tourist sites. Over the eight days of the trip, participants have almost no opportunity to see modern-day Poland. Considering the

43 Proof of this may be found in the funds allocated by the Ministry of Education to the topic. In 2010 alone, NIS 50 million were allocated to helping needy students participate in the trip. 44 Ministry of Education and Culture, “Youth Delegations to Poland,” Director General Circular (1994) [Hebrew].

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strict and predetermined nature of time and place on the trip,45 the strong emphasis on security procedures, the strict schedule, and the conspicuous presence of Israeli symbols, in addition to trip contents,46 a closed experience is created—a bubble—that does not let one experience postwar Poland. Delegation participants have almost no opportunity for random encounters with Polish citizens or with the other Poland—a Poland that does not reek of death. When encounters are indeed held with Polish teenagers, they are perceived as shallow.47 Even the few visits to tourist sites only serve as “distractors”—a somewhat comic break—from the intensive death experience. The delegations’ trips to Poland are in fact isolated, both socially and culturally, from the Polish environment.48 A lack of interaction with “the other Poland” transforms the experience into a means of forming a dichotomy of Jews versus Poles, who are often identified with the horrors of the Holocaust. Israelis feel that the Poles are those who are responsible for the Jewish Holocaust and even blame them. While the trip lets one “sense” the memory of the Holocaust and transforms it from an abstract concept known to students from their textbooks into a concrete reality, the “Polish people” and “Poland” remain foreign and estranged and are perceived as perpetrators of the Nazi Holocaust. Thus, it seems that the nature of the trips to a large degree confirms preexisting attitudes of teenagers toward Poland as a hostile country.49 One of the more recent attempts to cope with this isolation is the “Mifgashim” (Encounters) program—devised by the Ministry of Education to connect dozens of schools and thousands of teenagers from both countries 45 J. Feldman, “Bearbeitungsformen Der Nachkommen Und Ihre Ländspezifischen Kontexte— Israel,” in Die Gegenwart Der Geschichte Des Holocaust: Intergenerationelle Tradierung Und Kommunikation Der Nachkommen (Berlin: Institut f. Vergl. Geschichtswissenschaft, 1998), 233–242. 46 Gross, “Influence of the Trip to Poland within the Framework of the Ministry of Education on the Working through of the Holocaust.” 47 Ibid. 48 Dalia Ofer, “History, Memory and Identity Perceptions of the Holocaust in Israel,” in Jews in Israel, eds. Uzi Rebhun and Chaim Waxman (London: University Press of New England, 2003). 49 Gross, “Influence of the Trip to Poland within the Framework of the Ministry of Education on the Working through of the Holocaust”; Nili Keren, The Families’ Block at AuschwitzBirkenau ( Jerusalem: Holocaust Information Center, Yad Vashem, 1998) [Hebrew].

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every year. Since the program began, nine joint seminars for Israeli and Polish educators have been conducted in order to prepare for teenager encounters in Poland, and ninety “extended” teenager encounters have been held in Poland, attended by 160 Israeli and Polish schools. In total, as of the end of 2010, the program has encompassed thirteen thousand students from Israel and Poland, a very small number compared to the three hundred thousand Israeli students who have participated in trips to Poland to date.50 All the above is all the more true of the state religious stream. In the general state stream, attitudes toward Poland are more “open” to begin with; some schools indeed aim to broaden students’ knowledge of contemporary Poland, showing them the difference between various people and the great risk taken by quite a few Polish people who tried to help those persecuted. In contrast, the direct encounter of students from the religious sector with Poland does not change the stereotypical picture that they bring with them to the trip. To the best of our knowledge, and based on interviews held with officeholders, even encounters as part of the “Mifgashim” project are unable to fundamentally change the situation. They are not particularly efficient, as they include very little preparation, and are thus superficial and lacking in content. The teenagers themselves report a drop in the significance of encounters after experiencing them.51 In light of the above, it seems that in order to create closer relationships, there is a need to generate a significant change in how Israelis grasp Polish involvement in the Holocaust. Initially, the Polish narrative must be included in textbooks—that is, teenagers should be taught about the background of the place they are to visit. We believe that the historical truth may draw the two nations closer. In addition, it is necessary to form a structured program of encounters, including significant prior preparation and work on content following the encounter. The fact that the issue of the Israeli-Polish relationship has not been dealt with as part of the delegations project seems to attest to the reluctance of both sides to deal with this open wound. At the same time, the revival of Jewish culture 50 National Authority for Measurement and Evaluation, http://cms.education.gov.il/NR/ rdonlyres/EDFB2F83-BA42-4706-A7D7-95638E02BB76/139930/Polin_takzir_ sikum_f.pdf. 51 Ibid.

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in Poland52 shows that, today more than ever, the Polish people are reaching out to Israelis and are willing to deal with history at an unprecedented level. For Israelis who wish to promote universal values, a significant encounter with the Polish people may constitute a door to acceptance and understanding of others. Such acceptance can only stem from mutual discourse and physical proximity between the two peoples. In order for such encounters to be meaningful and lead to rapprochement, it is necessary to focus on significant preparations for encounters and on working through content in their aftermath.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Aleksiun, Natalia. “Polish Historiography and the Jewish Holocaust.” Bishvil Hazikaron 34 (1999): 34–42 [Hebrew]. Bachar, Arik. “The Other Poland.” Ma’ariv NRG. June 13, 2007 [Hebrew]. Ben Arieh, Katriel. September 1939. Tel Aviv: Lavi, 1987 [Hebrew]. Blatman, Daniel. “Polish Self Examination and the Jewish Perspective.” Bishvil Hazikaron 43 (2001): 12–16 [Hebrew]. Davidovich, Nitza, and Itzhak Kandel. “Joint Trips of Israelis and Germans— Beyond the Experiential Shock.” Kivunim Hadashim 14 (2006): 152–164 [Hebrew]. Don Yehiya, Eliezer. “Religious Zionism and Its Positions in Immigration and Absorption Issues in the Yishuv Period.” In Kibbutz Galuyot, edited by Devorah Hakohen. Jerusalem: Merkaz Shazar, 1998 [Hebrew]. Eichner, Itamar, and Danny Spector. “Extremely Ugly: This Is Our Image in the World.” Tourism. Ynet, January 3, 2012 [Hebrew]. Feldman, J. “Bearbeitungsformen Der Nachkommen Und Ihre Ländspezifischen Kontexte—Israel.” In Die Gegenwart Der Geschichte Des Holocaust: Intergenerationelle Tradierung Und Kommunikation Der Nachkommen. Berlin: Institut f. Vergl. Geschichtswissenschaft, 1998: 233–242. Graetz, Nurit. A Captive of Its Dream. Tel Aviv: Am Oved, Ofakim, 1995 [Hebrew]. Gross, Tamar. “Influence of the Trip to Poland within the Framework of the Ministry of Education on the Working through of the Holocaust.” Master’s thesis, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, 2000 [Hebrew]. 52 Horowitz, “The Other Poland.”

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Grossman, Chaim. “March of the Living.” Kesher Ayin 147 (2005): 12–14 [Hebrew]. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Poles: Victims of the Nazi Era. US Holocaust Memorial Museum, 1998. Horowitz, Gal. “The other Poland.” Yisrael Hayom, November 27, 2011. http:// www.israelhayom.co.il/site/newsletter_article.php?id=12117 [Hebrew]. Keren, Nili. The Families’ Block at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Jerusalem: Holocaust Information Center, Yad Vashem, 1998 [Hebrew]. Knoch, Habbu. “Searching for Authenticity: Memory, Emotions, and Eyewitness Reports in Contemporary Germany.” Tabur 1 (2008): 10–23. Lazar, Alon, Julia Chaitin, Tamar Gross, and Dan Bar-On. “A Journey to the Holocaust: Modes of Understanding among Israeli Adolescents who Visited Poland.” Educational Review 56 (2004): 13–31. Lazar, Alon, Julia Chaitin, Tamar Gross, and Dan Bar-On. “Jewish Israeli Teenagers, National Identity, and the Lessons of the Holocaust.” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 18 (2004): 188–201. Lehrer, Erica. “Can There Be a Conciliatory Heritage?” International Journal of Heritage Studies 16 (2010): 269–288. Lev, Michal. “Impact of Youngsters’ Journey to Poland on Their Cognitive and Emotional Attitudes toward the Holocaust.” Master’s thesis, Tel-Aviv University, 1998 [Hebrew]. Liebman, Charles S., and Eliezer Don-Yehiya. Civil Religion in Israel. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983. Michnic-Coren, Joanna. “The Troubling Past: The Polish Collective Memory of the Holocaust.” European Bibliography of Slavic and East European Studies 29.1–2 (1999): 75–84. Ministry of Education and Culture. “Youth Delegations to Poland—‘Et Ahay Anochi Mevakesh.’” Director General Circular, 2005 [Hebrew]. Ministry of Education and Culture. “Youth Delegations to Poland.” Director General Circular, 1994. [Hebrew] Ministry of Education and Culture. “Youth Delegations to Poland.” Director General Circular, 1991, [Hebrew]. Ministry of Education and Culture. “Criteria and Guidelines for Approving Youth Delegations.” Director General Circular, 1988 [Hebrew].

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National Authority for Measurement and Evaluation. http://cms.education. gov.il/NR/rdonlyres/EDFB2F83-BA42-4706-A7D7-95638E02BB76/ 139930/Polin_takzir_sikum_f.pdf. Ofer, Dalia. “History, Memory and Identity Perceptions of the Holocaust in Israel.” In Jews in Israel, edited by Uzi Rebhun and Chaim Waxman. London: University Press of New England, 2003. Oron, Yair. The Pain of Knowledge: Issues in Instruction of the Holocaust and Genocide. Tel Aviv: Open University, 2003 [Hebrew]. Resnik, Julia. “‘Sites of Memory’ of the Holocaust: Shaping National Memory of the Education System in Israel.” Nations and Nationalism 9 (2003): 297–317. Romi, Shlomo, and Michal Lev. “Knowledge, Emotions, and Attitudes of Israeli Youngsters to the Holocaust.” Megamot 42 (2003): 219–239 [Hebrew]. Romi, Shlomo, and Michal Lev. The Effect of Youth Trips to Poland on Their Views of the Holocaust in the Cognitive and Emotional Dimension. Follow-up study. Tel Aviv and Beit Berl: Mofet Institute and Beit Berl College, 2003 [Hebrew]. Segev, Tom. The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust. Jerusalem: Keter, 1992. [Hebrew]. Shechter, Hava. “The Effect of Youth Trips to Poland on Their Empathy towards the Suffering of Israeli Arabs.” Master’s Thesis, Haifa University, 2002 [Hebrew]. Shofar. Poland: Israeli Students Misbehave. www.shofar.net/site/Print/ARVersion. asp?id=9479 [Hebrew]. Soen, Dan, and Nitza Davidovitch. “‘Always remember!’: Trips to the Valley of Death in Poland—Three Settings, Three Lessons in Israel.” In Holocaust Remembrance: Issues and Challenges, edited by Nitza Davidovitch and Dan Soen, 193–206. Jerusalem: Ariel Publishing, 2011 [Hebrew]. Stengel, Joshua Alexander. World War Two: A War of Extermination. Tel Aviv: Bitan, 1985 [Hebrew]. Stauber, Roni. The Lesson for the Generation of Holocaust and Heroism in Public Thinking in the 1950s. Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 2000 [Hebrew]. Steinlauf, Michael C. Bondage to the Dead: Poland and the Memory of the Holocaust. New York: Syracuse University Press, 1997.

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Tzur, Eli. World War Two: The War That Changed the Face of the World. Jerusalem: Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports, 1995 [Hebrew]. Wróbel, Piotr. “Double Memory: Poles and Jews after the Holocaust.” East European Politics and Societies 11 (1997): 560–574. Yad Vashem. Poland. Jerusalem: Holocaust Information Center, Yad Vashem Central School for Instruction of the Holocaust, 2012. http://www1. yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%205328.pdf [Hebrew]. Zimmerman, Joshua. Contested Memories: Poles and Jews during the Holocaust and Its Aftermath. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2003. Zerubavel, Yael. “The ‘Mythological Sabra’ and Jewish Past: Trauma, Memory, and Contested Identities.” Israel Studies 7 (2002): 115–144. Zevilevitz, Noah. Herut, March 25, 1963. http://www.ranaz.co.il/articles/ article1711_19630325.asp [Hebrew].

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A Test of Leadership: IDF Delegations to Poland— A Tool for Promoting Command-Oriented Leadership? Nitza Davidovitch, Osnat Ur-Leurer, and Dan Soen

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Introduction “Witnesses in Uniform” is an Israel Defense Force (henceforth: IDF) project in which groups of soldiers are taken to visit Holocaust sites in Poland. The trip itinerary includes visits to sites related to Jewish history in Poland, death camps and extermination sites, and a taste of Polish history. Throughout the trip, ceremonies are held at various locations, team discussions are conducted by team captains, and encounters are arranged with the IDF attaché in Poland; also included are an evening with families of fallen soldiers, an encounter with a righteous Gentile, and a testimonial session with the Holocaust survivor included in the delegation. During this five-day program, soldiers wear IDF uniforms and bear the flags of Israel and of the IDF. The IDF sends its soldiers to such remote destinations in the belief and hope that these educational activities will provide a setting that encourages discourse and discussion, and thus enhances participants’ Jewish identity, personal and national values, and leadership-command traits. The trip therefore constitutes an attempt to impart values within the military setting. Imparting values plays a major role in the process of training commanders and soldiers, both in the IDF and in other armies,1 based on recognition of the 1 See M. H. Clemmesen, “The Background and Development of the Baltic Defence College Higher Command Studies Course ‘Leadership of Transformation,’” Baltic Defence Review

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inextricable connection between values, views, and behavior. Our purpose in the current study is to examine whether and to what degree the trip realizes its major goal: to serve as a central tool for commemorating the Holocaust, and as a foundation for extending the command-oriented and ethical identity of commanders and for enhancing their sense of being on a mission for Israel and the IDF.

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“Witnesses in Uniform”: IDF Delegations to Poland In 1992, Ehud Barak, then chief of staff, visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp with eighteen soldiers and officers. The visit, extensively covered in the media, was the first official IDF delegation to Polish territory.2 On that visit, Barak spoke before members of the delegation and declared that “there is a direct link between this valley of death to the vision of the rebirth of Israel in its land.”3 In 1994, another delegation of outstanding cadets made the trip, initiated by Elazar Stern, then commander of the IDF Officers’ School. Stern also perceived the visit to Auschwitz as directly related to the rebirth of Israel: “Understanding the connection between the events experienced by the Jews in the Holocaust and the struggle for the existence of the State of Israel enhances . . . one’s grasp of the significance of the sovereign Jewish State of Israel.”4 At the initiative of Amir Haskel, then head of human resources for the IDF Air Force, and in cooperation with Elazar Stern, then chief education officer, an appeal was made to Lt. General Shaul Mofaz, then chief of staff, in April 2001, suggesting that three delegations of officers a year be sent on the trip to Poland. The chief of staff recognized the major significance of the project and gave his approval.5 The two first delegations, which consisted only of officers, left for Poland under the auspices of the Air Force (in August and October 2001) and later on, the project was transferred to the Education Corps. Mario Sinai was 11.1 (2004): 13–18; R. F. Priest and J. Beach, “Value Changes in Four Cohorts at the U.S. Military Academy,” Armed Forces & Society 25.1 (1998): 81–102. 2 Y. Caspi, “The IDF at Auschwitz 50 Years Too Late,” Bamanaheh, January 15, 1992. 3 E. Barak, General Commander’s Address at Auschwitz, April 7, 1997. 4 IDF, “Basic Document for Imparting the Holocaust in the IDF,” 2004 [Hebrew]. Letter by Chief Education Officer Brigadier General Zvika Harari to IDF officers, members of a delegation to the death camps in Poland. 5 IDF, Witnesses in Uniform website, 2011, http://www.aka.idf.il/edim/main/ (accessed November 11, 2011) [Hebrew].

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appointed in charge on behalf of the Office of the Chief Education Officer, and delegations numbering 150–200 officers began visiting Polish territory. Later on, NCOs, reserve soldiers, and representatives of families of fallen soldiers were also included in the delegations. At first the numbers were small (six delegations a year), but by 2011 the flow had become heavier, consisting of twenty-five delegations a year. Over the past decade, over twenty-five thousand IDF soldiers have taken part in the trip. The goals and rationale of the trip were first formulated in 2004 and expanded in 2005. The rationale for the trip is presented in the “Basic Document for Imparting the Memory of the Holocaust in the IDF,” which defines the Holocaust as

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a unique event with extremely meaningful national and human implications. Teaching the memory of the Holocaust is an important component of the education provided by the IDF to its soldiers and it serves as a means of enhancing soldiers’ sense of belonging to the Jewish people, the State of Israel, and the IDF.

The logic underlying this deviation from military issues is, therefore, the significance of the event for enhancing soldiers’ affiliation and association with the people-army-country triad. “Witnesses in Uniform,” says Chief Education Officer Eli Shermeister, is an unparalleled educational enterprise that enhances both Jewish identity and personal and national values.6 Among other things, the program strives to impart particularist values—“enhancing the commander’s sense of commitment to the IDF and to the State of Israel as a democratic state, and to the Jewish people,” as well as universal values: Enhancing the commander’s competency to deal with issues of identity and human dignity. Both dimensions are expected to join in forming a commander who is both a leader and an ambassador: transforming the personal experience into a command-oriented commitment and commanders into trustees of Holocaust commemoration within their unit and environment.

The first change in this goal had to do with the conferences held upon the delegations’ return—known as Ambassadors’ Conferences until 2006. As of 6 Idem.

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2007–2008, those returning from the trip were no longer called “ambassadors,” but rather “trustees.” The term “trustee” refers to people who have the authority not only to serve as messengers but also to take action in the name of those who sent them. In 2010, the goal was changed once again: to work through the personal experience to form a command-oriented commitment as a result of the trip, continuing the “day after” choice of Holocaust survivors (doing a deed, responsibility for our destiny, Zionism, commitment to commemorating the Holocaust). The question is whether this goal should be part of “Witnesses in Uniform,” or should it be part of Holocaust commemoration in all IDF units as well as throughout the entire system of the Education Corps—since not everything must be subsumed under “Witnesses in Uniform.” Each delegation consists of 160–180 participants divided into four teams. Delegations are headed by a brigadier general. Each team is currently headed by a colonel. Also included are the delegation rabbi, the delegation major, a Holocaust survivor, and four Yad Vashem instructors. The administration team consists of an administration officer on behalf of “Witnesses in Uniform,” an assisting officer, two photographers, and a bugler. Security services are provided by the Israel Security Agency. Preparation for the trip includes three study days at Yad Vashem featuring lectures, a visit to the museum, an encounter with the group instructor, a workshop, testimony by a Holocaust survivor, and an encounter with the delegation witness and with the administration team. Attendance of preparatory sessions is compulsory (missing a day is grounds for exclusion). Occasionally, one of the preparation days is held at the Lohamei Hagetaot Museum. Regular “Witnesses in Uniform” trips last five days.7 The itinerary includes sites directly related to Jewish history in Poland, death camps and extermination sites, and a taste of Polish history. Four ceremonies are held throughout the trip: at the Warsaw Uprising Memorial, Treblinka, and Majdanek, as well as a concluding ceremony at Birkenau. Evening activities include the following: discussions conducted by team captains, an encounter with the IDF attaché in Poland, a commanders evening, an evening with 7 Some delegations have an extended seven-day itinerary. In addition to the regular program, one day is devoted to Hassidic sites, with Shabbat spent in Warsaw or Krakow. In the past, several delegations decided to visit a Jewish community in Eastern Europe after the trip to Poland. For the past two years, two or three delegations a year have begun their trip with a two-day visit to Germany. This model is only embraced by a small minority, and therefore it was not included in our study.

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families of fallen soldiers, an encounter with a righteous Gentile, and a testimonial session with the Holocaust survivor included in the delegation. The delegation maintains military standards in its daily schedule, discipline, and uniforms. The trip itinerary is shorter than that of youth delegations, but the soldiers take the same route as the eight-day high school trip. Each day begins at six o’clock in the morning and ends at eleven at night. Soldiers wear uniforms and carry flags of Israel and of the IDF. Some two months after returning to Israel, a joint encounter is held for all delegation participants. The conference includes a team session during which team members report insights and actions taken since the trip, a lecture, distribution of guidance materials by a representative of the Education Corps, presentation of the delegation video, and a speech by the witness and the delegation commander. Each delegation member also receives a certificate and a trip pin, a printed record portraying the impressions of delegation members, a video of the trip, and photographs. Each trip is followed by a debriefing to reach conclusions for future trips.

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On Values, Leadership, and the Trip to Poland In recent years, due to the globalization of military operations and the transition to a postmodern world,8 armies require additional ethical adaptations in order to adjust to activities in the global village.9 These adaptations include, among other things, recognizing the significance of good leadership,10 manifested in efforts to transform commanders into “lifelong leaders,”11 although some studies indicate that military leadership is not necessarily equal to non-military leadership, and people who flourish as leaders in the army might not be so successful elsewhere. For example, a major educational goal of the US Military Academy (henceforth: USMA) is to provide leaders of character or to   8 E. R. Micewski, “Education of (Military) Leadership Personnel in a Postmodern World,” Defence Studies 3.3 (2003): 1–8.   9 E. F. Malone and C. M. Paik, “Value Priorities of Japanese and American Service Academy Students,” Armed Forces & Society 33.2 (2007): 169–85; C. C. Moskos, J. A. Williams, and D. R. Segal, The Postmodern Military: Armed Forces after the Cold War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). 10 G. Larsson, P. T. Bartone, M. Bos-Bakx, E. Danielsson, L. Jelusic, E. Johansson, and M. Wachowicz, “Leader Development in Natural Context: A Grounded Theory Approach to Discovering How Military Leaders Grow,” Military Psychology 18 (2006): 1869–81. 11 V. C. Franke, Preparing for Peace: Military Identity, Value Orientations, and Professional Military Education (New York: Praeger, 1999), 163.

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instill leadership qualities. The basic premise is that soldiers selected for the command course do not necessarily have initial leadership tendencies, and these are then enhanced and developed through military education.12 In the Israeli army as well, the generation of leader-commanders is perceived as a desirable goal. The significance of this issue was stressed by the establishment of the IDF School for Leadership Development in the early 1980s, aimed at “developing leadership and teamwork among commanders of all ranks, on the personal level and on the systemic level.”13 In Israel, the “Witnesses in Uniform” project was initiated as part of the attempt to empower commanders. The primary objective of the project is to create commanders who are also leaders: “Transforming the personal experience into a command-oriented commitment and commanders into trustees of Holocaust commemoration within their unit and environment.”14 As mentioned above, since 2001, military delegations have been traveling to Poland annually on a regular basis. Over the last decade, the total number of soldiers who have visited Poland has exceeded twenty-five thousand, and they have been to death camps, ghettos, killing grounds, synagogues, and cemeteries.15 The purpose of the current study is to explore whether and to what degree the trip manages to realize its main target: to enhance the sense of being on a mission among participants of the delegations.

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On the Power of Leadership The concept of leadership, in its general form, refers to people’s ability to influence others and motivate them as uncoercively as possible, sometimes beyond their initial expectations and with a high level of commitment. Three major points are now recognized regarding leadership.16 First, leadership is a real and consequential phenomenon, perhaps the single most important issue in the 12 Priest and Beach, “Value Changes in Four Cohorts.” 13 Website of the Education and Youth Corps, http://www.fxp.co.il/showthread. php?t=875212&p=8287158 (accessed May 15, 2011). 14 Witnesses in Uniform, http://www.aka.idf.il/edim/main (accessed May 15, 2011). 15 A. Ben Amos and T. Hoffman, “‘We’ve come to liberate Majdanek’—IDF Trips to Poland and Utilizing the Memory of the Holocaust,” Sotziologya Yisre’elit 12 (2011): 331–54 [Hebrew]. 16 R. Hogan and R. B. Kaiser, “What We Know about Leadership,” Review of General Psychology 9.2 (2005): 169–80.

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human sciences. Second, leadership is about the performance of teams, groups, and organizations. Good leadership promotes effective team and group performance. This, in turn, enhances the well-being of the incumbents; bad leadership degrades the quality of life of everyone associated with it. Third, while leadership can be enhanced and boosted, personality predicts leadership, and this can be used to improve the performance of current incumbents. Many intellectuals—philosophers, historians, sociologists, and psychologists—have been fascinated by the topic of leadership and attempted to understand and explain it in various ways.17 In the early twentieth century, this issue also became a major field of social and organizational psychology. The essence of leadership and its processes is clarified in the professional literature of social psychology through four major types of approaches: the trait approach, the situational approach, the contextual approach, and a new approach that combines its predecessors.18 Despite the extensive research in this field, leadership scholars disagree as to the term’s definition, categorization, sources, and antecedents. However, a leader—in the broad meaning of the word—is one who heads a group and has the authority to make decisions and determine courses of action that guide the group’s operations. Leaders derive their authority from their followers’ willingness to accept them as such, and the followers’ recognition of this leadership is a factor that facilitates leader functioning.19 Leadership is a universal human process apparent in all cultures and ethnic groups. Some claim that it is one of the most commonly observed phenomena on earth, while also one of the least understood.20 In the past, leaders were perceived as people who focus on processes of group transformation—those responsible for the mobility and processes that occur in groups. Leaders were not necessarily separate from the group, but they 17 See, for example, J. C. Maxwell, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership Workbook (New York: Thomas Nelson Inc., 2007); I. Yardley and D. J. Neal, “Understanding the Leadership and Culture Dynamic within a Military Context: Applying Theory to an Operational and Business Context,” Defence Studies 7.1 (2007): 21–41. 18 B. M. Bass, Leadership & Performance Beyond Expectations (New York: Free Press, 1985); Hogan and Kaiser, “What We Know about Leadership”; M. Popper, Managers as Leaders (Tel Aviv: Ramot, 1994) [Hebrew]. 19 R. Pasternak, “Are Leaders Preservers or Transformers?” Kaveret 2 (2001): 7–9 [Hebrew]. 20 J. M. Burns, Leadership (New York: Harper & Row, 1978).

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occupied a higher position. In time, the personality aspect began to inform the concept of leadership. The personality dimension could explain why some are better leaders than others. Personality theories of leadership tend to see it as a one-way process. This type of theory tends to disregard the interaction between the leader’s personality and the actual circumstances. Today, it has become apparent that leaders’ capabilities are best manifested when compatible with the leadership situation.21 Another viewpoint on leadership is the concept of influence. Leaders are perceived as people capable of influencing others. For example, Stogdill22 defines leadership “as a process whereby organized groups’ activities are influenced in an attempt to reach achievements and goals.” This outlook on the concept of leadership perceives leaders as people with a major ability to influence others by using rhetorical skills to modify their behavior. Bass23 defines any attempt to change the behavior of others as an attempt at leadership. When this attempt is successful and people do change, the outcome is successful leadership. When others are rewarded for the behavioral transformation, it is called efficient leadership. Another approach to leadership defines leaders as people involved in directing group actions. In this approach, leadership is a behavior that has a role in the joint direction and activation of group members.24 A recent approach rethinks leadership as a set of dialectical relationships. Drawing on post-structuralist perspectives, this approach reconsiders the relationships and practices of both leaders and followers as mutually constituting and co-produced. The approach highlights the tensions, contradictions, and ambiguities that typically characterize shifting asymmetrical and interdependent leadership dynamics.25 Schemk26 suggests that leadership is a type of persuasion, as it requires management of people through persuasion and inspiration rather than coercion or threat. This type of leadership is indicative of the leader’s ability to 21 B. M. Bass, Stogdill’s Handbook of Leadership: A Survey of Theory and Research (New York: Free Press, 1981). 22 B. M. Bass, Leadership, Psychology, and Organizational Behavior. 23 B. M. Bass, Leadership, Psychology, and Organizational Behavior (New York: Harper & Row, 1960). 24 Fiedler in: Bass, Leadership, Psychology, and Organizational Behavior. 25 D. Collinson, “Dialectics of Leadership,” Human Relations 58.11 (2005): 1419–42. 26 Schemk in: Bass, Leadership, Psychology, and Organizational Behavior.

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Nitza Davidovitch, Osnat Ur-Leurer, and Dan Soen

influence others and to guarantee certain results through effective means rather than by enforcing authority. Some theoreticians define leadership as a means of achieving goals. This type of leadership is thus defined in terms of instrumental values such as achieving group goals and providing for the group’s needs. According to Cowley,27 leaders are people with a plan who advance with their group in a set direction toward a defined objective. Others perceive leadership as an innate quality—divinely bestowed—where the leader’s charisma breaches the routine of our life and creates a new order.28 This type of leadership, also called charismatic leadership, requires a great vision and an extraordinary spirit, as well as unusual skills. In this style of leadership, critical circumstances result in higher charisma. In 1975, Leviatan and Eden first proposed that leadership occurs in followers’ minds. This contention paved the way for cognitive theories of leadership. These theories emphasize the role of both leaders’ and followers’ concepts of leadership. The research literature states that individuals may be considered leaders when they fit the prototype of a leader. For example, traits such as high dominance, self-efficacy, and intelligence are all recognized as characteristic of leaders.29 Cognitive aspects of leadership explain the concept in terms of a capacity that is primarily cognitive. The professional literature offers various terms that focus on the cognitive aspect of leadership—for example, “visionary leadership,”30 or “charismatic leadership.”31 However, the most common major term is “transformative leadership” (also called “formative leadership”). This term was coined by Burns32 and expanded by Bass.33 This type of leadership “generates emotions”: the leader has a strong emotional effect on followers and 27 W. E. Cowley, “Three Distinctions in the Study of Leaders,” The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 23 (1928): 144–57. 28 R. Sharma, Leadership Wisdom ( Jerusalem: Keter Books, 2002) [Hebrew]. 29 J. A. Smith and R. J. Foti, “A Pattern Approach to the Study of Leader Emergence,” Leadership Quarterly 9.2 (1998): 147–60. 30 M. Sashkin, Educational Leadership and School Culture (Richmond, CA: McCutchan Publishing Corp., 1994). 31 J. A. Conger, “Charismatic and Transformational Leadership in Organizations: An Insider’s Perspective on these Developing Streams of Research,” The Leadership Quarterly 10 (1999): 145–80. 32 Burns, Leadership. 33 Bass, Leadership & Performance.

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directs them to exceed their own initial self-expectations.34 Followers’ willingness to surpass their intentions is based on their (initially cognitive) belief of self-efficacy nurtured by the transformative leader.35 Acting on this belief, which provides a sense of growth and flight, transformative leaders draw the group with them and motivate actions involving change, innovation, considerable effort, and even risk. Bass36 explained cognitive leadership as a transaction between the leader and followers in which followers’ needs are fulfilled when their levels of performance are compatible with their contract with the leader. The leader acts as an “agent” who sets goals, grants rewards, and promises rewards in return for further efforts. According to Bass, the changes generated by the leader among followers may include transformation of values and beliefs. Transformative leaders are able to shape people’s expectations and create new self-expectations that did not exist at the beginning of their interaction. Such leaders are capable of causing people to become enthusiastic, make great efforts, and do things that are “radical,” sometimes even risking their lives.37 According to Bass, transformative leaders actively engage in intellectual stimulation of followers’ thoughts and imagination, beliefs, and values by teaching them to devise, reflect, and cope with abstract contents. In this way they increase followers’ awareness and ability to solve problems. In addition, transformative leaders relate to their followers individually, nurturing their feelings and personal needs and developing their growth and self-realization. Among other things, transformative leaders serve as followers’ wise and trusty advisors and support their professional development. Such leaders are capable of arousing the enthusiasm, emotional involvement, and commitment of subordinates. Bennis and Namus38 add another important characteristic: the leaders they studied had a clear vision, formulated such that even the last to join the group managed to assimilate and become part of it.

34 Popper, Managers as Leaders. 35 A. Bandura, Social Learning Theory (New York: General Learning Press, 1977). 36 Bass, Leadership & Performance. 37 M. Popper, Developing Leadership in Youth Movements ( Jerusalem: Youth Movement Council and Impact Organizational Systems, 1990) [Hebrew]. 38 W. Bennis and B. Nanus, “Leaders: The Strategy for Taking Charge,” in Corporate Strategy, ed. R. Lynch (London: Pitman Publishing, 1985), 444–56.

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The strength and power of transformative leadership have rendered it a desirable commodity among military organizations striving to create leaders that fit the transformative leader type.39 For example, the IDF delineates leaders as having the ability “to influence people and motivate them to perform an assignment over time based on a sense of inner commitment.”40 This quality is essential, as it constitutes a “key factor in the ability to command and manage.” According to the IDF conception, “leaders influence people through a vision that unites people around a goal. They integrate people’s needs and the needs of the organization and create a connection between themselves and their people, arousing commitment and emotional responsibility.”41 This is the transformative leadership vision that armies everywhere endeavor to instill in their soldiers and commanders. The question is whether leadership values can be inculcated, or were the early approaches to leadership correct in insisting that leadership is “divinely bestowed,” an innate personality trait?

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Inculcating Leadership Qualities: Is It Desirable? Is It Possible? In general, it is assumed that instilling leadership traits is essential for a wide range of aspects of military organizations. Olsen, Eid, and Johnsen42 found a correlation between leadership style and the moral behavior of officers. In their study, officers’ leadership style was ranked by peers, while elements of moral behavior were examined through self-report. The findings showed a significant positive correlation between post-conventional moral values and moral identity and between behaviors of transformative leadership, and a negative correlation between values and passive-avoidant leadership that avoids taking stands. The significance of leadership has led various armies to make diverse attempts at predicting potential leaders based on a variety of current traits43 and 39 K. Boies and J. M. Howell, “Leading Military Teams to Think and Feel: Exploring the Relations Between Leadership, Soldiers’ Cognitive and Affective Processes, and Team Effectiveness,” Military Psychology 21.2 (2009): 216–32. 40 Witnesses in Uniform, http://www.aka.idf.il/edim/main. 41 Idem. 42 O. Olsen, J. Eid, and B. Johnsen, “Moral Behavior and Transformational Leadership in Norwegian Naval Cadets,” Military Psychology 18 (2006): 37–56. 43 J. D. Rueb, H. J. Erskine, and R. J. Foti, “Intelligence, Dominance, Masculinity, and SelfMonitoring: Predicting Leadership Emergence in a Military Setting,” Military Psychology 20.4 (2008): 237–52.

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models of competency,44 as well as endeavoring to structure and develop leadership in different ways: by teaching ancient warfare texts,45 providing didactic lessons,46 conducting intensive workshops,47 or mentoring programs48—to give a few examples of attempts to instill military leadership. Many studies have tried to examine to what degree various programs and tools contribute in practice to the development of good leadership. For example, Priest and Beach49 explored whether studies at a military academy have an effect on the perceived significance of “strong leadership qualities” by cadets. The perceived significance of these qualities was measured when cadets entered the military academy and when they graduated four years later, and the findings showed a decline. This finding is particularly conspicuous in light of the declared objective of the USMA, which seeks first and foremost to create commanders who are soldiers. The authors believe that one possible explanation is the development of critical reflection and cognitive abilities throughout this period. These cognitive changes result in less reliance on authority and less relativistic reflection. Consequently, one’s values and beliefs become less radical. The result is a decline in idealism and a more realistic course of thought. Military education in general is strict, promoting values of obedience and dualist thought. The academic environment, which encourages freedom of reflection, is not conducive to processes of indoctrination. Eid et al.50 also tried to examine whether military leadership training courses enhance leadership values. Findings showed that although officers might adopt a certain leadership style, it is not always the one targeted by the military setting. For example, while officers adopt different leadership styles, 44 T. Jian-Quan, M. Danmin, X. Youngyong, and Y. Yebing, “The Leadership Competency Modeling of Military Academy Cadets,” Social Behavior & Personality: An International Journal 37.4 (2009): 525–37. 45 M. L. Cook, “Thucydides as a Resource for Teaching Ethics and Leadership in Military Education Environments,” Journal of Military Ethics 5.4 (2006): 353–62. 46 Clemmesen, “The Background and Development”; A. Mack, “The Value and Challenge of International Security Cooperation Education,” Defence Studies 9.3 (2009): 385–408. 47 J. Eid, B. H. Johnsen, W. Brun, J. R. Laberg, J. K. Nyhus, and G. Larsson, “Situation Awareness and Transformational Leadership in Senior Military Leaders: An Exploratory Study,” Military Psychology 16.3 (2004): 203–9. 48 H. Changya, W. Jung-Chuen, S. Min-Hwa, and C. Hsin-Hung, “Formal Mentoring in Military Academies,” Military Psychology 20.3 (2008): 171–85. 49 Priest and Beach, “Value Changes.” 50 Eid et al., “Situation Awareness.”

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only the transformative leadership style was identified as the best predictor of operational consciousness (R2 = .33) and interpersonal influence on followers (R2 = .25). The researchers state that the significance of transformative leadership can be explained through its mediation by intellectual stimulation (for example, behavior that encourages followers to examine their performance and to distance themselves from the past), contributing to change among followers. In operational settings, this leadership style is a critical factor in commanders’ ability to maneuver combat operations, as commanders must assess immediate threats and examine opportunities for action. Larsson et al.51 presented a different approach to elements that have an effect on the development of leadership. They examined the issue from the multinational perspective of officers who participated in their study. The study focused on the development of leadership as perceived by junior officers in the natural context of their military career and life experiences. Researchers conducted fifty-one interviews with officers from five different countries. Findings showed that among all officers, the leadership development model operates mainly through interaction between young officers and significant others—soldiers, peers, and superiors— independent of their country of origin. Observation of role models constitutes a significant factor with an effect on the development of leader qualities. The researchers stated that planned leadership development courses were hardly mentioned. The researchers say that the findings can be explained in light of the concept of professional socialization—i.e., learning about the profession from the social and professional context. In this approach, military education is incomplete if it remains theoretical, as the findings show that in order to develop a sense of leadership, officers must develop their professional identity through assignments in the field. Thus, the optimal model of leadership development involves social interaction, enabling one to both observe role models and develop a professional identity—two major foundations in the development of leadership. If so, the findings show that there is no real consensus on how to enhance leadership among army officers. Nonetheless, in the Israeli army there are those who believe that direct contact with the history of the Jewish people, 51 Larsson et al., “Leader Development in Natural Context.”

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including those eras in which it was a nation with no country or army, will help enhance the sense of leadership and mission of elite commanders. The purpose of the current study is to examine whether these feelings are indeed enhanced by the intensive learning experience.

Purpose of the Trip52 The “Witnesses in Uniform” trip constitutes a major component in imparting remembrance of the Holocaust, serves as a foundation for expanding commanders’ command-oriented and ethical identity, and enhances their sense of being on a mission for one’s country and army.

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•  Objectives -  To en3hance commanders’ sense of commitment to the IDF, the democratic State of Israel, and the Jewish people -  To enhance commanders’ competency to deal with issues of identity, human dignity, and Jewish leadership in the Holocaust, as a function of the conception of “vocation and singularity” -  To understand the concept of bravery as manifested in the Holocaust and currently in the IDF and in Israeli society -  To transform one’s personal experience into a commitment to command as a function of the trip, in continuation of the “day after” choice made by Holocaust survivors and by performing active deeds, to take responsibility for our destiny, Zionism, commitment to pass on the legacy of the Holocaust •  Guidance objectives -  Introduction to the conception and shaping of memory in Poland—Jewish heritage sites, extermination sites, memorials, etc.—through a direct personal-emotional experience -  Encountering the spiritual and cultural abundance of Jewish life in Poland prior to World War II -  Introduction to the basic tenets of Nazi ideology, the motivations and causes that led to its rise 52 Witnesses in Uniform; trip pamphlet, delegation 156.

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- Understanding the meaning of Jewish defiance and bravery during the Holocaust -  Understanding the relationship between Zionist activity and the Jewish response and resistance during the Holocaust -  Understanding the complex relationship between the Polish people and the Jewish people in the past and present.

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Method The current study is the second pilot study conducted jointly by the IDF and the Ariel University Center.53 The current study refers to a trip held in June 2011, consisting of 160 participants, among them twenty commanders, other non-combative officers or non-commissioned officers, and other individuals who joined for various reasons (mostly representatives of families of fallen soldiers, as well as a Holocaust survivor and a researcher). The study focused on many topics, including the effect of preparations for the trip, sources of information on the Holocaust, the effect of various sites, the effect of commanders, instructors, and other staff members, and a review of the various activities included in the trip. However, in the current article we have chosen to deal only with those findings relevant to the topic of leadership. Each of the trip objectives was “translated” by a team of researchers from the University Center and the IDF into a series of questions that eventually comprised the questionnaire. It was intended as a post-trip questionnaire; namely, it was administered to participants after the trip but not prior to it (unlike the first pilot study wherein two questionnaires were administered: pre-trip and post-trip). Therefore, it was not possible to examine the “net” effect of the trip—that is, all responses are retrospective and do not reflect the difference between participants’ thoughts, feelings, and attitudes before and after the trip. In addition, one of the researchers was a participating researcher, and she accompanied the delegation on the trip.

53 The results of the first pilot study were published in Nitza Davidovitch and Dan Soen eds., Remembering the Holocaust: Issues and Challenges (Ariel, Israel: Ariel University Center, 2011).

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TABLE 1: Trip participants’ profile Feature Role in the army

Rank

Type of service Gender Age

Percentage

Combat soldier

15%

Combat support

64%

Other (engineering, technology, staff roles, etc.)

21%

Officer

68%

NCO

15%

Citizen

16%

Standing army

63%

Reserves

32%

Male

77%

36 or older

53%

Country of origin

Israel

82%

Religiosity

Secular

57%

Traditional

28%

Religious

13%

Family member survived or killed in the Holocaust

60%

Family connection to the Holocaust

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Role or trait

The questionnaire was completed by 98 of the 130 trip participants relevant for purposes of this leadership research, and they reported the following personal information. Table 1 indicates that most participants serve in combat support roles (64%), hold the rank of officer (68%), are part of the regular forces (77%), were born in Israel (82%), are over 36 years of age (53%), and that a member of their family survived or was killed in the Holocaust (60%).

Data Analysis and Methodological Notes The background data included in the questionnaire enabled segmentation of participants, and the main categories found were as follows: Military background: Role in the army (combat, combat support) and rank (officer, NCO). Personal background: Gender, age, country of birth, religiosity (secular, traditional, religious).

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Questions were clustered by indices according to the general topics in the questionnaire, and their quality was examined by calculating Cronbach’s α reliabilities, where values of 0 to 1 are used as a measure of the internal consistency or reliability of the questions posed. The following are the indices and their reliability: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Reinforcing knowledge of the Holocaust – 5 questions, α = .68 Enhancing Jewish, Zionist, national identity – 6 questions, α = .74 Significance of Jewish values – 6 questions, α = .70 Significance of Israeli values – 6 questions, α = .81 Significance of social-democratic values – 8 questions, α = .81 Sense of mission, command, and bravery – 4 questions, α = .79

Immediate Purpose The basic assumption underlying the questions posed to participants was that there are seven core values that constitute the foundation upon which a top-notch army is built: loyalty and devotion to the country, discipline, leadership, professionalism, fighting spirit, ethical conduct, and care for soldiers.54 The immediate purpose of the researchers was to evaluate to what extent the Polish trip was supportive of these core values.

Findings

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Effect of the trip on enhancing one’s sense of mission and command: •  S ense of mission and command was enhanced among three quarters of participants, particularly enhancing their sense of being on a mission for their army and country and their comprehension of the concept of bravery, with less of an effect on the command dimension. Who gained from the trip in particular: •  C  ombat support soldiers and NCOs. Men (particularly on the command dimension); women (particularly their sense of being on a 54 N. Davidovitch, A. Haskel, and D. Soen, “Witnesses in Uniform—IDF’s Missions to Poland: Inculcating Values or Indoctrination?,” in Shoa’s Memory: Issues and Challenges, eds. N. Davidovitch and D. Soen (Ariel, Israel: Ariel University Center, 2011), 155–77 [Hebrew].

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Religious Traditional Secular

By religious affiliation

Israel Other

By country of birth

Over 36 25–36 Younger than 25

By age

Women Men

By gender

NCO Officer

By rank

Combat support Combat

By role

83% 77% 72%

74% 73%

77% 68% 84%

77% 74%

90% 71%

75% 73%

75%

73% 50% 36%

44% 47%

53% 32% 50%

35% 49%

73% 38%

47% 25%

48%

75% 79% 79%

80% 73%

83% 69% 88%

85% 78%

100% 74%

78% 83%

80%

92% 88% 83%

84% 81%

82% 79% 100%

90% 82%

93% 82%

82% 92%

84%

General index: Enhancing Understanding Enhancing the sense Sense of mission the command the concept of of being on a mission and command dimension bravery for the country Among the entire sample (N = 98)

Characteristic:

TABLE 2: Effect of the trip on the different indices

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92% 92% 84%

86% 87%

87% 79% 100%

89% 86%

93% 88%

92% 92%

87%

Enhancing the sense of being on a mission for the army

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Nitza Davidovitch, Osnat Ur-Leurer, and Dan Soen

mission for their country and understanding the concept of bravery); young people (particularly their sense of being on a mission for their army and country).

Description of Findings by Indices

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Effect of the trip by role and rank •  Twice as many combat support than combat soldiers report enhancement of the command dimension following the trip. •  More NCOs than officers report that the trip had an impact on their sense of mission and command in all topics examined. By gender and age •  Among men, the command dimension was enhanced following the trip, and among women the sense of being on a mission for their country and comprehension of the concept of bravery are enhanced. •  Among younger participants, the sense of being on a mission for their army and country was enhanced to a greater degree. By country of birth and religious affiliation •  No differences are evident in participants’ sense of mission and command by country of origin. •  Religious more than secular participants report an enhanced sense of being on a mission for their country and enhancement of the command dimension. TABLE 3: Support for the trip and for dealing with the Holocaust IDF treatment IDF treatment In favor In favor The trip The trip of the of the of of trips achieved fulfilled my Holocaust is Holocaust is school with the its goals expectations insufficient well-balanced trips army Percentage endorsement

45%

54%

34%

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99%

97%

99%

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Support for IDF Treatment of the Holocaust •  A  ll respondents, independent of their various features, are supportive: they all report that the trip fulfilled their expectations and achieved its goals. •  E  veryone is in favor of the army trip to Poland. •  A smaller percentage is in favor of youth trips to Poland and only a third are in favor of school-based trips. •  54% of participants believe that IDF treatment of the Holocaust is sufficient; 45% believe that the topic deserves more attention. In this context, the 45% who stated that IDF treatment of the Holocaust is insufficient reflect the centrality of this topic within Israeli society. •  We would like to emphasize the problems inherent in enhancing the command dimension as indicated by the findings. The incongruity of religious soldiers in this context is notable. This is the only area in which such a dramatic disparity between religious and non-religious is evident.

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Discussion In the current setting we sought to discuss the possible effect of military delegations to Poland on enhancing values of mission and leadership among participants. In our opinion, educational endeavors in the IDF and its Education Corps have a different role than in other or at least most other armies. To the best of our knowledge, the IDF is the only army that sends its commanders to Holocaust sites. This requires many resources and is a complex administrative operation that some claim is inappropriate for a military-operational entity. However, it is a well-known fact that the army’s strongest foundation is its values. One of these values, sought by many armies, is that of leadership. The wide range of training programs and attempts to develop leadership among soldiers55 indicates the need and significance of leader-commanders. In Israel, delegations to Poland also constitute an attempt to arouse and enhance soldiers’ sense of mission and leadership. Findings indicate that this goal is fulfilled to a large extent, as over three quarters of participants report that 55 Boies and Howell, “Leading Military Teams to Think and Feel”; Clemmesen, “The Background and Development”; Jian-Quan et al., “The Leadership Competency”; Mack, “The Value and Challenge.”

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Nitza Davidovitch, Osnat Ur-Leurer, and Dan Soen

the experience had the effect of enhancing their sense of command (although this is not true of the command dimension!) and mission. However, a distribution of this effect by roles shows that combat support soldiers and NCOs derive the most benefit, more than combat soldiers and officers. This finding might be explained by differences in their point of departure—namely, combat soldiers and officers have higher levels of sense of mission and affiliation with leadership values to begin with than combat support soldiers and NCOs, who receive different training. Combat soldiers and officers are exposed, as a structured part of their training, to the topic of leadership and its enhancement, and thus have a stronger affiliation with this topic to begin with. The findings indicate that in principle the IDF achieves its primary goal and manages to instill in most participants a sense of inner commitment that motivates leaders. The target seems to have been reached, although this may imply winning one battle but not necessarily the war. The questionnaires were completed not long after returning from the trip, when the experience was still fresh. They cannot attest to long-term implications of the trip nor to its implications for participants’ subsequent behavior, as also shown by the research literature. Research among other groups56 has shown that the experience of revisiting the valley of death arouses strong feelings. However, we have not yet managed to prove that this emotional learning experience can generate longterm change or create “a life changing experience.” The current study attests that the trip contributes to participants’ sense of mission and commitment to Israel. The values enhanced among participants are mainly national-Israeli values, which may also be assumed to have an indirect effect on their sense of mission and command. Soldiers personally encounter the destruction of defenseless European Jewry. This reinforces the significance of the State of Israel and of a “strong army” in a manner that probably enhances one’s motivation to be part of the latter. From this respect, the IDF seems to have achieved its primary goal: reinforcing leadership. However, there is room for further research to examine the effect of the trip over time and its impact on the normative conduct of participating soldiers. The literature makes mention of a global ethical crisis, with detrimental consequences for leadership levels.57 Perhaps the association with destruction—arousing existential fears of death, of annihilation—is 56 National Authority for Measurement and Evaluation. 57 Malone and Paik, 2007; Micewski, 2003; Moskos et al., 2000.

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capable of arousing one’s power to assume responsibility and leadership of one’s destiny.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Bandura, A. Social Learning Theory. New York: General Learning Press, 1977. Barak, E. Address of the General Commander at Auschwitz. April 7, 1997. Bass, B. M. Leadership & Performance beyond Expectations. New York: Free Press, 1985. _____. Leadership, Psychology, and Organizational Behavior. New York: Harper & Row, 1960. _____. Stogdill’s Handbook of Leadership: A Survey of Theory and Research. New York: Free Press, 1981. Ben Amos, A. and T. Hoffman. “‘We’ve Come to Liberate Majdanek’—IDF Trips to Poland and Utilizing the Memory of the Holocaust.” Sotziologya Yisre’elit 12 (2011): 331–54 [Hebrew]. Bennis, W. and B. Nanus. “Leaders: The Strategy for Taking Charge.” In Corporate Strategy, edited by R. Lynch, 444–56. London: Pitman Publishing, 1985. Boies, K. and J. M. Howell. “Leading Military Teams to Think and Feel: Exploring the Relations Between Leadership, Soldiers’ Cognitive and Affective Processes, and Team Effectiveness.” Military Psychology 21.2 (2009): 216–32. Burns, J. M. Leadership. New York: Harper & Row, 1978. Caspi, Y. “The IDF at Auschwitz 50 Years Too Late.” Bamahaneh ( January 15, 1992): 20–25. Changya, H., W. Jung-Chuen, S. Min-Hwa, and C. Hsin-Hung. “Formal Mentoring in Military Academies.” Military Psychology 20, no. 3 (2008): 171–85. Clemmesen, M. H. “The Background and Development of the Baltic Defence College Higher Command Studies Course ‘Leadership of Transformation.’” Baltic Defence Review 11, no. 1 (2004): 13–18. Collinson, D. “Dialectics of Leadership.” Human Relations 58, no. 11 (2005): 1419–42. Conger, J. A. “Charismatic and Transformational Leadership in Organizations: An Insider’s Perspective on these Developing Streams of Research.” The Leadership Quarterly 10 (1999): 145–80.

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Cowley, W. E. “Three Distinctions in the Study of Leaders.” The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 23 (1928): 144–57. Davidovitch, N., A. Haskel, and D. Soen. “Witnesses in Uniform—IDF’s Missions to Poland: Inculcating Values or Indoctrination?” In Shoa’s Memory: Issues and Challenges, edited by N. Davidovitch and D. Soen, 155–77. Ariel, Israel: Ariel University Center, 2011. [Hebrew]. Davidovitch, Nitza and Dan Soen, eds. Remembering the Holocaust: Issues and Challenges. Ariel, Israel: Ariel University Center, 2011. Eden, D. and V. Leviatan. “Implicit Leadership Theory as a Determinant of the Factor Structure Underlying Supervisory Behavior Scales.” Journal of Applied Psychology 60 (1975): 736–40. Eid, J., B. H. Johnsen, W. Brun, J. R. Laberg, J. K. Nyhus, and G. Larsson. “Situation Awareness and Transformational Leadership in Senior Military Leaders: An Exploratory Study.” Military Psychology 16, no. 3 (2004): 203–9. Franke, V. C. Preparing for Peace: Military Identity, Value Orientations, and Professional Military Education. New York: Praeger, 1999. Hogan, R. and R. B. Kaiser. “What We Know about Leadership.” Review of General Psychology 9, no. 2 (2005): 169–80. IDF. “Basic Document for Imparting the Holocaust in the IDF.” (2004) http:// www.aka.idf.il/edim/main/ (accessed February 13, 2011) [Hebrew]. _____. Witnesses in Uniform website. (2011) http://www.aka.idf.il/edim/ main/ (accessed February 13, 2011) [Hebrew]. Jian-Quan, T., M. Danmin, X. Yongyong, and Y. Yebing. “The Leadership Competency Modeling of Military Academy Cadets.” Social Behavior & Personality: An International Journal 37, no. 4 (2009): 525–37. Larsson, G., P. T. Bartone, M. Bos-Bakx, E. Danielsson, L. Jelusic, E. Johansson, R. Moelker, M. Sjöberg, A. Vrbanjhac, J. Bartone, G. B. Forsythe, A. Pruefert, and M. Wachowicz. “Leader Development in Natural Context: A Grounded Theory Approach to Discovering How Military Leaders Grow.” Military Psychology 18 (2006): 69–81. Mack, A. “The Value and Challenge of International Security Cooperation Education.” Defence Studies 9, no. 3 (2009): 385–408. Malone, E. F. and C. M. Paik. “Value Priorities of Japanese and American Service Academy Students.” Armed Forces & Society 33, no. 2 (2007): 169–85.

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Maxwell, J. C. The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership Workbook. New York: Thomas Nelson Inc., 2007. Micewski, E. R. “Education of (Military) Leadership Personnel in a Postmodern World.” Defence Studies 3, no. 3 (2003): 1–8. Moskos, C. C., J. A. Williams, and D. R. Segal. The Postmodern Military: Armed Forces after the Cold War. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. National Authority for Measurement and Evaluation. http://cms.education. gov.il/EducationCMS/Units/Rama/MaagareyYeda (accessed February 27, 2012) [Hebrew]. Olsen, O., J. Eid, and B. Johnsen. “Moral Behavior and Transformational Leadership in Norwegian Naval Cadets.” Military Psychology 18 (2006): 37–56. Pasternak, R. “Are Leaders Preservers or Transformers?” Kaveret 2 (2001): 7–9 [Hebrew]. Popper, M. Managers as Leaders. Tel Aviv: Ramot, 1994 [Hebrew]. _____. Developing Leadership in Youth Movements. Jerusalem: Youth Movement Council and Impact Organizational Systems, 1990 [Hebrew]. Priest, R. F. and J. Beach. “Value Changes in Four Cohorts at the U.S. Military Academy.” Armed Forces & Society 25, no. 1 (1998): 81–102. Rueb, J. D., H. J. Erskine, and R. J. Foti. “Intelligence, Dominance, Masculinity, and Self-Monitoring: Predicting Leadership Emergence in a Military Setting.” Military Psychology 20, no. 4 (2008): 237–52. Sashkin, M. Educational Leadership and School Culture. Richmond, CA: McCutchan Publishing Corp., 1994. Sharma, R. Leadership Wisdom. Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House, 2002 [Hebrew]. Smith, J. A. and R. J. Foti. “A Pattern Approach to the Study of Leader Emergence.” Leadership Quarterly 9, no. 2 (1998): 147–60. Witnesses in Uniform. http://www.aka.idf.il/edim/theProj/theProj.asp (accessed February 15, 2012) [Hebrew]. Yardley, I. and D. J. Neal. “Understanding the Leadership and Culture Dynamic within a Military Context: Applying Theory to an Operational and Business Context.” Defence Studies 7, no. 1 (2007): 21–41.

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The Pedagogy of Commonness: An Alternative Theory in Teaching about the Holocaust Marek KaZ�mierczak

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Introduction It is impossible to mention every book, workshop, lecture, article, cultural text, and educational project used to teach about the Holocaust. There are many ways of teaching, many ways of thinking, many ways of facilitating confrontation between generations and forms of discourse. For the last twenty years, people in different countries have done a lot to teach about the Holocaust—specifically, to commemorate, inform, and warn.1 The many ways of teaching and learning confirm the peculiarity of the Holocaust not only for the Western world. But how is it possible in contemporary times that people, knowing what the Holocaust means, still want to kill, to murder, to exclude “others”? We live in a world where there is still less money for education than for the military industry. This is a paradox, because science helped create the atomic bomb, which, for some politicians, is the prosthesis of reason, good will, and responsibility. The enemies of Israel are deniers of the Holocaust, and the deniers of the Holocaust are very often the enemies of Israel and of Jews in general.2 It is hard to pretend that words are only, as Hamlet put it, “words, words, words.” We continue to read Shakespeare not only because of tradition,

A Polish translation of parts of this essay was published in M. Kaźmierczak and A. Boroń, “Pedagogika potoczności jako podstawa alternatywnej teorii nauczania o Holokauście,” Kultura—Społeczeństwo—Edukacja 1, no. 3 (2013): 89–115. 1 J. Jacobs, Memorializing the Holocaust: Gender, Genocide, and Collective Memory (London, New York: I. B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., 2010), 7. 2 M. Gerstenfeld, The Abuse of Holocaust Memory: Distortions and Responses ( Jerusalem: Printed at Ahva—Cooperative Printing Press Ltd., 2009), 23.

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but because he managed to show that generally, human nature remains the same despite individual differences, and despite the peculiarities of various times and places. “Things without all remedy should be without regard; what’s done is done.” How often do we agree with this statement? Do we remember that was said by Lady Macbeth? It is possible that this statement is also present implicitly in every voice trying to convince us that “the past is the past”— meaning the past is the accepted process of forgetting. But what about the Jews who were murdered and what about those who survived? What about human beings in history?3 The process of ignoring the Holocaust reveals another mechanism of contemporary times. Our telos (aim) of being in history is parenthetical. The past and the future are, rather, terms that hold importance for philosophers or maybe writers. In this context, the past becomes necessary as the source of inspiration for “screenplays” that replace cognition of the facts. The loss of telos implies the exchange of facts for fiction. Maybe it is natural from a cultural perspective, but we should remember that very often, fiction becomes the substitute and prosthesis of knowledge.4 Enemies are always a danger. Atom bombs are a danger. But we, who teach about the Holocaust, must do better: this means that teaching should involve taking responsibility. Ignorance and hate are not only cultural phenomena; they are possible tools of destruction. Some “specialists” are convinced that teaching about the Holocaust is not important, as the contemporary world must cope with other problems. However, there are also those who deny that the Holocaust happened.5 Some people still search for analogies between the reality and peculiarity of this fact and others,6 although, as Yehuda Bauer wrote: “It is only by comparison that we can answer the question of whether it is unprecedented and has features not found in similar events.”7 Mass culture has taught us that we can compare almost every death; the number of people killed becomes much more real when it is larger than before.8 Paradoxically, mass culture has made it more difficult to recall the actual number of murdered Jews. 3 G. Steiner, Gramatyki tworzenia, tłum. J. Łoziński (Poznań: Zysk i sp., 2004), 14–15. 4 A. Łebkowska, Między Teoriami a Fikcją Literacką (Kraków: Universitas, 2001), 135. 5 M. Shermer and A. Grobman, Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It? (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2000). 6 S. Power, “To ‘Suffer’ by Comparison?” Daedalus 128, no. 2 (1999): 31–66. 7 Y. Bauer, Rethinking the Holocaust (New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 2002), 8. 8 J. Baudrillard, Wymiana symboliczna i śmierć, tłum. S. Królak (Warszawa, 2007), 237.

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It is therefore more “convenient” to forget, ignore, mock, or even deny the truth of the six million victims of the Holocaust. The cultural influence of the screen (the television, cinema, or computer) helps us watch some images like stories that function as representations framed by fiction and exaggeration. The social status of knowledge (mainly the humanities) and education diminishes because the paradigms of high culture are deconstructed by the paradigms of popular and mass culture and by the influence of technological expansive capitalism.9 The main aim of this chapter is to describe a model of complementary discourse in education. The premise that necessitated the creation of this model refers to commonness treated as the sphere of daily intellectual and axiological experiences that redefine cultural and social status of knowledge about the Holocaust. Commonness becomes an alternative for official educational and cultural discourse. We can confirm this hypothesis through the Internet. The theory of the pedagogy of commonness is still being developed. Thus, some of the simplifications presented in this chapter are the result of reflection that demands additional research.

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About Commonness The problem of commonness is present in contemporary research. However, there are some ideas and categories that describe this kind of daily life experience in different terms. Life is shaped by the spheres of experiences of commonness. Research focusing on daily individual and collective ways of thinking and imagination is important for diverse discourses, as well as for those that refer to reception of the Holocaust. Taking commonness as the object of research raises some methodological questions. Bernhard Waldenfels wrote about daily life, but we can extrapolate from his statement to reflect on the experience of commonness. The scientific absolutization of objective studies and their technological limitations reduces such fluent, variable, and elusive results of the experiences of daily life to unimportant elements of contemporary culture.10 Commonness, which   9 J. D. Halloran, “Mass Communication Research: Asking the Right Questions,” in Mass Communication: Research Methods, eds. A. Hansen, S. Cottle, R. Negrine, and C. Newbold (London: MacMillan, 1998), 9. 10 B. Waldenfels, Topografia obcego: Studia z fenomenologii obcego, tłum. J. Sidorek (Warszawa: Oficyna Naukowa, 2002), 57.

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creates its own autonomous rationality, is the singular and intended object of research in this chapter. This potential autonomy causes the images of the world to function per analogiam to the images of a world created and shaped by the official forms of discourse (public, academic, political). Commonness imitates high culture and its respect for knowledge. On Facebook, we can read about what the Holocaust “means.” One of the main answers published by Facebook’s search engine refers to the television miniseries Holocaust, which was shown in 1978 on NBC. Wikipedia (which is an example of how the new social digital media functions on the Internet) was a “user” that introduced this description on Facebook.11 Every user of Facebook can select the page with this description by choosing to “like” it (or others connected to the miniseries’ profile). This link can function in this context as a substitute for memory—the link replaces knowledge and remembering. Due to the influence of commonness on the status of social and cultural dimensions of knowledge, imagination, and axiology, we can presume that the limits of the mind are the limits of presentation and understanding of the past. High culture also imitates mechanisms typical of commonness. That is why we can read, choosing a link on Facebook, about the Holocaust Museum in Houston12 on its profile page, which is shown inter alia with other links that display images of changes in thinking about the Holocaust in contemporary societies. These forms of mutual imitation transcend the distinction between facts and narration, and erase the separation between the order of reality and its representations. As a result, commonness—as the fluent and progressive set of beliefs and colloquial experiences—becomes an almost autonomous “generator” of meanings, values, and knowledge. Repetition in this context is the mechanism that constitutes apparent consistency. “Repetition constantly affirms its own incompletion, its inability to stop, its excess of emptiness. 11 “About Holocaust. TV Show.” Page automatically generated based on what Facebook users are interested in, 5:20 p.m., https://www.facebook.com/pages/Holocaust/107774749245 962?rf=141334789210979# (last accessed October 28, 2012). 12 “Holocaust Museum Houston. History Museum. Public Places & Attractions.” Page of the Holocaust Museum Houston, 3:19 p.m., https://www.facebook.com/pages/HOLOCAUST-MUSEUM-HOUSTON/78039800708?sk=info&tab=overview (last accessed October 25, 2012).

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It functions through a process of inscription and erasure, of re-marking, and is always itself marked by variation, by the revisions of nachträglichkeit.”13 Colloquial thinking about the past is duplicated and derived by patterns of the present. That is why images of commonness will be shown in an incomplete, arbitrary, atomized, inconsistent, and scattered way, and—because of the influence of mass and new media—characterized by aleatory, random interpretations of reality shaped by cultural texts. All of these correlations and dependencies are evident when we want to find out something about the Holocaust on YouTube. Approximately 113,000 records are generated when one searches the word “Holocaust” on this social media platform. Hence, we can see the incomplete, inconsistent, chaotic, and atomized representations of the past on YouTube: some presentations have been prepared by individual users; some are fragments of films and documents (for example, the film Children of the Holocaust); there are links to discussions about the Holocaust industry, to fragments of the film Cannibal Holocaust, and to the works recorded by Urgehal, a black metal band from Norway.14 This sample is typical of YouTube’s diverse styles, contents, texts, and points of view, forming the poetics of repetition and fragments that makes the reception of the Holocaust incomplete and haphazard. The need for unification and estimation (evaluation, opinion), which can be called the “suspension of differences” (between the dimensions of time and levels of representation, and between reality, fiction, and falsehood), will be the result of all of these dependencies implied by the experiences of commonness. Suspension in this context is synonymous with forgetting. The naïve and colloquial axiology is connected with the order of negation, exclusion, concealment, and oblivion that is de facto the elements of forgetting treated as the screen of the superficial, and built on the knowledge of belief. Commonness is a daily cultural experience. Zbigniew Kloch suggests that it is the center of styles of culture with the greatest prevalence. Commonness in experiencing culture is always the first contact with patterns of behavior and expression, although it 13 A. Brewster, “The Poetics of Memory,” Continuum: Journal of Media & Culture Studies 19, no. 3 (2005): 397–402, esp. 398. 14 “Urgehal—Holocaust in Utopia,” YouTube, 7:40, Black Metal from Norway, posted by “phenomenatagonist,” June 4, 2010, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTAxf2Ke5nI (last accessed October 26, 2012).

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can convert patterns typical of mass or high culture.15 Commonness is the function of signs, which is perhaps not consciously motivated but nonetheless shapes us as participants and actors in an instant and interactive culture. We cannot return to commonness; it is almost still possible as the source of an alternative and rational description and explanation of the world.16 The new media of communication fix the diversity of the presence of commonness in daily life as the source and matrix of alternative rationality. The frame of cognition is present time. This is the reason for which some communicative purposes focus on short-term effects. The quality of created messages or of written texts on Web 2.0 is replaced by the quantity of information sent. The communicative competencies of users are often the prosthesis of their intellectual and cultural background. “Changes in society demand new skills, especially those related to the Internet as one of the most important means of communication in contemporary society.”17 The user, as a sender of texts, can see the public discussion or collective memory on the Internet as a constantly changing river. Commonness possesses its own rationality, where critical and objective reason is one of the potential ways of man’s being in signs, history, and society. Commonness became an instrument of many discourses of power, a filter of fixed parts of memory, and a domain of oblivion. This diversity is seen, for example, on Twitter, where we can read texts written by people who treat the Holocaust seriously, as well as by people who, despite their ignorance, still want to tweet about their views on this topic.18 As a result of these discrepancies, the reception of the Holocaust seems to be a nebular process determined by the dichotomies between forgetting and remembering, knowledge and ignorance, and interest and hate. Commonness shapes patterns of behavior and speech. We can find confirmation of this hypothesis on Web 2.0—in the social media created by usergenerated content. Commonness is the process that connects meanings created 15 Z. Kloch, Odmiany Dyskursu: Semiotyka Życia Publicznego w Polsce Po 1989 Roku (Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, 2006), 15. 16 R. Sulima, Antropologia Codzienności (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, 2000), 4. 17 A. J. A. M. van Deursen, J. A. G. M. van Dijk, and O. Peters, “Rethinking Internet Skills: The Contribution of Gender, Age, Education, Internet Experience, and Hours Online to Medium- and Content-Related Internet Skills,” Poetics 39 (2011): 125–44, esp. 126. 18 For example: Ariana Grande, Twitter post, April 30, 2015, 7:49 a.m., https://mobile.twitter. com/pacificbutera (last accessed May 8, 2014).

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in the context of dichotomy between popular and high culture, between a culture of unification and differentiation. This dichotomy is important because it represents a mechanism of permanent confrontation between the culture of the periphery and cultural centers. It means that users, who generate their own messages, define themselves as potential and global alternatives for traditional and official senders (such as some institutions). Commonness, which is the model of culture prevalent on Web 2.0, reflects contemporary styles of reading and talking about the past, but it also forms new, rather than only original, representations and imaginations of the past. One of the most important characteristics of commonness is its arbitrariness, which projects social status and a cognitive and axiological horizon of knowledge based on beliefs and on forgetting. Some social and cultural phenomena typical of commonness were present before the Internet and before Web 2.0. However, due to the influence of the new media of communication, we can observe “the will of commonness,” which will secure and proliferate its patterns of thinking, imagination, and axiology as the dominant models of individual and collective memory and forgetting.

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The Model of the Complementary Discourse of Education It is important to ask ourselves: what is our main medium (in the broad sense) for the transmission of knowledge about the Holocaust? Many would say literature or cinema, and others, academic discourses or museums, but the youngest would probably answer, the Internet. Do we really think that Facebook can change global attitudes toward the past? Are we going to learn about the Holocaust only by watching short films and presentations accessible on YouTube? We can presume that the influence of social media on the reception of the Holocaust does change traditional discourses of education, that because of Twitter we learn to talk about the past in short instant messages, that because of Facebook we learn that the past consists of socially diverse interactions, and, last but not least, that because of YouTube we learn that the reception of the Holocaust is shaped by the poetics of fragments and often by unexpected analogies. In this chapter, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are only examples of broader digital social media. Is it really important for us to be able to explore some individual statements, very often full of mistakes and abuses, by users of Twitter that refer to the Holocaust? This last question needs an immediate

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Figure 1. A model of the complementary discourse of education

answer. Yes, because social media fixes commonness (in the potential global scale) as the alternative matrix of imaginations, of forms of thinking, and of understanding the Holocaust. Commonness begins to work similarly to traditional and official sources of knowledge about the Holocaust. In Figure 1, we can see a model of the discourse of education. The left side presents “traditional” ways of teaching about the Holocaust. The right side represents the model of cultural changes that are the intellectual and cognitive foundations of the pedagogy of commonness. We can see in this figure some symbols: “Vd” refers to the vector of discourse; “VofCh” to the vector of changes; and L, E, and P to logos, ethos, and pathos, respectively. The direction of the arrow shows the order of correlation among levels of education and between traditional and colloquial patterns of culture. The concepts of logos, ethos, and pathos were taken from ancient philosophy, especially from Plato’s theory. The triad L-E-P is a useful cognitive and social metaphor for describing some differences between official and non-official discourses of culture and education. Traditional ways of teaching were created and focused on logos. They were logos-oriented discourses. Official discourses supported by concrete institutions (such as schools, universities, museums, governments, foundations, or even filmmakers) created some models of teaching. These models were introduced at workshops, lectures, or presentations. They shared, in general, the aim to define an intersubjective perspective that might be useful in creating some representations of the past. These ways of teaching (and learning) were strongly defined by cultural centers (where knowledge was a subtle kind of power, and where power was a practical form of knowledge). The hierarchy of values and knowledge was rather predictable: one center (sender) formed the frame of thinking, remembering (and forgetting),

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and imagining many peripheres (receivers). The act of teaching is always a communicative act; that is why we can think about fluent, interactive, and meaningful relations between sender and receiver. This way of teaching was official and mainly deontological. The systems of teaching are (and were) replete with norms, such as “we must remember” or “we have to learn from the past to teach for the future.” Therefore, the level of ethos was the filter for the dimensions of knowledge and for the ways of transmitting it. Ways of teaching in this context are diachronic, changeable in history, meaning that because of the research—but also because of the political background— some ways of teaching have started changing. These changes concern the social and cultural description of existing knowledge of the Holocaust as well as of perceptions of the victims (what does it mean to be a victim?), the perpetrators (for example, who was responsible for the Holocaust, Germans or Nazis?19), and bystanders (for example, why did many Poles not help enough?20). The advantage of this way of teaching was, for example, a potentially high level of knowledge and its objective status. The disadvantage was the elusion or suspension of many diverse ways of thinking and facts, which became the substance of the periphery (such as problems with the commemoration of people and places that were unknown on the global scale). We remember Auschwitz, but what do we know about the 1,500 murdered Jews in the forest in Rudzica in 1941?21 The advantage was that this way of teaching, modeled by logos (knowledge), was strongly connected with ethos. Both of these levels shaped the frames of the third, pathos. The disadvantage was that logos-oriented teaching was not open to fluid but real changes in the contemporary world. Maybe this explains why popular culture began to eradicate knowledge and logos from the common and collective imagination of the past. Maybe this explains why films had a stronger influence on public opinion than academic sources of knowledge. Maybe this explains why 19 A. Wolff-Powęska, Pamięć—brzemię i uwolnienie. Niemcy wobec nazistowskiej przeszłości (1945–2010) (Poznań: Wyd. Zysk i S-ka, 2011), 117. 20 J. Błoński, “Biedni Polacy patrzą na getto,” Tygodnik Powszechny 2 (1987): published again in “Tygodnik Powszechny. Żydownik Powszechny” 13 (2010), 11–14. 21 S. Krakowski, “The Extermination Center in Chełmno-on-Ner in the Nazi Plan of the Holocaust,” in The Extermination Center for Jews in Chełmno-on-Ner in the Light of the Latest Research, ed. L. Pawlicka-Nowak (Symposium Proceedings, September 6–7, 2004). Konin (2004): 12.

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narration and oblivion have become the conventional frames of the “real” dimensions of the past. We remember images from a movie more than from our studies. Furthermore, knowledge about the Holocaust stopped developing along the logos-oriented horizon once students stopped learning. They simply recognize the Holocaust as a term fulfilled and contextualized by contents and representations taken from popular and mass culture.22 Fulfillment in this context is synonymous with the forgetting, oblivion, banalization, and dispersion of the past. Officially, forms of study were much more important than representations of the past taken from popular culture. But unofficially, the order of the transmission of knowledge and imagination was the opposite. The level of ethos was modeled upon the level of logos to avoid the possible abuse of the representation of the Holocaust. The level of pathos in this context was marginalized. The relations between logos and ethos were the source of knowledge and imagination that had to shape the language and experience of daily life. Logos-oriented educational discourses were, officially, the matrix of individual speech and thoughts about the past. For example, global problems, historical issues, or political tasks are domains in which the Holocaust is overused as a metaphor, or as the content of schematic analogies that are created by some politicians to generate images that represent problems of the contemporary world.23 The mechanisms that are typical exemplify the overuse of the Holocaust to form public discourse in reality and on the Internet. This means that the global network of people, institutions, and computers widens and spreads some trends and forms of presentation of the Holocaust. There is one basic difference: due to the popularity of the Internet, commonness as an alternative (in contrast with traditional discourses in education) source of knowledge, axiology, and imagination has become a fixed form of culture that redefines the social and cultural status of the past, resulting from the dichotomy between remembering and forgetting.

22 T. Cole, Selling the Holocaust: From Auschwitz to Schindler, How History is Bought, Packaged, and Sold (New York: Routledge, 2000), 25; P. Novick, The Holocaust in American Life (Boston: A Mariner Book. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000), 209. 23 Power, “To ‘Suffer’ by Comparison?,” 31.

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A user of Twitter nicknamed Black Voice stated: “So, I’ll say it again. Jewish Holocaust CANNOT be compared to what happened to African Americans over the last 400 yrs.”24 This kind of statement, perhaps marginal, can become an announcement of the cultural and social changes in teaching about the Holocaust. This quote, based on rather superficial associations, refers to problems that have an important place in public debate in the real world. This statement, written on Twitter, confirms that official discussions about the past are repeated in unofficial, individual, and—in this context— colloquial forms of expression. Commonness did find ways of securing elements, which can be useful in transcending the margins of culture. To be able to reorganize traditional patterns of teaching and thinking about the past, we must rethink the horizon of memory, which is modeled on the dichotomy between logos-oriented discourses of education and pathos-oriented discourses of confrontation. Many interpretations created at the pathos-oriented level can only function in a “spoken” and unfixed form. All of these ways of remembering and forgetting became the domain of the average, colloquial, abused, instrumentalized, and reduced knowledge of the past. Through its images, commonness is active in prejudices and stereotypes. Fixed commonness becomes a source of possible substitutions of official educational discourses in public life. It is the basis of many different ways of thinking—full of affirmation, but also (compared, for example, to stereotypes) full of negation and exclusion. The truth is that at the logos-oriented level, we can also say this about many abuses, reductions, and mistakes, but generally this level was controlled and verified. This level of educational discourse is characterized by its inclination to objectification and intersubjective discussion. In the context of the reception of the Holocaust, commonness has no control, no verification, and no objectification. It is, rather, the domain of aleatory, individual, and incoherent behaviors. And to date, there is quite a significant difference between the logos and pathos levels in education. The traditional point of view was deaf to the voices of commonness, which was dumb in cultural, logos-oriented contexts. We can presume that the lack of fixation of colloquial daily experiences of life was the cause of its marginalization. 24 Sankofa Brown, Twitter post, October 26, 2012, 1:45 p.m., https://mobile.twitter.com/ SankofaBrown (last accessed October 27, 2012).

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According to this hypothesis, commonness becomes the matrix of many discourses, especially when the unstructured thoughts of the margins are fixed and transmitted individually, fluently—without any influence of official senders, without any cultural center. The vector of discourse (Vd) is formed by the vector of change (VofCh). There are many forms of change. We can mention three: communicative, intellectual, and axiological. The styles of thinking and talking about the Holocaust depend on historical, social, and cultural contexts. The communicative form of change means that memory and oblivion are the acts of exchange of meanings, interpretations (also understood as representations of the past), and expectations. The contemporary world is shaped by different forms of communication, and this influences the intellectual and axiological forms of change. Intellectually, we must think about the real diversity of discourses that refer to the Holocaust, even if they are full of mistakes, reductions, and abuses. The examples of this mechanism are too many to count. A user nicknamed Anne Frank wrote: “I pretend the holocaust is xfactor:) all of us are in boot camp at the moment and some of us are being eliminated. I know I have talent x.”25 On Twitter, we can observe how quickly the Holocaust is becoming an overused metaphor or instrumentalized comparison, as well as the content of colloquial thinking and social imagination. Axiological changes become the frames of simultaneous ethical and cultural interactions of users for whom the Holocaust is important, for whom this fact is not important, and even of those users who recall the Holocaust to provoke and offend other people. This “Anne Frank” from Twitter is writing his or her own “diary.” In the profile of this user, we can see “her” (or his) photo, which is a copy of the real, historical Anne Frank’s photo. The statements that can be read on the profile of this user seem to be written by an anti-Semitic person. This created identity of a user who imitates the real Anne Frank attests to a person who knows something about her, about her diary, and about the Holocaust (the user decontextualized words such as “gas chamber” and “tattoo”). But this “something” is just pseudo-knowledge. The cynical posts and the vulgar collages of 25 Anne Frank, Twitter post, October 28, 2012, https://twitter.com/Anniefrank666 (last accessed October 28, 2012).

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Anne Frank’s photo are typical communicative acts and behaviors of users who will do a lot to be read and seen by other users. The question is: why Anne Frank? Maybe because the status of Anne Frank became in Western culture something like a cultural icon; hence the user—who is the author of this profile on Twitter—in a cynical way, to be visible on the Internet, abuses this icon. The username includes the number 666—a symbol of evil that might be interpreted in this context as a symbol of a cheeky and ruthless instigator. Clichéd or simplified representations of the Holocaust may have caused the increasing cultural and social apathy toward it. These changes are shaped by the influence of media. In the context of commonness, we can say that Web 2.0, the social new media, has a special presence and activity. The pedagogy of commonness is the form of teaching about the Holocaust where we must begin at the pathos-oriented level. Very often, new generations of users have access via the Internet to texts and discourses that refer (also in a metaphorical way) to the Holocaust before they have their first contact with the logos-oriented source of knowledge.26 The reversal of the order of discourse is the main assumption in rethinking the pedagogy of commonness to complement the traditional teaching of the Holocaust. Both models share the same purposes: to teach, to remember, to understand, to talk, to commemorate. However, each model is fairly different in its perspective on teaching about the Holocaust. We can presume that new generations of students begin their intellectual and cultural growth through the social and mediated experiences of knowledge. For example, they receive much more diverse information about the Holocaust from their communicative circumstances, which are shaped by social media, than from traditional ways of education. “Much more” does not necessarily mean “better,” but simply “more influential.” The followers of these users can be sent interesting links to websites or to videos that can be watched on YouTube. This causes a lot of diversity with respect to ways of thinking about the Holocaust. Why? Mainly because these

26 M. Prensky, “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants” (2001). http://www.marcprensky.com/ writing/Prensky-Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants-Part1.pdf (last accessed September 27, 2010; article no longer available online).

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social experiences of knowledge reflect average, and also stereotypical, representations of the Holocaust. Commonness is the matrix of this kind of “growth,” which does not have to be better or worse than official ways of teaching. This kind of growth is different. These social experiences of knowledge redefine frames of thinking about the reception of the Holocaust that were created within official, even institutional, forms of discourse. This explains why new generations of students, who learn and contact other people mainly via the Internet, cannot understand ways of teaching typical of logos-oriented discourse. On the one hand, they watch some presentations on YouTube with apparent interest (“apparent” means that the actual film must be short and conventional, because the average user [31 percent] of YouTube visits only one page-view of this service; the age of these users is between eighteen and twenty-four).27 The convention is one of the main peculiarities of the perception of social media— users watch something because they know how to do it. Convention in this context also means the reduction of presentations, the simplification of confrontation, and comfort in learning—users learn what they know and know what they learn. Web 2.0 reveals the social mechanisms of remembering and obscuring the past, but also the main trends in global and interactive thinking about the Holocaust. The reception of the Holocaust in the new social services consists of many unpredictable communicative acts and behaviors. They can become at almost any moment a beginning for new conventions of commemoration, oblivion, and paraphrases of representations (written, visual, or audiovisual) of the past. Commonness is the matrix that establishes and reflects main changes in the cultural status of knowledge. Teaching about the Holocaust in the perspective of the Internet should still maintain the influence of the vector of discourse (Vd), but it should start from pathos-oriented discourses. These are fixed images of commonness that can become potential sources of knowledge and imagination for users who do not know how to discover more and deeper information than is possible in the context of colloquial patterns of communication. Starting from the pathos-oriented level means looking for the past in the reduced and simplified images and narrations created by average, very often 27 Compare to http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/youtube.com# (last accessed October 26, 2012).

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random and incompetent users. Incompetence is competence of the mind formed by commonness. It means that almost anyone can say anything, and therefore that the Holocaust can become an “obliterated” metaphor or an empty semantic term. For example, the user nicknamed Maliheh wrote (this is the original version of the text): “any woman who votes for Mitt Romney is like watching a holocaust victim vote for Hitler. its your gas chamber step right in.”28 In 2012, Maliheh characterized him or herself in the profile summary as “The most Vicious & Provocative Blogger 2 ever hit the net! I may briefly follow a legit user for DM.”29 Where ignorance is the sense of discourse, even the worst statement can work as the core of an alternative interpretation. It is interesting that the Holocaust as a term and metaphor is abused in colloquial discourses focusing on the US presidential elections. There are some simplifications and comparisons that are the foundation of such ignorance: the candidate for president is compared to Hitler, citizens to victims, the ballot box to the gas chamber. This kind of simplification is possible when the pathos-oriented discourse is the matrix of thinking and talking. There are some traces of logos-oriented knowledge, such as the words “holocaust,” “Hitler,” or “gas chamber.” They are pervasive in commonness. Users interpret some facts using these kinds of words and phrases that can be understood by others. These words reflect the average knowledge, although they imply axiological horizons of reflection. The possibility of drawing these comparisons is the potential script for the oblivion of the past. Potential, because the pedagogy of commonness can be useful in teaching critical thinking about such dangerous statements. Before I describe the three-step method of critics, I would only like to add that words such as “holocaust,” “Hitler,” and “gas chamber” function as labels that stigmatize their designates: “Hitler” stigmatizes “Romney,” “victim” stigmatizes “citizen,” “gas chamber” stigmatizes “ballot-box.” The stigmatization reveals the user’s prejudices and objection to the candidate for president of the United States, but it also underlines some facts that can be repeated in history. This mechanism of stigmatization abuses the Holocaust and its Jewish victims, 28 Maliheh, Twitter post, October 20, 2012, 4:43 a.m., https://mobile.twitter.com/Maliheh (last accessed October 26, 2012). 29 Actually this characteristic is changed: Maliheh, Twitter profile, May 8, 2015, 01:09 p.m., https://mobile.twitter.com/Maliheh (last accessed May 8, 2012).

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but it also shows that the ways to the past’s oblivion are diverse. Reading this kind of opinion, we observe that the Holocaust can be reduced to arbitrarily chosen labels. These categories can change the fundamental meanings of the Holocaust because of global proliferation and repetition of simplifications and comparisons. Repetition implies its own incompletion,30 and is unpredictable though sometimes understandable. The pedagogy of commonness can be introduced, for example, via the three-step method. This method is introduced by the three questions that should be asked after reading (or watching) statements and opinions on Web 2.0 (such as those by Maliheh). The first step, regarding the pathos-oriented vector of discourse, begins with the question: How much (many)? The second step begins with the question: Why? The third step can be introduced by the question: Where? The first step implies a situation in which students should look for additional examples of similar statements; we might call these comparisons or “interpretations.” The quantity in this context signifies the quality of the cultural, individual, and collective memory and oblivion. For example: How many statements written by “Anne Frank” on Twitter abuse the Holocaust and forms of commemoration of the real Anne Frank? We can ask our students: Do you agree with the sentences written by users who imitate Anne Frank on Twitter? At this level, we look for some analogies, a set of comparable examples and similarities. We analyze the language of presentation and the dimensions of the possible discursive influence. We should ask our students what they know about the Holocaust. What are the main sources of their knowledge and imagination? The last question at this level could be: Do you think that you know enough after reading this kind of statement? This question is important in the context of the second step. At the second level, we ask our students, analyzing and interpreting concrete presentations of commonness: Why do we use certain terms, pictures, and concepts that refer to the Holocaust to describe or to show contemporary problems or issues? For example, why is Anne Frank’s photo overused and misinterpreted by the author nicknamed Anne Frank on Twitter? Why does the same user change the meanings of words such as “gas chamber” or “holocaust”? 30 Brewster, “The Poetics of Memory,” 398.

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We can ask our students, would you do the same? This level implies the ethos-oriented reflection. It is obvious that even by abusing terms that refer to the Holocaust in many diverse discourses and statements, the axiological order of thinking is introduced to public, as well as virtual, discussions. We can presume that thinking about this fact always implies the axiology. We should, asking our students “Why?,” confront their attitudes toward the described examples with their possible alternative forms of statements about the same problems without using and abusing the Holocaust. At this ethos-oriented level, we should confirm (or check) that our students understand such common (popular) schematic simplifications, representations, and interpretations of the Holocaust, which do not refer to this fact or to truth, but to our common, average knowledge and its cultural images and texts. The ethos-oriented level should provide tools that might be useful for critical reflection about the reception of the Holocaust in the contemporary world. At this level, we can say that some discourses of commonness are dangerous. Students can understand the mechanisms of reduction, abuse, and banalization.31 The Holocaust becomes a metaphor for diverse colloquial discourses due to the influence of popular culture32 on the collective and communicative memory.33 The third step entails logos-oriented discourses. This is why I previously said that official (traditional) and common ways of teaching are complementary. The question “Where?” implies the problem of alternative sources of knowledge that can help deepen interest and knowledge about the Holocaust. “Where?” acknowledges the diversity of students’ ages—for younger students, it can be cinema or literature, while for older students, it can also be academic books and presentations or comprehensive study. For example, we can ask: Where can we find an alternative to the Twitter version of Anne Frank’s “diary,” which would propagate knowledge about the young girl but at the same time avoid the cynical and vulgar abuse of her memory? Students should know the real Diary of Anne Frank, as well as films and books about her. At this level, we can start talking about the causes and dimensions of abuse of the Holocaust, 31 Cole, Selling the Holocaust. 32 Novick, The Holocaust in American Life. 33 A. Assmann, “Przestrzenie pamięci: Formy i przemiany pamięci kulturowej,” in Pamięć zbiorowa i kulturowa. Współczesna perspektywa niemiecka, ed. M. Saryusz-Wolska (Kraków: Universitas, 2009), 112.

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or, in this concrete example, of the memory of Anne Frank. Students should understand how to critically read, for example, texts written by users with similar communicative behaviors to those of Anne Frank who write on Twitter. Students should know why they do not agree with the statements written by such cynical users of this social media. These two ways of teaching are complementary: the traditional way, and the way of the pedagogy of commonness. This means that because of the influence of new social media and because of the changes in the social and cultural status of knowledge about the Holocaust, we can presume a horizontal rather than a vertical relationship between these models. The new generations of users (including students) very often want to know more, but do not know where to turn. Hence, using and exceeding their colloquial conventions of thinking, we should show them that beneath the surface of simplifications, we can find deeper and real knowledge that functions as an image of the truth. There is no better or worse model, nor is there a more or less important way of teaching—nowadays, both are useful. The pedagogy of commonness refers to trusting individual, even naïve and incompetent statements or presentations to reflect some fundamental points of view that must be listened to as potential influential sources of cognition and imagination. Focusing on the diversity of commonness is important. This perspective could be useful in avoiding oblivion as a “natural” process resulting from social and cultural aversion to the Holocaust. Web 2.0 shows that commonness cannot be omitted in teaching about the past. The new digital and collective media of communication are the surface of the river that catches almost every small wind of change in the reception of and thinking about the Holocaust. The teacher of the pedagogy of commonness is like a guide. The Greek etymology of the word “pedagogy” consists of many connotations: paidòs—“a child, a boy”; paidagōgòs—“a slave who took care of his master’s children and escorted them to school”; agogòs—“a head, a guide.”34 The teacher as a guide (this perspective is neither original nor new) in the contemporary world will be a less repressive representative of educational discourse. Students must individually understand the limits of banalization and instrumentalization of the 34 W. Kopaliński, Słownik Wyrazów Obcych i Zwrotów Obcojęzycznych: Z almanachem (Warszawa: Wiedza Powszechna, 1994), 385.

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Holocaust. The pedagogy of commonness is similar to the form of dialogue utilized by Socrates. At the beginning, students should see that there are many forms of abusing the Holocaust. Then, they should find the proper way to critically understand and think about examples of abusing this event. The necessity of commemoration should be “born” through the three-step process (the mother of Socrates was a midwife; she was a woman who assisted other women in childbirth. Socrates assisted other people in the “birth” of their wisdom). The pedagogy of commonness should encourage students to learn about and to deepen their knowledge of the Holocaust. We, as teachers, should encourage our students to search, to find out more, and to analyze more deeply than would be possible by only using the ignorant and mistaken messages accessible on Web 2.0. The ethos-oriented discourse is still between logos-oriented and pathosoriented discourses. This means that, when thinking and teaching about the Holocaust, we refer to ethical values. This is also an echo of Socrates’ style of teaching, because for him, knowledge was strongly connected with good but true wisdom. We cannot, teaching about the Holocaust, forget that we still teach and learn about real people. Commonness can help us understand that the Holocaust refers to a history that was neither an abstraction nor a metaphor, neither simple analogy nor text.

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Conclusion Because of the influence of the Internet on daily life, the pedagogy of commonness provides tools to explain and describe contemporary changes in thinking about the Holocaust. By conducting research on the reception of this fact and by focusing on the Web 2.0, we can define the possible mechanisms of the reduction of oblivion and the enhancement of commemoration. Social services on the Internet treat commonness as the sphere of daily intellectual and axiological experiences that redefine the cultural and social status of knowledge about the Holocaust. The theory of the pedagogy of commonness is important. It helps avoid situations in which students do not know anything about the past or in which their knowledge is supplemented by diverse, incomprehensible, chaotic, and banal examples. The pedagogy of commonness should prepare every user or potential user of new media to think critically about the diversity of representations of the Holocaust.

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Critical thinking means, in this context, understanding not only the causes and texts, but also the social and cultural background and the results of changes in the reception of the past. Web 2.0 shows that memory is dominated by communication and social interactions. The evolution of new media will propel changes in the social and cultural status of knowledge about the Holocaust. Critical thinking is strongly connected with the ethos-oriented level. The main thesis of this research is that commonness will not cease; thus, the future reception of the Holocaust depends on the critical thinking skills of people who, as users of new media, should know why the Holocaust is not only a word. The comments included in this chapter reveal that ignorance can be understood as a lack of knowledge and as a system of transmission of mistakes, abuses, and prejudices. We observe that ignorance can create myths regarding daily life that sanction mistakes, abuses, and misunderstandings as the equivalents or even substitutes of knowledge based on true research, dialogue, and exchange of thoughts and ideas. Therefore, the pedagogy of commonness might be the art of distinguishing between complementary knowledge and its appearances and communicative masks.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Assmann, A. “Przestrzenie Pamięci: Formy i Przemiany Pamięci Kulturowej.” In Pamięć Zbiorowa i Kulturowa. Współczesna Perspektywa Niemiecka, edited by M. Saryusz-Wolska, 101–143. Kraków: Universitas, 2009. Baudrillard, J. Wymiana Symboliczna i Śmierć, tłum. S. Królak. Warszawa, 2007. Bauer, Y. Rethinking the Holocaust. New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 2002. Błoński, J. “Biedni Polacy Patrzą na Getto.” Tygodnik Powszechny 2 (1987); republished in “Tygodnik Powszechny. Żydownik Powszechny” 13 (2010), 11–14. Brewster, A. “The Poetics of Memory.” Continuum: Journal of Media & Culture Studies 19, no. 3 (2005): 397–402. Cole, T. Selling the Holocaust: From Auschwitz to Schindler, How History Is Bought, Packaged, and Sold. New York: Routledge, 2000. Deursen, A. J. A. M. van, J. A. G. M. van Dijk, and O. Peters. “Rethinking Internet Skills: The Contribution of Gender, Age, Education, Internet

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Experience, and Hours Online to Medium- and Content-Related Internet Skills.” Poetics 39 (2011): 125–44. Gerstenfeld, M. The Abuse of Holocaust Memory: Distortions and Responses. Jerusalem: Printed at Ahva—Cooperative Printing Press Ltd., 2009. Halloran, J. D. “Mass Communication Research: Asking the Right Questions.” In Mass Communication: Research Methods, edited by A. Hansen, S. Cottle, R. Negrine, and C. Newbold. London: MacMillan Press, 1998. Jacob, J. Memorializing the Holocaust: Gender, Genocide, and Collective Memory. London, New York: I. B. Tauris & Co. Ltd., 2010. Kloch, Z. Odmiany Dyskursu: Semiotyka Życia Publicznego w Polsce po 1989 Roku. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Wrocławskiego, 2006. Kopaliński, W. Słownik Wyrazów Obcych i Zwrotów Obcojęzycznych: Z Almanachem. Warszawa: Wiedza Powszechna, 1994. Krakowski, S. “The Extermination Center in Chełmno-on-Ner in the Nazi Plan of the Holocaust.” In The Extermination Center for Jews in Chełmno-on-Ner in the Light of the Latest Research, edited by L. Pawlicka-Nowak. Symposium Proceedings, Konin District Museum, September 6–7, 2004. Łebkowska, A. Między Teoriami a Fikcją Literacką. Kraków: Universitas, 2001. Novick, P. The Holocaust in American Life. Boston: A Mariner Book. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000. Power, S. “To ‘Suffer’ by Comparison?,” Daedalus 128 no. 2 (1999): 31–66. Prensky, M. “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants,” on Marc Prensky’s official website, accessed September 27, 2010, http://www.marcprensky.com/ writing/Prensky-Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants-Part1.pdf (article no longer available online). Shermer, M. and A. Grobman. Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It? Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2000. Steiner, G. Gramatyki Tworzenia, tłum. J. Łoziński. Poznań: Zysk i sp., 2004. Sulima, R. Antropologia Codzienności. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego, 2000. Waldenfels, B. Topografia Obcego. Studia z Fenomenologii Obcego, tłum. J. Sidorek. Warszawa: Oficyna Naukowa, 2002.

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Myth and Reality: On “Future Generations” of the Holocaust

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Haim Y. Knobler, Lily Haber, Batya Brutin, and Zvi Zemishlany At the time of the publication of this book, seventy years have passed since the end of World War II, and in the way of symbolic dates the words “seventy years” are lately often heard—seventy years since deportation from the village, since elimination of the ghetto, and soon: since the end of the war in which the great majority of the Jewish people living in countries occupied by the Nazis were obliterated. The Shoa, the Holocaust of the Jewish people, is one of the major events in our history. Its dimensions, terrors, and atrocities were and still are inconceivable. The grief aroused by the murder of our six million relatives, members of our nation, and for many of us, family members, was—and still is—inconceivable. The mental trauma, both individual and national, was and has remained, for the most part or partially, inconceivable. Social, national, and individual processes in Israel and among world Jewry have been affected, and will apparently continue to be affected, by the terrors of the Holocaust. These processes include the use of assumptions and definitions that stem from the strain of handling the inconceivable grief and trauma. Some of these assumptions and definitions are but “myths”—statements that might be mistaken and misleading. Among the first to emerge, two prominent myths are as follows: first, that “the State of Israel was established as a result of the Holocaust”; and second, that “the establishment of the State of Israel and the existence of Holocaust survivors is proof of our victory over the Nazis.” Such myths made it possible to ignore regrettable facts: one, by 1939, an organized Jewish settlement already

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existed in Israel, and it could have been transformed into a much stronger Jewish state if the six million, many of whom were “natural” candidates for immigration to Israel, had not perished; and two, we, the Jewish people, were defeated by Hitler. Other myths served the essential and existential human need to repress the atrocities of the Holocaust. Some of these were and still are: “Veteran Israelis were not interested in hearing about the suffering of the survivors”; “The survivors were accused of going as sheep to the slaughter”; “The Eichmann trial changed the attitude of Israeli society to the survivors”; as well as, “The survivors were incapable of telling their children about the Holocaust, and could (only) tell their story to their grandchildren.” Moreover, other processes may also be recognized as stemming from the repression of national grief for victims of the Holocaust, such as the transfer of grieving for victims of the Holocaust to grieving for victims of the War of Independence, and later on, to grieving for all IDF fallen soldiers. Eventually, Holocaust survivors (“the survivors”) began to speak of the atrocities, mainly beginning in the 1970s and 1980s (and not right after the Eichmann trial, which seems to have “retraumatized” some of them). The Yom Kippur War, which made it clear that the State of Israel could also be under existential threat, might have served as a catalyst for this process. However, with time, the number of Holocaust survivors is gradually diminishing, and some of them need help, such as financial assistance or health and psychological care, which are not always optimally provided. Consequently, in recent years we have seen the emergence of the “successors” of the survivors, including “Second Generation” and “future/following/next generations of the Holocaust.”

The Second Generation as a ­Psychological-Cultural Phenomenon Studies on the influence of the trauma of the Holocaust on the survivors’ children have been published in Israel since the 1960s. Most of these studies described the Second Generation by illustrating their parents’ behavior: their inability to grieve over their lost loved family members, their feelings of guilt, their longings, and their feelings of abandonment all impacted the construction

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of their post-Holocaust families and their attitude toward their children.1 Many such studies described populations in mental treatment—survivors and Second Generation patients—and therefore were biased. One of the principal researchers in the field was Hillel Klein, a leading Israeli psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, and a survivor himself. Recently, his studies of Holocaust survivors and their families in Israel and the Diaspora were republished.2 Klein himself, in a study among Second Generation subjects in a kibbutz of many survivors, found that the survivors’ children were not more interested in the history of the Holocaust than were other children in their group.3 A pivotal study that focused on the Second Generation was Children of the Holocaust, written by the Second Generation writer Helen Epstein.4 In this study, survivors’ children talked about their views regarding the influence of the Holocaust on them. They talked about the influence of their parents’ silence, about their responsibility for the memory of the lost relatives, and about topics that were not emphasized until then: their shame for their parents, who were different from other parents; their parents’ overprotectiveness; their anger about the Nazi crimes—and their anger about becoming a “replacement” for the lost relatives of their parents. Some of them identified with the Holocaust victims and even felt as if they were in the Holocaust themselves. Lately, the Third Generation joined the Second, and combined, they are now called “The Following/Next Generations of the Holocaust.” The

1 Hillel Klein, “Holocaust Survivors in Kibbutzim: Readaptation and Reintegration,” Israel Annals of Psychiatry and Related Disciplines 10 (1972): 78–91; Tikva S. Nathan, L. Eitinger, and Z. H. Winnik, “The Psychiatric Pathology of the Nazi-Holocaust Survivors,” Israel Annals of Psychiatry 2, no. 1 (1964): 47–80; Vivian Rakoff, “Long Term Effects of the Concentration Camp Experience,” Viewpoints 1 (1966): 7–21. 2 Hillel Klein, Survival and Trials of Revival: Psychodynamic Studies of Holocaust Survivors and Their Families in Israel and the Diaspora (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2012). 3 Hillel Klein, “Families of Holocaust Survivors in the Kibbutz: Psychological Studies,” International Psychiatry Clinics 8, no. 1 (1971): 67–92; H. Krystal and W. G. Niederland, eds., Psychic Traumatization: Aftereffects in Individuals and Communities (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1971). 4 Helen Epstein, Children of the Holocaust: Conversations with Sons and Daughters of Survivors (New York: Penguin, 1979).

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emergence of “successors” of the survivors is also related to several concurrent myths that nurture each other, including: 1. Members of future generations, and particularly of the Second Generation, have significant mental difficulties stemming from their status as offspring of survivors, and they must receive support; 2. Soon there will be no survivors left, and all memory of the Holocaust will fade; 3. Offspring of survivors have a special responsibility to commemorate the Holocaust and the bravery; 4. Efforts should be made to prevent the forgetting of the Holocaust, particularly considering the various Holocaust deniers. Why are these labeled myths rather than facts? What follows are some facts that may contradict these biased mythical assumptions.

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Mental Difficulties among Second Generation Holocaust Survivors; or, Transgenerational Transmission of the Holocaust Survivor Syndrome Mental health therapists who treated members of the Second Generation tended to attribute the mental health problems of their patients to having been raised by mentally afflicted parents, and to the “transgenerational transmission” of symptoms related to their parents’ trauma during the Holocaust. Thus, the research literature is based on relatively few cases, which are not representative of all members of the Second Generation, but rather only of some of them, mainly of those who sought psychiatric help. This led to a tendency to focus on the pathology of a few among the few, without examining all offspring of survivors. This is reminiscent of the former emphasis of most scholars on the psychiatric symptoms of a minority of survivors rather than on the success of the majority, who managed to survive the Holocaust, continue with their lives, and rehabilitate their family, social, and professional lives. Only a few scholars, such as Hillel Klein, stressed these “healthy” areas, today termed “post-traumatic growth” and constituting a focus of emerging scientific interest.

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Two extensive scientific studies examined the prevalence of psychiatric symptoms among members of the Second Generation, who were compared to a control group of their peers who are not offspring of survivors. Both studies were conducted in Israel, but for some reason did not receive sufficient publicity. The first, by Schwartz, Dorenwend, and Levav,5 was conducted over thirty years ago by a group of researchers from the University of Columbia in New York, represented in Israel by Itzhak Levav. This extensive epidemiological study analyzed, among other issues, a representative sample of Second Generation offspring of two parent survivors of the death camps, compared to descendants of former Europeans who had not been in the Holocaust. The second study6 was also led by Levav in Israel. It was conducted nearly ten years ago as part of an extensive multinational study, and included a similar comparison. In both studies, no evidence was found of greater lifetime psychiatric disorders among members of the Second Generation compared to members of the control group. Moreover, in the report of the first study, the authors began with the obvious: Holocaust survivors undoubtedly experienced severe traumas over a lengthy period, and growing up in the shadow of such parents left its mark on their children’s characters. However, on the other hand, Holocaust survivors were also clearly gifted with unique characteristics—characteristics that helped them survive. Since a significant part of these characteristics were passed on to their children, this should also be taken into consideration when evaluating the personality and the mental state of the Second Generation. Today, it has become clear that this evaluation is even more complex than previously believed, in light of recent data on epigenetic heredity, whereby it is not only genetic qualities determined by one’s genome that are passed on to future generations, but also acquired characteristics. (Epigenetic modifications are heritable alterations in genomic expression, rather than changes in gene sequence.) For example, 5 Sharon Schwartz, Bruce Dorenwend, and Itzhak Levav, “Non-genetic Transmission of Psychiatric Disorders: Evidence from Children of the Holocaust,” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 35 (1994): 385–402. 6 Itzhak Levav et al., “Psychopathology and Other Health Dimensions among the Offspring of Holocaust Survivors: Results from the Israel National Health Survey,” Israel Journal of Psychiatry 44 (2007): 144–51.

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epigenetic animal studies reveal the ability of parents to pass on to their children acquired states of anxiety. Current literature on epigenetic regulation of anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorders, which may be relevant in this discussion of survivors, is just emerging, and is not reliable yet.7

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The Fading Memory of the Holocaust and Holocaust Denial As opposed to the concern about its fading, the memory of the Holocaust has in fact been increasing considerably over the years. This is easily evident, for example, in the intensity of the grief manifested in Israel on Holocaust Memorial Day—compared to that expressed on Memorial Day for the Fallen Soldiers of the IDF. If in the past, in the 1960s (despite the Eichmann trial!), Holocaust Memorial Day went almost unnoticed among the Israeli population, since the 1980s it has gradually become a national day of mourning. The level of mourning intensified to a level resembling that of the Memorial Day for the Fallen Soldiers of the IDF, and lately, national grief on these two days has become almost identical. It is enough to examine the radio and television broadcast schedules for these days—and not only on state-run channels—to note the similarity. Both in Israel and in many other countries, museums and other institutes for commemoration of the Holocaust have been established in recent years— again, beginning from the 1980s. Thus, Holocaust museums can be found not only in Washington, DC, but also in many other US cities. There are also Holocaust museums and commemoration institutes in major European cities and, of course, in many towns in Israel. In addition, the number of visitors to Auschwitz, for example, is increasing annually, most of them non-Jews. Tours of the death camps in Poland—organized by schools, youth movements, IDF delegations, and others—a trend that has developed over time, as well as the various “marches of the living” attended by many non-Jews from various countries, also testify to the growing memory, and do not indicate that the Holocaust is in danger of being forgotten. Youth tours of Poland are 7 Abdulrahman M. El-Sayed et al., “Epigenetic Modifications associated with Suicide and Common Mood and Anxiety Disorders: A Systematic Review of the Literature,” Biology of Mood and Anxiety Disorders 2, no. 1 (2012): 2–10.

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in fact another myth, as the common claim of their benefit has not been proven to date. In contrast, the phenomenon of Holocaust denial is relatively esoteric, and associated almost exclusively with distinctly anti-Semitic groups. This, while keeping in mind the basic unanswered question: how is anti-Semitism even possible in the aftermath of the Holocaust?

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The Responsibility of the Offspring of Survivors to Commemorate the Holocaust and Preserve its Memory Who are the members of the “Second Generation” and/or “future generations”? There is no definitive or official definition of the term “Holocaust survivor.” Thus, it is not clear whether any Jew who was in a country occupied by the Nazis is a “survivor,” or only those who were in the death, concentration, and labor camps and ghettos. According to this latter, more narrow definition, Jews from countries occupied by the Germans, who fought as soldiers in the Allied armies, maybe even as partisans, cannot be Holocaust survivors. Another topic that seems obvious, but that has not been thoroughly researched, is the distribution of the suffering and traumatization experienced by survivors. Survivors who were in the death camps for years may be assumed to have been affected more deeply than those who survived short periods of adversity in less terrible conditions, and these differing experiences resulted in differing effects on their children. Thus, survivors who lost members of their nuclear family—a spouse and/or children—can be assumed to have been more greatly affected. Moreover, child survivors were obviously affected more due to their young age. In order to prove these (logical) claims, it is necessary to conduct an extensive epidemiological study to avoid comparing biased groups. Until recently, merely raising the topic was problematic, due to the survivors’ understandable sensitivity. Just as there are no precise data on the number and condition of Holocaust survivors in Israel, there is also no precise number for their descendants. This has two main causes, and the first is fairly surprising: a significant number and perhaps even the majority of survivors did not identify themselves as such; this is also true of their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. These descendants do not see themselves as “next/future generations” of “Holocaust survivors.” For example, most of those who immigrated to Israel from

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Romania—the largest wave of immigration until that of the former Soviet Union—did not and do not see themselves as survivors. This is also true of a significant portion of other survivors. In addition, it seems today, for example, that a significant number of those who fought and died in the War of Independence in Israel were Holocaust survivors. Until recently, this was not emphasized. Neither was the fact that a significant number of IDF senior officers were Holocaust survivors, and only recently is it emerging that a significant number of IDF major generals and senior officers are members of the Second Generation. For example, both candidates recently elected as Chief of Staff of the IDF are members of the Second Generation (one was elected for the position but did not receive it, and the other was serving as Chief of Staff). Furthermore, it may be assumed that the number of children of Holocaust survivors is greater than the number of survivors who came to Israel in the various waves of immigration, beginning from the 1940s and until the immigration from the former Soviet Union, since the number of children in an average Israeli family is more than two, and since some of the families are mixed. Therefore, members of the Second Generation number over one million. Thus, members of the Third Generation—again based on the same assumptions— number more than one and a half million, and together they are at least two and a half million. Yet, it seems that the great majority of these people do not see themselves as “members of the next/future generations of the Holocaust”! Are the offspring of survivors responsible for commemoration and remembrance? The frequent response of the survivors, and of their children and grandchildren (and now, their great-grandchildren), was to suppress the atrocities of the Holocaust and concentrate on building their lives. This is the opposite of the “role” given by Israeli society to the “family of the bereaved”—the parents of soldiers who died in Israel’s wars, whose “role” is to preserve the memory of their children who had died. Thus, Holocaust survivors and their children could live as healthy a life as possible despite the inconceivable grief, sometimes for entire families destroyed, including the loss of children and spouses, and despite the terrible traumas experienced by survivors. Just as few of the survivors asked for mental help, only a few occupied themselves with commemoration and remembrance of the Holocaust. This is also true today: while members of the “next/future generations” should have numbered in the millions, only a small minority is actively occupied with issues of Holocaust remembrance and commemoration.

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Moreover, since the normative response of survivors and their descendants was, as stated, to suppress their grief and trauma, it is also possible that using them to promote remembrance and commemoration might arouse in them undesirable reactions. For this reason, statements like “as the children and grandchildren of the survivors, we have a special responsibility to commemorate the Holocaust” are problematic. Furthermore, the mere statement that “we” have a special role is problematic—why should people who do not belong to the “next/future generation” not have a role in learning the lesson of the Holocaust and preserving it?

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There Are No Future Generations of the Holocaust: A Statement and Its Meaning The eve of the last Holocaust Day marked two years since the unexpected demise of our colleague, senior psychologist and psychoanalyst Yoram Hazan, who coined the phrase “there is no Second Generation of the Holocaust.”8 He stated that the Holocaust was a major event in the history of the Jewish people, of an order of magnitude equivalent to the Exodus or the Spanish Expulsion. Therefore, just as we do not refer to the “Second Generation of the Exodus” or the “Second Generation of the Spanish Expulsion,” the term “Second Generation of the Holocaust” will disappear as well. Yoram sought to renew the focus on the Holocaust survivors themselves—those who were affected by the Holocaust on a major order of magnitude—rather than on members of the Second Generation who had not experienced the Holocaust. He did this even as a disciple of Hillel Klein, and as a member of the Second Generation himself. Many did not understand Yoram’s meaning, and those who did not understand him at all accused him of denying the Holocaust. However, the meaning of his words is becoming clearer with time as we better understand ongoing processes: as long as Holocaust survivors are still alive, we must concentrate on them and not on us, members of the “next/future generations.” It is necessary to thoroughly understand major issues, such as the bravery of surviving; the capacity for post-traumatic growth after inconceivable grief and trauma; the

8 Yoram Hazan, “Dor Sheni Lashoah—Musag Besafek” [“Second Generation of the Holocaust—A Dubious Concept”], Sihot 1, no. 2 (1987): 104–7 [Hebrew].

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unique problems of child survivors; and the unique problems of Holocaust survivors who reach old age. It is necessary to continue learning from Holocaust survivors who are living among us, and of course to see to their wellbeing. Therefore, the focus on “next/future generations” might deflect attention from the real heroes: the Holocaust survivors.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY El-Sayed, Abdulrahman M., Michelle R. Haloosim, Sandro Galea, and Karestan C. Koenan. “Epigenetic Modifications associated with Suicide and Common Mood and Anxiety Disorders: A Systematic Review of the Literature.” Biology of Mood and Anxiety Disorders 2, no. 1 (2012): 2–10. Epstein, Helen. Children of the Holocaust: Conversations with Sons and Daughters of Survivors. New York: Penguin, 1979. Hazan, Yoram. “Dor Sheni Lashoah—Musag Besafek” [“Second Generation of the Holocaust—A Dubious Concept”]. Sihot 1, no. 2 (1987): 104–7 [Hebrew]. Klein, Hillel. “Families of Holocaust Survivors in the Kibbutz: Psychological Studies.” International Psychiatry Clinics 8, no. 1 (1971): 67–92. Klein, Hillel. “Holocaust Survivors in Kibbutzim: Readaptation and Reintegration.” Israel Annals of Psychiatry and Related Disciplines 10 (1972): 78–91. Klein, Hillel. Survival and Trials of Revival: Psychodynamic Studies of Holocaust Survivors and Their Families in Israel and the Diaspora. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2012. Levav, Itzhak, Daphna Levinson, Irina Radomisiensky, Annarosa A. Shemesh, and Robert Kohn. “Psychopathology and Other Health Dimensions among the Offspring of Holocaust Survivors: Results from the Israel National Health Survey.” Israel Journal of Psychiatry 44 (2007): 144–51. Nathan, Tikva S., L. Eitinger, and Z. H. Winnik. “The Psychiatric Pathology of the Nazi-Holocaust Survivors.” Israel Annals of Psychiatry 2, no. 1 (1964): 47–80. Rakoff, Vivian. “Long Term Effects of the Concentration Camp Experience.” Viewpoints 1 (1966): 7–21. Schwartz, Sharon, Bruce Dorenwend, and Itzhak Levav. “Non-genetic Transmission of Psychiatric Disorders: Evidence from Children of the Holocaust.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 35 (1994): 385–402.

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If at the time of liberation, we had been asked: “What would you like to do with these infected barracks, these wire fences, these rows of toilets, these ovens, these gallows?” I think that most of us would have answered: “Get rid of everything, raze it to the ground, along with Nazism and everything German.”1

How is it possible to forget or make others forget as long as the oppressors themselves have left an everlasting mark on the flesh of the survivors in the form of the tattooed number such as in the title of this article—which adds itself to the insignia of nightmare and pain etched on their hearts? We are left with condemning “living memorials,” the extermination camps, the crematoria, the barbed wire fences, and the railroad tracks so well chiseled upon their souls. Hence, we must fight the natural tendency towards escape and forgetting in order to build a seemingly healthy present and a future devoid of memories. From time immemorial, we are commanded as individuals and as a people to remember, because our future as individuals and as a nation derives from and is inexorably linked to our past. “The power of a nation lies in its memory— this is the human superiority. And if we want to live, and if we strive to command our children to live, if we believe we have been commanded to pave the road to the future, then first we must not forget, we must record.”2 The events of the Holocaust are a link in the same chain we are commanded to remember in order to overcome oblivion, and thus we must commit the events of that inconceivable time to our collective consciousness, as the poet Gabriel García

# This article is dedicated to my beloved parents, who were Holocaust survivors, and to members of my family who perished in Auschwitz. 1 Primo Levi, “Revisiting the Camps,” in The Art of Memory: The Holocaust Memorials in History, ed. James E. Young (Germany: Prestel, 1994), 185. 2 Ben-Zion Dinur (K. Zetnik), Yediot, “Yad Vashem,” “Hemdat” 1956 [Hebrew].

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Márques wrote in his farewell poem: “Death does not come with old age; Death comes with forgetting.” In that same context, Elie Wiesel claims that our essence as a nation is based on memory, and the meaning of our being Jews is to remember: “I fear forgetting as much as I fear hatred or death.”3 Another Nobel Laureate, Czesław Miłosz, reinforced the same approach towards those whose role was to transmit the defining legacy: in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 1981, he declared: “Those who are still alive received a mandate from those who are silent forever.” The ephemerality and temporariness of human life have, it seems, left their mark on our various attempts at commemoration. This answers, to some extent, the sense of futility, emptiness, and nothingness, and provides a certain sense of continuity or connection. Hence, in Ashkenazi communities, for example, newborn babies are often named for deceased relatives, or it is customary to dedicate a book, especially a Torah scroll, to their memory. The concern for preserving and looking after graves in the cemetery also constitutes part of that same approach that seeks to remember, to commemorate—anything so as not to forget. In this category we may mention the “Sefer Yizker” memorializing the communities that were completely eradicated from the face of the earth. Most such “Yizker” books are a verbal parallel to the community headstones erected in local cemeteries. Most “Yizker” books, however, were compiled in response to the Holocaust. They are the equivalent in words to communal tombstones erected . . . in their home cemeteries. “No graves have been left of all those who were slain” we read in such a book. “Beloved and precious martyrs . . . we bring you to burial today! in a yizker-bukh, a memorial volume! Today we have set up a tombstone in memory of you!”4

Contrary to the above, for a historical event such as the Holocaust, a book, a parochet, a candlestick, or even a gravestone cannot suffice to express its atrocities. It would be pretentious to even think that a monument or a commemorative tombstone could encompass this apocalypse. Moreover, as Jeffrey Hartmann says, “it might produce a deceptive sense of totality, 3 Christopher Bigsby, Remembering and Imagining the Holocaust: The Chain of Memory (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 318. 4 Geoffrey Hartman, The Longest Shadow (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 31.

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throwing into the shadows, even into oblivion, stories, details, and unexpected points of view.”5 There are those who go so far as to claim that the very act of erecting a monument frees the murderers from any feeling of guilt and might paralyze us Jews from striving more assiduously to remember, since that’s what the monument is intended to do. Despite the above, we are ordered: “Remember what Amalek did to you,” and “Tell your son about that day”—your son and the whole world. Where our minds cannot conceive, and when the ink has long run dry, it is art, with all its different facets, that enters the scene to fill the void. There seems to be a profound contradiction between the Holocaust and art. The former originates in chaos, while the latter—in beauty. How can the two be linked? How can injustice and iniquity have any connection with aesthetic perfection, in whatever form or style it may take? The fear that accompanies this contradiction is that although visual pleasure negates horror, there is, nevertheless, a connection between outrage, violence, and atrocities on the one hand and aesthetics on the other. The question is, therefore, whether it is at all possible to represent the Holocaust in a manner that will convey the “man-made inferno” while at the same time commemorating the victims. Perhaps when verbal expression has exhausted its descriptive powers, it is only art, immortal by its very nature, that can give a face, a voice, a color to those “dry bones”— those that can never be resurrected. Israeli author Aharon Appelfeld, who has always dealt with turning universal and individual events into art, claims: If we want to convey a grave topic such as the Holocaust, we must use the most intimate of things. Intimacy comes from a personal story, but the greater, more meaningful intimacy is to be found through art. The artist takes a personal experience and transforms it. It is only things that have a very personal basis that can be passed down from generation to generation. Ideas, abstractions, concepts and so forth cannot be handed down. . . . Usually our starting point is that testimony may be considered authentic, while art is considered an invention. This is not so. What you see in your imagination is, in fact, your entire personality rather than a memory. Memory is only one element. When you invent any situation, you enlist 5 Geoffrey Hartman, “The Book of Destruction,” in Probing the Limits of Representation, ed. Saul Friedlander (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), 319.

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your entire personality. Once you are in the realm of your mind, you discover more, you see more, and you feel more.6

When distinguishing between the beautiful and the sublime, one might say that the latter breaks through boundaries and thus cannot be evaluated, while beauty, which has its boundaries, can be evaluated. Perhaps where the human mind is unable to truly comprehend the outrage, aesthetics—art—is able to give well-structured form, color, shape, and proportion to the events after years of fixation as only a historical recollection. The time void created between the events of the war and the subsequent years—the forgetting or helping others to forget—is filled by art in a manner that will instruct and arouse empathy and thereby preserve the memory, since “Forgetting the dead is killing them again.”7 Some problems faced by anyone trying to commemorate a colossal disaster of the dimensions of the Holocaust include: how can events that were not experienced be remembered? What aspects should be portrayed, depicted, or emphasized in the work: the war? The victims? The uprising? The massacre? The issue of the exterior form given to a work of art after the subject matter has been chosen is no less important. Beyond the content and form, the artist must also decide on its dimensions, its location, and what materials it is to be made of.8 The solutions to these dilemmas frequently involve many political, social, economic, and even religious factors that are often contradictory. Hence, when we come to examine the map of commemorative art around the world, we uncover a great variety in the perception of the concept, the form of artistic expression, and the choice of location—Holocaust memorial museums, town and city centers, the death camps themselves, the execution sites, cemeteries, and even city parks. The most common work of art to be used for memorialization purposes is the monument. “It is customary to see any statue, obelisk, pile of stones or architectural site as a monument if it contains a set of meaningful symbols 6 Aharon Appelfeld, Interview with Michal Sternin and Merav Janno at Yad Vashem. 7 Elie Wiesel, Night (New York: Hill and Wang, 2006), 119. 8 David Cassuto, “On the Essence of Commemoration in Stone Monuments,” in Gilad, ed. Ilana Shamir, 14–15 (Kiriat Ono: The Office of the Defense, 1989): “Most monuments are made of particularly hard stone which actually symbolizes by its very nature durability and heroism” [Hebrew].

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that remind us of a historical event.”9 An extended version of this definition is as follows: Artistically speaking, a monument is a work of art meant to answer a certain social need and hence it has a clear design and obvious symbolism. It is an icon; in other words, what is symbolized is present within the symbol, the exalted symbolized idea seeks to serve us, the observers, as a role model for our behavior.10

James Young claims that when he wanted to examine the different ways in which countries or communities portrayed the destruction of European Jewry during World War II, he discovered that

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The definition of “commemorating the Holocaust” depends very much on its shape and location. For the national memory of what I might call the Shoah varies from land to land, political regime to regime . . . I will allow every site to suggest its own definition, each to be grasped in its local context.11

In this article, I define as “monuments” selected art works and educational activities in Israel and around the world that constitute a representation of Holocaust commemoration intended to enlighten future generations. The criterion for my choices is the degree of influence these works have through the arousal of emotions.12 They all encompass the historical facts; they all display original and creative artistic design and expression; they are all displayed in accessible, public places, and share the goals of teaching the Holocaust, commemorating it, and instilling its memory as a warning sign. Within my definition of monuments, I will include a few examples that might, at first glance, puzzle the reader as to the reasoning behind this inclusion, yet to my mind, each one possesses the attributes justifying it.   9 Batia Brotin, Living with the Memory: Holocaust Memorial Monuments in Israel (Lochamei Hagetaot: Lochamei Hagetaot, 2005), 1. 10 Gideon Ofrat, “About Monuments and Their Location,” Kav 4–5 (1982): 5862 [Hebrew]. 11 James E. Young, The Texture of Memory (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993), viii. 12 “Nowadays memorial spaces where the design evokes an emotional response from the visitor are more appreciated.” Viorica Buica, “Aesthetics of Absence: Interaction and Public Memorials in Krakow and Berlin,” Europski Mesto, http://www.evropskemesto.cz/cms/ index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=830&Itemid=190 (accessed December 12, 2012).

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A stamp is a monument within a monument, since it commemorates the object that commemorates the Holocaust. Its power lies in its accessibility, availability, and dissemination worldwide. Very many people will come across these stamps, which often serve as a first encounter with the topic or else as a repetition or reinforcement of it. Since stamp collecting as a hobby is common, especially among children, it has an educational value and serves as an educational bridge to the Holocaust. The Eichmann trial in 1962 led to a revival of the Holocaust as a topic in philately. One of the first stamps showing a symbolic flame consuming the bodies of Holocaust victims and creating the words “Shema Israel” offers a representation of the atrocities (fig. 1). Another one depicts a Star of David, part of which is yellow while the other part is blue, indicating the connection between Holocaust and Revival (fig. 2).

Ruth Dorot

Figure 1. Memorial stamp

Anne Frank’s Diary, Amsterdam, 1942–1944 We may say that a monument is a type of “enlisted art,” not in the accepted sense of the phrase, but in terms of the idea and role of the commemoration. The degree of enlistment depends on the artistic freedom the artist has in designing it. I would like to propose Anne Frank’s diary as a monument that is entirely free of any kind of “enlistment” (fig. 3). An unknown Figure 2. Memorial stamp thirteen-year-old girl recorded her thoughts, her hopes, her fears, and her disappointments out of her natural tendency to

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Figure 3. Anne Frank’s Diary, Amsterdam, 1942–1944

write, and out of the need to relieve her boredom during the long hours of imposed silence.13 She never imagined that one day she would become a “celebrity.” At the end of the war, this diary was redeemed from oblivion, reaching a global public consciousness. What makes a personal diary a monument? Firstly, this unpretentious book has been translated into some fifty different languages and read by millions of people the world over who were thus exposed to the Holocaust in a way they would never forget. Hence, anyone holding this book actually holds an individual monument that is spread across the entire world, and its location is “anywhere and everywhere.” Secondly, art has a significant role here too. The original diary is on display in the house where the Frank family hid, a large office building on the banks of the Prinsengracht in Amsterdam, which was converted into a museum with all its documentary contents through artistic design. The authentic item became authentic art located in the center of a room encircled by its fifty translated versions.

13 James E. Young, ed., The Art of Memory: Holocaust Memorials in History (Germany: Prestel, 1994), 136.

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Arthur Danto, art critic and philosopher, distinguishes between a “memorial” and a “monument”: “We erect monuments so that we shall always remember and build memorials so that we shall never forget.”14 James Young adds that he himself relates to each memorial as a commemoration site and its contents as a monument: “A memorial may be a day, a conference, or a space but it need not be a monument. A monument, on the other hand, is always a kind of memorial.”15 Anne Frank’s house fits this definition: the whole house, which has become a museum, serves as a memorial, while the diary is the monument within it.16 Both represent an educational loadstone, especially for youth and adolescence. Huge numbers of people, very many of whom are schoolchildren accompanied by their teachers, visit there every day of the year to learn, to be moved, and to internalize the experience. One individual with a touching, human story has created an active gathering around a monument that takes place all year round, not just on days of remembrance.17

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Paper Clip Project, Whitwell, Tennessee, 1998 For fifteen years, Catherine Pederzoli, a Jewish high school history teacher in Nancy, France, accompanied her students to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Although she had never heard any complaints about this trip, she was suspended in 2007 by the new school board for “brainwashing” her students with excessive preparations for the trip, and because her classes “lacked appropriate distance and adequate neutrality and secularity.” This story stands in stark contrast to the surprising initiative I will describe here. It all started when Sandra Roberts, a teacher in a poor, remote little mining town in Tennessee, was asked by the middle school principal, Linda Hooper, to develop a project about tolerance, diversity, and acceptance of others. When they encountered the topic of the Holocaust, the students, 97.35 percent of whom were white Christians who had never met a Jew, were amazed 14 Young, The Texture of Memory, 3. 15 Ibid., 4. 16 Shelley Hornstein and Florence Jacobowitz, eds., Image and Remembrance: Representation and the Holocaust (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2003), 2: “We hope this volume, like a monument, will be visited by a broad community.” 17 Young, The Art of Memory, 137.

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by the scope and cruelty of the Holocaust. One student who was struggling to grasp the concept and the enormity of the number six million asked: “What does six million look like?” This was the start of an amazing story that went global, and evolved into one that gained worldwide attention. When the students discovered Figure 4. Paper Clip Project, Whitwell, Tennessee, 1998 via the Internet that the paper clip had been invented by a Norwegian Jew and that Norwegians wore one on their lapels as a sign of silent protest against the German Nazi regime, they decided that in order to illustrate this number, they would collect six million paper clips to commemorate those who perished (fig. 4). Before the project gained publicity, it progressed very slowly. But once the students put up a website and sent letters to more than twenty countries, the project gained momentum. Actors, the president of the United States, many celebrities, and ordinary people joined the campaign, often attaching letters, comments, and stories to the paper clips they sent the students. Out of the 30 million paper clips collected, 11 million were dedicated to the commemoration of Jews, gypsies, and homosexuals, and were placed in a “museum”—an authentic German cattle car the students bought and placed in their school yard. News of this activity spread as far as Hollywood, to documentary filmmakers who made a full-length movie containing interviews with students, teachers, survivors, and people who sent in paper clips, as well as testimonies from survivors who visited the school. This project resonated loudly in many far-off places. The expansion of the project reached a school in Canada, where they also collected paper clips, which they hung in their classroom along with posters, pictures, and presentations. One classroom, turned into a museum, was visited by members of the local community. A Canadian teacher who adopted the paper clip idea came to Jerusalem and presented his activity, which was then taken up by a teacher from Croatia, who started a similar project with his class, also turning the classroom into a

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Holocaust museum. Otto Konstein, a Holocaust survivor, inaugurated the museum in an event that was filmed and widely disseminated. One innocent question posed by one little boy caused a “revolution.” One little paper clip gave birth to an educational endeavor that spread across the world; the topic of the Holocaust was taught, internalized, and ingrained in the consciousness of many people, proving that commemoration is only achieved through externalization. The entire educational project may be considered a memorial, and the paper clips are the monument taken from daily reality. The artful choice to present the cattle car as a museum created a simple monument of great significance, providing hope and inspiration that spread its message far and wide. The journey of monument investigation in this article begins with a classic-realistic-symbolic perception and moves through the search for the original and the novel, similar to the development of modern art. In the early years after the war, there was a tendency to make use of realistic and symbolic elements. Among the most common symbols we find the Star of David, the seven-branch candelabrum, the Torah scroll, the tablets of the Ten Commandments, and so forth. As time passed, alongside these traditional monuments, artists sought something more creative. The further away in time we move from the events themselves, the more artists tend to seek unique means through which to evoke an emotional response from the viewers and impact them, so that the work of art will remain forever etched in their memories and on their hearts. In general, we might say that the trend in monument design is, therefore, a movement from the obvious to the hidden, from concrete to abstract and thence to a total sensory experience. The art of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries strives towards surprise, audacity, and shock. Because of technological developments in various areas, artist and observer alike are seeking new challenges and stimuli. Consequently, artists cannot continue their work as tranquilly as in the past. The definition and role of art have changed, and it can no longer remain mimetic as it had been for centuries. New artistic styles have, therefore, been in hot pursuit of each other: expressionism, fauvism, dada, cubism, futurism, surrealism, abstractionism, and so forth.

Yad Vashem Cattle Car, Moshe Safdie, Jerusalem, 1990 In the outside grounds of the Yad Vashem Museum, dedicated to commemorating the Holocaust and teaching it to future generations, stands a monument

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Figure 5. Yad Vashem Cattle Car, Moshe Safdie, Jerusalem, 1990

initiated and designed by the architect of Yad Vashem, Moshe Safdie—a cattle car donated by the Polish government (fig. 5). The authentic cattle car is a single fragment of that hell of the valley of death; it is one of many used by those “angels of death” to carry out the “final solution.” Through it, a concrete image of that reality is created as it stands over the precipice on a section of rail track that looks like a broken hanging bridge. In the past, it had carried cattle and thus was almost completely sealed. Into this airless car the Germans pressed thousands upon thousands, transporting them for weeks on end, without supplying the most minimal conditions of sustenance, to the death camps; this cattle car takes the observer right “there,” from whence it came. It may thus be described as a monument designed to recount, to teach, to commemorate. This monument would seem to be extremely powerful in terms of both content and symbolism because of its documentary nature, but the real source of its power derives from art. Moshe Safdie himself chose the unique location, a chasm above which he set the cattle car, forcefully protruding out of the surrounding Judean Hills. The skies of Jerusalem cover it, while the green pine trees envelop the red-brown earth around it. Here, art intensifies the innate

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power of the cattle car, which offers an unmediated association with the events themselves. Placing this car in a different city under the same conditions, or even in Jerusalem itself but on real rail tracks on solid ground, would not make the same statement. It is the choice of object, its location and angle—the artistic staging— that creates the power of an experience that leads to the preservation of the memory. A similar but opposite example is the Warsaw Ghetto Memorial Monument by Nathan Rapoport, placed, in accordance with the artist’s wishes, on the spot where the first shots of the uprising had been fired five years earlier. The specific location highlights the significance and power of art in strengthening the symbolic message. The decision of artist Mark Leo Suzin, the designer of the base, to plant it deep in the soil of the ghetto heightened the importance of the authentic geographic location as being a component of that symbolic meaning. The power of art arises from these two similar but at the same time opposing examples: Nathan Rapoport gave his monument its symbolic power by placing it exactly where the event took place, whereas Moshe Safdie achieved the same effect precisely by shifting the cattle car from its original location to distant Jerusalem. Preserving the location in one instance and transferring the monument in another actually yielded similar effects.

Figure 6. Cattle Car, Jewish Ghetto, Venice

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The use of a cattle car is not unique to Yad Vashem, which is not even the first instance of it. A brick wall reminiscent of a train, upon which a relief depicts a train engine and cattle cars with throngs of people at their openings, like cattle being led to the abattoir, can be found in the Venice Ghetto (fig. 6), the first of its kind in the world, where the yellow patch was first practiced, foreshadowing the dreadful nature of Jewish life to come. Hence, this ghetto is an appropriate place to commemorate the Holocaust, of which these trains of death are such an iconic symbol. However, while the wall and the relief only portray the notion of the cattle cars, the one at Yad Vashem is the real thing.

Warsaw Ghetto Monument, Nathan Rapoport, 1948 One of the first artists to commemorate the Holocaust was Nathan Rapoport, a native of Warsaw. In 1948, he designed an impressive realistic-symbolic monument of huge dimensions, a classic, traditional model—a copy of parts of which, with slight modifications, can be found in the piazza at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. It was placed in the center of the old Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw (figs. 7–9).

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Realistic-socialist sculpture . . . is not historical documentation, but rather it stresses the representative, classic nature of figures and offers a romantic

Figure 7. Warsaw Ghetto Monument, Nathan Rapoport, 1948

Figure 8. Warsaw Ghetto Monument, detail

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Figure 9. Warsaw Ghetto Monument, detail

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interpretation of myths in ideological terms. Which myths was Rapoport aiming at? The answers require us to understand his self-identity and complex spiritual world: as a Jew—the grandson of a shochet (ritual slaughterer) and Hassidic cantor; as a socialist—a member of the Hashomer Hatzair movement in Warsaw; as a sculptor—a student of art in Paris and Florence.18

Situated on a black marble structure brought over from Sweden in order to glorify Hitler’s victory, this monument has Rapoport’s inscription in Hebrew, Yiddish, and Polish, which says the following: “To the Jewish People—Its Heroes and Its Martyrs”—to emphasize the Jewish identity of the figures. The monument has an obverse and a reverse side; in the center of the first is a bronze relief, and on the other, a stone relief—each expressing one of two key aspects: heroism and Holocaust. Thus the artist chose to present “both sides of the coin”: the front portrays the heroism of the uprising as represented by seven sturdy figures, united, but each bearing his own individual expression—designed as dynamic mythological heroes seemingly bursting forth from the flames and led by the central figure, Mordechai Anilewicz (fig. 8). The back of the monument depicts a convoy of twelve Jews, suggesting the twelve tribes of Israel, with figures that are much smaller than those on the other side (fig. 9). The victims are being led like “lambs to the slaughter,” quite passively, headed by a bearded Jew 18 Muli Brog, “Entrapped Within the Walls of Memory: The Warsaw Ghetto Monument in Poland and in Israel,” Alpayim 14 (1997): 148–73 [Hebrew].

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clutching a Torah scroll, who, perhaps by virtue of his holding the Torah, is the only one standing erect. Rapoport characterized him, and particularly the other figures, as archetypes of the Diaspora Jew through their body language and stooping posture. This “flock” appears to be downcast, submissive, and resigned to their fate. The structure and composition of Rapoport’s work surprise the observer. A sculpture, by definition, is three dimensional, and in order to take in everything, one must see it from all sides. Quite often, the artist may create an unexpected design on the back, astounding the observer, such as in Rodin’s The Hand of God. In Rapoport’s creation, the observer is quite amazed, as he encounters a completely new theme. The approach used to depict those being led to their death stands in direct contrast to the figure of Anilewicz. Out of admiration for him and his comrades, Rapoport sculpts them as proud European soldiers, full of pathos and belief in their strength and the justice to come; he shows them partially clothed. Anilewicz himself is muscular and bare-chested, and the woman-mother figure bares a motherly breast. The figures are stylistically influenced by classic monumental beauty, and also by the spirit of unity and rebellion of the Soviet East European approach,19 so prominent in Rapoport’s work—especially in Anilewicz’s appearance and stance, “clad” by no other armor besides his muscles.20 The ideational roots of the approach from which Rapoport drew his inspiration lie somewhere in the French Revolution and are incorporated in Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix. “The arrangement of the monument is also reminiscent of ones from the first half of the nineteenth century in Europe, such as the well-known group of François Rude’s ‘Departure of the Volunteers 1792’ from 1833–1836.”21 It seems that the artist intended to give Anilewicz a heroic look, as he holds the torch that will light the spirit of the uprising. The bronze relief speaks of youth, strength, and determination, but does not necessarily identify these warriors as Jewish. With no physiological markers or design 19 Ibid., 164. 20 Ibid. “Since every proposal he submitted had to be approved by the Culture Committee, it seems obvious that in addition to his political treatment of the uprising, he must have had in mind the statue of the unfinished portrait of Stalin. He was influenced not only by his intention to satisfy the authorities but also by his taking into account his two potential audiences—the government and the public.” 21 Brotin, Living with the Memory, 40.

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motifs that are obviously Jewish, it can also symbolize foreign and universal heroism, and, indeed, in Poland it is considered a Polish symbol just as much as a Jewish one. Ceremonies are even held there to commemorate their victory over the Nazis. In contrast, when portraying those who perished, Rapoport very clearly identified them as Jews. It seems that adopting the typology of proud heroes for Jewish warriors was difficult for him, while the typology of Jews being meekly led to the crematoria was natural. The typological division into Esau, the hunter, and Jacob, the person “of quiet temperament who stayed close to the tents,” is deeply ingrained in the Jewish narrative, as we see in this work of art. This division is strengthened by the use of the different technique of stone relief for those being led to their death, as they are gradually swallowed up from left to right in the stone, which fades until it almost vanishes. The façade is defined as bas relief, and its flatness emphasizes the weakness, despair, and gloom of those on the road to oblivion, while Anilewicz and his comrades appear in a prominent bronze relief, as three-dimensional “flesh and blood” figures bursting forth from the flames into the volume of space— toward the observer. The artist also subjugates content to form in his different choice of compositions for each face of the monument. The uprising is tall and vertical, accentuating the heroism surging forth from below—the upward movement is inherent in the term itself. Meanwhile, the reverse bas relief is rectangular, narrow, horizontal, and depicts the march, which is by nature horizontal, emphasizing the submission and resignation to suffering and oppression. The use of different materials—bronze in front and stone at the rear—also supports the adaptation of form to content. The Jewish aspect is still evident in the two statues located on either side of the main monument: two lions with the seven-branch candelabrum between them. Here, the sculptor connects to history and to the biblical past: “the lions of Judah.” The mention of the tribe of Judah, and with it the kingdom and power, together with the Temple candelabrum connecting to the struggle of the Hasmoneans—a handful of warriors fighting for justice against the multitudes—also heightens the aspect of heroism. A clear and manifest expression of the Jewish connection is found in the symbolic meaning of the brick wall supporting the reliefs, reminiscent of both the walls of the ghetto and the

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Wailing Wall—the remnant of the destroyed Temple. The sources of this symbolism are provided in the words of the artist himself.22 The artist brings together those breaking forth from the storm of rebellion and battle on the one hand, and the men, women, and children on their final march on the other. Both of these are designed using elements that are realistic, expressive, and symbolic at the same time. Although the dominant style of the period was abstract, Rapoport chose to use those elements for reasons he himself stated as reported by James Young:

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The more abstract and nihilistic his peers’ work had become, the more figurative and coherent his own mission as prospective witness seemed to him . . . Rapoport chose to insulate himself from further contemporary scrutiny and literally closed the door to his studio before going to work. “Could I have made a stone with a hole in it and said, Voila! The heroism of the Jews? No, I needed to show the heroism, to illustrate it literally in figures everyone, not just artists, would respond to: Faces, figures, the human form. I did not want to represent resistance in the abstract: it was not an abstract uprising. It was real.”23

This approach was identical to that of the survivors themselves: “We weren’t tortured and our families weren’t murdered in the abstract.”24 James Young claims that Nathan Rapoport used images of kibbutzniks— live heroes from the settlement in Eretz Israel who were living in Paris after the war—for the portraits of the heroes of the uprising. This is very obvious, for the figure of a curly-headed youth full of courage and fighting spirit is standing to the right of Mordechai Anilewicz. According to the sculptor, he intended to create a national Jewish monument and not a Polish one.25 This same spirit continued to beat in the hearts of the survivors who came to Israel and fought 22 Young, The Texture of Memory, 171: “This wall’s most significant resonance, however, has been almost entirely overlooked. For, as Rapoport explained, the wall was intended to recall not just the Ghetto walls, but the Western Wall (Kotel) in Jerusalem as well. Early photographs of his working maquette show that the granite stones were indeed conceived to be much more roughly hewn than in the final version, reminiscent of the giant blocks of the Kotel. These great stones would thus have literally supported and framed the memory of events in Warsaw in the iconographic figure of Judaism’s holiest site, itself a monumental remnant of the Second Temple and by extension, its destruction.” 23 Ibid., 168. 24 Young, The Art of Memory, 24. 25 Young, The Texture of Memory, 168.

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for the country’s right to exist in the War of Independence. This fact closes a circle of heroism that began at the time of the Maccabees, of whom the survivors were descendants, and continued through the ghetto rebels, straight to the heroes of the newly born State of Israel. We may say, therefore, that this monument commemorates the Holocaust and certainly hints at rebirth, thereby fulfilling its educational and documentary goal as a cautionary lighthouse for future generations.

The Destroyed City, (The Man with No Heart), Ossip Zadkine, Rotterdam, 1953 It is a cry of horror against the inhuman brutality of tyranny.

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—Ossip Zadkine

While Rapoport’s sculpture deals with the Jewish Holocaust, Ossip Zadkine’s represents the violence and brutality of World War II as a whole, and thus, by association, also the Jewish Holocaust. The sculptor’s humanism and lyricism emphasize a universal perspective: the chaos of the events of the war, the outcomes of which are encompassed within a single six-meter tall figure, dominating the port of Rotterdam, poised on a two-meter tall pedestal, resting on a supporting broken and dead tree stump, screaming in rage at the skies with a gaping, distorted mouth (figs. 10–11). The monument is well entrenched in public consciousness as an image of superhuman destruction, ruin, and sharp anguish, and its compelling power derives from that single figure with its head thrust back, elevated arms, and hollow cavity, whose limbs are positioned in different directions, with the legs giving at the knees, making them highly dynamic. This figure represents the millions who perished and were exterminated. The sculptor has succeeded in powerfully articulating the fierce, piercing pain that splits the heavens using a few important styles of the twentieth century: expressionism, symbolism, futurism, and cubism. Zadkine belongs to the generation of those who were greatly impressed and influenced by cubism, which allowed him to treat what he saw as the main topic—the human figure—through a play on broken lines that are both closed and open. At the same time, he was an artist of emotions—hence the expressive aspect of his sculptures, which was an appropriate response to the Germans, who banned and vilified that style now used by him as the style of survival.

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Figure 10. The Destroyed City, (The Man with No Heart), Ossip Zadkine, Rotterdam, 1953

Figure 11. The Destroyed City, (The Man with No Heart), close up

Following in the footsteps of Auguste Rodin, for whom he held great admiration, Zadkine used the human figure to give voice to the centrality of man. Although the sculpture was created in 1953, stylistically speaking, the artist was still quite close to Picasso and the cubist style that helped him portray destruction and collapse. We see a certain resemblance to Picasso’s Guernica, which became a symbol of the atrocities of war, through the modern style of which cubism is one component. “Both artists succeeded in giving shape to the horror of war in a way that was widely convincing, using the idiom of modern art.”26 The fragmentation of body parts is evident, as is the gaping vacuum in the middle of the torso, its muscular chest pierced as in an earthquake, symbolizing the heart having been ripped out. This same hole is more than just the symbol of a city in ruins; it is the main axis of tension and dynamics. It is the “disappearance” of the core of the city of Rotterdam, which fell silent and ceased to exist after it had been bombed by the German 26 Hanneke de Man, “The Destroyed City,” in Sculpture in Rotterdam, ed. Jan Van Adrichem, Jelle Bouwhuis, and Mariette Dolle (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2002), 201.

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Luftwaffe in May 1940. As a prior condition for his donation to the city, the artist reserved the right to determine the location of the sculpture. Zadkine chose the dockland area of Leuvehaven—which at the time had no high-rise buildings in the vicinity—a space that did not obstruct the full expression of its emotive potential. The towering, anguished figure was positioned with the sky above, and around it the “arms” of the huge harbor cranes echo the form of the supplicating arms of the statue. The sculpture derived its meaning and power from that specific site. Only later did it become surrounded by skyscrapers that eliminated that space. The artist himself complained about the continued urban changes in his poem “The Destroyed City”:

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Whenever I see it in Rotterdam, I become more and more a foreigner to the city. All round it monstrous skeletons arise every day, new plants of our future tomorrow, and the statue appears to me to be retreating backwards to be where the quiet waves of the harbor are waiting, the steel dinosaurs cannot bear it. But when I look upon it in my garden under the trees and the millions of leaves, I seem to hear its “nevermore,” it screams of pain and despair.

It was said by author Ionel Jianou that Zadkine was “the poet of bronze,” who had re-awakened the singing voice in stone, wood, and bronze by creating poems of universal scope. The “crater” signifying “nothingness” testifies to the inability of the figure to feel. The cubist fragmentation is accompanied by the futurist influence of Boccioni’s Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, contributing to the motion and the dynamism, especially of the left leg. Zadkine uses the power of expression in the face of the maimed, tortured figure and its body language, but more so through the thick arms, at the end of which are two huge, outstretched palms with accusing, thickset fingers pointing up at the heavens, simultaneously trusting, praising, doubting, wavering. The arms and the legs differ from each other, enabling the artist to convey a broad spectrum of emotions ranging from deference to defiance, and the viewer to experience force and frailty at one and the same time. The originality of the monument, as was presented before, is accentuated through the use of cubism and futurism—modern styles that are considered to be relatively devoid of emotion. However, Zadkine’s work is highly emotional and suggests an association with the arms of the figure in Rodin’s The Prodigal

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Son, which through its asymmetrical arms brings to mind a protest on the one hand and prayer on the other. Zadkine turns the distorted, distressed figure into the symbol of the destroyed city, as well as of the world in ruins, and thus gives the sculpture its well-deserved reputation. Upon visiting Rotterdam in 1947, he described the enormous and mournful plane of devastation, the vast desert that stretched in front of him with not one house left in sight epitomizing all that was sinister and depressing. Unlike the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Monument by Nathan Rapoport, which is mimetic of a horrible and heroic reality, Zadkine uses emptiness and fragmentation to heighten the power of what is absent “battling” against the unpardonable injustices of war that will, most certainly, echo for generations to come.

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Monument to the Six Million, Herman Wald, South Africa, 1959 This site, located in the Westpark Cemetery in Johannesburg, South Africa, displays six very powerful hyper-realistic expressive bronze fists, each 1.5 meters in height (fig. 12). These spring out of the soil in rage and protest against the mass exterminations of the Holocaust, each one representing a million Jews who perished, and holding a shofar (a ram’s horn), also expressive and hyper-realistic, towering to a height of six meters. Every pair of horns creates an arch that cries out with the ongoing hardships the Jews underwent through many generations of persecution, of which the Holocaust was the climax. In the center, there is a torch, whose spiralshaped, eternal flame reaches a height of 4.5 meters and is formed out of Hebrew letters that read from top to bottom “Thou shalt not kill.” Out of the facing horns, this sixth commandment “hatches” from the mouths of those whose lives were brutally terminated. The Figure 12. Monument to the Six Million, arched “acoustic” space the horns Herman Wald, South Africa, 1959

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create shields the words of the commandment, preventing them from being swallowed up in the open space. The shofar is mainly blown during the High Holiday services and is meant to break open the gates of heaven to ask for mercy, forgiveness, and compassion. Besides being of huge dimensions, arousing reverence and awe accompanied by fear and trepidation of Judgment Day, the shofars in this monument are also the mouthpiece of the six million, restoring their voices, which had fallen silent. The resonance of these voices is hinted at by the jagged edges of the horns. Symbolically, the ram’s horn is a reminder of the scene of the sacrifice of Isaac, and of the ram’s being caught in the bushes— replacing Isaac who was saved. In the Holocaust he was not! This time, the angel was not present to call out to Abraham, “Lay not thy hand upon the boy” (Genesis 22:12), yet again, “neither You nor the ones You created.” In this monument it is the voice of the dead crying out from the ground in silent supplication: “Lay not Thy hand upon the boy.” We discern the thin voice of irony in the monument that is a warning sign for future generations: “You are the ruler of the world who commanded: ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ How could You let this happen?” The specific value of a work of art lies in the thin line between the manifest and the hidden, between what is obvious to the eye of the beholder and those veiled meanings that arise because of the viewer’s intellectual abilities shaped by his cultural, religious, or any other heritage. There are instances, of which this monument is one example, in which the artist, either consciously or unconsciously, creates a visual-cultural association based on a personal or collective memory that is deeply etched onto our minds. Such is the arched space created by the horns, which becomes a chilling architectonic space: each side of this avenue of horns arouses a direct association to the poles of the barbed wire around Auschwitz, along the path leading to the crematoria (fig. 13). Figure 13. Auschwitz

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Monument at the Dachau Work Camp, Glid Nandor, 1968 The Dachau monument—a copy of which can be seen at Yad Vashem—is 14.4 meters wide, 5.7 meters high, and 1.2 meters deep; it was designed to commemorate the forced labor camp for Jews and others where prisoners died of starvation and disease. The modern sculpture is shocking, laden with chilling content and associations that profoundly echo the events. Nandor placed three columns, between which he wove web-like barbed wire such as surrounded the perimeter of the labor and death camps, trapping any fugitives in their nets. Anyone who touched them paid with his life, since the fence was electrically charged, and therefore a means of suicide by electrocution for those whose despair caused them to surrender in total resignation. From this fence emaciated arms—sharp as arrows— reach out, perhaps pleading or in prayer, their joints bent at sharp angles while their fingers create the image of the barbs on the wire—a symbol of those hands searching for any slits or openings in the fence, any path of escape or any scrap of stale bread. These hands symbolize those of starved skeletons turning in all directions, screaming “Help,” as do the open mouths with their muffled, mute scream. The weave of this barbed wire fencing contains compressed human forms. The pierced bodies or corpses hanging by a thread, like helpless acrobats, connect through their exposed joints into distorted figures (figs. 14–15). “It was a tangled mass of highly abstract emaciated bodies with angular barbed hands.”27 Close by, on a wall that constitutes part of the monument, the words “Never again” are engraved in five languages. In front of the wall lies a cement box containing the ashes of the Dachau camp victims found upon liberation. Commemoration is achieved through the symbolism and the minimalist, experiential, abstract expression.

27 Harold Marcuse, “Holocaust Memorials: The Emergence of a Genre,” American Historical Review 115 (2010): 1–89.

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Figure 14. Monument at the Dachau Work Camp, Glid Nandor, 1968

“After 1958 Holocaust memorialization began to diverge sharply from the traditional forms of war memorials . . . more abstract—avant-garde forms.”28 Our travel through time across the globe creates the sense that as time passes and the further away we “travel” from the catastrophe, the harder it is to express it fully Figure 15. Monument at the Dachau Work and completely. The feeling is Camp, detail that everything has already been said, in sound, in words, in painting, and in sculpture—hence, the artist must seek hitherto untried modes of expression. Nandor seemingly used the clearest and most familiar elements, but his design ignores the complete mimetic description in favor of the innuendo, the abstract, and the minimalistic in many ways, offering an extremely powerful and moving monument.

Fallen Leaves, Menashe Kadishman, Berlin, 1997 The chilling art installation by Menashe Kadishman in the Jewish Museum of Berlin lies in an open concrete structure reminiscent of a crematorium, in which 28 Ibid., 84.

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Figure 16. Fallen Leaves, Menashe Kadishman, Berlin, 1997

Figure 17. Fallen Leaves, detail

thousands of coarsely-cut, flat, circular, and oval plates of rusty metal, of different sizes, are placed there looking like skulls or masks—human shapes with wide, gaping mouths, each with its own expression and grimace (figs. 16–17). Hordes of people, who in their past had each been unique, have become unidentified heaps of trunkless heads, with narrow, hollow eyes, mouths groaning and screaming in a terrifying silence; an endless sea of heads; an ocean of inaudible screams staring at the visitor. It is a choir of chaos, a choir of the victims of evil. All that is left of their bustling, vibrant lives is a slightly different curve of the eyes and mouth. In spite of their sharp edges, the faces give the impression of being tender and vulnerable. When checked closely, marks such as trickles of blood or even knife wounds can be discerned. The aspects of death portrayed here are quantity and anonymity. This work invites the visitor to step over the layers of faces, an act that undermines the balance and creates metallic sounds and screeches that cause deep discomfort and shock. These feelings derive not only from walking all over a work of art, but also over one that represents human emotions of pain and despair. Moreover, Kadishman turns visitors into active partners in the destruction and in the crushing of the heads under their feet. Perhaps he intended to generate a simulation of the feelings of guilt in some of them.

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With four dark holes symbolizing eyes, nose, and mouth, Kadishman gives a different shape, character, and image to each of the multitude that at first glance seems the same—a common grave of mouths, screaming from the depth of the pit to the heavens, all sharing the same fate. An immediate association comes to mind—the ghostly figure in The Scream by Edvard Munch—symbolizing the mute cry of every person, anywhere, any time. Despite the density, disorder, confusion, and layers that create a sense of suffocation, the artist has at the same time managed to emphasize individuality and to build a bridge between the observer and the six million. The agony and torment, about which countless words have been written, are compressed and concentrated in the similar but different faces functioning as a metonym for people—a part that stands for the whole. “Fallen Leaves” is a metaphor for those exhausted, helpless Jews and others whose lives were extinguished, who fell on European soil, like the yellowing leaves as they shrivel, wither, and fall. Likewise, the sound made when walking on those dry leaves recalls the screeching noise of walking on those faces. “For Man is like a tree in the field” (Deuteronomy 20:19), but this time Man did not shed his leaves as a seasonal, cyclical event; instead, his leaves were “shed” for him, violently, with evil intent just as at the time of Cain and Abel: “Your brother’s blood crieth unto me from the earth” (Genesis 4:10). This monument is composed of the victims “themselves,” whose faces are metonymic for those massacred millions crying out about their extinction and oblivion. Kadishman’s sculpture evokes those painful recollections of an irretrievable loss, questioning and doubting the humanity of our civilization.

Shoes on the Danube, Gyula Pauer, Can Togay, Budapest, 2005 Metonymy, which is quite a modern artistic device found mostly in literature but also in plastic art, adds interest mainly because of its mystery. At the end of the nineteenth century, Vincent Van Gogh painted, out of empathy, a pair of working shoes as metonyms for the simple yet friendly and warm-hearted farmers and coal miners with whom he identified completely. Metonymic use of an object, organ, or quality testifying to an entire person is audacious in itself, especially when the metonym is old shoes signifying the memory of people executed for their beliefs. When Moses stood before the burning bush, God

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Figure 18. Shoes on the Danube, Gyula Pauer, Can Togay, Budapest, 2005

commanded him, “Remove your shoes from your feet,” because of the sanctity of the place. Hence, audacity is needed, albeit artistic, to commemorate martyrs with shoes that are perceived as materialistic and coarse. Near the Hungarian parliament and Academy of Sciences, spread out along a Figure 19. Shoes on the Danube, detail stretch of some forty meters, sixty pairs of shoes and boots are laid out, all tips pointing toward the River Danube, making the personal items the representation of the people themselves (figs. 18–19). Made of iron and nailed to the riverbank, these are replicas of thousands of pairs of shoes and other authentic items, such as the heaps of suitcases and spectacles, tossed together at Auschwitz. The shoes, which look as

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if they stopped walking midway—mid-life—are left orphaned. Thus, they powerfully stress what is missing, what is absent. Shoes of men, women, and children of different ages and different social strata, fancy, elegant shoes, work shoes, flat and high-heeled shoes, heavy boots alongside delicate evening shoes—a typical “human mosaic.” Each pair has its colorful design and style as if to tell the story of its owner’s personality. For a moment, it seems that bathers have just leapt into the water and will soon return to carry on their lives. But these shoes are symbols of the moment when the Jews, dragged to the stone banks, stood facing the water, some tied to each other or to stones and weights, and were ordered to remove their shoes before being shot and sent to their death as they fell into the Danube to be swept away by the current. This was the same Danube that had been the endless inspiration for a world of fantasy, of waltzes and balls, of aesthetic beauty. The “blue” Danube, turned red. This monument is composed of seemingly inferior, worthless objects representing the individual, who represents the millions. The shoes hold a mystery that arouses the imagination and highlights the observer’s lack of information about their owners, whom he might like to meet and get to know. In their muteness, these inanimate objects “tell” the story of the tragedy.

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Chairs—Ghetto Krakow Memorial, Piotr Lewicki and Kazimierz Latak, Krakow, 2005 The more we advance in time toward the present, the more the monuments take on new and different forms from those to which we have been accustomed. It is no longer a single or group sculpture, structure, or monument; it is an installation: empty steel and iron chairs nailed to the ground in the Heroes’ Square in the Krakow Ghetto (figs. 20–22), where the Nazis assembled the Jews prior to the liquidation of the ghetto and to their being transported, some to Belzec extermination camp and some—the old, the too young, the pregnant, and the sick—to Auschwitz. On the morning of March 13, 1943, the day on which Krema 2 opened in Auschwitz, 1,492 people stood on that square: the last assembly. By evening, they had all passed through the gas chambers. The architects were inspired by old photographs showing men, women, and school children marching down the pavement, each with a stool over their head. These chairs, placed at the actual tram station, invite and are “waiting” for passersby to come and fill the empty spaces and perhaps reflect on the events that

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Figure 20. Chairs—Ghetto Krakow Memorial, Piotr Lewicki and Kazimierz Latak, Krakow, 2005

took place there, feeling some identification with the victims. The chairs are placed facing different directions, casting long shadows, not unlike a person and his silhouette. The chair that has replaced the person, and the shadow that replaces the chair, only serve to augment the sense of void. They will continue to “wait for Godot.” Thirty-three chairs 1.4 meters high are scattered across the square, while thirty-seven chairs 1.2 meters high are lined up around the edges—a memorial to those whose lives of that morning turned to ashes that evening. While the site is a memorial to the Jews who were gathered there, it bears, at the same time, a universal message. Public monuments are an important tool through which the general public is educated about human rights and democracy.

Figure 21. Chairs—Ghetto Krakow Memorial, detail

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Figure 22. Chairs—Ghetto Krakow Memorial, detail

Traditional monuments made the observer stand before them, to be amazed, to empathize, to gather and quietly show respect for the dead. This installation in Krakow is staged as part of the urban landscape, integrated into its daily life, interacting with its residents—Poles, Jews, and others who are invited to relate to it as part of their routine lives. The display heightens, enhances, and empowers the memory, making it part of our existence, since these are not museum exhibits but a focus for the repeated empathy of everyone who comes there. Since this monument is placed in an urban context but has no formal designation of the space as a memorial, it has an active relationship with the viewer and with the space in which it is assimilated, allowing the observer to investigate it and invest it with new meanings and functions. Thus, the square has become a lively, multifunctional space used by the local urban population and visited by tourists.29 The passerby experiences not only the emotion and aesthetics such as those felt by museum-goers or visitors to a commemorative site, but of necessity also becomes part of the theater of the absurd of public space and life, taking on the role of Godot.

29 Viorica Buica, “Aesthetics of Absence: Interaction and Public Memorials in Krakow and Berlin,” Europski Mesto, http://www.evropskemesto.cz/cms/index.php?option=com_ content&task=view&id=830&Itemid=190 (accessed December 12, 2012).

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Figure 23. Holocaust Memorial Monument, Yaakov Agam, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2003

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Holocaust Memorial Monument, Yaakov Agam, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2003 Yaacov Agam chose a new and surprising modern language—the kinetic style in which movement plays a key role—for his work. In Waldenberg Park on the banks of the Mississippi, Agam erected a structure consisting of nine metal panels reaching 3.45 meters, on which ten different images appear as one walks slowly around the panels clockwise and alters the angle of observation. Agam’s monument is a clear example of the tension existing between the concept of aesthetics and the Holocaust atrocities (figs. 23–25). “In spite” of the spectacular spectrum .

Figure 24. Holocaust Memorial Monument, detail

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Figure 25. Holocaust Memorial Monument, detail

of colors, Agam succeeded in conveying the horrific experiences of those times. The message of the memorial site, in addition to being an expression of remembrance of the victims and survivors, is that we need to be vigilant against the hostile forces of intolerance, bigotry, and prejudice. The first image, a yellow Star of David, symbolizes the humiliation, torture, and persecution by the Nazis. The second—a completely black square— expresses the dark period lacking morality, compassion, hope, or light. The third brings colors out of the darkness in the middle of the gray panels separated by black stripes. Six of these symbolize the souls of the six million victims, while the seventh stripe is dedicated to the Righteous Gentiles and the eighth to gypsies, homosexuals, and other victims of the Holocaust. The fourth image describes destruction, despair, and ruin, with the yellow star in the background. The fifth portrays chaos and misery, the emptiness resulting from the absence of religion and morality, and the lack of the sanctity of human life. The sixth supersedes the sorrow and shows a vibrant rainbow, light and full of life, signifying the biblical rainbow and the covenant it represents as a sign of renewal and hope. The seventh—long stripes in shades of blue—symbolizes the heavens, the abode of divinity and hope. The eighth portrays one of the key images of the monument: two Hanukkah candelabra/menorahs with facing bases. The one pointing upwards is in fiery hues, while the one pointing downwards is purple, blue, and white. The Hanukkah candelabrum symbolizes the

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miracle of the jug of oil and the heroism of the Maccabees—the Jewish ethos of light and liberty, salvation and redemption. It is composed of two colored arcs that suggest the rainbow as well. In the ninth image, behind the candelabra, we see a double arc that symbolizes heaven and earth and calls out to all mankind: “Never again!” Behind the two menorahs, we see the biblical rainbow signifying the covenant between God and Man. The tenth image again shows the symbol of destruction, of the murder, oppression, and chaos of the war years. Like the Warsaw Ghetto Memorial, Agam also presents both sides of the coin: humiliation and heroism. But instead of using the accepted patterns of realistic style to depict the heroes on one side and the victims on the other, Agam sought to commemorate them through the kinetic use of collective abstract Jewish symbols and conventions, a style of which Agam himself is one of the founders. The result is a monument that changes colors and images as the observer changes his perspective, each view adding another layer to the story being told. The information and the experience come from the combination of colorful shapes that might seem to the lay observer to be an aesthetic game or merely op-art, while Agam’s work is, in fact, a journey through time and space toward forms and images that have deep Jewish significance and tell the story of the Holocaust, linking it to the generations of the Flood, the Maccabees, and on to the yellow star. The transition from one panel to the next builds the observer’s awareness of the dimension of time, a highly important value in historical memory. This kinetic monument takes the visitor to two kinds of art: the art of time and the art of place. The former depends on the event along a time continuum, while the latter depends on simultaneous occurrence in space. In the art of time—literature, music, and dance—actions derive one from the other in subsequent intervals. In contrast, in the art of place—architecture, painting, and sculpture—objects we perceive with our senses are portrayed at independent points in time that do not have to be sequential. As for categorizing a work as belonging to either the art of time or the art of place, this memorial should belong to the latter, as would a picture or a sculpture that the observer can grasp all at once. However, Agam portrayed symbols that begin in the valley of hell and advance toward redemption, ending, once again, with the symbols of devastation and massacre as the observer moves forward from one point to the next. It is only by moving from “chapter to

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chapter” that the observer can broaden his knowledge up to the final warning of the tenth panel. The dual identity of this monument, belonging as it does to both arts, makes it a “visual book” in which shapes replace words. Observers are led by the artist in the order he has determined, as we find in a literary work, which, of course, belongs to the art of time—“an accumulative reading”—and thus we find here a special category that fits the description of a symbolic sequence. The location of this monument, expressing both oppression and heroism along the banks of the Mississippi in Louisiana, is symbolic, since this region, which had been known as one of slavery’s strongholds in America, was liberated with the arrival of Abraham Lincoln on the historical scene. A direct line, therefore, may be drawn from “slavery to freedom” to this monument, which stands for “from Holocaust to revival.”

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Empty Library Monument, Micha Ullman, Berlin, 1995 The burning of books, which was the initiative of Josef Goebbels, Germany’s Minister of Propaganda, occurred on May 10, 1933 at Bebelplatz. Micha Ullman’s work is a symbolic and minimalist illustration of one of the early traumatic events in the saga of the Holocaust, a “foretaste” of things to come. Burning the books was the first step in burning life itself to the ground. It is, therefore, no wonder that the artist chose the profound and accurate statement of Heinrich Heine, which he engraved on a bronze plaque on the ground of the square not far from the monument: “That was but a prelude. Where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people too.” In light of the importance of the event, one might expect a huge monument of impressive design out of which devouring flames would burst forth. Instead, Ullman took a “minimalist” approach: a monument that fits into the cobblestones on the spot where the fire did, indeed, consume those books. Ullman sank a monument below the surface to symbolize the grave of the books (figs. 26–28). It consists of a five-meter subterranean room that can be viewed through a glass surface. The room is a geometrically precise square library signaling German order and discipline, with sterile white shelves indicating the Nazis’ desire to “cleanse” libraries of any resistance to the national socialist dogma—shelves which could hold 20,000 books—all empty. It is worth noting that the glass surface, in which the observer sees his own

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Figure 26. Empty Library Monument, Micha Ullman, Berlin, 1995

Figure 27. Empty Library Monument, detail

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Figure 28. Empty Library Monument, detail

refection, makes it hard to see the content of the “library.” It may well be that the artist intended the visitor to see himself before anything else: as an observer? As a participant? As a collaborator? Often the passing clouds are also reflected in the glass, suggesting smoke, and even thick smoke—that of the fire. The depth of the library into the ground—the negative space—is a symbol of the depth of knowledge and infinite wisdom as well as the cultural void they left behind.30 The monument faces the Faculty of Law at Humboldt University, renowned for its scientists and humanities scholars who won Nobel prizes, many of whom were Jews: Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Stefan Zweig, Walter Benjamin, Friedrich Engels, and Albert Einstein. Right in front of the faculty that was supposed to deal in justice and law, some 20,000 books written by some of the best and most highly respected authors, scientists, philosophers, artists, and journalists, who at the time were considered to be enemies of the regime, were burned. About two thirds of these were written by Jews. Once again, the observer is led to the concrete via the abstract, to the seemingly minor statement that expresses a heart-rending shout. Through this symbolic minimalism, Ullman chose to represent the incomprehensible and inhuman acts that are so hard for us to contemplate. 30 James E. Young, At Memory’s Edge (New York: Yale University Press, 2000), 8.

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Gabriella Shalev, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, stated on November 4, 2008: “The Holocaust began not with the gas chambers, but with words.” Indeed—the burning of words!

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Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe, Peter Eisenman, Berlin, 2005 The wavy monument by Peter Eisenman, sloping in different directions, covers an area of 19,000 square meters in a symbolic area of Berlin, the site of the German Ministry of Propaganda, headed by Josef Goebbels, in the immediate vicinity of the Tiergarten Park. At this topographic spot where east and west merge, the site is “watched over” by two central monuments: the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag dome. This is the site where a monument that was and still is controversial continues to arouse sentiments of anger. Among those who opposed the monument was Günter Grass, who claimed it was depressing, oppressive, and overly abstract. Peter Eisenman, surprisingly, considered the countless debates to be a rather positive outcome, since his goal was not to put an end to them but rather to encourage discussion of topics such as antiSemitism and social responsibility. Moreover, his view of the site was expressed when he said, “I think that people will eat their lunches on the monument, some will dance on it, skateboard over it and all kinds of unexpected things will happen.”31 He saw no desecration of the memorial nor any clash with the reverence expected at the site. This monument is exceptional by any criterion of size, location, meaning, and penetration into the daily life of the capital of united Germany. Eisenman added that “The enormity and scale of the horror of the Holocaust is such that any attempt to represent it by traditional means is inevitably inadequate. It had to be something other than just a walk in the garden. I didn’t want to create a nostalgic experience, a kitsch experience.”32 Indeed, the memorial marks a radical departure from other memorials of this scale; its intention and function were not just to console but to also provoke thought in the coming generations (figs. 29–33). In addition to the significance of the location of the monument, there is the importance of the ideational point of view, which raises the question of how memory is better preserved. Will it be an uplifting approach that turns the 31 In an interview given in Israel at the acceptance of the Wolf Prize in May 2010. 32 Ibid.

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Figure 29. Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe (aerial view), Peter Eisenman, Berlin, 2005 (N. Richard Wagner, http://www.cs.utsa. edu/~wagner/berlin/trip/trip_holo.html)

Figure 30. Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe, detail (N. Richard Wagner, http://www.cs.utsa.edu/~wagner/berlin/trip/trip_holo.html)

memorial into a “temple” where people pray, light candles, console, or reproach, a place that radiates awe and majesty? Or will it turn the memorial—in accordance with Peter Eisenman’s preference—into an organic and integral part of the urban fabric and landscape, part of the daily experience—a place where residents may walk on their way to work, a children’s playground, or a quiet, relaxing place for the city’s tourists to rest. Either way, the site will fulfill its main

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Figure 31. Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe, detail

Figure 32. Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe, detail

Figure 33. Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe, detail

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function as a commemorative memorial that will penetrate the individual and collective German conscious and subconscious. At the acceptance of the Wolf Prize ceremony in Israel in May 2010, Eisenman said the following: “We are talking about the memory of the German people, those who took part in it, not so as to erase it, but to create a different one.” He does not see turning the site into a “children’s neighborhood playground” as desecration, but rather as the proper way to make the new generation learn and internalize that “other memory.” Besides the artist’s personal preference, the needs of the place, political and economic aspects, and the geographic location of the monument, the spirit of the times also plays a major role. “Traditionally, Western monuments have celebrated military heroes and triumphs. Dictatorships and later on the Holocaust shifted commemorative practices, moving the focus from soldiers to civilians; memorial design, then, turned to abstraction.”33 In the modern and postmodern era, it is only natural for the artist to employ an abstract style that prevents a priori any possibility of recounting a story or historical description, since that style is devoid of content and is contradictory to any event, especially a traumatic one of the immense scope of the Holocaust. However, in the succinctness of the abstract that draws us toward the absolute, and in the absence of description and transferability, there is something that, by its very neutrality, might perhaps be able to affix a small part of this colossal phenomenon in the collective memory. Some reservation should be expressed here, though, since even in the abstract there are various directions and nuances, and it, too, is measured relative to the mimetic. Eisenman’s monument is a worthy example of a discussion of the issue of abstraction. It is an abstract monument, but at the same time, it is built within a formal spatial arrangement composed of precise geometric shapes. The fact that the artist chose stones, and not glass or metal, in monumental gray, immediately arouses associations to symbolic meanings. When asked about abstraction, he, at first, wanted no part of it, but then adhered to it. This apparent contradiction sheds light on the problem of the connection between abstraction and the Holocaust. 33 Briggite Sion, “Experience and Remembrance at Berlin’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe,” http://www.irmgard-coninx-stiftung.de/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf/Memory_ Politics/Workshop_1/Sion_Essay.pdf (accessed December 12, 2012).

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Peter Eisenman has some ambivalence about the term “abstraction.” His memorial, he says, is not abstract because it generates real feelings; but it is “abstract” in relation to other architectural work in which walls and boundaries have been determined by maps, or the footprints of other buildings. Eisenman’s hesitancy towards “abstraction” is understandable given his need to defend his memorial against the charge of emptiness . . . Jurgen Habermas, the German sociologist and philosopher, wrote that “the abstract formal language of modern art” is the only medium to “portray a breach in civilization,” because its “brittle self-containment is more likely than any other to guard against solecisms and trivialization” . . . I think that what Habermas meant is that a memorial that represented the Holocaust through a symbol or image would trivialize it by reducing it to such a symbol in the way that . . . some early twentieth-century painters reduced a form in the visual world down to its essence, abstracting it. This would be “false abstraction”: by contrast, the abstraction of Eisenman’s memorial was effective precisely because it was made out of the language of architecture . . . rather than out of an abstracted idea or form taken from the history of the Holocaust.34

If abstraction were taken as an art of “purity” of “form,” then it would be possible to say that it only ever functions to express the unrepresentability of the Holocaust. However, if abstraction is taken to be an art that addresses reality, then it can represent the Holocaust in real ways, but in ways distinct from other art forms.35 The monument draws its power from what seems to be a simple idea, which the artist turned into a sophisticated one; there are 2,711 massive rectangular stelae, labs of cement, arranged in a grid pattern, matching the number of pages in the Jerusalem Talmud, looking like the coffins, gravestones, and cemetery headstones of those who were exterminated and of the rich culture eradicated with them. The blocks are 2.38 meters long, 0.95 meters wide, and range in height from 0.2 to 4.5 meters, forming a myriad of uneven stone corridors. Each one lies on its base at an angle ranging up to two degrees in different directions—uniform in their general appearance, but very different in their measurements and density and in the pointed angular shadows they cast. These stelae do not bear names or dates or any reference to the Holocaust; they

34 Mark Godfrey, Abstraction and the Holocaust (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007), 250. 35 Ibid., 251.

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are made of the same material and color, and their pattern is very similar; they are all straight and convey sterility, systematics, coldness, and precision. While the blocks in Berlin were carefully planned and built just like the methodical, almost scientific inhumanity of the Nazi killing machine, in Jewish cemeteries there is usually no uniformity in the shape of the headstones, and the passing time leaves its mark, causing them to tilt, sink, and crumble, so they become very individual, a symbol of the uniqueness of each and every soul. Eisenman’s creation in Berlin lies over an undulating area within a “crater” that opened up between the buildings and trees that surround it. The site radiates the silent scream of the multitude as well as the asking for forgiveness trying to bandage up the wounds of the “crater.” The visitor is led along narrow, long pathways that crisscross through the forest of tombstones, and as he “gets lost” in this labyrinth, he “experiences” just a tiny taste of the hair-raising ordeals the victims must have felt on their final journey. The artist himself testifies that the purpose of the organized arrangement of the blocks and their play of light and shadow is to create an accumulative ambience of confusion and disorientation, uneasiness and oppression, distress and discomfort as far as losing touch with human reason. To do this, he planned the narrow spacing between the blocks (75 cm.) to allow only one person to pass at a time, thus ensuring that he or she experience the site with its eerie atmosphere individually, at times having to adjust pace and breathing as the terrain slopes up and down, often steeply. Visitors may observe the site from the side or from a bird’s-eye view and take it all in at once, but can also walk between the monotonous paths with their surprising heights, breadths, and shadows, and will perhaps, thereby, internalize, to some small degree, the inconceivable and inestimable experience in time. Before exiting the maze, which is reminiscent of the baroque-style maze, visitors have undergone a kind of process in time—which becomes an integral part of the cerebral and emotional experience—in which they learn of the notion this place symbolizes. They have experienced a physical sensation of confinement and claustrophobia created by the site as well as the memory of the victims by feeling in their own bodies the absence created by the genocide. Eisenman’s architecture does not aim at recreating the confined atmosphere of a concentration camp; rather, it invites visitors to experience the absence caused by the Holocaust and think about their role as carriers of memory. This architecture engages them in both feeling the void and filling it. The fact that the field of

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stelae lacks a focal point reflects the fact that perpetrators and victims are everywhere in the city. The grid refers to the German regime and its systemized murder plan while the tombstone-like stelae refer to the image of the cemetery and the innumerable victims.36

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Despite the careful, systematic organization of the design of the whole monument, a number of blocks at ground level appear to be a natural continuation of the sidewalk. There is no separation between the street and the memorial. This “invasion” is a symbolic testimonial to the transgressing of all human, moral, and religious boundaries during the Holocaust, making it impossible for the passerby who wishes to ignore their existence to do so. It is a means the artist uses to instill the events of the past into the collective consciousness with a twofold message: “Remember” to the Jew, and “Never forget” to the Gentile. Eisenman’s plan for preparing the ground for the monument was not what one might have expected—laying an uneven “netting” of pillars on the ground and deciding arbitrarily as to which will be vertical and which will be erected at an angle. The building of this infrastructure is linked to the process that lies at the core of this memorial site: Eisenman invented two topographies, each a plane, like a wavy sheet, each undulating differently . . . What did it mean to invent topography in the first place? Eisenman could have placed the pillars on the bare ground of Berlin as he found it when the site was turned over to him. Equally, he could have engineered a flattened and neutral plain on which to position the blocks. He decided to invent topography of bumps and low valleys for particular reasons.37

According to Mark Godfrey, the architectonic strategy Eisenman used gives a different, unique sense of the area from outside it. One of the principles of Nazism is based on the ideology of the sanctity of German soil, and the purpose of inventing and creating a new ground layer was to oppose that principle. The strength, permanence, and rigidity of the soil is replaced by an artificial, unpredictable topography that Eisenman termed “unstable,” and even though when walking through the site one knows the columns are plotted on a

36 Sion, “Experience and Remembrance.” 37 Godfrey, Abstraction and the Holocaust, 245.

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grid, one cannot tell why there are odd undulations above and below, and why pillars ahead lean and lurch.38

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What is sensed is that a rational system has produced disturbing and unpredictable results. Eisenman’s strategy sets up this sensation, and this experience, in turn, serves as an analogy for Nazism: Nazism is also a disturbing product of a rational and ordered system. Nazism is conceived here not as an interruption of medieval madness in modernity, but as a product of modernity—as a moment in which modernity’s rationality gives rise to calamity, a moment where modernity’s industrial and economic means are put to horrific use. Eisenman thus reads the Holocaust as have others before him—Adorno and Horkheimer, Zygmunt Bauman, for instance—as “an exquisitely modern form of genocide.”39

In his article “Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe,” Eisenman states that when such an ordered system grows too large and out of proportion to its intended purpose, it begins to reveal the innate disturbances and potential for chaos in all systems of seeming order. In his perspective, the memorial is a rendition of a rigid system that starts off with a purpose of law and order, but turns into a killing monster.40 By reading the Holocaust in this way, Eisenman also turns the memorial into a warning. The memorial not only reads history, but also suggests that there is no reason why contemporary industrial capitalism cannot produce another Holocaust. Reason and order, in other words, can once again give rise to chaos and violence. This somber message is carried to the world as Eisenman’s monument of a vast field of nameless tombstones reminds Germany on a daily basis of its murderous past while forcing her to cope with it, as it captures the horror of the Nazi death camps by representing a radical approach to the traditional concept of a memorial. The haunting memorial offers a glimpse into the depth of darkness. In the monument, in Eisenman’s words, “. . . there is no nostalgia, no memory of the past, only the living memory of the individual experience. Here we can only know the past through its manifestation in the present.”41 It seems 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid., 246. 40 Peter Eisenman, “Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe,” in Materials on the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, ed. Hendrik Gerth (Berlin: Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhd, 2005), 10–13. 41 Ibid., 12.

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that he is more interested in today’s visitors than he is in yesterday’s victims, less in the past than in its expression in the present.42 This interactive memorial site, as well as the Krakow Square and Agam’s kinetic memorial, are all examples of spatial experiments that generate thinking, cause physical reactions and reflections, stimulate the imagination and the senses, and allow exploration and investigation as the visitor becomes a “performer” who contributes to the creation of meaning and function.43

Love and Anguish, Kenneth Treister, Miami Beach, Florida, 1990 The unveiling of the Love and Anguish Memorial site in Miami Beach, Florida, created by Kenneth Treister, took place in July 1990. This memorial of the Holocaust is not just another sculpture, another monument, a grave, a denotation of a date or a name, but rather an integrated complex (figs. 34–41). Treister, an architect and sculptor, chose a spatial concept and built within a beautiful park typical of the Florida climate—palm trees and water—an “adventure garden” of the apocalypse. The site integrates architecture, sculpture, water, and landscaping. Treister himself provides the reasons that led him to build a monument of such exceptional proportions:

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I could not keep the meaning of the Holocaust private, hidden behind the veil of abstract art or cryptic ethereal designs. It had to be accessible and readily communicated, for the memory of the events had to be kept alive for the entire world to see.44

As Treister put it, he created “a large environmental sculpture . . . a series of outdoor spaces in which the visitor is led through a procession of visual, historical, and emotional experiences with the hope that the totality of the visit will express, in some small way, the reality of the Holocaust.”45 Around the dominant image, designed as a yearning forearm grasping skywards—are scattered 130 full-size human figures cast in bronze, expressing various forms of torment and anguish. A semicircular colonnade of Jerusalem 42 Sion, “Experience and Remembrance.” 43 Buica, “Aesthetics of Absence.” 44 Kenneth Treister, A Sculpture of Love and Anguish (New York: S. P. I. Books, 1993), 13. 45 Ibid.

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Figure 34. Love and Anguish, Kenneth Treister, Miami Beach, Florida, 1990

stone columns supporting a wooden arbor covered with trailing bougainvillea vines encircles the site, and black granite slabs display historical and documentary facts and chronological pictorial depictions of events accompanied by textual explanations and maps. On the black granite panels mirroring the central object of the plaza are inscribed 25,000 names of people who perished. Past the colonnade path, there is an enclosed, dome-covered, shrineFigure 35. Love and Anguish, detail like area for meditation containing an eternal flame and bearing a wall inscription from Psalm 23. The dark interior of the dome is pierced by a shaft of yellow light projected from a yellow Star of David with the black letters “Jude.” A round, tranquil lily pond six meters in diameter, with particularly large water lilies reflecting the patterns of the azure sky, is part of the serene garden. The visual focus of the memorial is the towering bronze sculpture piercing the sky: a twelve-meter-high forearm bearing a tattoo with an

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Figure 36. Love and Anguish, detail

Figure 37. Love and Anguish, detail

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Figure 38. Love and Anguish, detail

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Figure 39. Love and Anguish, detail

authentic Auschwitz number—the ultimate mark of man’s dehumanization, a form of identification that erased and replaced the human identity.46 The arm is encircled by close to a hundred intertwined bronze figures of the martyred victims who cling to it, crawl and climb—each portraying its own testimony, seeking to breathe, seeking to flee the inferno while fathers and mothers comfort their children in an abyss of terror and compassion. At the end of the forearm, a huge hand reaches toward the sky—perhaps in prayer, possibly in supplication, but Figure 40. Love and Anguish, detail most likely it is the last vestige of a person sinking into the depths, the last grasp for life. The spacious park, with a 46 Helen N. Fagin, “Introduction,” in A Sculpture of Love and Anguish, eds. Kenneth Treister, Helen Fagin, Al Barg, and Jeff Weisberg (New York: S.P.I., 1993).

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Figure 41. Love and Anguish, detail

path of palm trees leading to it and to the memorial monument, stands in stark contrast to the hideous crimes. The combination is a sign and a recollection of the beauty of the German culture that both invented the machine of extermination and committed the monstrous executions, and at the same time continued to conduct a routine life, one that was seemingly cultured, moral, and humane. On this incomprehensible duality of the height of evil and the depths of the despicable among highly civilized, enlightened people of culture, philosophy, and music, the artist has created a complex that takes the visitor on a path of learning, of experiencing—a journey through time. Through his spatial concept, he has managed to demonstrate the events from start to finish. Hence, there is a logical connection between the different parts of this memorial. The memorial path begins with a life-sized group sculpture of a mother shielding her two young, frightened children, whose terror is clearly visible on their faces.47 The three are holding on to each other as the sign of impending doom. Further on, 47 Ziva Amishai Maisels, Depiction and Interpretation: The Influence of the Holocaust on the Visual Arts (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1993), 140. “. . . the most moving traditional symbol—an innocent mother and child. Their vulnerability is expressed by the very obvious absence of a father . . .”

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the visitor undergoes a physical and symbolic preparation for what is to come as he passes through a tunnel-like structure with narrowing walls and a decreasing ceiling height, symbolic of the path to the crematorium, creating a feeling of pressure and sense of compression and diminished self, which the victims must also have felt. Along the walls on either side, the names of the extermination camps are carved. Through the narrow slits in the ceiling, only glimpses of faint sunlight filter into the tunnel, symbolizing the path to utterly hopeless, absolute darkness. The screaming wail48 of a little boy grows louder the closer one comes to the sculpture of the sobbing child seated on the floor at the end of the tunnel. The experience of walking toward it is accompanied by a choir of children’s voices singing Holocaust songs. As the visitor emerges from the repressive tunnel and enters the sculpture patio, a burst of sunlight greets him or her, accompanied by the canopy of the blue sky. The concrete design of the central sculpture—the hyper-realistic forearm bursting forth to rise up from the depths of the earth, splitting the skies, symbolizing millions of victims—is highly expressive, even to the point of accentuating the veins and joints. The hand calls forth an association with the treatment of hands by sculptor Auguste Rodin, portrayer of human suffering, who reached the peak of expression with a series of hands as metonyms for people, such as his Hand from the Tomb, and even for the Creator himself in his Hand of God. Another association with Rodin comes from the parallel between the figures climbing up the forearm evoking a wide range of human emotions, affliction, and grief, and the figures in Rodin’s Gates of Hell. The free-standing bronze figures on and around the arm and at the entrance are designed with a technique of exceptional intensity. They are each unique in position and facial expression, are emaciated and starving, with the texture suggesting rough human skin, full of bumps—contrary to the usual tendency with bronze statues whose surfaces are smoothed out to make them shine. The people are portrayed in a frozen moment of existence, similar to the “frozen” figures at Pompeii after the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. Among those hanging on the arm in desperate search of salvation are men, women, children, and infants, young and old, all crying, shouting in despair, shaking their arms in defiance, in puzzlement, in prayer, or in an embrace meant to shield and protect. They are 48 Ibid., 29. “The wail in the context of the Holocaust embodies the death screams of the victim, the cry of the artist as he confronts the subject, the scream of the observer faced with the images before him and finally the scream of resistance.”

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all naked, protruding out of a background that resembles molten lava—a human, man-made hell. Here, unlike Rodin’s Gates of Hell, which depicts the terror of Judgment Day imposed from above, man could, by deeds and decisions, have averted this hell. The palm of the hand lies somewhere between despair and hope, as do some of the figures wrapped around the arm. However, the hand mainly raises questions to which there are no answers. The fingers also cover a spectrum of characteristics from weakness, to humility, to audacity: the third, fourth, and fifth fingers are curled, while the index finger points straight up and the thumb includes those of all the other four. The palm is softer and more “human-like” than the back of the hand. This moving sculpture is reflected in the still, clear, circular pool that symbolizes continuity and the need to contemplate and reflect while near it. The reflection doubles the intensity of the “statement” the forearm makes. The musings inherent in this sculpture rise towards the heavens and descend towards the depths—the edges of life. The upraised forearm, as opposed to the beautiful large water lilies, indicates the doubts, the uncertainties, and the profound inner disputes concerning these sub-human events. All that is left after this human hell is that temple of meditation and contemplation—it is only there that one may hope and pray for “Never again!” Survivors living in the land of the free fought to erect this monumental enterprise, this permanent gravesite, despite the opposition they encountered. They were fortunate to be able to erect a memorial site that would be a permanent reminder, among other things, of that survivor, a former violin virtuoso, whose one arm was severed by the Nazis so that she would never be able to play again. This site is also a reminder of her husband, a virtuoso pianist, whose arm was also amputated for the same reason. They were both members of the site erection committee, where there were strong winds of objection to the establishment of the park. The couple convinced the other members by saying that if the forearm at the memorial site were erected, it would constitute, for them, the restoration of their lost limbs. These words of persuasion tipped the scales. Kenneth Treister testified that he undertook to design a memorial to commemorate the Jewish culture lost in the Holocaust, and to create a serene garden that would give the survivors and those who lost their loved ones a place to visit in lieu of the cemetery they do not have. He also wished to convey through his sculpture the history and the sorrow in such a way that future

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generations would never forget. He was asked to establish a site that would honor the dead and show respect for them, console and comfort the survivors, and inform the world of the darkest annals of history. And indeed, this site was named for the extreme contrast of two concepts—love and anguish. This contrast is symbolized by the “brightness of the luminous pinkish Jerusalem stone which represents the basic building material for the Memorial and is also used to pave the entire circular plaza, and the somber shining black granite which lines the walls.”49 The site represents, at the same time, the beauty of the world as well as the dark side of human nature, just as the Jerusalem stone is a symbol of Israel, of Jerusalem, and of the Temple—elements that speak of ruin and renewal alike. Treister’s task—to interpret and convey the unimaginable, to remember the unthinkable—was an immense challenge, to say the least. How can an artist depict horrors inconceivable to the human mind? How could he look at a huge, empty field, envision the calm, serene majesty and tranquility, and fill vast, infinite silence with glorious music?50 Treister succeeded in offering the “other planet” to those who take the physical journey, as well as in preparing them for an inner mental-emotional one, both crucial to the understanding of the universe of the Holocaust. This memorial site is a breathtaking example of the profound changes undergone by commemorative art: from a plaque, an obelisk, a symbolic object such as a Star of David or a menorah, a sculpture, and architectonic structure through the “experiential memorial gardens” that take the observer on a journey through time and memory from the first sculpture on the site—the mother and her two terrified children—to the last one of the same mother and children who are no longer alive. The stimuli of modern life, the constant and rapid changes in the world and on the artistic map, have also touched the monument and works devoted to the most complex historical event to commemorate: the Holocaust. In the Love and Anguish Memorial Park, the visitor is swept up into the total scene, interacting with it through his “mingling” with the figures, looking at them from close range, touching them, making him a part of the mood of the dramatic, moving tribute to the six million Jews.

49 Fagin, “Introduction.” 50 http://fcit.usf.edu/holocaust/RESOURCE/gallery/MIAMI2.htm (accessed December 12, 2012).

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The preservation of memory and the creation of a force to deter a recurrence of horrific events of the nature and scope of the Holocaust require a comprehensive artistic experience, one that is impressive in its totality and that will remain etched on the memory of future generations. Relating to that preservation when speaking at the inauguration of the site, Elie Wiesel said, “there existed suffering that transcended suffering . . . a tragedy that is beyond words, that is beyond imagination, but not beyond memory.”

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*** As the number of Holocaust survivors dwindles, and as even the Second Generation is advancing in age, and while the Holocaust deniers continue to raise their voices, there is an increasing need to “freeze” the memory—not deep-freeze, but to etch the ultimate evil into collective memory and use it to educate, to prevent any recurrence. The monuments have been erected, like museums and archives, out of a need to fill the place of the grave and the tombstone, the house that was burned down, the community that was destroyed—and for the survivors. As a new generation arises, the Holocaust will become a historical event at best, or a legend will become a fictitious myth. Hence, education must offer the new generation a mixture of historical facts alongside psychological, moral, philosophical, and religious aspects, something that has been made possible thanks to the crucial, monumental endeavor of Steven Spielberg—a monument in its own right. On November 5, 2002, in Temple Emanuel of Greater Miami Beach, Kenneth Treister in his speech summarized what, in my opinion, should be done regarding the education of the generations to come: The totality of the Holocaust cannot be created in stone and bronze . . . but I had to try. The rich diversity of the European culture, now lost, cannot be expressed . . . but I had to try. The murder of one and one half million children whose joys turned to sorrow suddenly on September 1, 1939, when World War II broke out, cannot be sculpted . . . but I had to try. Six million moments of death cannot be understood . . . but we must all try.

The task will not be easy in the postmodern era of computers, digitalization, and the creation of a virtual reality in which worlds are created and dismissed at the stroke of a key or a browse across a touch screen. We might actually hope that as a result, and as an antidote, the museums and monuments

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will be welcomed as permanent displays in contrast to the virtual world. In the same breath, it should be said with caution that there is a fear of overexposure to the subject that might render it banal and trivial. Thus we must seek a means of commemoration that addresses experiential memory. Only a means that arouses and stimulates human emotion will succeed in building a monument that people will carry in their hearts wherever they go.51 The monuments around the world serve as emissaries of the main monument—Auschwitz extermination camp—and as such they constitute the halls of memory. In his book The Longest Shadow, Geoffrey Hartman quotes Eleonora Lev, who recreated her visit there: “Auschwitz exists not here but is dispersed throughout the world in fragments in the survivors’ memories . . . day and night continuing to struggle and gnaw and consume without refuge . . . the place we are visiting is only the bottle of formaldehyde where the corpse is kept.”52

Acknowledgements I would like to thank Micaela Ziv for her faithful translation of the original Hebrew manuscript and Nili Laufert for her meticulous editing.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Bigsby, Christopher. Remembering and Imagining the Holocaust: The Chain of Memory. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Brog, Muli. “Entrapped within the Walls of Memory: The Warsaw Ghetto Monument in Poland and in Israel.” Alpaim 14 (1997): 148–73. Brotin, Batia. Living with the Memory: Holocaust Memorial Monuments in Israel. Lochamei Hagetaot: Lochamei Hagetaot, 2005. Cassuto, David. “On the Essence of Commemoration in Stone Monuments.” Gilad (1989): 14–15. 51 Young, The Art of Memory, 12. “One reason for the new-found strength of the museum and the monument in the public sphere may have something to do with the fact that both offer something that the television screen denies: the material quality of the object. The permanence of the monument and of the museum object, formerly criticized as deadening reification, takes on a different role in a culture dominated by the fleeting image on the screen and the immateriality of communications. I would like to suggest that it is the material reality of the object in the museum as it shapes and structures memory, the permanence of the monument in a reclaimed public space in pedestrian zones, in restored urban centers, or in preexisting memorial spaces that attracts a public dissatisfied with simulation and television channel switching.” 52 Hartman, The Longest Shadow, 39.

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De Man, Hanneke. “The Destroyed City.” In Sculpture in Rotterdam, edited by Jan Van Adrichem, Jelle Bouwhuis, and Mariette Dole. Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2002. Eisenman, Peter. “Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.” In Materials on the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, edited by Hendrik Gerth. Berlin: Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhd, 2005. Fagin, Helen N. “Introduction.” In A Sculpture of Love and Anguish, edited by Kenneth Treister, Helen Fagin, Al Barg, and Jeff Weisberg. New York: S. P. I. Books, 1993. Godfrey, Mark. Abstraction and the Holocaust. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007. Hartman, Geoffrey. “The Book of Destruction.” In Probing the Limits of Representation, edited by Saul Friedlander, 319–39. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992. Hartman, Geoffrey. The Longest Shadow. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. Hornstein, Shelley and Florence Jacobowitz, eds. Image and Remembrance: Representation and the Holocaust. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2003. Levi, Primo. “Revisiting the Camps.” In The Art of Memory: The Holocaust Memorials in History, edited by James E. Young, 185–209. New York and London: Prestel Publishing, 1994. Maisels, Ziva Amishai. Depiction and Interpretation: The Influence of the Holocaust on the Visual Arts. Oxford and New York: Pergamon Press, 1993. Marcuse, Harold. “Holocaust Memorials: The Emergence of a Genre.” American Historical Review 115 (2010): 53–89. Ofrat, Gideon. “About Monuments and Their Location.” Kav 4–5 (1982): 58–62. Treister, Kenneth. A Sculpture of Love and Anguish. New York: S. P. I. Books, 1993. Wiesel, Elie. Night. New York: Hill and Wang, 2006. Young, James E. At Memory’s Edge. New York: Yale University Press, 2000. _____. The Texture of Memory. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1993. _____, ed. The Art of Memory: Holocaust Memorials in History. New York and London: Prestel, 1994.

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The Unterlimpurg Synagogue: Issues Involved in Restoring a Demolished Synagogue David Cassuto and Zvi Orgad

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Introduction Not many wooden synagogues survived World War II. Synagogues built of wood, in which extensive parts of the ceilings and walls were decorated with murals of plants, animal drawings, and depictions of cities, are a unique artistic feature of the Jews of Ashkenaz beginning in the seventeenth century. Most were built in Eastern Europe, particularly in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and a smaller number of wooden synagogues were built in Germany and Switzerland.1 The main reason for the disappearance of wooden synagogues is their major vulnerability to fire. Fires broke out in times of peace, but even more so in times of war. Many synagogues in Eastern Europe were destroyed before World War I and throughout the war, and almost all those remaining were intentionally destroyed in World War II. Considering the complete destruction of all wall and ceiling murals in the wooden synagogues of Eastern Europe, the story of the survival of decorated wooden panels from a small synagogue in Unterlimpurg, a hamlet in southern Germany, is conspicuous. This town was located near the city of Schwäbisch Hall in the district of Baden-Württemberg in southwest Germany, and today it is part of the city. The synagogue was, in fact, a room in a house that was used for prayers from the early eighteenth century. In 1738, its wooden walls were decorated by artist Eliezer Sussmann, who operated in southern Germany in

1 Ernst Cohn-Wiener, Die Jüdische Kuns: Ihre Geschichte von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart (Berlin: M. Wasservogel, 1929), 224–7 [German].

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the 1730s and became renowned mainly due to his decoration of the walls and ceiling of the “barn” synagogue in Bechhofen.2 The first part of this article will review in brief the history of the Jewish community in the area, and the special circumstances of the synagogue that facilitated the rescue of its murals. The second part will describe efforts made to preserve the synagogue’s panels in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and their current condition. Finally, deficiencies in the present display shall be described, and an alternate restoration scheme shall be proposed, based on bibliographic material and on comparisons to other wooden synagogues.

The history of the Jewish community of Unterlimpurg and Hall

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The history of the Jewish community of Unterlimpurg and Hall is typical of rural German Jewry. Until the thirteenth century, there were hundreds of Jewish communities in the villages, towns, and large cities of Germany, and German Jewry (Ashkenaz) became a leader of Torah study in the Western world. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the economic activity of German Jews reached its climax as well.3 From the eleventh century onward, internal processes within Christian German society led to a decline in the Jews’ status and a change in their way of life.4 The town of Unterlimpurg was governed in medieval times by a local aristocratic family (Schenken von Limpurg) and located near the city of Hall (currently Schwäbisch Hall, the capital of the district of Schwäbisch Hall in the 2 On this synagogue see, for example, Erich Toeplitz, “Die Malerei in den Synagogen (Besonders in Franken),” in Beiträge Zur Jüdischen Kulturgeschichte (Frankfurt am Main: Heft III, 1929), 7–8 [German]; and Max Untermayer-Raymer, “German Synagogue Art,” The Menorah Journal 25 (1937): 64–5. 3 Nachum Tim Gidal, Hayehudim Begermanya Mitkufat Haroma’im ad Lerepublikat Weimar [Jews in Germany from Roman Times to the Weimar Republic] ( Jerusalem: Gefen, 1997), 10 [Hebrew]. 4 Growing religious extremism and the increasing significance of martyrology—the portrayal of Jesus’s torments—together with the rise of urban bourgeoisie, led to hatred of the Jews on a religious and economic basis. Following this development, along with the weakening of the German Emperor—who considered the Jews to be “treasury servants”— the Jews began to suffer from a decline in their status and from incessant pressures. See Mordechai Breuer and Michael Graetz, Toldot Yehudei Germanya Ba’et Hachadasha [German-Jewish History in Modern Times], ed. Michael Meir ( Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 2001–2005), 1: 10 [Hebrew].

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state of Baden-Württemberg) in southwest Germany.5 In Hall, as in other cities belonging to the Reich, Jewish presence was seen as serving the economic wellbeing of the rulers. The existence of Jews in the city of Hall is documented from 1241, but their presence was not continuous.6 Jewish occupancy of Hall was interrupted in 1349 in a most violent way. In this year, local Jews were accused of poisoning wells blamed for causing the outbreak of the Black Plague.7 Some of the Jews managed to flee the city, but those who remained were imprisoned in the torture tower in Rosenbühl, where they were burned to death.8 When the plague ended, Jews returned to live in the city, and during the fifteenth century, Hall retained the option of giving Jews the right to settle in the city, as did other cities in the Reich.9 However, in 1457, local Jews were forced to leave the city, and their synagogue was sold. From this year on, Jews were not permitted to live within the city of Hall (with a few exceptions) until 1802.10 In the late seventeenth century, the widow of the Jew Lämblin from Steinbach was allowed to reside in Hall,11 and in 1687, under pressure from the Graf of Gaildorf, his court Jew, Salomon Seligmann, received a permit to settle in the town of Schwäbisch Hall with his wife and children. When he died in 1709, two of his sons—Abraham and Herschel Mayer—received a permit to   5 Wilhelm German, “Die Holzsynagoge in Schwäbisch Hall,” Schwäbisches Heimatbuch 14 (1928): 30–5, esp. 30 [German].   6 In 1316, King Ludwig of Bavaria gave the local ruler of Hall the legal right to grant privileges to Jews, apparently to reward him for his support or to pay back losses sustained as a result of this support. See Andreas Maisch, Mayer Seligmann, Judt zu Unterlimpurg—Juden in Schwäbisch Hall und Steinbach 1688–1802 (Schwäbisch Hall: Stadtarchiv, 2001), p. 17.   7 A common accusation in Germany during the Black Plague, which led to the deportation and burning of Jews in many German cities. See Breuer and Graetz, German Jewish History in Modern Times, 50.   8 German, “Die Holzsynagoge in Schwäbisch Hall,” 30. As a token of the German crown’s defense of its Jewish “servants,” the city of Hall had to pay the Reich 800 golden for this massacre.   9 Maisch, Mayer Seligmann, 18–19. 10 Armin Panter, “Die Unterlimpurger Synagogenvertäfelung des Eliezer Sussman im Hällisch Fränkischen Museum Schwäbisch Hall,” Schwäbische Heimat 3 (2006): 270–6 [German]. According to another source, Jews were forbidden to live in the city from 1521 to 1802. See Felicitas Heimann-Jelinek, “Die Unterlimpurger Synagogue in der Tradition der Jüdischen Kunst,” in Geschützt, Geduldet, Gleichberechtigt: Die Juden im Baden-württembergischen Franken vom 17. Jahrhundret bis zum Ende des Kaiserreichs, ed. Taddey Gerhard (1918), published: 2005 147–154 [German]. 11 Maisch, Mayer Seligmann, 22–5.

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live in Steinbach, and his son Moses Mayer settled in Unterlimpurg.12 In 1710, Moses Mayer bought the house on 65 Unterlimpurger Street, and in 1728, he received a permit to hold regular prayers in a prayer room within the house. In 1738, Eliezer Sussmann was commissioned to paint the walls of this prayer room.13 The synagogue remained in use until the house was sold to a Christian family in 1788. The concealment of the prayer room, as well as the simple design of other wooden synagogues in Germany, can be explained by the small size of the communities and the constant need to conceal their religious activities amid a hostile Christian environment. This is particularly conspicuous in comparison to the large and relatively autonomous Jewish communities of Poland and Lithuania.14

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The Synagogue Structure and the Murals The Unterlimpurg synagogue was constructed as a room on the second and top floor of a home built from structural timbers (in the half-timbering technique). The building still stands on 65 Unterlimpurger Street (fig. 1). The room was relatively small in dimensions. It was accessed from the west, through two external staircases, one of stone and the other a covered wooden staircase. In the east, on both sides of the ark, there were two windows (figs. 2–3). The ceiling of the synagogue was flat and made of fifteen panels separated by wooden slats (fig. 4). As can be seen, the house existed in its present location in a similar architectural form as early as 1600 (fig. 5) and in 1703 (fig. 6). The synagogue was constructed Figure 1. The house on 65 Unterlimpurger Street. Photographed in a room facing the southeastern, “rear” by: Daniel Stihler. Stadtarchiv side of the building (fig. 2), a location that Schwäbisch Hall, 2007 12 Maisch, Mayer Seligmann, 28–34. 13 Panter, “Die Unterlimpurger Synagogenvertäfelung des Eliezer Sussman,” 270. 14 Maria and Kazimierz Piechotka, Wooden Synagogues (Warsaw: Arkady, 1959), 11–12; David Davidovitch, Omanut Ve’Omanim Bevatei Hakenesset shel Polin: Mekorot, Signonot, Hashpa’ot [Art and Artists in Poland’s Synagogues] (Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuhad, 1982), 64 [Hebrew].

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served the need for secrecy concerning Jewish worship, as mentioned above. The sketch in figure 2 was drawn for purposes of restoration of the synagogue at the Hällisch Fränkischen Museum, but by the time of the restoration, the architectural design of the attic had been changed. Thus, this drawing is only an estimate of the actual situation that existed when the prayer room was still located in the house. An earlier drawing of the room was published in 1928 by Wilhelm German (fig. 3). There are clear differences between the two drawings, particularly in the location of the entrance door in the Figure 2. The Unterlimpurg northwestern wall. With respect to the synagogue. Drafting of the house earlier drawing, there is no way of on 65 Unterlimpurger Street, knowing whether the state of the building Hällisch Fränkischen Museum at that time was identical to its architectural design when the synagogue was located on site. There are those who associate the Unterlimpurg synagogue with wooden synagogues built in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Poland.15 The murals in the Unterlimpurg synagogue (as well as Eliezer Sussmann’s drawings in other 15 From the beginning of the eighteenth century, following the wave of emigration from Poland, artists began to arrive in Germany, and they apparently brought with them the tradition of building wooden synagogues. In this way, a variety of Polish wooden synagogues was created in southern Germany (see Davidovitch, Art and Artists, 164), called the Polish synagogues (Piechotka, Wooden Synagogues, 138), such as those in Horb, Bechhofen, and Kirchheim (Richard Krautheimer, Batei Knesset Biymei Habeinayim [Synagogues in the Middle Ages] [ Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1994], 11–12), although the building technique was different. In Polish synagogues, the entire building was made of wood, while in Germany, usually only the structural timbers were made of wood while the space between the beams was filled with laths and plaster or bricks (Rachel Wischnitzer Bernstein, “Die Sinagoge in Ellrich am Südharz,” Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums 83 [1939]: 498 [German]). However, the Unterlimpurg synagogue lacked the vaulted and domed ceiling typical of some of the synagogues mentioned above and also found in Polish synagogues such as the “Polish” Chodorow synagogue and Kamionka Strumiłova (Hellen Rosenau, A Short History of Jewish Art [London: James Clarke & Co. Ltd., 1948], 36).

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Figure 3. The Unterlimpurg synagogue. Diagram of the building. German, Die Holzsynagoge in Schwäbisch Hall, p. 35

Figure 4. The Unterlimpurg synagogue. Photograph and digital post processing of the ceiling, displayed at the Hällisch Fränkischen Museum. Photographed by: Zvi Orgad, 2011

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Figure 5. The house on 65 Unterlimpurger Street, color drawing from 1600 (from a chronicle of the city of Hall). Photographed by: Stadtarchiv Schwäbisch Hall

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Figure 6. The house on 65 Unterlimpurger St., color drawing from 1703 (local map of the town of Unterlimpurg). Photographed by: Stadtarchiv Schwäbisch Hall

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synagogues in southern Germany16) are also linked by many researchers to drawings in Eastern European wooden synagogues,17 mainly due to their similarity in form. Both in the Unterlimpurg synagogue and in Eastern European synagogues, the topics of the murals include drawings of plants and animals— some realistic and some imaginary—with connections to Jewish liturgy and sources,18 and their special form is based on their rich color, decorative wealth, and naïve style.19 The restoration proposal presented in the final part of this article is partially based on this formal similarity. 16 Piechotka, Wooden Synagogues, 142. 17 This contention is partly based on the list of “Polish” synagogues in Germany published by Grotte in 1915. See Alfred Grotte, “Deutsch, Böhmisch und Polnische Synagogentypen vom 11. bis Anfang des 19. Jahrhunderts,” Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft zur Erforschung Jüdischer Kunstdenkmäler, Frankfurt, Nr. 7, 8 (1915): 63 [German]. 18 Alois Breier, Max Eisler, and Max Grunwald, Holzsynagogen in Polen (Baden bei Wien: 1934), 56–9 [German]. 19 From the Responsa literature we might presume that, in the Middle Ages, synagogues in Germany were decorated with animal drawings as well (see Krautheimer, Synagogues in the Middle Ages, 73). But in later times. murals disappeared from German synagogues. Around 1700, the custom of decorating the walls returned, particularly in congregations of Jews who returned from Poland to Franconia, or under Polish influence. Another opinion holds that the influence of the art of designing and decorating Polish synagogues reached Germany as early as the time of R. Moshe Isserlis, in the sixteenth century, following the acceptance of Polish rabbis as poskim (adjudicators) in the cities of Bohemia and Germany, and due to the movement of Polish rabbis, artists, and teachers to these cities (See Brian De Breffny, The Synagogue [New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1978], 125–27).

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Figure 7. The Unterlimpurg synagogue, incorrect display, Gräterhouse. German, Die Holzsynagoge in Schwäbisch Hall, p. 31

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The History of Previous Displays of the Decorated Panels The building that housed the Unterlimpurg prayer room (as mentioned before) was sold in 1788 to a Christian family. From this year on, it remained “in the dark” for over a century, and today we have only scant information on the state of the panels, use of the room, or possible changes made to it over these years. Only in the early twentieth century, in 1904, is there a documented reference to the synagogue and its decorated panels, when Nathan Hänlein lectured on them to the Historical Society of Württemberg (Historischen Verien für Württembergisch Franken). Three years later, the society purchased the decorated panels.20 The panels were dismantled until a suitable display space could be found, and transferred for storage to a room that proved unsuitable for this purpose, near the railway station. In 1908, the panels were transferred to a display space in a Renaissance-style building that the city council made available to the society for the purpose of establishing the Gräterhouse Museum (fig. 7). The story of the rescue of the decorated panels during Nazi German rule is most significant. In this period, German synagogues were the first to be destroyed, followed by those in all of occupied Europe. The rescue of the Unterlimpurg synagogue panels is particularly conspicuous considering the 20 Panter, “Die Unterlimpurger Synagogenvertäfelung,” 271.

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destruction of wooden synagogues in nearby southern German towns: the wooden synagogue in the town of Bechhofen, which had survived up to that time, was burned down in the Pogrom night on november 10, 193821 and the synagogue of Kirchheim, transferred in 1912 for display at the Luitpold Museum in Würzburg, was completely destroyed in 1945 in Allied air raids.22 In 1924, the Gräterhouse Museum exhibits were gradually transferred to the new museum of the historical society, Keckenburg Museum. In order to prevent the authorities from finding and destroying the synagogue panels, these were removed from their place in 1933 and locked in a hiding place. Wolfgang Kost, son of the society’s director at the time, testified that he saw the panels being transferred to a room on the ground floor of the new museum and covered to prevent their discovery. In 1936, while the panels were concealed in this room, the new museum was opened in the building. The panels, which remained concealed throughout Nazi rule, were only revealed some ten years after the end of World War II.23 In 1956, the panels were displayed at the Keckenburg Museum for the first time after the war, but no preservation work was performed on them and no one knew their correct order. The panels were given a small space where they were crowded together and displayed in a haphazard manner until 2001 (fig. 8).24 In 1984, the historical society, headed by Albert Rothmund, began to restore the decorated panels, and for the first time they were subjected to restoration efforts that included cleaning and repainting of the panels and frames. The restorers used the marks on the rear of the panels, made by previous installers, to determine their correct placement in the room.25 Aside 21 Uri Shraga Rosenstein, Makom Shenahagu: Minhagim Dekehilot Kodesh Bechhofen, Franconia, Bavaria, Ashkenaz, Le’or Minhagei Kehilot Ashkenaz U’Polin [Where the Custom Is: Customs of the Holy Congregations of Bechhofen, Franconia, Bavaria, Ashkenaz, in Light of the Customs of the Ashkenazi and Polish Communities] (Bnei Brak: Ashkenaz Heritage Institute, 2011), 40. 22 Davidovitch, Art and Artists, 173 n.41. 23 Armin Panter, “Bemarkungen zur Geschichte und zur Musealen Präsentation der Unterlimpurger Synagogenvetäfelung,” 140. 24 Armin Panter, “Die Unterlimpurger Synagogenvertäfelung des Eliezer Sussman,” in Geschützt, Geduldet, Gleichberechtigt: Die Juden im Baden-württembergischen Franken vom 17. Jahrhundret bis zum Ende des Kaiserreichs (1918), ed. Taddey Gerhard (Ostfildern: Thorbecke Verlag der Schwabenverlag AG, 2005), 139–46, 271–274 [German]. 25 Panter, “Die Unterlimpurger Synagogenvertäfelung,” 273.

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Figure 8. The Unterlimpurg synagogue, incorrect display, Keckenburg Museum. Panter, “Die Unterlimpurger Synagogenvertäfelung des Eliezer Sussman,” p. 272

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from these marks, arrangement of the panels in their new display at the Fränkischen Museum-Hällisch was also based on a single photograph of the synagogue published by German in 1928—one considered authentic documentation of the state of the synagogue room in 1907 before it was dismantled (fig. 9).

Review of the Decorated Panels Currently Displayed at the Fränkischen Museum-Hällisch The entrance door (fig. 10) is set in the northwestern wall (termed “the western wall” in this article for purposes of convenience) of the restored room at the Fränkischen Museum-Hällisch. Above the door, in a decorated gable, surrounded by two lions, is the verse Pithu li sha’arei tzedek avo bam odeh yah (“Open for me the gates of righteousness. I will enter and give thanks to the Lord.”) (Ps. 118:19). To the right of the door, there is a group of proverbs on charity, with round borders, topped by the prayers al hakol (“for everything”) and av harahamim (“father of compassion”). The panels to the left of the door have been decorated with plant and geometric patterns, and in the two left

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Figure 9. The Unterlimpurg synagogue, part of the western wall and of the southern wall in 1907, published in 1928. German, Die Holzsynagoge in Schwäbisch Hall, p. 30

Figure 10. The Unterlimpurg synagogue. Restoration of the western wall, displayed at the Hällisch Fränkischen Museum. Photographed by: Zvi Orgad, 2011

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Figure 11. The Unterlimpurg synagogue. Restoration of the southern wall, displayed at the Hällisch Fränkischen Museum. Photographed by: Zvi Orgad, 2011

panels, drop- and diamond-shaped openings have been created, transforming the panels into a partition between the men’s section and the women’s section. The openings were probably created by worshipers at a later date, perhaps as a result of the need to expand the space allocated for women’s observation. This is evident from the unskilled craftsmanship and the lack of compatibility between the perforated shapes and the decorative pattern painted on the panels (fig. 10).26 In the middle part of the southwestern wall (to be termed “the southern wall” in this article), the panels are perforated in patterns of drops and diamonds, similar to the western wall (fig. 11). Here, too, it is clear that the two end panels were cut at a later date with no consideration for the decoration nor for the inscribed prayers that were severed. The three middle panels were probably cut before their decoration, and the artist took advantage of the shapes to create a pattern of engraved pillars. The rest of the area was decorated with patterns of plants. In the lower part of the panels, under a protruding wooden slat, 26 Panter, “Die Unterlimpurger Synagogenvertäfelung,” 274.

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drawings of plants in black paint are visible. It seems that this area was concealed by the benches and therefore was not decorated in color. Another possibility is that the initial sketch made by Eliezer Sussmann before the panels were covered in color is revealed here. The panels in the upper part of the southern wall bear two prayers with decorative borders: el melech yoshev al kiseh rahamim (“Almighty King sittest on the throne of mercy”), and brich shmeh (“blessed is Your name”). In the middle, between two domed frames, is the prayer hanoten teshuah lamelachim (“he who gives salvation to kings”) (fig. 11). On the panel in the middle of the southeastern wall (the eastern wall, fig. 12), above the ark, there is a round cartouche-shaped border encircling the ophan liturgical poem vehahayot yeshoreru (“and the beasts shall sing”). The border is flanked by drawings of trumpeting lions. Under this panel there is a remnant of a panel that contained the drawing of a crown flanked by another two lions (fig 13). On the right, a remnant of another panel has been placed, with the last part of the prayer Yitbarach veyishtabah veyitpa’ar veyitromam veyitnase shmo shel melech malchei hamlachim (“Blessed and praised and glorified and exalted and elevated be the name of the Holy One”). On the left part of the

Figure 12. The Unterlimpurg synagogue. Restoration of the eastern wall, displayed at the Hällisch Fränkischen Museum. Photographed by: Zvi Orgad, 2011

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Figure 13. A crown flanked by a pair of lions, fragment. Hällisch Fränkischen Museum. Photographed by: Zvi Orgad, 2011

Figure 14. Sha’al Zal. The Unterlimpurg synagogue. Displayed at the Hällisch Fränkischen Museum. Photographed by: Zvi Orgad, 2011

Figure 15. Drawing of the city of Jerusalem. The Unterlimpurg synagogue. Displayed at the Hällisch Fränkischen Museum. Photographed by: Zvi Orgad, 2011

wall, there is a panel with parts of verses expressing devotion. The year in which the synagogue was decorated is noted on the bottom of this panel: anno Hebraica 499 (1738–1739, fig. 12). Outside the room, additional panels are on display, including a panel with the inscription sha’al zal (fig. 14), a panel with a drawing of the city of Jerusalem (fig. 15), a panel with a drawing of a vase with flowers (fig. 16), and a panel with a drawing of drapes or an ark curtain, framing flowers and fruits (fig. 17).

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Figure 16. Decorated panel. The Unterlimpurg synagogue. Displayed at the Hällisch Fränkischen Museum. Photographed by: Zvi Orgad, 2011

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Figure 17. Drawing of curtain. The Unterlimpurg synagogue. Displayed at the Hällisch Fränkischen Museum. Photographed by: Zvi Orgad, 2011

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Inaccuracies in the Synagogue Display The use of the photograph from German’s article (fig. 9) for the current display is problematic, as the photograph shows only part of the western and southern walls of the synagogue. It provides no information on the other parts of these walls, and it does not show the eastern wall or the northern wall. Another problem is that this photograph documents the synagogue’s panels after they had been cut and perforated. It may be assumed that this involved dismantling the panels as well as their removal, and therefore they may not have been returned to their original place. It is also possible that the area of the men’s section had been changed, which would potentially have resulted in re-ordering the panels on the western and eastern walls. Evidence of such changes might be found upon examining the panel to the immediate left of the entrance door. This panel clearly shows a geometric

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pattern that was cut on its left side (fig. 18A emphasizes the geometric pattern). The panel to the left of the door consists of a geometric plant pattern as well, but it is complete and symmetrical (fig. 18B). The patterns may be more clearly discerned in the restored synagogue (fig. 10), where these two renovated panels have been placed next to each other. Eliezer Sussmann’s work, as evident in the plant drawings at the synagogue, is usually based on symmetrical complete shapes (see, for example, fig. 10, the two left panels). Thus, the incomplete geometrical shape seems out of place. Based on the symmetrical regularity, it may be assumed that the panel currently located to the left of the door was completed by a panel with a reverse drawing, rather than belonging beside a panel whose separate closed shape does not complete it. The current Figure 18. The Unterlimpurg synagogue, part of the study therefore assumes one of two possibiliwestern wall and of the ties: either this panel is not in its original place, southern wall in 1907, detail. or the two left panels on the western wall were German, Die Holzsynagoge in Schwäbisch Hall, p. 30 moved here after being cut and in order to change the length of the wall, which would have extended the women’s observation area. Another possible problem posed by the photograph can be seen on the floor of the room. In the corner of the western and southern walls, there is a plank that was apparently placed there as a corner support for the wall panels. A close-up photograph of this plank (fig. 19; note that the text appears backwards, as originally photographed) shows that it contains two words: beracha vetehila (Blessing and Praise), which are the last words of the prayer yitbarach veyistabach veyitpa’ar veyitromam veyitnaseh shemo shel melech malchei hamelachim.27 This shows that at the time the photograph was taken, the room had already 27 As mentioned earlier, the panel, which contains the last part of this prayer, including these two words, appears in the current restoration on the eastern wall, and is documented in figure 12.

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Figure 19. The Unterlimpurg synagogue, part of a dismantled prayer panel, 1907. German, Die Holzsynagoge in Schwäbisch Hall, p. 30

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Figure 20. Kirchheim synagogue. Drawing on the western wall. Toeplitz, Die Malerei in den Synagogen, p. 15

been partially dismantled, and that it underwent renovations that call into question the reliability of this photograph for reconstructing its original form.28 Nonetheless, some parts of this photograph are compatible with the documentation of other wooden synagogues, including, for example, the gable with the verse pithu li sha’arei tzedek at the entrance to the synagogue, and proverbs on charity near the entrance door (cf. the murals on the western wall of the Kirchheim synagogue, fig. 20). Thus, it may be possible to rely on this photograph, but only partially, and always with a bit of caution. 28 The testimony that the Jewish congregation of Schwäbisch Hall purchased the ark separately from the illustrated panels in an auction held in 1908 (see German, “Die Holzsynagoge in Schwäbisch Hall,” 32) also supports the hypothesis that the room was partially dismantled even before the panels were sold to the historical society in 1907.

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Other photographs of the synagogue (figs. 21–22) are untrustworthy, as they are based on the order of the panels at the Gräterhouse prior to 1928 and at the Keckenburg Museum after 1956. Documentation by Harburger, from 1929 (fig. 23), was also based on the mistaken display, and thus can no longer be regarded as a reliable source attesting to the arrangement of the synagogue’s panels.

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Figure 21. Incorrect display. The Unterlimpurg synagogue. Panter, “Bemarkungen zur Geschichte,” p. 142

Figure 22. Incorrect display. The Unterlimpurg synagogue. Panter, “Bemarkungen zur Geschichte,” p. 141

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Another source of information is the sketch published by German in 1928 (fig. 3). This sketch shows the entrance door in the center of the synagogue’s western wall, and the ceiling beam is located above its left edge. In the later three-dimensional reconstruction (fig. 2), the beam indeed seems to be located above the left edge of the door, but rather than being in the center of the wall, the door is closer to the right, and the women’s section occupies a smaller space. The two sketches may testify to different stages in the design of the synagogue’s interior. Figure 23. Incorrect display. The Unterlimpurg synagogue. GoldHowever, there is reason to believe that man-Ida, “Black on White,” p. 209; German’s sketch and the more recent Harburger Collection, Central sketch differ due to lack of information Archives for the History of the Jewish and structural changes to the room. People, CAHJP 160/670 Aside from the partial photographs of the southern and western walls, there is no visual source for this synagogue that can serve as a basis for reconstructing the order of the panels. Thus, the restoration of the eastern wall was probably based on a comparison with photographs of other synagogues decorated by Eliezer Sussmann. The northern wall was not restored at all, perhaps due to lack of findings, but also in order to enable easy observation of the restored room from the north. The problems with this restoration may also be evident in the arrangement of the synagogue’s ceiling panels (fig. 4). All the elements drawn are arranged on a west-east axis, a logical arrangement also dictated by the elongated shape of the ceiling panels, which prevents their placement at an angle of 90º to this axis. In addition, all the elements in the eastern row are consistently arranged such that their feet face eastward and their heads westward (aside from the whale, which is completely round, and thus its placement on the east-west axis is insignificant). In contrast, in the western row and in the middle row, there is a lack of uniformity in the direction of the elements: in the western row, the heads of the owl and of the elephant face westward, while the head of the ram and the arrowhead face

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eastward (here, too, the direction of the rabbit circle is insignificant); in the middle row, the heads of the lion, tiger, and rooster face westward, while the heads of the storks and the squirrel face eastward. Logically, all the elements should face the same direction, at least all those in a single row. The arrangement of the ceiling panels is based on no visual source and probably followed the marks left by prior installation. However, these marks might have given a wrong impression, after two inaccurate installations. Then again, Eliezer Sussmann may indeed have drawn the elements on the ceiling panels facing in different directions, based on meanings currently unknown to us.

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Suggestions for the Faithful Restoration of the Order of the Synagogue’s Panels In light of the inaccuracies mentioned above, we suggest an alternative restoration of the order of the panels in the prayer room. The restoration is based on the photograph published in 1928, the research literature, and visual documentation of wooden synagogues in Poland and Eastern Europe and of other synagogues decorated by Eliezer Sussmann in southern Germany. In light of the scarcity of the findings discussed herein, we see the benefits of restoration as having a didactic aspect, aimed at improving observers’ understanding of wooden synagogues in general, and of prayer customs of Jewish congregations in Eastern Europe, Germany, and Unterlimpurg in particular. The didactic aspect is manifested in the efforts of this study to include in the restoration proposal all panels for which significant visual information is available (a consideration that may carry more weight than a photograph documenting the prayer room before it was dismantled). This study will suggest an alternative restoration of the ceiling panels, the western wall, the eastern wall, and, only partially, of the northern wall.

Changing the Direction of the Ceiling Panels As stated above, the direction of the decorated ceiling panels is not uniform. The present restoration of the panels was based on the correspondence between the installation marks of the ceiling panels and the striped attachment slats marking the end of the ceiling and its point of connection to the top of the wall panels. In addition, some of the panels were attached side by side to a joint wooden back panel, apparently in the original assembly of the ceiling in 1739, and this is how the restorers found them. Therefore,

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Figure 24. The Unterlimpurg synagogue, proposal for changing the display of the ceiling panels, Museum, based on photograph by Zvi Orgad, 2011

suggestions for reorganization of these panels must be made with care, lacking thorough knowledge of the technical aspects of the restoration. Thus, we suggest a different arrangement of the ceiling murals, one in which all elements in each row face the same direction (see suggestions for restoration in figure 24), but its feasibility must be examined through practical measures.

Proposal for the Panel Order of the Western Wall Depiction of Jerusalem Depicting the city of Jerusalem was a common theme in Eastern European wooden synagogues in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Jerusalem is mentioned in many prayers, including the Amidah, which is recited three times a day. In the Kabbalah, Jerusalem is associated with the lowest sefira (sphere) of Malchut (kingdom), also called Ma’arav (west).29 Placing Jerusalem in the west 29 Iris Fishof, “Depictions of Jerusalem,” The Israel Museum Journal 14 (1996), 73–74.

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Figure 25. Western wall of the Horb synagogue. Toeplitz, Min Ha’omanut Ha’amamit, p. 1

may also derive from the communal custom of facing westward in the prayer Lecha Dodi, a liturgical poem in which Jerusalem represents sanctity and the place from whence comes the Sabbath. Fishof states that depictions of Jerusalem are a typical element in the work of Eliezer Sussmann, and that they were drawn in a uniform location and context. In the synagogues of Bechhofen, Horb, Kirchheim, and apparently also in Unterlimpurg, the drawing of Jerusalem appears on the western wall. In Bechhofen and Horb, this wall also bears a drawing of a basket with the four species, and in Horb, a bird—two elements that symbolize the sefira of Shechina (divine spirit) (fig. 25).30 In Kirchheim, Eliezer Sussmann drew Jerusalem twice—on the right and on the left (fig. 20). The statistical claim that in most synagogues decorated by Eliezer Sussmann, or maybe even in all of them, the drawing of the city of Jerusalem was on the western wall, supports the hypothesis that the artist followed this custom when decorating the Unterlimpurg synagogue.

Sha’al Zal “Sha’al Zal” is an inscription forming an acronym of the words shachor al lavan zecher lachurban (“black on white in memory of the destruction”). The sages instructed that one corner of a wall be left unfinished when building a new home, to remind us of the destruction of the Temple, and they even 30 Fishof, “Descriptions of Jerusalem,” 69.

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determined the size and location of the area to be left exposed (Babylonian Talmud, Bava Batra, 60b). Rabbis in Poland in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, including the Rama (R. Moshe Ben Yisrael Isserlis of Cracow) allowed more diverse manners of commemoration, including murals in certain cases.31 In contrast, in the book of laws written by Yosef Juspa Hahn Norlingen of Frankfurt am Main in the sixteenth century,32 the author restricts the writing of Sha’al Zal and forbids the use of a black background because it is a mark of elegance. The panel Sha’al Zal in the Unterlimpurg synagogue (fig. 14) follows a relatively lenient approach: the inscription itself is indeed depicted in black on an unpainted area, but it is encircled by an impressive black decoration. In regard to the panel’s location, based on the visual documentation from other synagogues decorated by Eliezer Sussmann, it is possible to claim that Sussmann usually placed these panels on the western wall, unrelated to the direction of the entrance door.33 For this reason, we conclude that it is very possible that this panel was located on the western wall at the Unterlimpurg synagogue. In regard to the exact location of these panels on the western wall, there is no way of knowing for certain.34 Several clues are available. One such clue is the decoration on the edge of the panels. On the right of the 31 Batsheva Goldman-Ida, “Black on White—A Remembrance of Jerusalem,” in The Real and Ideal Jerusalem in Jewish, Christian and Islamic Art, ed. Bianca Kühnel ( Jerusalem: Center for Jewish Art, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1998), 203, and note 7 on that page. 32 Yosef Juspa Hahn ben Pinchas Seligman, Sefer Yosef Ometz: Kolel Dinim Uminhagim Lechol Yemot Hashana Ubifratut Minhagey Frankfurt Al Nahar Main Ve’inyaney Musar Umidot [Yosef Ometz: Including Laws and Customs for all Days of the Year and Particularly the Customs of Frankfurt am Main and Matters of Ethics and Virtues] ( Jerusalem: Haomanim Offset Printing, 1965), 196. 33 At the Bechhofen synagogue, the entrance door is in the northern wall, while the inscription Sha’al Zal was written close by on the western wall (see Rosenstein, Makom Shenahagu, 382, 385); at the Kirchheim synagogue, both the entrance door and the inscription Sha’al Zal are on the western wall (fig. 20). Goldman-Ida also links Sha’al Zal and the inscription Adam do’eg al ibud damav (“A person is concerned by the loss of his money”) on the western wall, based both on their content and on the historical precedent—Sha’al Zal and this saying appear on the same wall side by side in the Gwozdziec synagogue. See Goldman-Ida, “Black on White,” 207–9. 34 Goldman-Ida states, based on a photograph by Harburger (fig. 23), that the panel was located beneath the drawing of the city of Jerusalem, beside the saying Adam do’eg, on the right end of the western wall (Goldman-Ida, “Black on White,” 209). However, as stated above, this photograph cannot be considered a reliable visual source (so we may reconsider Goldman-Ida’s statement).

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panel with the inscription Sha’al Zal, there is a striped molding-like decoration, similar to moldings in Eliezer Sussmann’s murals appearing in connections between walls or on slats that join the walls and the ceiling panels. This fact supports the hypothesis that this panel was the last on the right on the western wall. However, according to calculations by architects during the restoration at the Hällisch Fränkischen Museum, there is not enough room for the panel in this part of the wall.35 One possible solution is to locate the panel near the entrance door on the left, instead of the panel now located there.36 The panel with the drawing of the city of Jerusalem offers another clue to its possible location. This drawing (fig. 15) has a wide decorative border with a plant pattern on the upper left side of the panel. The decoration was used in the Unterlimpurg synagogue murals to distinguish between panels or as a decoration on the upper part of a panel bordering the ceiling. Thus, it can be assumed that the panel was located on the upper part of the western wall.37 Accordingly, the restoration of the western wall proposed in the current study would place the Sha’al Zal panel to the left of the door, and the panel with the drawing of Jerusalem in the upper left corner of this wall (fig. 26).

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Proposal for the Panel Order of the Eastern Wall On the restored eastern wall in the current display, there are four panels: the ophan liturgical poem flanked by two trumpeting lions, two prayer panels (of which one is damaged and has been divided in two), and a fragment of another lion pair flanking a crown (fig. 12). In other synagogues decorated by Eliezer Sussman, the ophan liturgical poem flanked by a pair of lions has been placed on the western wall.38 In the photograph of the Unterlimpurg 35 This information was conveyed verbally by Dr. Panter, director of the Hällisch Fränkischen Museum. 36 As stated above, the decoration of this panel is irregular considering the symmetrical murals in the synagogue, and it may have been moved there over the years prior to 1907. 37 In the photograph used by the restorers (fig. 9), a panel can be discerned on the left, on the upper part of the western wall, with a drawing almost certainly identified as that of the city of Jerusalem. 38 Regarding the location of the drawing in the Bechhofen synagogue, see Rosenstein, Where the Custom Is, 384. The ophan liturgical poem with two trumpeting lions on the western wall of the Horb synagogue can be seen in figure 25. There is, however, also a visual documentation of the liturgical poem on the eastern wall of the sixteenth-century Holshov synagogue.

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Figure 26. The Unterlimpurg synagogue, proposal for the panel order of the western wall, based on photograph by Zvi Orgad, 2011

synagogue before it was dismantled, the western wall was documented without the ophan liturgical poem (fig. 9). Based on this source, the panel with the liturgical poem and the trumpeting pair of lions was placed on the eastern wall in the restored prayer room, and we indeed think that this is its correct place. In regard to the panel bearing part of a drawing of a pair of lions flanking a crown (fig. 13), we assume that its rightful place is not on the eastern wall, where it is currently placed. The reason for this assumption is that none of Sussman’s drawings considered in this study featured more than one pair of lions found on a single wall. An inspection of visual sources also shows that it is quite implausible that the liturgical sections now located on the eastern wall had been in this location before the synagogue was dismantled.39 See Ariella Amar, “Sha’ar Hashamayim Hu Kan: Yerushalayim Lifney Kiseh Hakavod Bevatey Knesset” [“The Gate to Heaven Is Here: Jerusalem Before the Heavenly Throne”], Eretz Yisrael: Mehkarim Beyediat Ha’aretz Va’atikoteha [Land of Israel: Studies on the Land and its Antiquities] 28 (2008): 299–311. 39 The prayer yitbarach veyishtabah (“may He be blessed and praised”) is not included in the documentation of prayers on the eastern wall of the Bechhofen synagogue, nor on the upper part of the reconstructed eastern wall at the Horb synagogue (fig. 29). A collection of verses

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Figure 27. The Unterlimpurg synagogue, proposal for the panel order of the eastern wall, Closed Ark, based on photograph by Zvi Orgad, 2011

Figure 28. The Unterlimpurg synagogue, proposal for the panel order of the eastern wall, Open Ark, based on photograph by Zvi Orgad, 2011

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Figure 29. Eastern wall of the Horb synagogue. Toeplitz, Min Ha’omanut Ha’amamit, p. 6

The panel with a drawing of drapes or an ark curtain (fig. 17) might be interpreted in relation to one of two different contexts. One is the ark curtain that was drawn in Eastern European wooden synagogues as well as in the Bechhofen synagogue above the drawing of the Table of Shewbread (shulhan lehem hapanim).40 The second is the ark curtain that was drawn on the eastern wall above the ark, for example in the Horb synagogue (fig. 29). On the panel with the curtain drawing in the Unterlimpurg synagogue, there is also a drawing of a bouquet of flowers and fruit below the curtain. Thus, it seems that the drawing is not part of the image of the Table of Shewbread.41 Accordingly, it seems that the panel, which is not included in the current display, shows a drawing of the ark curtain. Its estimated location on the left side of the eastern wall is indicated by a broken line (on the right edge of the panel), marking a point of connection with a decorated panel on its right. The point of contact with the ceiling is marked by a plant decoration strip on the upper part of the on faith, which includes the verse ezri me’et hashem (“God is my help”), was found in the Bechhofen synagogue on the western wall as well as in the Kirchheim synagogue (fig. 20). 40 Rosenstein, Where the Custom Is, 381. 41 This is also supported by the fact that in the Unterlimpurg synagogue, the Table of Shewbread was drawn on the interior of the left door of the ark. Thus, it is not plausible that the northern wall had another drawing of the table.

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panel (such a strip is located on the upper part of all panels bordering the ceiling; see, for example, fig. 11). Another panel currently outside the restored room, and estimated to have been located on the eastern wall, is a panel with a drawing of a vase of flowers and fruit (fig. 16). In other synagogues decorated by Sussmann, drawings of vases can be found on the western and eastern walls.42 However, the border of the panel, which carries no decorative strips, shows no indication of its original location in the prayer room. Thus, we think that the panels originally located on the eastern wall included the drawing of trumpeting lions flanking the ophan liturgical poem, the drawing of the ark curtain (fig. 17), and the drawing of the vase (fig. 16).43

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Proposal for the Panel Order of the Northern Wall By process of elimination, we think that the drawing of lions flanking a crown (fig. 13, located in the current restoration on the eastern wall) was drawn in the synagogue on the northern wall before it was dismantled.44 Another panel that we assume to have been located on the northern wall is the collection of verses on faith. As stated above, in the visual documentation of synagogues decorated by Sussmann, this panel seems to have usually been located on the western wall.45 However, in the Unterlimpurg synagogue (based on the same photograph), there is no room for this panel. Here we are aided by the artist’s custom of depicting related topics side by side on the same wall or on adjacent walls.46 Since there is no room remaining on the western wall, it can be assumed that Sussmann located the verses on faith nearby—at the corner of the northern and western walls. By 42 See, for example, the vases drawing, in which the rightmost vase contains the four species, on the eastern wall of the Horb synagogue (fig. 25). 43 See suggested reconstruction of the eastern wall in figures 27 and 28. 44 Lion pairs already exist on the western wall and on the eastern wall, and there is no room for such a drawing on the southern wall according to the photograph documenting the room before it was dismantled. 45 See above, note 40. 46 In the Kirchheim synagogue, the two sayings adam do’eg and Sha’al Zal are located on the western wall (fig. 20). In contrast, in the Bechhofen synagogue the saying adam do’eg is located on the northern wall near the panel bearing the saying Sha’al Zal on the western wall. See Rosenstein, Where the Custom Is, 383, 385.

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Figure 30. The Unterlimpurg synagogue, proposal for the panel order of the northern wall, based on photograph by Zvi Orgad, 2011

process of elimination, we think that the yitbarach veyishtabah prayer was located on the northern wall47 (see the suggested restoration in figure 30).48

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Summary This article described the chronicles of the Unterlimpurg synagogue based on the history of the local Jewish congregation and of the construction and decoration of other wooden synagogues in Germany and Eastern Europe. Special emphasis was given to the issue of the restoration of the synagogue’s decorated panels and their portrayal in various display spaces throughout the twentieth century prior to reaching their present display at the Hällisch 47 As stated above, there is no evidence of the placement of the yitbarach veyishtabah prayer on the eastern wall of other synagogues decorated by Eliezer Sussmann, and it seems that there was no room for this prayer on the southern and western walls of the Unterlimpurg synagogue (see fig. 9). 48 In the suggested reconstruction, we located the asymmetrically decorated panel on the northern wall, rather than on the western wall, where it was placed by the synagogue’s restorers. In addition, the reconstruction sketch (fig. 30) noted near this panel one bearing the same decoration in reverse, to illustrate the study’s claim that an asymmetrical drawing would have been anomalous. This panel was not found in the synagogue’s remains, and thus the sketch, made for didactic purposes, is merely a conjecture.

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Fränkischen Museum. This review also presented the problems inherent in the visual sources underlying the current display, and in other visual sources of synagogues that serve as the basis of contemporary academic research. This study shows that at present, we have no reliable photographs of the synagogue’s interior, and that much caution must be employed when making use of the existing visual material. The last part of the article suggests an alternative restoration of the order of the decorated panels, based on the only photograph of the Unterlimpurg prayer room taken before it was dismantled—a photograph with dubious credibility—and on visual and written documentation of wooden synagogues in Poland and Germany. The display of the Unterlimpurg synagogue constitutes a unique and rare vestige of the art of wooden synagogue decoration. Thus, it is most important to arrange the panels in a way that is most faithful to their original location. Where the correct placement of all the panels cannot be determined beyond doubt, efforts must be made to position them to best represent the arrangement of drawings in wooden synagogues in general, and in this particular case, the arrangement of drawings by artist Eliezer Sussmann. The work of this artist is well documented, as demonstrated in this article, and thus, in our opinion, significant panels such as the drawing of Jerusalem and Sha’al Zal should not be left outside the main display space; rather, they should be integrated as indicated by this visual documentation. These changes in the display, even if hard to prove unequivocally, can improve the display from a didactic perspective. Great efforts have been made over the past few decades to revive the memory of communities that were destroyed, along with their rabbis, scholars, and all other features. Our attempt in this article to revive the memory of a unique synagogue that was nearly obliterated is part of the effort to resurrect these Jewish communities.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Amar, Ariella. “Sha’ar Hashamayim Hu Kan: Yerushalayim Lifney Kiseh Hakavod Bevatey Knesset” [“The Gate to Heaven is Here: Jerusalem Before the Heavenly Throne”]. Eretz Yisrael: Mehkarim Beyediat Ha’aretz Va’atikoteha [Land of Israel: Studies on the Land and Its Antiquities] 28 (2008): 299–311.

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De Breffny, Brian. The Synagogue. New York: MacMillan Publishing, 1978. Breier, Alois, Max Eisler, and Max Grunwald. Holzsynagogen in Polen. Baden bei Wien: Author, 1934 [German]. Breuer, Mordechai and Michael Graetz. Toldot Yehudei Germanya Ba’et Hachadasa [German-Jewish History in Modern Times]. Edited by Michael Meir. Volume I: Tradition and Enlightenment 1600–1780. Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 2001–2005 [Hebrew]. Cohn-Wiener, Ernst. Die Jüdische Kunst: Ihre Geschichte von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart. Berlin: M. Wasservogel, 1929 [German]. Davidovitch, David. Omanut Ve’Omanim Bevatei Haknesset shel Polin: Mekorot, Signonot, Hashpa’ot [Art and Artists in Poland’s Synagogues: Sources, Styles, Influences]. Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuhad, 1982 [Hebrew]. Fishof, Iris. “Descriptions of Jerusalem by Eliezer Sussmann of Brody.” The Israel Museum Journal 14 (1996): 67–80. German, Wilhelm. “Die Holzsynagoge in Schwäbisch Hall.” Schwäbisches Heimatbuch 14 (1928): 30–5 [German]. Gidal, Nachum Tim. Hayehudim Begermanya Mitkufat Haroma’im ad Lerepublikat Weimar [Jews in Germany from Roman Times to the Weimar Republic]. Jerusalem: Gefen Publishing, 1997 [Hebrew]. Goldman-Ida, Batsheva. “Black on White—A Remembrance of Jerusalem.” In The Real and Ideal Jerusalem in Jewish, Christian and Islamic Art, edited by Bianca Kühnel. Jerusalem: Center for Jewish Art, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1998. Grotte, Alfred. Deutsche, Böhmisch und Polnische Synagogentypen vom 11. bis anfang des 19. Jahrhunderts. Berlin: Der Zirkel, Architekturverlag G.m.b.H., 1915 [German]. Hahn, Yosef Juspa ben Pinchas Seligman. Yosef Ometz: Kolel Dinim Uminhagim Lechol Yemot Hashana Ubifratut Minhagey Frankfurt Al Nahar Main Ve’inyaney Musar Umidot [Add Courage: Including Laws and Customs for all Days of the Year and Particularly the Customs of Frankfurt am Main and Matters of Ethics and Virtues]. Jerusalem: Haomanim Offset Printing, 1965 [Hebrew]. Heimann-Jelinek, Felicitas. “Die Unterlimpurger Synagoge in der Tradition der Jüdischen Kunst.” In Geschützt, Geduldet, Gleichberechtigt: Die Juden im

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Baden-württembergischen Franken vom 17. Jahrhundert bis zum Ende des Kaiserreichs (1918), edited by Taddey Gerhard. Ostfildern: Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 147–54 [German] published: 2005. Krautheimer, Richard. Batei Knesset Biymei Habeinayim [Synagogues in the Middle Ages]. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1994 [Hebrew]. Maisch, Andreas. Mayer Seligmann, Judt zu Unterlimpurg: Juden in Schwäbisch Hall und Steinbach 1688–1802. Schwäbisch Hall: Stadtarchiv, 2001 [German]. Panter, Armin. “Bemarkungen zur Geschichte und zur musealen Präsentation der Unterlimpurger Synagogenvetäfelung.” In Geschützt, Geduldet, Gleichberechtigt: Die Juden im Baden-württembergischen Franken vom 17. Jahrhundert bis zum Ende des Kaiserreichs (1918), edited by Taddey Gerhard, 139–146. Ostfildern: Jan Thorbecke Verlag, PUBLISHED: 2005 [German]. _____. “Die Unterlimpurger Synagogenvertäfelung des Eliezer Sussman im Hällisch Fränkischen Museum Schwäbisch Hall.” Schwäbische Heimat 3 (2006): 270–6 [German]. Piechotka, Maria and Kazimierz. Wooden Synagogues. Warsaw: Arkady, 1959. Rosenau, Helen. A Short History of Jewish Art. London: James Clarke & Co Ltd., 1948. Rosenstein, Uri Shraga. Makom Shenahagu: Minhagim Dekehilot Kodesh Bechhofen, Franconia, Bavaria, Ashkenaz, Le’or Minhagei Kehilot Ashkenaz U’Polin [Where the Custom Is: Customs of the Holy Congregations of Bechhofen, Franconia, Bavaria, Ashkenaz, in Light of the Customs of the Ashkenazi and Polish Communities]. Bnei Brak: Ashkenaz Heritage Institute, 2011 [Hebrew]. Toeplitz, Erich. “Die Malerei in den Synagogen (Besonders in Franken).” Frankfurt am Main: Beiträge Zur Jüdischen Kulturgeschichte, Heft III, 1929 [German]. Untermayer Raymer, Max. “German Synagogue Art.” The Menorah Journal 25 (1937): 46–68. Wischnitzer Bernstein, Rachel. “Die Synagogue in Ellrich am Südharz.” Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums 83 (1939): 493–508 [German].

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The Abuse of Holocaust Memory in 2011–2012 Manfred Gerstenfeld

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The Holocaust has become a symbol of absolute evil in Western society. This has happened gradually over the past decades. One might have expected that more than sixty-five years after the end of the Second World War, the mention and memory of it would have faded away. Indeed, “Holocaust fatigue” is widespread. Many people do not want to hear anything more about the Holocaust. At the same time, many others increasingly mention and discuss the Holocaust. In 2005, sixty years after the end of the Second World War, the United Nations General Assembly named January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day. This is the anniversary of the liberation of AuschwitzBirkenau. On this day, every member state of the UN has an official obligation to honor the victims of the Nazi era and to develop educational material about the Holocaust. In 2012, remembrance of the Holocaust was devoted to children.1 In his message, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon said, One and a half million Jewish children perished in the Holocaust—victims of persecution by the Nazis and their supporters. Tens of thousands of other children were also murdered. They included people with disabilities . . . as well as Roma and Sinti. All were victims of a hate-filled ideology that labeled them as “inferior.”2

Why this interest in the Holocaust? What are the main reasons for this increasing interest in the Holocaust? We can list a number of them, but we do not know their relative weight in keeping the Holocaust a central issue in society. One partial explanation is the memorial 1 “International Holocaust Remembrance Day,” www.ushmm.org (accessed January 27, 2012). 2 “Secretary-General’s Message,” The Holocaust and United Nations Outreach Programme, www.un.org/en/holocaustremembrance/2012/sg.shtml (accessed December 16, 2012).

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meetings that take place every year in many places. Some are very emotional. An annual memorial is held at the location of the former Paris cycling stadium. There, more than thirteen thousand Jews who were arrested were brought together in July 1942, before being sent to German death camps. In 2012, French President François Hollande gave a moving speech at the memorial meeting. He mentioned that French policemen had carried out the arrests. Hollande added that not a single German soldier had to be mobilized.3 This was a very important statement, as it highlighted France’s share in the responsibility for the murder of Jews during the Holocaust. It was even more significant because the previous socialist president, François Mitterrand, was unwilling to admit France’s assistance in the murder of Jews during the Holocaust. Hollande also said at the gathering that France would act with determination against anti-Semitism.4 Increased anti-Semitism in Europe is yet another reason for the Holocaust’s remaining a subject of substantial dialogue. This is the more so as on various occasions, Nazi terminology is used by anti-Semites.

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New Monuments New memorial centers are still being established and so are new monuments. In September 2012, a new Holocaust memorial center was inaugurated at Drancy, the major transit camp in France. There, sixty-three thousand of the seventy-six thousand deported Jews transited and almost all were sent to their deaths. Hollande said at the inauguration ceremony that the true facts about the Holocaust had been established. He observed that the main issue has now become to convey that truth.5 During that same month, French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault inaugurated another memorial near Aix-en-Provence in the camp of Des Milles. Out of ten thousand people interned there, two thousand were sent to Auschwitz. The inauguration date was September 10, 2012, seventy years after the last train for Auschwitz left from there.6 3

“Discours du Président de la République à l’occasion du 70ème anniversaire de la rafle du Vel d’Hiv,” Elysee, http://www.elysee.fr/declarations/article/discours-du-president-de-la-republique-a-l-occasion-du-70eme-anniversaire-de-la-rafle-du-vel-d-hiv/ [French]. 4 Ibid. 5 Scott Savarre, “At Holocaust Center, Hollande Confronts Past,” New York Times, September 21, 2012. 6 Aliette de Broqua, “Ayrault au Mémorial du Camp des Milles,” Le Figaro, September 9, 2012 [French].

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In November 2012, the Dossin Barracks (Kazerne Dossin), in Mechelen, Belgium, were reopened in the presence of King Albert. They have now become a full-fledged museum and documentation center about the Holocaust and human rights. From these barracks, 25,484 Belgian Jews and 352 gypsies were deported.7 Another remarkable event was the visit of members of the British soccer team to Auschwitz before they participated in the 2012 European Championship.8 Thus, recognition has come from heads of state and government officials, as well as from representatives of culture who garner national attention, such as sports teams. Such events contribute to maintaining interest in the Holocaust. However, memorial days and visits by well-known people to extermination camps and monuments usually only draw attention for short periods of time.

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Research New historical research is being published about the Holocaust. Only a few examples can be given here to illustrate the diversity of this research. One impressive publication released in 2012 was the Dutch book In Memoriam by Guus Luijters. It lists the names of about eighteen thousand Dutch children, almost all Jewish, who were murdered during the Second World War.9 Joachim Scholtyseck, a German historian, published a major study about the Nazi past of the Quandt family, who control a huge business empire. He came to the conclusion that the family’s leading figure during the war, Gunther Quandt, was an integral part of the German Nazi regime.10 New data has also been published about the Nazi past of certain individuals. In 2011, additional information became available about the involvement in a Swedish Nazi party of Ingvar Kamprad, the billionaire founder of the Ikea furniture group.11 A new book revealed that anti-Semite French fashion designer Coco Chanel was a Nazi spy.12   7 Jvt, “Veel Prominenten op Plechtige Opening Kazerne Dossin,” De Standaard, November 26, 2012 [Dutch].   8 “Euro 2012: England Players Visit Auschwitz,” BBC, June 9, 2012.   9 Guus Luijters, In Memoriam: De Gedeporteerde en Vermoorde Joodse, Roma en Sinti Kinderen 1942–1945 (Amsterdam: Nieuw Amsterdam, 2012) [Dutch]. 10 Carsten Knop, “Gunther Quandt War ein Skrupelloser Unternehmer,” Faz.net, September 23, 2011 [German]. 11 “Ikea Founder Was Nazi Recruiter,” Telegraph, August 24, 2011. 12 “Survivors’ Group Rips Chanel on Denial of Coco’s Nazi Past,” JTA, August 18, 2011.

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New documents are also being discovered. One example among many became publically available in October 2012, when pictures of Polish Jews in the ghetto of Kutno that had been taken between 1939 and 1940 by Hitler’s personal photographer, Hugo Jaeger, were released. This was done to mark the official establishment of the Warsaw Ghetto in October 1940.13

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After the War Additional information also became available about events that occurred after the war but were nevertheless related to the Holocaust. A 2011 edition of the German weekly Der Spiegel reported that, in the 1990s, the German intelligence service BND destroyed its files on the mass murderer Alois Brunner, who had been Adolf Eichmann’s closest collaborator in the murder of the Jews. He had fled to Syria.14 It also became known that the BND had employed SS officer Walther Rauff in the 1950s and 1960s. He had been involved in the development of vehicles in which Jews were gassed. Other members of the SS were also employed by the BND.15 Furthermore, classified documents revealed that the BND knew the location of Eichmann as early as 1952. This was eight years before Israel captured him. Bettina Stangneth, a German historian, reacted to this news by stating that there was a lack of political will in Western Germany to put him on trial. She added, “Who would have been interested in having an Eichmann trial when even the chancellor declared in early 1953 that all the talk of Nazis should stop?”16 Such research and discoveries are reported in the media. They often draw further interest in the Holocaust. So do apologies. The German fashion house Hugo Boss has apologized for the fact that its late founder, of the same name, was an early and loyal Nazi party member. One of the company’s first big contracts was to supply brown shirts to the early Nazi party. Later, they also 13 Katinka Dufour, “Adolf Hitler’s Personal Photographer’s Collection of Images of Polish Jews Emerge,” Telegraph, October 18, 2012. 14 Georg Bönisch and Klaus Wiegrefe, “BND Vernichtete Akten zu SS-Verbrecher Brunner,” Der Spiegel, July 20, 2011 [German]. 15 “SS-Offizier Rauff Arbeitete Jahrelang fur den BND,” Die Welt, September 25, 2011 [German]. 16 David Crossland, “Germany Knew Eichmann’s Hiding Place Years before His Capture,” Der Spiegel, October 1, 2011, www.spiegel.de/international/germany/document-find-hailed-assensation-germany-knew-eichmann-s-hiding-place-years-before-his-capture-a-738757 .html (accessed December 16, 2012).

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supplied the SS with uniforms. The book Hugo Boss 1924–1945, published by the historian Roman Koester,17 brought to light additional information regarding Boss and his involvement with the Nazi party. In 2012, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg apologized for Norway’s part in the deportation of Jews to their deaths. He said, “It was the Norwegians who carried out the arrests, it was Norwegians who drove the trucks, and this happened in Norway.”18 Later that year, on November 26, 2012, police chief Odd Reidar Humlegaard apologized. He said, “It is fitting that I express my regret for the role police played in the arrest and deportation of these completely innocent victims.” The date chosen for the apology was the seventieth anniversary of the Norwegian deportation of the first group of Jews to Auschwitz.19

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Basic Questions The aforementioned events and matters play a significant role in the increased curiosity about the Holocaust. At the same time, some of them are also a result of interest in the Holocaust. That the Holocaust continues to hold a central position in European public discourse is also due to a number of other important developments. One is that European societies have become increasingly secular. This means that their traditional norms and values have, to a large extent, broken down. In such an ideological and moral vacuum, a need is felt for standards on which many people largely agree. The Holocaust fills that function in part. It continues to play a role as a defining moment in European history. The Holocaust touches upon very basic questions that many Europeans do not like to ask. What was it in European culture and in European societies that allowed the Holocaust to take place? Which movements demonized the Jews so profoundly and for so long that they laid the ideological basis for the 17 Fiona Govan, “Hugo Boss Apologizes for Founder’s Nazi Past,” Telegraph, September 21, 2011. 18 “Norwegian Prime Minister Stoltenberg Apologizes for Norway’s Role in Deportations,” Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research. January 30, 2012, www.holocausttaskforce.org/news/402–norwegian-primeminister-stoltenberg-apologizes-for-norways-role-in-deportations-.html (accessed December 16, 2012). 19 “Norway’s Police Apologize for Deporting Jews,” Jerusalem Post, November 26, 2012.

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Holocaust long before Nazism even emerged? This leads to a taboo question. To what extent are the elements that made the Holocaust possible still present in Europe? Part of the answer is evident. Anti-Semitism is an integral part of European culture. In order to avoid any misunderstanding, one must add that this does not mean that most Europeans are anti-Semites. Many European nations and individuals should ask these questions— first and foremost, Germany and Austria. They do not seem inclined to do so. The present generation in Europe should not be held responsible for what their ancestors did. However, the Holocaust and Nazism cannot be eliminated from German and Austrian history. Many ancestors of contemporary Germans and Austrians were Nazi enthusiasts. Numerous other Germans and Austrians collaborated with the Nazis without hesitation. Even worse, many mass murderers were not judged after the war. It is naïve to assume that nothing of these people’s attitudes has remained in the contemporary societies of Germany and Austria.

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Neo-fascist Parties Another element that has contributed to the increasing interest in the Holocaust is the growing uncertainty in the world. This insecurity creates a need for points of reference against which individuals and societies can assess a large number of new developments. Some examples are the emergence of parties in European countries with many neo-fascist and neo-Nazi characteristics. The question of how to relate to these parties becomes even more problematic if or when representatives of these groups enter parliament. In the new century, the rise of neo-Nazism and fascism, sometimes only in slightly modified forms, has again come to the fore with force. Hungary is one country where this has happened. There, the neo-fascist and anti-Semitic Jobbik Party received nearly 17 percent of votes in the 2010 parliamentary elections. This party is now the third largest in Hungary. More recently, in Greece, the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn movement has increased its force in a major way. This party won seats in parliament during both elections held in 2012. By autumn 2012, Golden Dawn received 14 percent in opinion polls.20 There have also been accusations that Golden Dawn 20 “Krise Verschafft Rechtsextremisten Aufwind,” Die Welt, October 16, 2012 [German].

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members have infiltrated the Greek police.21 Their increase in power was stopped due to many scandals, and in the 2015 parliamentary elections they obtained seventeen seats, one less than in the previous parliament. Once such parties succeed in entering a parliament, they subsequently attain international status. When one sees their increasing power, one is reminded of the 1930s and wonders what further racism and anti-Semitic hatred will follow. These two parties are one aspect of a much wider phenomenon: the reemergence of criminal worldviews and ideologies in Europe. Current ideological developments in Europe are indeed worrisome. Individuals also identify with Nazism in non-political ways. In July 2012, Russian opera singer Evgeny Nikitin withdrew from the Bayreuth Opera Festival because of his Nazi-inspired tattoos. The festival spokesman said that its directors were sensitive to issues related to the Nazi period. This was the more so as Hitler admired Wagner and often attended this festival. The postwar generation of Wagner descendants has made an effort to confront this connection to Hitler.22 The Holocaust was a major aspect of the war, but far from the only one. Yet it seems that in contemporary public discourse, it is the one that comes to the fore most often. At the same time, other major aspects of the Second World War are also increasingly discussed. Nazism, in particular, comes to mind. Simultaneously, with the increasing interest in the Holocaust, the distortion of its history and memory widens as well. To fight this effectively, one must first understand this phenomenon. To do so, one should investigate recent developments in the eight categories of distortion as defined in my book, The Abuse of Holocaust Memory: Distortions and Responses.23 The examples of Holocaust distortion come from many countries and many different circles. I have been watching these phenomena for a number of years already. Though no quantitative data exist, it seems that the flow of Holocaust abuse 21 Aris Chatzistefanou, “Golden Dawn Has Infiltrated Greek Police, Claims Officer,” Guardian, October 26, 2012. 22 “Opera Singer with Nazi Tattoos Withdraws from German Festival,” Haaretz, July 24, 2012. 23 Manfred Gerstenfeld, The Abuse of Holocaust Memory: Distortions and Responses ( Jerusalem: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 2009). The second edition can be viewed for free at http://jcpa.org/book/the-abuse-of-holocaust-memory-distortions-and-responses/. See also Manfred Gerstenfeld, “Continuing to Distort the Holocaust: 2009–2011,” in The Holocaust Ethos in the 21st Century: Dilemmas and Challenges, ed. Nitza Davidovitch and Dan Soen (Krakow: Austeria, 2012), 461–80.

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occurrences is increasing. In the last several years, there have been so many incidents that one can only describe a limited number of them.

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Holocaust Promotion and Justification The abuse of the Holocaust has become so major that within several categories of distortion, sub-categories have emerged. This can be well illustrated from the first category of distortion: Holocaust promotion and justification. The most extreme form of this is the promotion of a new Holocaust. This intense hatemongering is mainly associated with sizable parts of the Muslim world. The main actors are the Iranian government, the Islamic State Movement, and the Palestinian Hamas grouping. But there are many others. For instance, in October 2012, a video showed Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi answering “Amen” to an imam who prayed, “Oh Allah, destroy the Jews and their supporters.”24 The call for the murder of Jews is more common in the Muslim world than many in the Western world wish to know, admit, or publicize. One reason for this is that from all of these examples of Holocaust promotion, several conclusions should be drawn that are, to a large extent, politically incorrect or even taboo in the Western world. The basis of the Western multicultural position is the false claim that all cultures are equal in value. A culture wherein many prominent people promote murder, however, is inferior to a democratic culture. This does not make individuals living in such a culture inferior human beings. As the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” The flawed idea that all cultures at a given time in history are equivalent has absurd consequences. One is that Nazi culture in the mid-twentieth century was equal to the democratic culture of the Allies. Murdering six million Jews in the Holocaust fit German culture at the time. The absence of a hierarchy of cultures suggests that there was nothing reprehensible about this genocide. Such examples of indirect justification of the Holocaust merit further investigation. Other Holocaust promoters can be found in neo-Nazi environments. There are also individuals or small groups who scrawl “death to the Jews” graffiti, for instance.25 This also occurs frequently on social networks. “#agoodJew” (“#UnBonJuif ”), which spread anti-Semitic jokes, became the third most 24 “Morsi Answers Amen to Imam’s Prayers for Destruction of Jews,” JTA, October 22, 2012. 25 “Suspected Synagogue Vandal Arrested near Paris,” JTA, November 13, 2012.

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popular hashtag among French twitter users in October 2012. Several of them tweeted, “A good Jew is a dead Jew.”26

Comparing Islamism to Nazism Some who compare the attitudes of movements in the Islamic world with those of the Nazis bring weighty arguments. Holocaust expert Yehuda Bauer says:

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Today, for the first time since 1945, Jews are again threatened openly by a radical Islamic genocidal ideology whose murderous rantings must be taken more seriously than the Nazi ones were two and more generations ago. The direct connection between World War II, the Shoa, and present-day genocidal events and threats is more than obvious. The Shoa was unprecedented; but it was a precedent, and that precedent is being followed.27

Holocaust historian Robert Wistrich writes that hard-core anti-Semitism in the Arab and Muslim world is comparable only with that of Nazi Germany. Wistrich explains that Muslim hatred for Israel and Jews is “an eliminatory anti-Semitism with a genocidal dimension.” Among common elements between Muslim and Nazi anti-Semitism, Wistrich lists fanaticism, the cult of death, the nihilistic wish for destruction, and the mad lust for world hegemony.28 Richard Prasquier, Chairman of the French Jewish umbrella organization, CRIF, published an article in which he compares radical Islam to Nazism. He mentions two important points that they share. The first is that the Jew is their prime enemy. For both movements, anti-Semitism is an essential component of their ideology. The second is that both Nazism and radical Islam dehumanize Jews.29

Holocaust Justification Holocaust promotion is not necessarily accompanied by the distortion of Holocaust memory or history. This type of incitement must be included in the 26 “‘Good Jew’ hashtag is third most popular on French Twitter,” JTA, October 15, 2012. 27 Yehuda Bauer, “Reviewing the Holocaust Anew in Multiple Contexts,” Post-Holocaust and Anti-Semitism 80, (May 1, 2009), http://jcpa.org/article/reviewing-the-holocaust-anew-in-multiple-contexts/ (accessed December 27, 2012). 28 Robert S. Wistrich, Muslimischer Antisemitismus, Eine Aktuelle Gefahr (Berlin: Edition Critic, 2011), 101. 29 Richard Prasquier, “Oui, L’islamisme Radical et le Nazisme Sont Deux Idéologies Comparables,” Le Monde, October 17, 2012 [French].

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analysis of Holocaust abuse because of its close relationship to it. The advancing of a new Holocaust can also be done indirectly. If one states that Jews have no right to self-determination and thus the Jewish state has no right to exist, one is not only making an anti-Semitic statement, but is also indirectly promoting a second Holocaust. The only way to eliminate the Jewish state is through mass murder or genocide. One prominent variant of Holocaust justification states that Hitler failed to complete the extermination of the Jews. As time passes, new aspects of this sub-category emerge. A Palestinian magazine published an article in February 2011 by a ten-year-old Palestinian girl, who recounted a dream in which Hitler told her: “Yes. I killed them [the Jews] so you would all know that they are a nation who spreads destruction all over the world.” This magazine was subsidized by UNESCO. After protests, UNESCO stopped funding this publication in December 2011.30 There are also “soft ways” to convey messages of Holocaust promotion and justification. In 2011, Berlin state elections took place. The far-right National Democratic Party used the slogan “Give Gas.” An election ad showed party leader Udo Voigt on a motorcycle with a jacket resembling an SS uniform. The ad featured the “Give Gas” slogan as well.31

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Holocaust Denial Holocaust denial can be defined as the rejection of the main facts of the extermination of the Jews in the Second World War. The essence of Holocaust denial can be illustrated by a sentence from Holocaust-denier David Irving: “More women died in the back seat of Edward Kennedy’s car at Chappaquiddick than ever died in a gas chamber at Auschwitz.”32 Holocaust denial can be considered as perhaps the most far-reaching antiSemitic lie. What it says, in essence, is that the Jews are the greatest liars around. They have invented a terrible inhuman persecution that never took place.

30 Jordana Horn, “UNESCO to Stop Support for Palestinian Magazine,” Jerusalem Post, December 25, 2011. 31 Eldad Beck, “Neo-Nazis Ready to ‘Step on Gas,’” Ynetnews.com, August 14, 2011. 32 Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman, Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It? (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000), 276–7.

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Holocaust denial continues to resurface. However, in 2012 one positive development occurred, when the extremist Catholic Society of Pius X finally expelled English Bishop Richard Williamson. He is not only a Holocaust denier, but also falsely claims that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are authentic.33 Holocaust denial is widespread in Muslim countries and among neo-Nazis. But it also seems to be fairly common among Muslim immigrants in Western countries. An interview with a young ex-Muslim woman, who chose the pseudonym Samar while living in the Netherlands, bears this out. During her adolescence, she began to realize how deep the hatred of Jews was among almost all other young Muslims she met. Samar started to monitor this hatred among Muslim students. She says: During my years at university, I spoke with an estimated 150 to 200 Muslims. It struck me that almost all held the same opinions. It didn’t matter whether they were Moroccans, Turks, Kurds, or Muslims from Suriname. In all those years, I only met two Muslims who did not hate Jews or Israel. Almost all Muslim youngsters I met at university denied the Holocaust. They did not believe in the so-called “two state solution” for Israelis and Palestinians. They wanted Israel wiped off the map. They believed Jews had to be driven out of Israel so that it could again become a Muslim state.

She found no difference in opinion between boys and girls.34

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Holocaust Deflection and Whitewashing Yet another category of Holocaust distortion concerns deflection and whitewashing. One typical example of Holocaust deflection appears in the following sentiment: “The Holocaust happened, but our country was not involved in it.” For decades, Austrian governments maintained that their country was a victim of Germany and Nazi rule. After many years of denial, Austrian presidents and prime ministers finally admitted the truth. Major examples of deflection still occur in those countries where, during the war, significant segments of the local

33 Ed West, “SSPX Expels Bishop Williamson,” Catholic Herald, October 24, 2012. 34 Manfred Gerstenfeld, interview with Samar, “Dans les Coulisses de l’Antisémitisme Musulman aux Pays-Bas,” Lessakele, October 23, 2012 [French], http://lessakele.over-blog. fr/article-dans-les-coulisses-de-l-antisemitisme-musulman-aux-pays-bas-111566487.html (accessed December 16, 2012).

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populations helped the Germans in the despoliation, deportation, and murder of Jews. Another sub-category closely related to deflection is Holocaust whitewashing. This activity aims at cleansing certain groups or persons of blame without necessarily accusing others. Former UN Secretary General and Austrian President Kurt Waldheim was one of the best-known whitewashers of his own Nazi past. He was an officer in a German military unit that committed war crimes.35 One of Waldheim’s lies was the claim that he had never been a member of a Nazi-affiliated organization. Both the US and Soviet intelligence services had damaging information about his wartime past, but did not disclose it. Meanwhile his career progressed.36 Holocaust whitewashing surfaces in many ways. One of them is honoring former Nazis or their supporters. Several Hungarian parliamentarians participated in a memorial ceremony for Jozsef Nyiro, a member of the Hungarian Parliament during the Second World War who had supported Hitler. Thereupon, Elie Wiesel returned Hungary’s highest award, the Order of Merit Grand Cross, which he had received in 2004.37 There are many examples of whitewashing. Only a few can be mentioned here. There is also widespread whitewashing of Nazism. A poll of the French weekly Paris Match found that about one-half of Belgians think that Nazism contains “interesting ideas,” even if one should reject its essence or part of it. 44 percent were of the opinion that the ideology has to be rejected entirely. Those who believe that Nazism has legitimacy focus mainly on its nationalist principles and on its ideas meant to strengthen the national economy. To a lesser extent, they mention the priority that must be given to the country’s own population. A majority of French-speaking Belgians and 32 percent of the Flemish population believe that the present reality in Belgium is propitious for the

35 Jonathan Kandell, “Kurt Waldheim, Former UN Chief, Is Dead at 88,” New York Times, June 15, 2007. 36 Kandell, “Kurt Waldheim.” 37 “Wiesel Returns Hungary’s Highest Honor,” JTA, June 19, 2012.

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revival of ideologies with a Nazi bent. More than half of those under twenty-five did not know that anti-Semitism was an integral part of Nazi ideology.38

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The Netherlands The Netherlands has become a country where another type of whitewashing is being promoted by several local authorities. They wish to commemorate their own and Allied victims, together with the dead of the German occupiers. National Memorial Day, the Fourth of May, is designated to commemorate the many victims of the German occupier. The more than one hundred thousand Dutch Jews murdered—over 70 percent of its prewar community—were by far the largest group of victims. The Bronckhorst municipality to which the small town of Vorden belongs decided that those participating in the ceremony for Dutch victims could also jointly visit the graves of German soldiers who are buried there. Originally, it was intended that the local choir would sing a German song at the graves.39 This led to many protests. A lower court judgment forbade the mayor of the town to go to the German graves.40 An appeals court later decided that the municipality was entitled to determine the character of such memorial meetings. In October, it became known that in Geffen, another Dutch locality, a new war memorial would go up. The municipality intended to put on the plaque the names of the town’s Jewish victims as well as the names of the German soldiers who fell in that place. This was yet another event in the Netherlands that intended to mix the memory of the victims with the memory of the perpetrators. After protests from Jewish organizations, it was decided that no names would go on the monument.41 It is not by chance that this whitewashing of the past happens from time to time in the Netherlands. Postwar Dutch governments have never admitted that the Dutch government in exile in London hardly made any effort to help its own persecuted Jews. Dutch authorities within the Netherlands also 38 “1 Belg op 2 Vindt dat Nazisme ‘Interessante Ideeёn’ Bevat,” De Morgen, October 13, 2011 [Dutch]. 39 “In Vorden Omgekomen Duitse Soldaten Herdacht,” De Stentor, April 17, 2012 [Dutch]. 40 “Rechter Verbiedt Herdenking Duitse Soldaten in Vorden; Burgemeester Woedend,” Reformatorisch Dagblad, May 4, 2012 [Dutch]. 41 “Geen Namen op Monument Geffen,” Brabants Dagblad, October 18, 2012 [Dutch].

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collaborated in substantial ways with the German occupiers. In almost all occupied countries, postwar governments have admitted the roles their countrymen played in the persecution of the Jews, and have apologized. But if one refuses to apologize, it is not surprising that one falsifies history even further by mixing together the memory of victims and perpetrators.

Abuse of Holocaust Memorial Meetings Holocaust distortion also occurs within falsified memorial meetings. In the Netherlands, an anti-discrimination group, “Nederland Bekent Kleur” (Netherlands Shows Color), organized annual Kristallnacht memorial meetings until 2001. In the final years, speakers included sympathizers with Hamas and Hezbollah. They compared the Holocaust with the oppression of Muslims. After some time, the Jewish community refused to cooperate with the organizers.42 A number of years later, the CJO, the umbrella of Dutch-Jewish organizations, started to organize its own annual Kristallnacht memorial meetings. Italian journalist Angelo Pezzana details how International Holocaust Remembrance Day is abused in many parts of Italy:

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Marking the 27th of January as a day of remembrance has turned it into a national event where everyone can express his opinion, however miserable. The latter happens mostly in schools. Meetings are held with hundreds of students present, where extreme leftist professors are invited to speak. They present the Shoah in a distorted way. This leads to a public debate usually linking the crimes of the Nazis to Israeli policies.43

In Helsingborg in Sweden, the Jewish community refused to participate in the 2012 Kristallnacht memorial. The local paper, Helsingborgs Dagblad, reported that the community’s leader, Jussi Tyger, said that the memorial meeting was organized by left-wing parties and Muslims who are known to be the most racist against Jews.44

42 Wierd Duk, “Geen Hamas-vrienden bij Herdenking Kristallnacht,” Elsevier, November 4, 2010 [Dutch]. 43 Manfred Gerstenfeld, interview with Angelo Pezzana, “How the Memory of the Holocaust Is Abused in Italy,” Israel National News, January 23, 2012. 44 “Inget Judiskt Deltagande när Kristallnatten ska Uppmärksammas,” Helsingborgs Dagblad, November 7, 2012 [Swedish].

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On November 26, 2012, a memorial meeting took place in Bergen on the seventieth anniversary of the deportation of more than seven hundred Jews from Norway to Germany. Among the speakers were two leading antiIsrael hatemongers: the leader of the leftist socialists, Audun Lysbakken, and former Conservative Prime Minister, Kåre Willoch. Jewish protests against this abuse of the memory of the dead were ignored.45

Holocaust De-Judaization The main proponent of Holocaust de-Judaization, the Soviet Union, has been disbanded. Its communist satellites have become democracies. With that, the strongest forces to void or minimize the Jewish character of the victims are no longer there. Holocaust de-Judaization in the Western world has often involved the memory of Anne Frank. While she has become a universal icon, the fact that she was persecuted as a Jew is often minimized or omitted. This is particularly important because Anne Frank continues to hold a much-publicized place in Western society. In 2012, for instance, a wax figure of Anne Frank was installed in the Berlin Madame Tussauds Museum.

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Holocaust Equivalence One sub-category of Holocaust equivalence that is quickly growing is postwar Holocaust equivalence. This involves claiming that some contemporary organizations or individuals have the same character traits or attitudes as the Nazis. Another variant is to claim that there are many events in today’s society that are similar in nature or equivalent to those caused by Germany under Hitler’s rule. Increasingly over the years, American presidents were called Nazis. Reagan, Clinton, and, above all, George W. Bush, were called Nazis, or Hitler by some. The same has happened to Obama.46 For instance, US country music star Hank Williams Jr. compared Obama to Hitler on Fox News. He later apologized.47 American broadcaster Rush Limbaugh publicized the term “Femi-Nazis” 45 Norwalt Yri, “Taler av Kåre Willoch og Audun Lysbakken—et spark i magen,” Norge Idag, November 22, 2012 [Norwegian]. 46 Timothy Snyder, “No, They’re not a Hitler or a Stalin,” New York Times, November 16, 2010. 47 “Hank Williams Jr. Apologizes for Likening Obama to Hitler,” Jerusalem Post, October 5, 2011.

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for extreme feminists. In 2011, American actress Susan Sarandon called Pope Benedict a Nazi.48 This trend of calling people Nazis seems to be growing. One of the places where this is seen most vividly is in Greece. The country’s economic crisis has led to frequent comparisons of contemporary Germany with Nazi Germany. There have been many pictures in Greek papers and on websites of German Chancellor Angela Merkel dressed up as a Nazi.49 When Merkel visited Portugal in November 2012, she was also identified as a Nazi through various incidents. For instance, when her motorcade passed in Lisbon, a man held up a banner stating, “Hitler Go Home.” Two others made the “Heil Hitler” salute.50 Such comparisons are bizarre because the current German government does not aim to rob the Greeks or any other nation of their freedom and possessions. On the contrary, it provides them with funding to help ease their financial crises. One example that illustrates how this equivalence has entered the mainstream concerns former German Social Democrat Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. On a leading German television station, he said that Angela Merkel herself is partly guilty for some European countries depicting her with a swastika armband. Schmidt explained his scandalous remark by saying that “she focuses too much on herself.”51 In January 2012, Tom Harris, a senior Labor Member of Parliament, prepared a satiric online video in which Scottish Prime Minister, Alex Salmond, was depicted as Hitler. He was subsequently forced to resign as Labor Social Media Advisor in Scotland.52 Austrian Foreign Minister, Maria Fekter, from the Austrian People’s Party (OVP), said that in Europe, hostile images of banks and rich people were being disseminated, as had been the case with Jews in the past. After receiving strong 48 Elizabeth Tenety, “Susan Sarandon: Pope Benedict a ‘Nazi,’” Washington Post, October 18, 2011. 49 DPA, “Greek Nazi Merkel Photos ‘Trivialize’ Holocaust,” The Local, March 10, 2012. 50 Philipp Wittrock, “Chancellor Faces Angry Protests in Portugal,” Der Spiegel, November 13, 2012. 51 Helmut Schmidt, “Merkel Selbst Schuld an Hakenkreuz-Karikaturen,” Die Welt, September 27, 2012 [German]. 52 Jason Groves, “Labour’s ‘Twitter Tsar’ Forced to Quit after Comparing Alex Salmond to Hitler in ‘Downfall’ Spoof,” Daily Mail, January 17, 2012.

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criticism about her comment, she added later on the same day that the period of National Socialism together with its cruelties, and in particular the Holocaust, was incomparable to anything else.53

Holocaust Equivalence Spreads As comparisons of political figures with Hitler become more frequent, this phenomenon has also spread elsewhere. In Oslo, Norwegian neighbors of a German man, who had lived in the town for many years, had a dispute with him about the height of his hedge. They threw a Hitler doll into his garden; an attached note stated that the man’s real name was now Hitler.54 The far-right Austrian Freedom Party organized a ball in Vienna on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27, 2012. This triggered a major counter-demonstration of more than 2,500 people. Heinz-Christian Strache, the party’s leader, was overheard comparing the protests to Kristallnacht and saying, “We are the new Jews.”55 Muslims at a demonstration against discrimination in Switzerland wore stickers with yellow stars of David and the word “Muslim” printed on them. This raised criticism.56 Holocaust distorters using false equivalence rarely explain their statements in any detail. If they do, like Schmidt, their reasoning is often vicious.

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Holocaust Inversion Holocaust inversion is a derivative of Holocaust equivalence and the most extreme category of Holocaust abuse. Inverters state that Jews and Israel behave like Nazis. In this way, victims of genocide are presented as perpetrators. In the most common European definition of anti-Semitism, one of the examples given is drawing comparisons between Israel’s policies and Nazi policies. It is quite common to think that Holocaust denial is the worst distortion of the Holocaust. Holocaust inversion, however, is an even more extreme abuse. 53 “Empörung über Fekters Vergleich zwischen Juden- und ‘Reichenverfolgung,’” Der Standard, September 17, 2011 [German]. 54 “Osloer Nachbarn Aergern Deutschen mit Hitler-Puppe,” Die Welt, October 30, 2012 [German]. 55 “Austrian Politician Slammed for Comparing Protests to Kristallnacht,” JTA, January 13, 2012. 56 “Anger as Muslims Demonstrate with Yellow Star of David,” Ynet News, November 2, 2011.

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It is a modern mutation of the core element of 2,000-year-old anti-Semitism. The logic runs as follows: the Jews represent absolute evil. In our time, Nazism represents absolute evil. By saying that Israelis are Nazis, one claims that they represent absolute evil. The German Holocaust foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility, Future” (EVZ) has used public funds to finance hatred of Israel. It provided more than 20,000 euros for a 2010–2011 student-exchange program. Participants included an East German high school and an Israeli Arab school. Project organizers published a brochure that demonized Israel and compared it to the former communist East German state. The same agency financed a program for the Anne Frank School in Gutersloh that hosted a Dutch Jewish Holocaust survivor and known anti-Israel hatemonger, Hajo Meyer. There, Meyer equated the suffering of the Palestinians with the persecution and mass murder of Jews in the Holocaust. He also termed Israel a “criminal state.”57 Leon de Winter, a best-selling Jewish Dutch novelist, said that Meyer suffers from extreme “survival guilt.” He added that all Israel-bashing groups love Meyer because of the combination of his being a Jew and a Holocaust survivor.58 Ideological criminality is increasing in Europe. The more it develops, the more Israel is accused through hatemongering or by using double standards against it. For many, this is a psychological necessity in order to whitewash both the past and present European societies.

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Holocaust Trivialization Holocaust trivialization has a number of subcategories too. One is people who abuse the Holocaust by comparing various situations in society to the Holocaust. For instance, environmental problems become an “environmental Holocaust.” Similarly, there are the abortion, animal, tobacco, and human rights “Holocausts.” Yet another category is making fun of Holocaust victims or survivors, or imitating Nazi habits. There are now teens who consider it fashionable to have 57 Benjamin Weinthal, “German Program Uses Shoah Funds to Play Down Holocaust,” Jerusalem Post, October 14, 2011. 58 Benjamin Weinthal, “Germans Use ‘Anti-Israel’ Jews to Soothe Holocaust Guilt,” Jerusalem Post, October 16, 2011.

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an Adolf Hitler haircut. A New York barber says that they ask for a “Hitler Youth.”59 British Conservative Parliamentarian Aidan Burley was seen in a video toasting the Third Reich and Hitler. He was wearing an SS uniform when he made the toast. Burley said that he was influenced by “clearly inappropriate behavior by several of the other guests.” Prime Minister David Cameron fired him as an aide to the Transport Secretary.60 At a sports day at a Catholic school in Chiang Mai, Thailand, students wore Nazi uniforms and made the Nazi salute. Some had swastikas painted on their faces. Later, both students and the school apologized.61

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Commercial Purposes A third subcategory, which also seems to be growing, is the trivialization of the Holocaust for commercial purposes. Many Holocaust trivializers are small operators. One story that received worldwide attention was that of Rajesh Shah, the owner of a clothes store called “Hitler” in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, in India. Initially, in light of the pressure, he realized that he had to change the store’s name. Later, however, he said that he wouldn’t change it unless he was paid.62 There is concern about the emergence of Hitler as a popular role model in Indian business. Taking action, the Simon Wiesenthal Center brought an exhibition of two hundred photographs of Holocaust history to Mumbai in November 2012.63 In Taiwan, a store sold Hitler look-alike dolls. They were made in Japan. Also in Taiwan in 1999, subway advertisements for German-made space heaters included a picture of Hitler.64 Much larger companies have been known to trivialize the Holocaust. Amazon, which has been involved in quite a few Holocaust-related scandals, put a jigsaw puzzle on sale depicting ovens in the Dachau crematorium. Amazon sold it on its American website as suitable for children eight years and over.65 Alex Williams, “A Haircut Returns From the 1930s,” The New York Times, November 15, 2011. “Cameron Fires MP who Toasted Hitler,” Israel National News, December 18, 2011. “Thai School under Fire over Nazi Parade,” Ynetnews.com, October 2, 2011. Sam Panthaky, Agence France-Presse, “Your Suggestions for Renaming the ‘Hitler’ Store in Gujarat,” New York Times, April 11, 2012. 63 Bella Jaisinghani, “Hitler Fame in B-schools Prompts Holocaust Exhibit,” Times of India, November 6, 2012. 64 “Hitler Dolls for Sale in Taiwan 7–11 Stores,” Ynetnews.com, September 27, 2011. 65 “Amazon Blasted over Nazi Camp Puzzle,” Ynetnews.com, October 2, 2012. 59 60 61 62

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There are many other examples of Holocaust trivialization. In November 2012, the memorial center at the former Dutch concentration camp Amersfoort wanted to sell small pieces of the barbed wire that had surrounded the camp. After protests from Jewish, Sinti, and Roma organizations, this project was cancelled.66

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Sports and Arts One also finds examples of the trivialization of the Holocaust in other areas, including arts and sports. In what was a mixture of Holocaust promotion and trivialization, fans of the English soccer club West Ham, during a match in November 2012 against Tottenham Hotspur, sang, “Adolf Hitler, he’s coming for you.” They also hissed a number of times, alluding to the gassing of Jews in concentration camps. The Telegraph’s reporter at the game, Jonathan Liew, said, “Let us be clear about this. We are not talking about a few isolated singers here. A significant proportion of the West Ham’s travelling support participated . . . The songs rang out loudly and clearly.”67 With the passing of time, examples of Holocaust trivialization seem to get more extreme. In Lund in Sweden, gallery owner Martin Bryder held an exhibition of the painter Carl Michael von Hauswolff beginning on November 10, 2012. It included nine paintings for which the artist said he had mixed water with ashes taken in 1989 from a crematorium in the Majdanek extermination camp. Simon Samuels of the Simon Wiesenthal Center stated, “Mr. von Hauswolff, you, like the Nazis’ use of human skin for lampshades and fat to produce soap, have similarly twice murdered the bodies that were once the ashes you have desecrated, turning art into an abomination.” The Swedish police decided not to investigate whether the paintings broke their country’s law that “protects the peace of the dead.” They reasoned that if there was a crime, it had been committed outside of Sweden’s borders. After much criticism, the gallery owner ended the exhibition a few days before the official closing date of December 15, 2012.68

66 “Emoties door Verkoop Prikkeldraad Kamp Amersfoort,” Trouw, November 27, 2012 [Dutch]. 67 “West Ham Fans Chant ‘Hitler’s Coming for You’ at Tottenham Crowd,” The Telegraph, November 26, 2012. 68 “Gallery Pulls Swede’s Holocaust Ash Paintings,” The Local, December 11, 2012.

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Obliterating Holocaust Memory

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The eighth and final category, obliterating Holocaust memory, groups together a number of disparate abuses and distortions of Holocaust history. Collective memory is attacked directly and indirectly. One type of the former is the besmirching and destruction of memorials. There are many examples of this every year. In the summer of 2011, a swastika and anti-Semitic slogans were found on the memorial monument at Jedwabne in Poland. In that town in 1941, hundreds of Jews were burned alive by their Polish neighbors.69 In October 2012, the memorial monument for murdered Jews on the Greek island of Rhodes was vandalized again.70 Another example is the disruption of Holocaust ceremonies. Additionally, there are attempts to turn public ceremonies into events that also—and sometimes only—memorialize other historical events. Yet another mode of obliterating Holocaust memory is Holocaust silencing. This involves stating that Jews mention the Holocaust too often. When discussing this with Germans, they often agree that many of their friends say, “The Holocaust is a chapter that should be closed.” One more approach to try and obliterate Holocaust memory is to claim that Jews abuse it for various purposes, including political ones. Indirect attacks on Holocaust remembrance involve the fading away of Jewish memorial sites through neglect. This occurs particularly in former communist countries. It is a complex subject, which requires a detailed study.

Conclusions To the aforementioned examples, many others can be added. When my book, The Abuse of Holocaust Memory, was published in 2009, it was already clear that the struggle for maintaining Holocaust memory, as well as the fight against its distortion, would become more difficult. One significant reason for this is that many survivors have already died and the remaining ones—among other types of witnesses—are now elderly.

69 “Memorial to Jedwabne Pogrom Vandalized,” JTA, September 1, 2011. 70 “Rhodes Holocaust Memorial Vandalized,” JTA, October 28, 2012.

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Growing polarization in Western society is just one of several reasons for the increase in Holocaust abuse. Many people are falsely blamed as being or behaving like Nazis. Another more specific reason for the growth in Holocaust distortion concerning Jews is the explosion of anti-Semitism—often disguised as anti-Israelism—in Western society. This leads to an increase of Holocaust promotion and, above all, of Holocaust inversion—comparing Israelis to Nazis. The massive abuse of the Holocaust poses the question: what can one do about it? There is no single way to fight against it. Education is very important, as are memorials, monuments, and many other activities. However, a crucial point remains that people should make an effort to prevent the abuse of the Holocaust from entering into public discourse. When this happens, it should be fought intensely. Such actions often produce results, even if they arrive late. One example has already been mentioned: in October 2012, four years after he said that there were no gas chambers, the extremely conservative Catholic Society of Pius X removed Holocaust denier Bishop Richard Williamson from its ranks.71 An important step would be for the nations of the world to live up to their commitments under the UN Genocide Convention and bring Iranian leaders, Grand Ayatollah Khamenei and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, before an international court. The same should be done with the Hamas organization and its genocide promotion. This, then, could become the beginning of a much wider struggle against Holocaust distortion.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY “1 Belg op 2 Vindt dat Nazisme ‘Interessante Ideeen’ Bevat.” De Morgen, October 13, 2011 [Dutch]. “Amazon Blasted over Nazi Camp Puzzle.” Ynetnews.com, October 2, 2012. “Anger as Muslims Demonstrate with Yellow Star of David.” Ynetnews.com, November 2, 2011. “Austrian Politician Slammed for Comparing Protests to Kristallnacht.” JTA, January 31, 2012. Bauer, Yehuda. “Reviewing the Holocaust Anew in Multiple Contexts.” PostHolocaust and Anti-Semitism 80 (May 1, 2009), http://jcpa.org/article/ 71 “Piusbruder Schliessen Holocaust-Leugner Williamson aus,” Die Welt, October 24, 2012. [German]

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reviewing-the-holocaust-anew-in-multiple-contexts/ (accessed December 27, 2012). Beck, Eldad. “Neo-Nazis Ready to ‘Step on Gas.’” Ynetnews.com, August 14, 2011. Bönisch, Georg and Klaus Wiegrefe. “BND vernichtete Akten zu SS-Verbrecher Brunner.” Der Spiegel, July 20, 2011 [German]. “Cameron Fires MP who Toasted Hitler.” Israel National News, December 18, 2011. Chatzistefanou, Aris. “Golden Dawn Has Infiltrated Greek Police, Claims Officer.” Guardian, October 26, 2012. Crossland, David. “Germany Knew Eichmann’s Hiding Place Years before His Capture.” Der Spiegel Online, October 1, 2011, www.spiegel.de/international/germany/document-find-hailed-as-sensation-germanyknew-eichmann-s-hiding-place-years-before-his-capture-a-738757.html (accessed December 16, 2012). de Broqua, Aliette. “Ayrault au Mémorial du Camp des Milles.” Le Figaro, September 9, 2012 [French]. “Discours du Président de la République à l’occasion du 70ème anniversaire de la rafle du Vel d’Hiv.” Elysee [French]. DPA. “Greek Nazi Merkel Photos ‘Trivialize’ Holocaust.” The Local, March 10, 2012. Dufour, Katinka. “Adolf Hitler’s Personal Photographer’s Collection of Images of Polish Jews Emerge.” Telegraph, October 18, 2012. Duk, Wierd. “Geen Hamas-vrienden bij Herdenking Kristallnacht.” Elsevier, November 4, 2010 [Dutch]. “Emoties door Verkoop Prikkeldraad Kamp Amersfoort.” Trouw, November 27, 2012 [Dutch]. “Empörung über Fekters Vergleich zwischen Juden- und ‘Reichenverfolgung.’” Der Standard, September 17, 2011 [German]. “Euro 2012: England Players Visit Auschwitz.” BBC, June 9, 2012. “Gallery Pulls Swede’s Holocaust Ash Paintings.” The Local, December 11, 2012. “Geen Namen op Monument Geffen.” Brabants Dagblad, October 18, 2012 [Dutch].

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Gerstenfeld, Manfred. The Abuse of Holocaust Memory: Distortions and Responses. Jerusalem: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 2009. _____. “Continuing to Distort the Holocaust: 2009–2011.” In The Holocaust Ethos in the 21st Century: Dilemmas and Challenges, edited by Nitza Davidovitch and Dan Soen, 461–80. Krakow: Austeria, 2012. _____. Interview with Angelo Pezzana. “How the Memory of the Holocaust Is Abused in Italy.” Israel National News, January 23, 2012. _____. Interview with Samar. “Dans les Coulisses de l’Antisémitisme Musulman aux Pays-Bas.” Lessakele, October 23, 2012 [French], http:// lessakele.over-blog.fr/article-dans-les-coulisses-de-l-antisemitisme-musulman-aux-pays-bas-111566487.html (accessed December 16, 2012). Govan, Fiona. “Hugo Boss Apologizes for Founder’s Nazi past.” Telegraph, September 21, 2011. Groves, Jason. “Labour’s ‘Twitter Tsar’ Forced to Quit after Comparing Alex Salmond to Hitler in ‘Downfall’ Spoof.” Daily Mail, January 17, 2012. “Hank Williams Jr. Apologizes for Likening Obama to Hitler.” Jerusalem Post, October 5, 2011. “Hitler Dolls for Sale in Taiwan 7–11 Stores.” Ynetnews.com, September 27, 2011. Horn, Jordana. “UNESCO to Stop Support for Palestinian Magazine.” Jerusalem Post, December 25, 2011. “Ikea Founder Was Nazi Recruiter.” Telegraph, August 24, 2011. “In Vorden Omgekomen Duitse Soldaten Herdacht.” De Stentor, April 17, 2012 [Dutch]. “Inget Judiskt Deltagande när Kristallnatten ska Uppmärksammas.” Helsingborgs Dagblad, November 7, 2012 [Swedish]. “International Holocaust Remembrance Day.” www.ushmm.org (accessed January 27, 2012). Jaisinghani, Bella. “Hitler Fame in B-schools Prompts Holocaust Exhibit.” Times of India, November 6, 2012. Jvt. “Veel Prominenten op Plechtige Opening Kazerne Dossin.” De Standaard, November 26, 2012 [Dutch]. Kandell, Jonathan. “Kurt Waldheim, Former UN Chief, Is Dead at 88.” New York Times, June 15, 2007.

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Knop, Carsten. “Gunther Quandt War ein Skrupelloser Unternehmer.” Faz.net, September 23, 2011 [German]. “Krise Verschafft Rechtsextremisten Aufwind.” Die Welt, October 19, 2012 [German]. Luijters, Guus. In Memoriam, De Gedeporteerde en Vermoorde Joodse, Roma en Sinti Kinderen 1942–1945. Amsterdam: Nieuw Amsterdam, 2012 [Dutch]. “Memorial to Jedwabne Pogrom Vandalized.” JTA, September 1, 2011. “Morsi Answers Amen to Imam’s Prayers for Destruction of Jews.” JTA, October 22, 2012. “Norway’s Police Apologize for Deporting Jews.” Jerusalem Post, November 26, 2012. “Norwegian Prime Minister Stoltenberg Apologizes for Norway’s Role in Deportations.” Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research, www.holocausttaskforce.org/ news/402–norwegian-prime-minister-stoltenberg-apologizes-fornorways-role-in-deportations-.html (accessed December 16, 2012). “Opera Singer with Nazi Tattoos Withdraws from German Festival.” Ha’aretz, July 24, 2012. “Osloer Nachbarn Aergern Deutschen mit Hitler-Puppe.” Die Welt, October 30, 2012 [German]. Panthaky, Sam. “Your Suggestions for Renaming the ‘Hitler’ Store in Gujarat.” New York Times, April 11, 2012. “Piusbruder Schliessen Holocaust-Leugner Williamson aus.” Die Welt, October 24, 2012 [German]. Prasquier, Richard. “Oui, L’islamisme Radical et Le Nazisme Sont Deux Ideologies Comparables.” Le Monde, October 17, 2012 [French]. “Rechter Verbiedt Herdenking Duitse Soldaten in Vorden; Burgemeester Woedend.” Reformatorisch Dagblad, May 4, 2012 [Dutch]. “Rhodes Holocaust Memorial Vandalized.” JTA, October 28, 2012. Savarre, Scott. “At Holocaust Center, Hollande Confronts Past.” New York Times, September 21, 2012. Schmidt, Helmut. “Merkel Selbst Schuld an Hakenkreuz-Karikaturen.” Die Welt, September 27, 2012 [German]. “Secretary-General’s Message.” The Holocaust and United Nations Outreach Programme, www.un.org/en/holocaustremembrance/2012/sg.shtml (accessed December 16, 2012).

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Shermer, Michael and Alex Grobman. Denying History: Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why Do They Say It? Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000. Snyder, Timothy. “No, They’re Not a Hitler or a Stalin.” New York Times, November 16, 2010. “SS-Offizier Rauff Arbeitete Jahrelang fur den BND.” Die Welt, September 25, 2011 [German]. “Survivors’ Group Rips Chanel on Denial of Coco’s Nazi Past.” JTA, August 18, 2011. “Suspected Synagogue Vandal Arrested near Paris.” JTA, November 13, 2012. Tenety, Elizabeth. “Susan Sarandon: Pope Benedict a ‘Nazi.’” Washington Post, October 18, 2011. “Thai School under Fire over Nazi Parade.” Ynetnews.com, October 2, 2011. Weinthal, Benjamin. “German Program Uses Shoah Funds to Play Down Holocaust.” Jerusalem Post, October 14, 2011. _____. “Germans Use ‘Anti-Israel’ Jews to Soothe Holocaust Guilt.” Jerusalem Post, October 16, 2011. West, Ed. “SSPX Expels Bishop Williamson.” Catholic Herald, October 24, 2012. “West Ham Fans Chant ‘Hitler’s Coming for You’ at Tottenham Crowd.” The Telegraph, November 26, 2012. “Wiesel Returns Hungary’s Highest Honor.” JTA, June 19, 2012. Williams, Alex. “A Haircut Returns from the 1930s.” The New York Times, November 15, 2011. Wistrich, Robert S. Muslimischer Antisemitismus, Eine Aktuelle Gefahr. Berlin: Edition Critic, 2011. Wittrock, Philipp. “Chancellor Faces Angry Protests in Portugal.” Der Spiegel, November 13, 2012. Yri, Norwalt. “Taler av Kåre Willoch og Audun Lysbakken—et Spark i Magen.” Norge Idag, November 22, 2012 [Norwegian].

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Studying Judaism, Jewish History, and the Jews: The Experience of Jewish Studies at Academic Campuses in Poland Today1

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Edyta Gawron When discussing the situation of Jewish studies in Poland today, one needs to offer some background in two areas: the tradition of Jewish studies in the Polish academic world (especially before the Second World War), and the postwar situation that determined the fate of the Jews as well as any aspect of Jewish life and things considered “Jewish” in Central and Eastern Europe. Among the prewar institutions that educated many Jewish scholars and was considered the center for Jewish studies at that time, the Institute of Judaic Studies (Instytut Nauk Judaistycznych) must be mentioned.2 This academic and educational institution, which opened in 1928 in Warsaw, was—next to YIVO ( Jewish Scientific Institute)3 in Vilna—one of the most important prewar Jewish academic centers. The Institute, divided into two faculties (rabbinical studies, historical and social studies) and affiliated with Warsaw 1 This chapter is an updated version of a lecture given in London in May 2010, during a symposium exploring contemporary Jewish life in Poland, marking the close of Jewish programming for “POLSKA! YEAR,” organized in Great Britain. The first version was published in the proceedings of this symposium: Poland: A Jewish Matter, ed. Kate Craddy, Mike Levy, and Jakub Nowakowski (Warszawa: Adam Mickiewicz Institute, 2010), 103–15. 2 For more on the Institute’s history, see Maria Dold, “A Matter of National and Civic Honour: Majer Bałaban and the Institute of Jewish Studies in Warsaw,” East European Jewish Affairs 34, no. 2 (2004): 55–72. 3 YIVO was established in 1925 as the Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut in Wilno (belonging at that time to Poland). Later, when it was moved to New York, it was renamed the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.

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University, offered classes for university students and external candidates. Among those who supported the idea and functioning of this Warsaw-based institute were Markus Braude, Ozjasz Thon, and Mojżesz Schorr, the founders of the Association for the Promotion of Judaic Studies (Towarzystwo Krzewienia Nauk Judaistycznych, est. 1925). This impressive group of professors included, besides those already mentioned, Markus Braude, Mojżesz Schorr, Majer Bałaban, Ignacy Schiper, Jeremiasz Frankel, and many others.4 The Second World War and the Holocaust drastically interrupted the prewar tradition and history of Jewish studies in Poland. Most, if not all, educational institutions were closed, and their activities were forbidden and condemned. Nevertheless, despite such difficulties, some research and education continued or was reestablished even in the harshest wartime conditions. Historical research (e.g., in the Warsaw Ghetto), illegal classes for children and adults, as well as academic discussions were organized in some of the ghettos. It needs to be emphasized that most of the studies on widely understood “Jewish topics” in Poland before and during the war were led and attended mainly by Jewish scholars and students, with some exceptions in several fields for non-Jewish academics (e.g., studies on Jewish history, religious relations between Judaism and Christianity, Zionism). After the Holocaust, the situation in the Polish-Jewish academic world changed completely due to the death of the majority of the Jewish population, including the intellectual elite. The opportunities for autonomous Jewish academic research and education (on any level) were very limited, especially after 1949. For a long time, the communist regime did not allow the revival of studies on Jewish history or anything related to religious tradition. In the first years after the Second World War, some secular—primary and secondary—schools were established and run by Jewish committees (parts of 4

Natalia Aleksiun has presented extensively on the Jewish historians and other scholars affiliated with the Institute of Judaic Studies. Her presentations, lectures, and papers included the following topics: “Setting the Record Straight: Polish Jewish Historians and Local History in Interwar Poland” at the International Conference Between Coexistence and Divorce ( Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 2009) and “Majer Bałaban and the Founding of Modern Jewish Historiography of East-Central Europe” (Lviv: Center for Urban History of East Central Europe, 2011). Her book on Jewish historians in the interwar period is forthcoming. See also Artur Eisenbach, “Jewish Historiography in Interwar Poland,” in The Jews of Poland between the Two World Wars, ed. Yisrael Gutman, E. Mendelsohn, J. Reinhatz, and C. Shmeruk (Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 1989), 453–93.

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Centralny Komitet Żydów w Polsce [Central Jewish Committee in Poland]) and Zionist organizations. In the meantime, Jewish education was also provided in some religious schools. These began to emerge in mid-1945 and were usually maintained by individual, local religious congregations and organizations. The larger and stronger communities created Talmud Torah schools. As a result of the influx of Jewish repatriates from the Soviet Union (among them a large number of young Jews), several religious high schools (yeshivas) were created. The first of these arose in Kraków, Wrocław, Łódź, and Szczecin. The one in Łódź—Netzach Israel Rabbinical College (Wyższa Szkoła Rabiniczna Netzach Israel)—was opened thanks to the efforts of Rabbi Zew Wawa Morejno (1916– 2011), who became its first rector. In 1950, due to the emigration of most of the students and teachers, the Netzach Israel Rabbinical College was moved to Jerusalem. As a result of emigration in the late 1940s, further development of religious education was halted. Many schools whose students emigrated were liquidated, and the number of children in the remaining Talmud Torah schools decreased significantly. All the yeshivas in Poland were closed down in 1949.5 This year marked the end of immediate postwar Jewish education in Poland. However, some research by Jewish scholars still continued. And Jewish secular education remained available in several locations, mostly in Łódź and Lower Silesia, until 1968. While the collections of YIVO were moved from Vilna to New York, most of the collections of Jewish documents, archival sources from the local PolishJewish communities, remained in or were moved to Warsaw and deposited in the Jewish Historical Institute (Żydowski Instytut Historyczny, ŻIH).6 Late in 1944, some of the surviving members of the prewar Historical Commission set up the Central Jewish Historical Commission (Centralna Żydowska Komisja Historyczna), the direct predecessor of the Jewish Historical Institute ( JHI, known better by the Polish acronym ŻIH: Żydowski Instytut 5 For more on Jewish post-Holocaust education in Poland, see Jerzy Tomaszewski, ed., Najnowsze dzieje Żydów w Polsce w zarysie (Warsaw: 1950), 463–6; Feliks Tych and Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska, eds., Następstwazagłady Żydów: Polska 1944–2010 (Lublin: Wydawnictwo UMCS/ŻIH, 2011). 6 The history of this institute started in 1929, when YIVO established the Jewish Historical Commission in Warsaw. Among the people who were very active in its creation was Emanuel Ringelblum, whose famous archival collection of the Warsaw Ghetto became an integral part of the documentation collected in the building on Tłomackie Street.

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Historyczny). JHI has functioned continuously since then, becoming a home for many individually and institutionally rescued documents, books, and testimonies, as well as all the documentation of the Central Jewish Historical Commission in Poland. The Institute, besides its archive, library, and museum, was the only Jewish academic institution in Poland that functioned and conducted research on Jewish history throughout the communist period. This mission is still carried out today. However, the forms of activities and possibilities for development have continued to change, especially after the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. Since 1949, the Institute has published the Bulletin of the Jewish Historical Institute (Biuletyn Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego)—an academic historical quarterly with scholarly texts on the Jews of Poland, which was renamed in 2001 to the Jewish History Quarterly (Kwartalnik Historii Żydów). Scholars who have worked at the Jewish Historical Institute include Artur Eisenbach, Maurycy Horn, and Feliks Tych. The team of the Institute’s scholars is now led by Paweł Śpiewak.7 The political changes, first in 1956 and then in 1967–68, resulted in the dramatically decreased number of Jews in Poland, but also in an almost total lack of access to the literature and the possibility of research on any topic considered “Jewish” or “Jewish-related.” Public libraries were urged to expel Jewish literature from their shelves, and were provided with special lists of titles by communist officers. Consequently, anyone who was eager to learn about Jewish history, culture, or religion had to search for literature either in private libraries or in academic institutions that held prewar collections. During those decades, one could hardly imagine having Jewish studies in the curriculum of Polish universities. The late 1970s brought some positive changes, when independent and unofficial discussion groups and intellectual centers emerged in some parts of Poland. “Alternatively repressed and tolerated by the authorities, these groups became hotbeds of the Soviet bloc’s most successful democratic opposition. One such group, later to be called the Jewish Flying University [Żydowski Uniwersytet Latający, ŻUL], became a symbol of the new developments in

7 More on the history and the mission of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw can be found at Institute’s website. Żydowski Instytut Historyczny, http://www.jhi.pl/en/institute (accessed March 13, 2015).

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Polish-Jewish relations.”8 Konstanty Gebert, one of ŻUL’s founding members, describes the situation as follows:

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Some of us had been expelled from universities or high schools, and all had friends who had abruptly emigrated. Since then, we had been laboring at reconstructing our identities and had not had much success. Some people had, on their own, tried to re-appropriate the Jewish identity we had been denied. A young couple had spent years touring Poland to gather photographic documentation of what was left of Jewish cemeteries and synagogues. Others had been studying the few but precious Jewish texts that were available in Polish, most of them published in Catholic magazines responding to the Church’s new openness to things Jewish. But the majority of us had simply kept quiet and gone on living, though newly insecure and unhappy in our lives.9

Some scholars in this group, as well as in several Polish academic centers, looked forward to the availability in the Soviet bloc states of any scholarship or publications from abroad. The outside world did not remain neutral to such desire. Books, brochures, and papers were delivered legally and illegally to Poland. In the early 1980s, some foreign scholars representing mainly American, Israeli, and British academic centers started to organize and support various initiatives, such as conferences, debates, and publications, devoted to studies on the history of Polish Jews and their prewar and wartime situations. The echoes of these events could be heard in Poland and encouraged some Polish scholars. According to Antony Polonsky, “The real breakthrough came in 1984. The first major event of this year was the tour of Poland organized in the spring by Chone Schmeruk, professor of Yiddish at Hebrew University. The impact on those who participated was enormous.”10 This tour influenced scholars from Israel, but it also inspired academics in Poland. Józef Andrzej Gierowski’s words, as recalled by Polonsky, are perhaps the most illuminating comment on what happened next: [Professor Schmeruk] visited the Jagiellonian University and . . . he opened our eyes . . . [He] understood that cooperation between scholars from Israel   8 Konstanty Gebert, Living in the Land of Ashes (Kraków-Budapeszt: Austeria Publishing House, 2008), 4–5.   9 Ibid., 5–6. 10 Antony Polonsky, Polish-Jewish Relations Since 1984: Reflections of a Participant (Kraków-Budapeszt: Wydawnictwo Austeria, 2009), 19.

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and Poland was a necessary basis for the further development of this field of research, and an important goal of his visit to Poland was to pave the way for such cooperation.11

The visit mentioned above was certainly one of the most important steps in establishing international cooperation and providing an opportunity for some of the scholars to participate in the conferences organized soon after. Oxford (1984) and Brandeis University (1986) hosted conferences on PolishJewish relations. Then, another one was set up in Kraków (1986); “Jewish Autonomy in Pre-Partition Poland” was the topic discussed by the scholars there. Once the discussion in Kraków had begun, some institutional results also followed. For instance, the Research Center for Jewish History and Culture in Poland (Międzywydziałowy Zakład Historiii Kultury Żydów w Polsce) was established in Jagiellonian University in Kraków in 1986, and was led by Józef Andrzej Gierowski. It was the first unit of its kind in Polish universities, and as a pioneer institution, it encouraged scholars from other cities to intensify their involvement in research on Jewish topics and to develop Jewish studies. More than a decade later, in 2000, the Research Center for Jewish History and Culture in Poland was transformed into Poland’s first department of Jewish Studies (Katedra Judaistyki Uniwersytetu Jagiellońskiego), an autonomous part of the Faculty of History. Edward Dąbrowa was the head of this department throughout its existence. The department offered programs at all academic levels—BA, MA, and PhD degrees—and a very rich curriculum embracing ancient history and literature, all aspects of Judaism, Jewish culture and art, Jewish languages, as well as contemporary issues and Holocaust studies. In 2012, the department’s development was recognized, and it was re-named the Institute of Jewish Studies, offering a unique curriculum in Jewish studies approved by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education.12 It is also worth mentioning another initiative by the Department’s/Institute’s faculty members: in 2009, the Center for the Study on the History and Culture of Kraków Jews was established within the Faculty of History (and led 11 Ibid., 20. 12 The beginning of Jewish Studies programs in Jagiellonian University has been acknowledged in the article by Marcin Wodziński, which also offers an overview of the situation in Poland concerning the development of Jewish Studies. Marcin Wodziński, “Jewish Studies in Poland,” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 10 (2011): 101–18.

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by the author of this text). The focus of this research and educational institution is to promote the rich history and culture of the local Jewish community. In the early 1990s, some of Jagiellonian University’s other faculties also began to offer lectures and conduct research in the field of broadly conceived Jewish studies or on related topics. There were some individual scholars in the Institute of Sociology, the Institute of Religious Studies, and the Institute of Polish Philology whose work contributed to the development of Jewish studies. Currently, the Institute of European Studies, the Center for Holocaust Studies, and the Department of Near and Far East (studies) also contribute to the development of research and education on Jewish topics. According to the Academic Jewish Studies Internet Directory,13 there are presently four main universities in Poland that offer classes in Jewish studies in their regular academic programs:

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• Jagiellonian University in Kraków—Institute of Jewish Studies (added to the Directory March 24, 2001; still listed as the Department) •  Maria Curie-Skłodowska University Lublin—Center for Jewish Studies (added September 1, 2004) •  Warsaw University—Department of Hebrew Studies (added September 11, 2004) • Wrocław University—Center for the Culture and Languages of the Jews (added May 11, 2006). Certainly, these are only the selected universities and units that managed to develop special programs in Jewish studies—either offering full-time studies and BA, MA, and PhD degrees (e.g., Jagiellonian University in Kraków’s Institute of Jewish Studies); or offering only some courses and seminars (e.g., Maria Curie-Skłodowska University Lublin’s Center for Jewish Studies and Wrocław University’s Center for the Culture and Languages of the Jews); or specializing in particular fields within Jewish studies (Warsaw University’s Department of Hebrew Studies). Notably, the list provided by the Academic Jewish Studies Internet Directory does not include information on recently established programs (the last Polish institution was added to the directory in 2006). 13 Academic Jewish Studies Internet Directory, www.jewish-studies.com (accessed November 1, 2012).

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Additionally, the information about Warsaw University provided in the directory does not include the Mordechai Anielewicz Center for the Study and Teaching of the History and Culture of Jews in Poland (Centrum Badaniai Nauczania Dziejówi Kultury Żydów w Polsceim. Mordechaja Anielewicza).14 The first institution—Jagiellonian University’s Institute of Jewish Studies— and its history has already been mentioned briefly. The Institute is currently divided into three parts: the Chair of Jewish Culture, the Chair of the History of the Jews, and the Chair of the History of Judaism and Jewish Literatures. It is located in the center of Kazimierz district, the old Jewish quarter of Kraków. This location—the university building is known as Collegium Kazimierzowskie (19 Józefa Street)—has been used since March of 2010, when the Department of Jewish Studies moved from 12 Batorego Street. The Institute of Jewish Studies is the only such institute in Poland, pioneering a new academic discipline named, in Polish, judaistyka ( Jewish studies, Judaic studies), and offering the whole range of programs for local and foreign students. Beginning during the 2000–01 academic year, the Institute offered a regular five-year master’s program, which was later changed to BA (3 years) and MA (2 years) curriculums in Jewish studies. The program of Jewish Studies at Jagiellonian University covers the history of Jews from biblical times until the present, with a special interest in the history of the Jews in the Diaspora; the history of Judaism, Jewish thought, Jewish culture, and literature; and obligatory courses in Yiddish and Modern Hebrew. Currently, there are over 150 undergraduate and graduate students at the Institute of Jewish Studies. The Institute’s faculty supervises almost twenty PhD students. The Center for the Culture and Languages of the Jews, University of Wrocław, had its beginning in 1993, when Jerzy Woronczak launched the Research Center for the Culture and Languages of the Polish Jews, the first institution in Wrocław devoted to Jewish studies since the dissolution of the Breslauer Theologisches Seminar (in 1938). The Research Center was transformed in 2003 into the Center for the Culture and Languages of the Jews, offering classes in Jewish history and literature open to all students at the University of Wrocław. The general aim of this institution was the revival of 14 More information on The Mordechai Anielewicz Center for the Study and Teaching of the History and Culture of Jews in Poland can be found on their website, http://www.ca.uw.edu. pl/component/content/article/37.

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Jewish studies in Wrocław/Breslau, and the continuation of the glorious tradition of the Breslauer Theologisches Seminar. The Center runs a series of publications (Bibliotheca Judaica), and organizes conferences, seminars, public lectures, and other activities. The institution’s activities are led and promoted by a team led by Marcin Wodziński. The Center for Jewish Studies (Zakład Kultury i Historii Żydow)15 at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin was previously managed by Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska and is now led by Andrzej Trzciński. It was established in 2000 as an autonomous unit in the Faculty of Humanities; since 2004, it has been part of the Institute of Cultural Studies (Instytut Kulturoznawstwa). The Center’s main activities include seminars and lectures offered to students of various disciplines. The topics taught range from Hebrew and Yiddish classes, to seminars on Jewish literature and Jewish culture, to the local history of Jewish communities. The Center publishes academic works, among them fabulous publications on księgipamięci—the memorial books of prewar Jewish communities in Poland.16 The Department of Hebrew Studies (Zakład Hebraistyki) at Warsaw University has existed in its present form since 1990 as one of the units in the Institute of Oriental Studies. Previously (from 1977 to 1990), Hebrew studies was part of the Division of Ancient Near East and Hebrew Studies, with Witold Tyloch as division head. In 1990, the division was split into three autonomous departments, one of which was the Department of Hebrew Studies. Currently, the department is directed by associate professor Shoshana Ronen. The Department offers three- and five-year programs, whose graduates receive their degree (BA or MA) in Hebrew studies. Throughout the studies, an intensive course of Modern Hebrew is compulsory for all students. During the first two years, some general courses are offered: propaedeutic courses (History of Hebrew studies, Judaism), History of Ancient Israel, History of the Jews in the Diaspora, and History of Modern Israel (taught in cooperation with the 15 Basic information on the Center’s structure, research and education can be found here: http://kulturoznawstwo.umcs.lublin.pl/struktura-instytutu/struktura/zakladkultury-i-historii-zydow. 16 Adam Kopciowski, Księgi pamięci gmin żydowskich Bibliografia/Jewish Memorial Books: A Bibliography (Lublin: Wydawnictwo UMCS, 2008); Tam był kiedyś mój dom . . . Księgi pamięci gmin żydowskich, selected and edited by Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska, Adam Kopciowski, and Andrzej Trzciński (Lublin: Wydawnictwo UMCS, 2009).

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Department of History). Starting from the third year of studies, students choose specialized courses in history, sociology, literature, and linguistics. Another online register of Jewish studies—the Directory of Jewish Studies in Europe presented by the European Association for Jewish Studies—offers a much longer list of universities, institutes, departments, and centers active in the field of Jewish studies.17 There are twenty-six institutions in Poland registered and/or represented in the European Association for Jewish Studies:  1. Instytut Historii (Institute of History), University of Białystok, Białystok   2. Instytut Filologii Polskiej (Institute of Polish Philology), University of Gdansk   3. Instytut Historii Starożytnej (Department of Ancient History), Pedagogical University, Kraków   4. Instytut Socjologii (Institute of Sociology), Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Kraków   5. Instytut Filologii Germańskiej (Department of German Philology), Jagiellonian University in Kraków   6. Katedra Antropologii Literatury i Badań Kulturowych (Department of Literature, Anthropology and Cultural Studies), Jagiellonian University in Kraków   7. Katedra Bliskiego i Dalekiego Wschodu (Institute of Near and Middle East), Jagiellonian University in Kraków  8. Katedra Judaistyki (Department of Jewish Studies), Jagiellonian University in Kraków   9. Instytut Religioznawstwa (Institute of Religious Studies), Jagiellonian University in Kraków 10. Instytut Teorii Literatury, Teatru i Sztuk Audiowizualnych (Institute of the Theory of Literature. Theater and Audiovisual Arts, now: Instytut Kultury Współczesnej [Institute of Contemporary Culture]), University of Łódź, Łódź 11. Instytut Filologii Polskiej (Institute of Polish Philology), Katolicki Uniwersytet Lubelski Jana Pawla II, Lublin 17 Directory of Jewish Studies in Europe, http://www.eurojewishstudies.org/ (accessed May 27, 2010).

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12. Zakład Kultury i Historii Żydow (Center for Jewish Studies), Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, Lublin 13. Zakład Badań Etnicznych (Division of Ethnic Research), Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, Lublin 14. Instytut Historii (Institute of History), Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań 15. Center for Social Studies, Graduate School for Social Research, Warsaw 16. Żydowski Instytut Historyczny ( Jewish Historical Institute), Warsaw 17. Niemiecki Instytut Historyczny w Warszawie (German Historical Institute), Warsaw 18. Dziekanat Wydziału Nauk Humanistycznych (Faculty of Humanities), Cardinal Wyszynski University, Warsaw 19. Centrum Badań nad Zagładą Żydów (Polish Center for Holocaust Research), Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw 20. Centrum Badania i Nauczanie Dziejów i Kultury Żydów w Polsce im. Anielewicza (Mordechai Anielewicz Center for the Study and Teaching of Polish Jewry), University of Warsaw 21. Zakład Hebraistyki (Department of Hebrew Studies), University of Warsaw 22. Zakład Dialogu Katolicko–Judaistycznego (Chair of Catholic–Judaic Dialogue), Cardinal Wyszynski University, Warsaw 23. Instytut Germanistyki (Institute of German Studies), Warsaw University, Warsaw 24. Instytut Stosowanych Nauk Społecznych (The Department of Applied Social Sciences and Resocialization), Warsaw University, Warsaw 25. Studium Kulturyi Języków Żydowskich (Center for the Culture and Languages of the Jews), Wrocław University 26. Katedra Literatury Polskiej Oświecenia, Pozytywizmu i Młodej Polski, (Department of Polish Literature of the Enlightenment, Positivism and Młoda Polska Periods), University of Łódź, Łódź. Again, the above list does not include all institutions active in the field of Jewish studies. Also, the involvement of those listed is sometimes not comparable in

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light of the number of scholars involved, kinds of programs offered, and themes selected for study. In some cases, there are only one or two scholars whose individual research is devoted to the “Jewish topic,” and, in fact, this is not enough to regard the institutional involvement in Jewish studies as significant and intentional. There are several associations and groups that bring together scholars working in the field of Jewish studies. The most important one—the Polish Association of Jewish Studies (Polskie Towarzystwo Studiów Żydowskich), established in 1996—had about eighty members in 2012.18 The main goals of the Association, based in Kraków, have included consolidation and integration of scholars and institutions involved in Jewish studies, promotion and popularization of scholarly research on Jewish history and culture (with particular attention given to the history of the Jews in Poland), and the development of cooperation with Polish and foreign institutions and associations. It organizes lectures, seminars, and conferences, bringing together Polish and foreign scholars. In past years, the Association was led by Krzysztof Pilarczyk. Now Michał Galas is the President of the Polish Association of Jewish Studies and its office has been moved to the site of the Institute of Jewish Studies, Jagiellonian University in Kraków. In 2009, the Polish Association of Yiddish Studies (Polskie Towarzystwo Jidyszystyczne) was founded. This founding marked the unique specialization of a growing number of Polish scholars in Yiddish literature, language, and culture. The increasing presence of Yiddish Studies in Poland is also visible in non-academic initiatives promoting Yiddish culture in mostly non-Jewish society. The Polish Association of Jewish Studies publishes Studia Judaica (since 1998) and other academic works; however, Studia Judaica is not the only academic periodical published in Poland that focuses on Jewish studies. The Jewish Historical Institute was one of the first institutions to publish regularly on Jewish history in postwar Poland. The Bulletin of the Jewish Historical Institute (Biuletyn Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego), mentioned above, was published first in 1949 as the Institute’s newsletter, from 1950 to 1953 as a semi-annual, and later as a quarterly. Since 2000, the journal has been published under the title Jewish History Quarterly (Kwartalnik Historii Żydów).19 18 Polish Association of Jewish Studies (Polskie Towarzystwo Studiów Żydowskich), http:// www.jewishstudies.pl/ (accessed November 1, 2012). 19 More about the Jewish History Quarterly, as well as the lists of contents for select issues, can be found here: http://www.jewishinstitute.org.pl/en/kwartalnik/kwart/1.html.

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Another Warsaw based institution—the Polish Center for Holocaust Research, a section of the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences (Centrum Badańnad Zagładą Żydów IFiS PAN)—has published Holocaust Studies and Materials (Zagłada Żydów. Studiai Materiały) annually since 2005.20 The Institute of Jewish Studies at Jagiellonian University is known for its Scripta Judaica Cracoviensia, also published every year since 2005. The articles in this journal are published in English, German, or French, so it reaches both foreign and Polish-speaking scholars and readers. Also, the Students Association of the Institute of Jewish Studies publishes its own periodical—Słowik (Hebrew title: Ha Zamir). Besides the scholarly periodicals already mentioned, one can find many academic or popular texts by academics published in Jewish periodicals such as Słowo Żydowskie, Midrasz, and the recent Cwiszn, as well as in several Polish weeklies and dailies. Marcin Wodziński, in his text about Jewish studies in Poland, offers some statistics concerning the number of scholarly publications: In recent years, around 100 books concerning Jewish subjects have appeared every year in Poland, sometimes of great scholarly significance (although not all of them are scholarly works). For example, the national bibliography has a record of 86 books concerning Jewish subject matter issued in Poland in 2006, 77 in 2007, as many as 107 in 2008, and 95 books in 2009. At the same time, the bibliography of all publications—books and articles— dealing with Jewish subjects and published in Poland in the period from mid-2008 to mid-2009, encompasses 1,667 items. This seems to be a very significant achievement, even if not all of these publications conform to the highest scholarly standards.21

Having surveyed the most important centers of Jewish studies and their main fields of interest, a basic question arises: why have Jewish studies become so popular in Poland? There are many answers to this question, and many elements that should be considered. How one answers depends on the 20 For more on Holocaust Studies and Materials, see: http://www.zagladazydow.org/index. php?show=1. 21 Marcin Wodziński, “Jewish Studies in Poland,” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 10 (2011): 101–8.

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circumstances, the group of people involved, and the position represented. Scholars may have somewhat different motivations than students, and authors’ motivations may differ from those of readers and publishers. Until now, there has not been any proper research conducted or published concerning the popularity of Jewish studies in Poland (or, if there has, it is not known to me or my colleagues with whom I have discussed these issues). Hence, in order to define the motivations, I will draw from some of my own observations and discussions. Why Jewish Studies in Poland? The answers given today by Polish scholars and researchers include mainly the following points: • For a long time and under the communist regime, Jewish issues were either tabooed or neglected topics (e.g., history, religion, literature); • there were significant gaps in the existing research and publications; in educational materials and textbooks, there was a lack of basic knowledge of Jewish history and heritage in Poland, as well as of the Holocaust; • for a long time, the history of the Jews remained an unknown part of local/regional history in/of Poland; • the collapse of communism allowed new possibilities for researchers, including opportunities for international cooperation and scholarship; • access to new sources in Poland and to foreign libraries and archives, as well as to foreign Jewish and non-Jewish scholars and witnesses; • the need for the documentation and preservation of the remaining materials of Jewish heritage in Poland; • increasing tourism and the need for information, guides, and tours around the sites connected to Jewish history and culture; •  other, sometimes personal and/or individual, motivation The same question—Why Jewish Studies in Poland?—when asked to students, is answered similarly, as evidenced by the expressed wish to study neglected/taboo topics. Additionally, other points are emphasized: •  studies on new/extraordinary topic(s); •  studies on an important part of Poland’s history and culture;

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•  the attractiveness of Hebrew and/or Yiddish language; • the possibility of reading Jewish literature in native/Jewish languages (connected to the reason above); • genuine interest in Jewish history and culture, and particularly in Polish-Jewish history; •  interest in Judaism, and its relations to Christianity; •  interest in contemporary Israel and Israeli society; • a feeling of obligation to pay tribute to the generations of Jews who used to live in Poland and to those who perished in the Holocaust; • discovering Jewish family roots or being in a relationship/friendship with someone Jewish; •  developing Jewish tourism; •  Israeli business in Poland/Europe; •  all kinds of motives related to Holocaust memory and commemoration; •  willingness to fight anti-Semitism; •  fashion/trend, especially among young people; •  other personal/individual reasons Who are the people interested in Jewish studies? Certainly, there is not one type or group. Both the scholars and the students represent all regions of Poland and almost all possible social and religious backgrounds. Only a minor percentage of them are Jewish, which means that most people involved in Jewish studies in Poland today are Christian Poles, both Catholics and Protestants. Among the factors that raise, strengthen, or refresh interest in Jewish studies, one needs to mention important publications (either popular or scholarly; e.g., novels and stories by I. B. Singer; historical essays by J. T. Gross), movies (e.g., Schindler’s List), media projects, and the opening of new museums and exhibitions (such as the soon-to-be-opened Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw). As for the institutions offering either research or the possibility of studying Jewish issues, one might be surprised that almost all of them are state universities (e.g., Jagiellonian University in Kraków, University of Wrocław, University of Warsaw) and state-supported institutions (e.g., Jewish Historical Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences). However, it needs to be

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added that most of the projects in the field of Jewish studies are also generously supported by international Jewish foundations (e.g., Rothschild Foundation Europe, Taube Foundation, The Ronald S. Lauder Foundation), organizations and groups (e.g., Association of Cracovians in Israel), and individual sponsors. The growing interest in Jewish studies, its development in Poland, and the renewed attention paid to the history and culture of Polish Jews—these demonstrate great respect and sentiment for Jews and Jewish history. Such developments might also be understood as indications that the authentic Jewish part of Poland is sincerely missed, and that there is an attempt to recreate it through studies and research, while Jewish life in Poland slowly yet promisingly revives. Jewish studies in Poland, along with the revival of Jewish culture, have become phenomena of the contemporary Polish attitude to Jewish heritage, and their scale and intensity remains unique in the European context. Such increasing interest in Jewish studies in Poland is worthy of attention, especially knowing that the knowledge promoted within the frame of academic institutions helps to understand the past and present, and to fight stereotypes and anti-Semitism. Experts in Jewish studies significantly support the process of preservation and the promotion of Jewish heritage, not only as part of Poland’s, but more generally, of European heritage.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Adamczyk-Garbowska, Monika, Adam Kopciowski, and Andrzej Trzciński, eds. Tam był Kiedyś Mój Dom . . . Księgi Pamięci Gmin Żydowskich. Wydawnictwo Lublin: UMCS, 2009. Aleksiun, Natalia. “Setting the Record Straight: Polish Jewish Historians and Local History in Interwar Poland.” Paper presented at the International Conference Between the Coexistence and Divorce. Hebrew University: Jerusalem, 2009. Craddy, Kate, Mike Levy, and Jakub Nowakowski, eds. Poland: A Jewish Matter. Warsaw: Adam Mickiewicz Institute, 2010. Dold, Maria. “A Matter of National and Civic Honour: Majer Bałaban and the Institute of Jewish Studies in Warsaw.” East European Jewish Affairs 34, no. 2 (2004): 55–72.

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Eisenbach, Artur. “Jewish Historiography in Interwar Poland.” In The Jews of Poland between the Two World Wars, edited by Yisrael Gutman, E. Mendelsohn, J. Renharz, and C. Shmeruk, 453–93. Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press, 1989. Gebert, Konstanty. Living in the Land of Ashes. Kraków-Budapeszt: Austeria Publishing House, 2008. Kopciowski, Adam. Księgi Pamięci Gmin Żydowskich BIBLIOGRAFIA/Jewish memorial books: A Bibliography. Lublin: Wydawnictwo UMCS, 2008. Polonsky, Antony. Polish-Jewish Relations Since 1984: Reflections of a Participant. Kraków-Budapeszt: Wydawnictwo Austeria, 2009. Tomaszewski, Jerzy, ed. Najnowsze dzieje Żydów w Polsce w zarysie (do 1950 roku). Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN, 1993. Tych, Feliks and Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska, eds. Następstwa zagłady Żydów: Polska 1944–2010. Lublin: Wydawnictwo UMCS and ŻIH, 2011. Wodziński, Marcin. “Jewish Studies in Poland.” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 10 (2011): 101–18.

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Remnants of the Holocaust: A Process of Consciousness Far from Conclusion Zvi Gil Examination of the meaning of the Holocaust and its lessons—national, Jewish, and universal lessons on the one hand, and the frame of reference of remnants and survivors in the past and present on the other—shows that the distinction between the two is not only a researched, implicative matter, but rather is to a great extent an applicative matter, focusing not only on the disaster that occurred but also on the current revival and the absence of its record as a major chapter in the history of the State of Israel. We shall begin by examining the meaning of the term “Holocaust survivors” or “Holocaust remnants,” as the distinction between Holocaust survivors and remnants has in time been distorted, and this distortion is not merely semantic.

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•

Some claim that those who came to Israel shortly before the Holocaust—for example, many German Jews—are “Holocaust survivors,” as they were indeed spared the Holocaust. • Another category of survivors are those who fled to the Soviet Union at the beginning of the war, after the Soviet annexations following the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact (1940) and who found themselves after the Soviet assault (Operation Barbarossa) in the territory of the Soviet Union, Siberia, or the states of the Caucasus. They mostly arrived on their own. Most of their families died in the Holocaust, yet they were spared. Thus, it would be accurate to define them as survivors. Notably, by the end of 2012, they formed the majority of Holocaust survivors in Israel.

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• This is also true, to a certain degree, of the partisans. Few of them joined the ranks at the beginning of the war. Most came from the ghettos and had experienced the horrors of the ghettos and the various roundups. Thus, they are Holocaust remnants, and those who lived in the ghettos and were in the concentration and death camps from 1939 until the liberation in 1945 are certainly Holocaust remnants. In my estimation, less than one hundred thousand of these were still living in Israel at the end of 2012. Secondly, we shall examine to what degree the Jewish settlement in Palestine (the Yishuv) was aware of the terrible disaster inflicted on European Jewry from the occupation until late 1942.

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The Yishuv’s Knowledge of the Holocaust Acquired through the Press and Radio From the beginning of the war until the summer of 1942, news of events in occupied Europe appeared on inner pages or in short news items on the first page, but as part of the wider context of the war. For example, an item in Ha’aretz (May 1, 1942) on “The suffering of the Jews in Yugoslavia” appeared in a column that dealt with events in the Balkans. In the newspaper Davar (March 18, 1942), one item reported that “In Kiev one thousand Jews were murdered and not 52,000 as previously published.” In a subheading on the first page (March 18, 1942), Davar also told the world that “redemption from subjugation and blood would create a fraternity of free nations and Israel redeemed in its land will be a brother to the nations of the world.” Davar announced the wearing of a yellow Star of David in Bulgaria ( June 2, 1942) without stating that European Jews had been wearing the Star of David since late 1939. On February 15, 1942, the newspaper brought an item from London reporting that “Only 500 Jewish weddings were recorded in Poland, including 150 in the Warsaw Ghetto and none in the Kielce Ghetto.” When you lift your head from scanning microfilms at the National Library in Jerusalem, you straighten your back and also try to straighten out these unfeeling reports, composed at a time when nearly one million Jews had been murdered—at this stage not in gas chambers but in roundups for forced labor camps, concentration camps, mass shootings and hangings, and more.

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Experiments with Zyklon B for purposes of extermination had already begun, with the victims burned in common pits. All this even before the Wannsee Conference in January 1942 (named for the Wannsee Villa on the outskirts of Berlin). By the summer of 1941, SS head Reinhard Heydrich had already submitted a document concerning ways of exterminating the Jews of Europe. In 1941, Eichmann had already begun to plan the details of transporting hundreds of thousands to the death camps. Thus, awareness of the full extent of the Holocaust among the Yishuv in Palestine was only in the background, just as in the press, and such items were usually printed in the inner pages. The horrifying news of the destruction of European Jewry only began to emerge in September 1942, as though by order from above, and it was met with demonstrations by tens of thousands, although reliable news of what was happening and of the extent of the killing had been available from early 1941. The leadership of the Yishuv, the media, and the public derived their knowledge mainly from British news channels or from the news agency of the Zionist Movement via “Palcor,” a bulletin that received its information from the colonial authorities or from the British press. Thus, Yishuv awareness of the dimensions of the Holocaust and how mass murder was being perpetrated only appeared in fall 1942, when all the ghettos in the periphery had been liquidated and the remnants were being led in suffocating trains to large ghettos such as the Lodz Ghetto, the Warsaw Ghetto, the Vilna Ghetto, and others. From there, between 1942 and 1944, they were transported in various roundups to Auschwitz and other concentration camps and then gathered for final extermination in 1944, when parts of Europe had already been liberated and the Nazis had retreated from the east, and when Nazi Germany was on the verge of collapse. Items in the press during those years seem to support the claim of Yehuda Bauer in November 2012 that, until mid-1942, no one in the West knew about the extermination. However, in my estimate, this contention is mistaken, and historians have already objected to it. It is more reasonable to suppose that the public in the West had been unaware until then of the extent of the extermination, since it is likely that the intelligence networks of the Allies in Germany itself and in the occupied territories conveyed the information to their governments. Moreover, in Eastern Europe, there were underground movements, and their members knew about the roundups and passed on this information. Therefore, if “there was nothing new in the West,” this was true of those who

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received their information from the media, which in Europe, and particularly in England, was completely controlled by the establishment. Today, when local media ignores a topic, there is a worldwide Internet network. Another element has to do with the subconscious attitude of the Yishuv towards the Holocaust or its suppression. The concern for the wellbeing of Jewish congregations in Europe and for the families was mixed with resentment (why didn’t they come?, and later on, why didn’t they rebel?), resembling a mother who cries over an injury to her rebellious son. In this midst of this emotional jumble, the question of whether millions of Eastern European Jews could have immigrated to Palestine, and whether the meager, poor Yishuv could have taken in these masses, even if the mandate authorities had allowed unrestricted immigration, was not asked. This matched the stereotype of Jews as “spiritual people” (Luftmenschen) in its negative meaning—that is, people who do not support themselves by productive means. Perhaps this was the reason that they could not immigrate to Palestine. As early as November 1942, when the Yishuv was already aware of the dimensions of the extermination, a meeting of the Zionist General Council’s inner circle was held in Jerusalem, at which Ben Gurion asked for approval of the Biltmore Plan (the Partition Plan). In regard to immigration after the war, Meir Ya’ari, head of Hashomer Hatza’ir (Mapam), suggested that the displaced be returned to their countries of origin, because “massive immigration of broken people will bring disaster upon the Yishuv. Therefore, it is necessary to plan the immigration of Jews over 10–15 years and in the meantime urge repatriation in Poland.” But this is not enough, and those who eventually come must become productive. In a conference of “Kol Ha’adama” (Voice of the Earth) held in memory of Osishkin on October 8, 1943, a suggestion was made “to dedicate two million liras to redeem lands, first and foremost in order to take in Jewish refugees and adapt them to a life of productivity and construction.” I shall add here a small episode of which I learned while writing this article. In my blog, “Zarkor,” I sought to devote a post to the Yiddishpiel theater in Israel—to the phenomenon itself and to the fact that Sasi Keshet, a successful personage in the theater arts, would be assuming the role of director general of the Yiddishpiel theater after the retirement of its founder, Shmuel Atzmon. Sasi cited several reasons, and one of them seemed to me particularly interesting. He wished to “atone” for the alienated, almost disparaging attitude of members of

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his kibbutz, Glil Yam, toward anything related to the exilic heritage, culture, and, mainly, the Yiddish language, which they sought not only to forget but to erase. This story is indicative of the atmosphere in the entire Yishuv. It may have reached radical proportions in the kibbutzim, but it existed in the Yishuv, and the leadership made sure to cultivate this shaking off of all “hints of exile.” I can attest to this as well as anyone. When I came to Israel in 1945 at the age of sixteen, I too did all I could to become integrated in this atmosphere, in this society, and for this purpose I locked the safe of my heritage and threw away the key. Thus, the issue of the Holocaust was for the Yishuv a jumble of confusion, puzzlement, anxiety, resentment, and self-anger, stemming from all the factors I have mentioned.

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Liberation and the Survivors The Holocaust became particularly traumatic once the war ended and the extent of the destruction and atrocities became known, not only by reading and listening but also by watching film segments from the international Fox newsreels and the Carmel (later Geva) newsreels in Israel. At this stage, the Holocaust and its survivors were already linked, as entire families did not know whether or who of their loved ones had survived. For this purpose, the Voice of Jerusalem (predecessor of the Voice of Israel, which broadcast the program after the establishment of the State of Israel) aired the popular program Mi Makir Mi Yode’a (Who Knows?), produced by the Jewish Agency, which provided a platform for information exchanges, both from camps for the displaced in Europe and by families in Israel. But even then, the dominant voice in the Yishuv belonged to those who sought to transform the Holocaust into a catalyst for mass immigration and, first and foremost, for the establishment of the state—as a response to the Holocaust and to ensure that it would never recur. The Yishuv leadership, headed by Ben-Gurion, was much more occupied with this than with caring for the survivors as remnants, as people whose world had collapsed, each with their own personal holocaust. Their families had been killed, their property stolen, their education severed, their belief in humankind undermined, and, in many cases, their faith in God had been uprooted as well. The well-oiled mechanism of the Jewish Agency and the Zionist Federation did everything to bring immigrants as quickly as possible, mainly illegally, before the State of Israel was established, in order to take advantage of the sentiment that only Israel could serve as a haven for the survivors, one emotionally

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compatible with the longings of the remnants. This act was a campaign not only to encourage immigration but also to gain global support of immigration. But it had no real foundation in reality as far as finding target countries for immigration. Admittedly, the world did not roll out a red or green carpet for the remnants, and was not eager to receive half a million refugees, but anyone who wished to immigrate anywhere but Israel could at some stage do so to almost any place in the world, including North America (i.e., the United States and Canada). Jewish concentrations in Italy, Germany, and Austria also enjoyed the support of local governments and mainly of the Joint and US-based Jewish aid agencies. It was only a question of waiting, whether less—for European or South American countries—or more—for North America. However, this wave of immigration is also unique with respect to its absorption. On the one hand, the absorption of previous waves of immigration by the Yishuv was no preparation for this giant mass of immigrants, some half a million people who arrived within a short period. On the other hand, the absorption mechanism that was developed in Israel to accommodate subsequent immigrants had not yet been established. Transit camps were promptly opened. But these temporary settings, intended to provide shelter and some food, were insufficient. For instance, although farmers from agricultural towns or cooperative settlements (moshavim) indeed came and inspected immigrants’ muscles to see if they could cope with basic agricultural work, even this work was temporary, and few found jobs. Those who tried their luck and came to the big city, Tel Aviv, in search of a job had to spend a few nights on the benches of Rothschild Boulevard in expectation of the replies of prospective employers. Those who did not spend a night on the boulevard, returning to the camps instead, came back emptyhanded. At that time, the only places in the Yishuv willing to take in immigrants were agricultural towns: kibbutzim, kvutzot, or moshavim. If no jobs were available, the Settlement Department of the Jewish Agency housed immigrants in moshavim deserted during the war, such as Shar Yishuv (Ale Resh) in northern Israel. Later on, they occupied all the abandoned Arab towns.

Holocaust and Bravery In 1951, the Knesset enacted the “Day of the Holocaust and the Ghetto Revolt.” This was not necessarily a moral decision, but rather fundamentally political, as it referred first and foremost to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising led by

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Zionist left-wing movements in Poland. The coalition led by Ben-Gurion was mainly composed of the left-wing movement. Following protests by organizations of Holocaust survivors who saw this as support for the thesis that all the other millions killed had “gone as sheep to the slaughter,” the law was finally changed in 1959 to refer to the “Memorial Day of Holocaust and Bravery.” Some questioned the statement whereby only members of left-wing organizations took part in the uprising, as these had included members of Beitar as well. However, even this name was not easily accepted. One of the leading objectors was a major historian of the Holocaust era, Yehuda Bauer, who claimed that mentioning the Holocaust is sufficient, as it encompasses the ultimate heroism of survival. However, there was another mode of heroism, documented in Bauer’s book, and this is the “Brichah” (flight). After the Nazi downfall in 1944–45, some quarter of a million Jews fled Eastern Europe for Central European countries, among others, Austria and Italy, with the intention of eventually reaching the coast of Palestine. This occurred in one of the most dangerous, daring, and complex operations. Who planned the “flight”? The State of Israel, upon its establishment, wished to add the “flight” to its ethos of bravery, in addition to the “Ha’apalah” (i.e., illegal immigration in which the immigrants played a major role aside from being merely at the mercy of the waves) that took place in shaky boats and under threat of the British navy. Yochanan Cohen, who was one of the envoys, a leader of the Ha’Oved Ha’Zioni (Zionist Worker) movement, and in time a member of Knesset and a senior official in the Israeli foreign ministry, said in a lecture at Kibbutz Tel Yitzhak in 1964 the following: The escape from Europe would not have taken place, would not have occurred, without the people from the Jewish Brigade, who made an incredible effort, with outstanding dedication, taking advantage of their status, their ability, the army’s logistics, and transferred many people from place to place, from country to country, children and adults, pioneers and nonpioneers; some of them even reached Poland in 1945. The mere appearance of the first uniformed Jewish soldier with a Star of David on his sleeve aroused incredible enthusiasm.

This is how an ethos is formed. Every young state adorns itself with an ethos and myths, and Israel is no exception, even if this involves the

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expropriation of deeds that it itself did not perform, but rather individuals or groups at their own initiative. In practice, the flight began in 1944 when Rowno in Lithuania was liberated, followed by the city of Vilna in July of that year. It was organized by the partisans and the repatriated who had returned from Russia. The most convenient route of escape was through the Port of Constanta in Romania. Until the spring of 1945, escape operations were local, initiated by individuals or units of anti-Nazi fighters and Holocaust remnants who returned from Russia. On April 26, 1945, poet and partisan Abba Kovner established the “Organization of Remnants of Eastern Europe,” and thus institutionalized the flight organization that had been operating sporadically for nearly a year. The routes were changed as well. Instead of Constanta, survivors were transported to Marseilles and to southern Italy. Only in September and October of 1945 (nearly six months after the liberation) did the first envoys arrive from Palestine to help the organization. In a conference of the Yishuv leadership, held in London in August 1945, Antek Zuckerman, one of the commanders of the Warsaw Ghetto, complained that the Yishuv envoys only reached the survivors sixteen months later: “How could we reach you,” wondered and asked Moshe Sharet (Shertok), head of the political department of the Jewish Agency. “Just as we (the ‘flight’ people) reached you,” answered Zuckerman. Yehuda Bauer concludes his book The Flight with these words: “It is a fact that Israeli envoys found a way only much later. The remnants of the Holocaust found their own way.” The “flight” operation was in fact a prelude to the role of Holocaust survivors in the fight for the establishment of Israel. Aside from their blood infusion to the Palmach, survivors joined the various underground movements, with most joining the Haganah and some the Etzel and the Lehi. However, the critical mass of Holocaust remnants entered the battle immediately after the declaration of the state and the founding of the IDF. Ben-Gurion, who predicted that the United Nations resolution concerning the establishment of the State of Israel would only be implemented by the Yishuv and would therefore involve a war, saw the immigrants not only as a major force promoting immigration to Israel but also as a fighting reserve. His correspondence with Abba Hushi, Mayor of Haifa, at whose port the immigrants arrived, shows how he followed the arrival of able-bodied immigrants before the declaration of the state and in its first days. His journal lists numbers

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of arriving immigrants and in which ship, as well as their fighting capabilities (most of them were found capable):

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On Friday 250 immigrants arrived—AD (Aliyah Dalet) and disembarked at the port. The (British) army gave an order to return them to the ship (Colonel Hutton). Abba (Hushi) ceased all work at the port, the laborers surrounded the army and told them to shoot. An order was given to cancel the decree. The next day (the ship) Providence arrived and brought 900 immigrants of the age of recruitment. The army did not intervene.

Ben-Gurion, by the way, saw massive recruitment of the remnants as a test of Israel’s ability to absorb them. Thus, everything was perceived through the prism of what was good for the Yishuv, and not necessarily what was good for the survivors. After the liberation, and particularly after the UN recognized the State of Israel, the Jewish Agency appealed to graduates of Zionist youth movements in Eastern Europe to enlist in the security forces. This was the origin of Gachal, an acronym of Giyus Hutz La’aretz (Enlistment Abroad). Gachal people were embittered at being considered recruits when they had in fact volunteered, just like Machal, Mitnadvei Hutz La’aretz (Volunteers from Abroad), who came from Europe, South Africa, and America. Once the acts of hostility broke out, the capable immigrants—and most were capable, aside from the disabled (there were no elderly or children among those liberated since they had all been killed by late 1942)—were brought directly from the port to the war zone. One consequence of this automatic recruitment of Holocaust survivors was their large number of casualties compared to other recruits, such as veterans and native Israelis. The main reason for this was that they did not speak Hebrew. It was hard to place immigrants in service units. The Czech rifle required no Hebrew. Moreover most, aside from a handful of partisans, had not been trained in the use of weapons, and they first attempted to do so under fire.

Historians’ Attitude toward the Use of Holocaust Survivors as a Combative Force in the War of Independence In regard to the Palmach, there is no disagreement. Major General (reserves) Yesha’ayahu (Shayke Gavish), a commander in the Palmach and chairman of

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the Beit Hapalmach association, gives a precise number of 2,000 members of the Palmach who were Holocaust survivors; that is, half of the Palmach at the beginning of the War of Independence. Notably, the Palmach, as a result of incessant fighting from the end of World War II until the declaration of independence, was fairly drained and desperately needed backups. These appeared in the form of Holocaust remnants, those who came immediately after the war and those who came immediately after the declaration of independence. In regard to fighters in IDF divisions and brigades, historians have different estimates. These stem from the fact that during the fighting and particularly toward the first ceasefire, it was hard to assess even the number of recruits. Some official or semi-official assessments (the official assessment for the end of the War of Independence is 75 percent) speak of 35 to 36 percent of all fighters being Holocaust remnants (which is a not insignificant percentage). Most historians object to this estimate. Historian Hanna Yablonka brings clear data in answer to the question of how many of them took part in the first campaign of the war: “The fighters in this war came from three groups: Israeli born who numbered 22,100, immigrants who came during the war and particularly between 1945–1947, who numbered 23,800, and those who immigrated in 1948 (mostly from Gachal) who numbered 21,750. The significance of these numbers is clear: about two thirds of the fighters were Holocaust remnants, the great majority from Europe.” Yablonka also stresses that the proportion of casualties among Holocaust survivors was higher than among other fighters. Emmanuel Sivan states that of the 104,000 recruits, 45,000 were Holocaust survivors. The number of Israeli-born fighters was 22,000.

Why Didn’t You Fight? If Holocaust survivors were indeed “fighters” when they arrived in Israel, many asked why they didn’t fight the Nazis. This was not a philosophical rumination, but rather a question that was asked of them. One of the testimonies in the Eichmann trial was that of Holocaust survivor Dr. Moshe Bejski, a Supreme Court justice and chairman of the Masuah Institute for Holocaust Studies. The prosecutor in the Eichmann trial, Attorney General Gideon Hausner (Bejski’s colleague in Ha’Oved Ha’Zioni) asked him: “Why didn’t you fight?” In response, Moshe Bejski left the witness stand and

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returned to his seat. He was handed a glass of water and then returned to the witness stand, but did not add a word of reply to the question asked. Hausner immediately felt that he had hit a very sensitive nerve, and told Bejski that all he had wanted was to give a Holocaust survivor the opportunity to give the public a worthy answer to publicly asked questions regarding why concentration camp inmates did not rebel. Without going into the charged psychological and realistic aspects of the question, it belongs to that period, when the entire world, including the Israelis, learned about the extent of the Holocaust from the Eichmann trial, but learned nothing of its survivors. Only toward the late 2000s did the Pedagogical Director of the Yad Vashem School for Holocaust Studies, Shulamit Imber, say that only a short while ago did “we start taking the individual out of the pile”— that is, deal with Holocaust survivors as individuals, with all the personal, social, national, and other implications that accompany this approach. Only then did Yad Vashem, in its various academic and visual settings, begin to deal with this topic. Among other things, a special study day was devoted to those remnants who, on their way to Israel (or in the hope of returning to their homes), came home after the Holocaust to discover firsthand their own personal destruction. One of the unique manifestations of the reality encountered by survivors upon liberation is reflected in the story “The Tenth Man,” by Holocaust survivor and author Ida Fink. The story deals with the loneliness enforced on survivors by the war years, leaving them with no family or friends, and sometimes even as the last remnant of their congregation. When the eastern territories were liberated by the Soviet army in the summer of 1944, Jews began to wander from city to city and from town to town in search of their families, homes, and property, including the remnants of their congregation. Many discovered that their families had been murdered, and that their homes were occupied by strangers, while they themselves remained homeless. Some were disabled, and many were the only ones left of their entire family. But when they came to Israel expecting to be welcomed warmly, lovingly, kindly, and compassionately, they were made to feel unwelcome. I, who experienced this when transferring from the agricultural school in Magdiel—which welcomed us with open arms and gave us a temporary home—to Tel Aviv, felt this coldness, which I define as a combination of

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compassion and estrangement. This appeared in different manifestations, many of which originated in radical stories about Holocaust survivors who had survived because they cooperated with the Nazis. Some of these were voiced by prominent personages in the Yishuv such as David Shaltiel, in time a major general in the IDF and the Commander of Jerusalem, who said that the survivors were “egotists who cared first and foremost for themselves, and many of them even profited from the German occupation,” or Dr. Chaim Yahil, in time CEO of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and chairman of the Broadcast Authority (husband of Leni Yahil, a Holocaust historian), who said that some of the survivors “knew how to arrange easy jobs for themselves and leave the hard work to others and they are those who betrayed their brethren.” Even IDF fighters were not spared, and Gachal fighters were often called “Gachletzim” and even “sabon” (soap). In certain cases, survivors who wished to become integrated in society and be considered native Israelis denied their survivor status. I did so. And the Ministry of the Interior is not willing to erase this mark of Cain despite my appeals and documents presented. Their records show that I arrived in 1940—i.e., I did not go through the Holocaust, and that I was born in Warsaw, because the revolt was there, and not in Zdunska-Wola, my town. This is the extent to which things have gone. Indeed, later on, Hanna Yablonka, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, stated that Holocaust survivors were not “nebechs” (i.e., were not helpless and without resources). This is true. On the contrary, considering the “welcome” they received from Yishuv veterans and native Israelis, they were daring and even presumptuous, not only in their ability to overcome financial, social, cultural, and other difficulties, but also in their ability to adjust to Israel and establish new patterns that would become part of the country’s cultural capital. This interpersonal relationship was also true of areas such as employment. A new immigrant could not compete with a native Israeli, but he could compete with an Arab laborer. A new immigrant, instead of paying rent a month or two in advance, had to pay for six months in advance, because “with immigrants you can’t know if they’ll have a job and then it could be unpleasant to turn them out.” Such is what passed for “altruism.” I do agree with Yablonka’s concept, but in one of our discussions on the subject I told her that the difference between a historian, even one who deals with contemporary history, and those

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who experienced the events, is like the difference between someone observing occurrences from the height of a 777 plane and someone who sees them at eye level. Viewed from the plane, you see magnificent colorful mosaics, which could be either mountains or valleys, castles or shacks, estates or pueblos. A historian learns from sources, and in our case also from testimonies. I saw it all from up close and I can still see it in retrospect. With regard to the essence, Holocaust survivors made their effort by coming to the Promised Land. They did everything to survive the difficulties and then to overcome them and to rise again like a phoenix.

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“The Phoenixes” The phoenix is a bird from Greek mythology that would rise from its ashes, reach the sky, go up in flames, and then rise once again. Its parallel in Jewish sources is perhaps the biblical bush that burned but was not consumed. This name, adopted by a group of Holocaust survivors as part of a project called “the contribution of Holocaust survivors to the founding and establishment of the State of Israel,” seems to me appropriate. But the survivors rose from the ashes to the sky extremely rapidly. Anything else would have been impossible in those initial days of the state, and the survivors applied themselves to the task with all their energy and being. Nonetheless, the way to consciousness is very lengthy, winding, full of difficulties and vicissitudes. Although it has been nearly seventy years since the liberation and sixty-four years since the establishment of the state, the process is still at its beginning. In Israel, in our society, and among the entire Jewish people—memory was always a constitutive factor. In 2001, forty-two years after the establishment of the state, Ada Ushpiz wrote in Ha’aretz (on October 5, 2001) about the survivors who went missing in the war in 1948, saying, only lately have the circumstances involving the death of some of those missing in the bitter battles to open the road to Jerusalem in 1948 been clarified. Their new shiny headstones conceal the old story of lost, disconnected, Yiddish-speaking Holocaust survivors, whose strong wish to become part of the combative ethos of the Yishuv did not suffice.

The names of several hundred Holocaust survivors who died in the war and left no heirs were only perpetuated five decades later. Even this was only thanks to the initiative of individuals such as Yehuda Sternfeld, a Holocaust remnant who

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fought in the Palmach, or Menachem Greenstein, who served in Division 8. This is another traumatic experience of the Holocaust survivors, one that occurred not there, but here. In regard to the “there,” Natan Dorset, chief clinical psychologist of “Amcha,” said that the bereavement and mental distress of Holocaust survivors have no cure. These are manifested throughout their lives in “anxiety, rage, sadness, distrust, depression, and loneliness.” Nonetheless, it was important for these remnants that their deeds in Israel be recognized, if not appreciated. This did not happen. I was present at an event at the Kirya in Tel Aviv, held on behalf of Minister of Defense Ehud Barak, in honor of Israel’s sixtieth anniversary, to which the fighters of 1948 were invited. He hardly mentioned in passing the Holocaust survivors, who were a dominant factor on all fronts. Moreover, despite agreements with the management of the office of the Chief Education Officer in the IDF, the bravery of Holocaust survivors is not taught as a separate chapter. This is all the more true of the educational system. There is almost no mention of the revival. The proposal to hold a “march of revival” as an equivalent of the “march of the living,” which is a bone of contention, was not taken up despite the instructions of Director General Shimshon Shoshani. Our educational system is restricted. There is a Holocaust and there are survivors, but there is no revival and no revivers. This was the largest Zionist immigration ever—in the past and probably also in the future. These people had played a dominant role in the flight, illegal immigration, underground movements, War of Independence, and in all of Israel’s wars. They established sixty agricultural towns, moshavim, and kibbutzim. In 2008, a study was published in the book Viyshavtem Betach (And You Shall Settle Safely), showing that Holocaust survivors kept a major part of the settlement movement from disintegrating. They were responsible for all documentation and commemoration, including the restoration of religious institutions and synagogues destroyed in the Holocaust. They populated all abandoned Arab towns. From a material perspective, they agreed that money transferred by Germany for the absorption of Holocaust survivors would also be used to help immigrants who came from disadvantaged countries, from Morocco and Iraq. The only public entity that made any effort to document and research the actions of Holocaust survivors was Yad Vashem, an institute founded to document and commemorate the Holocaust and bravery in Europe. It was not

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responsible for commemorating the revival here in Israel. Nonetheless, it made an effort to document and commemorate the revival. In 1999, it held an exhibition called “In the bright blue light—Holocaust survivors in Israel, the first decade.” In early 2000, a large, impressive exhibit was shown in Yad Vashem, including a virtual presentation of Holocaust survivors who made a unique contribution to Israel. Yad Vashem cooperated fully in an initiative to hold an international conference on the heritage of Holocaust survivors, focusing on their ethical and moral significance for the world. It took place in 2002, in the midst of the first Intifada. Representatives from twenty-six countries attended. Yad Vashem hosted the establishment of the public council for the enterprise of survivors’ contribution to the founding and establishment of Israel. But all these were initiated by Holocaust remnants and Yad Vashem, and not by any official element, although the revival should have figured as an important value in the national pantheon. But here too, in Israel, representatives of the survivors managed to cope with the inflexible bureaucracy, the lies, the perception of Holocaust survivors filtered through a financial prism. At the same time, Holocaust survivors were earning tens of billions of dollars for Israel, whether directly or indirectly. And once again, thanks to the incredible efforts, determination, and devotion of activists, and despite the difficulties, the remnants have managed to initiate an enterprise whose language is contemporary, appealing to the general public through popular visual media. This has occurred despite incredible financial difficulties and without a law requiring documentation of the revival, which would have provided support for such a national historical enterprise. As part of these efforts, an association called “Ofot Hahol” (Phoenixes) was founded, and its essence and deeds are summarized by the current chairperson, Lily Haber, a member of the Second Generation of survivors and chairperson of the Association of Polish Jews in Israel. The summary was published in November 2012 in honor of the Jewish Film Festival that took place on Chanukah 2012. It said: The actions taken by Holocaust survivors, as a group and as individuals, to bring about the founding, development, and flourishing of the State of Israel, are outstanding. Nonetheless, the younger generation raised in Israel knows very little about the contribution and achievements of the survivors, who managed to find amidst their pain and agony the mental strength necessary to build a new life. More familiar are the stories of the suffering and pain of the survivors, and of their material troubles. We strive to teach the younger

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generation to be aware, understand, and appreciate the lives of Holocaust survivors here in Israel, by presenting the optimistic aspect of their ability, in all parts of our life here in Israel.

The “Ofot Hahol” association was founded for this purpose, with the aim of raising awareness among the general public, in Israel and elsewhere, of the full life story of Holocaust survivors: the families they had, as well as their significant contributions to social, cultural, scientific, artistic, and other creative fields; this includes the projects they initiated (first and foremost, the documentation and commemoration), and all the other actions that led to the outstanding construction of their lives and of the life of Israel and of Israeli society. The association accomplishes all this via a visual language, aimed mainly at attracting the younger generation to this topic. The enterprise of recognizing the survivors’ contribution to Israel was initiated in its first stages by Zvi Gil, Raul Teitelbaum, and Moshe Zanbar, who passed away recently. Since then, others have joined, some from the second or even third generation of survivors, who managed to develop the project despite a lack of support by the establishment. A prominent Israeli producer and director of documentary films, Micha Shagrir, has also joined the project, and is responsible for the productions. Up to now, the association has produced four documentaries: The Phoenixes tells the story of seven Holocaust survivors; Just like the Queen of England is the story of the child David Bergman, who was left alone in the world at age eleven and became the director of the Nahal IDF dance and song company; Rubik’s Cube is the story of Andre Haidu, Israel Prize recipient for music; and The Escape—The Third Generation documents the journey of eight teenagers on the routes of “the Escape,” the daring operation of partisans and Holocaust remnants to bring the remnants to a place of refuge and from thence to Palestine. The association also initiated two projects together with “Dorei Dorot” youth: in the first, teenagers interview Holocaust survivors personally, with a camera and microphone, about the distant past “there,” but also—mainly— about their settling in Israel and their history up to the present. The videotaped interviews, with essential documentary supplements as well as archival material, are edited to form short ten- to fifteen-minute films. In the second project, young people document the life stories of survivors, from Holocaust to revival, in very short four-minute films, with an emphasis on the contribution of Holocaust survivors to the founding, establishment, and flourishing of Israel. These films will be uploaded to YouTube.

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For those Holocaust survivors who are still with us, even these slow and late steps are a meaningful achievement in a society and an establishment still alienated from the topic of revival, an absolute and not relative achievement. Not only shall we see documentation of our actions in Israel; the remnants are leaving behind a tray of cast lead on which the revival of Holocaust survivors in the Jewish state, which they founded and strengthened, will be presented. The rest remains to be related in the nation’s history.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Avizohar, Meir, ed. Ben-Gurion’s Journal. Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1960 [Hebrew]. Bauer, Yehuda. The Flight. Moreshet-Yad Tabenkin and Sifriat Poalim, 1975 [Hebrew]. Cohen, Yochanan. Masuah—Memorial to Members of the Hanoar Hatzioni Movement in the Holocaust and in Revolt. 18th Annual Collection [Hebrew]. Gil, Zvi. “The Time Lapse from Consciousness to Information.” Kivunim Hadashim 6 (2002): 74–96 [Hebrew]. _____. Playing on Dreams. Tel Aviv: Gvanim, 1998 [Hebrew]. _____. A Paper Bridge. Jerusalem: Ministry of Defense, 1996 [Hebrew]. Knesset. Holocaust and Bravery Memorial Day Law, 1959 (c) [Hebrew]. Markovitzky, Yaakov. Fighting Ember on the Gahal. Jerusalem: Ministry of Defense, 2001 [Hebrew]. Mizkar. Quarterly of the Center of Organizations of Holocaust Survivors. June 2011 [Hebrew]. Segev, Tom. The Seventh Million: The Israelis and the Holocaust. Jerusalem: Keter, n.d. [Hebrew]. Sivan, Emmanuel. The Generation of 1948: Myth, Portrait, and Society. Jerusalem: Ma’arachot, 1991 [Hebrew]. Teitelbaum, Raul and Zvi Gil. Revival: The Contribution of Holocaust Survivors to the State of Israel. Jerusalem: The Public Council for the Enterprise of the Contribution of Holocaust Survivors to Israel, 2004 [Hebrew]. Yablonka, Hanna. Holocaust Survivors in Israel. Jerusalem: Yad Vashem School for Holocaust Instruction, 2001 [Hebrew]. Yad Vashem, Third National Teachers’ Conference, Conference Proceedings. Jerusalem, 2009 [Hebrew].

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Index

A

Ayrault, Jean-Marc, Prime Minister 169

abuse of Holocaust Holocaust Memorial Meetings, 181–182 imitating Nazi habits, 185–186 making fun of Holocaust victims or survivors, 185–186 Adamczyk-Garbowska, Monika, 202 Ambassadors’ Conferences, 28 Anilewicz, Mordechai, 94 Anne Frank’s diary, 61–62, 66 as monument, 86–88 anti-Semitism, 5, 9–11, 13, 15, 19, 61, 77, 117, 169, 173–177, 180, 184–185, 188–189, 208 Appelfeld, Aharon, 83 Ashkenazi communities, 82 Atzmon, Shmuel, 214 Auschwitz, 58, 76, 102, 107–108, 169– 170, 172, 177, 213 Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp, 27, 88, 134, 168

B Bałaban, Majer, 195

Barracks, Dossin, 170 Bass, B. M., 33–35 Bauer, Yehuda, 51, 176, 213 Bayreuth Opera Festival, 174 Bejski, Moshe, 220 Ben Gurion, David, 214 Benjamin, Walter, 116 Bennis, W., 35 Bergman, David, 226 Berlin, Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe, 117–125 Boccioni, Umberto, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, 100 Braude, Markus, 195 Brunner, Alois, 171 Budapest, Shoes on the Danube, 106–108 Burley, Aidan, 186

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Burns, J. M., 34 bystanders, 58

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C Catholic Society of Pius X, 178 Central Jewish Historical Commission, 196–197 collaborators, 11 commemoration of the Holocaust, 1, 77–79 in art form, 83–84 Destroyed City, (The Man with No Heart), Ossip Zadkine, Rotterdam, 1953, 98–101 distinction between the beautiful and the sublime, 84 Empty Library Monument, Micha Ullman, Berlin, 1995, 114–117 Fallen Leaves, Menashe Kadishman, Berlin, 1997, 104–106 Ghetto Krakow Memorial, Piotr Lewicki and Kazimierz Latak, Krakow, 2005, 108–110 Holocaust Memorial Monument, Yaakov Agam, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2003, 111–114 Love and Anguish, Kenneth Treister, Miami Beach, Florida, 1990, 125–133 Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe, Peter Eisenman, Berlin, 2005, 117–125 Monument at the Dachau Work Camp, Glid Nandor, 1968, 103–104 monuments, 84–88 Monument to the Six Million, Herman Wald, South Africa, 1959, 101–102 Paper Clip Project, Whitwell, Tennessee, 1998, 88–90 Shoes on the Danube, Gyula Pauer, Can Togay, Budapest, 2005, 106–108

Index

symbolism and minimalist form of, 103–111 Warsaw Ghetto Monument, Nathan Rapoport, 1948, 93–98 Yad Vashem Cattle Car, Moshe Safdie, Jerusalem, 1990, 90–93 Cowley, W. E., 34 D Dabrowa, Edward, 199 Danto, Arthur, 88 Davar, 212 deflection and whitewashing of Holocaust, 178–181 de-Judaization of Holocaust, 182 Delacroix, Eugène, 95 Liberty Leading the People, 95 “The Destroyed City,” 100 Destroyed City, (The Man with No Heart), Ossip Zadkine, Rotterdam, 1953, 98–101 Dorenwend, Bruce, 75 double memory, 9 E Eden, D., 34 Eichmann, Adolf, 171, 213 Eichmann Trial, 2, 72, 86, 171, 220 Eid, J., 36–37 Einstein, Albert, 116 Eisenbach, Artur, 197 Eisenman, Peter, 117–118, 120–124 Empty Library Monument, Micha Ullman, Berlin, 1995, 114–117 Engels, Friedrich, 116 Epstein, Helen, 73 Children of the Holocaust, 73 equivalence of Holocaust, 182–184 The Escape-The Third Generation, 226 F Facebook, Holocaust on, 53 fading memory of the Holocaust, 76–77

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 Index

Fallen Leaves, Menashe Kadishman, Berlin, 1997, 104–106 Frankel, Jeremiasz, 195 Fränkischen Museum-Hällisch, 145–150, 159 Freud, Sigmund, 116 G

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Galas, Michał, 205 Geoffrey Hartman’s The Longest Shadow, 134 German occupation of Poland, 6–7 draconian means against the Poles, 8–9 general idea of, 7–8 Germanization of areas, 8 labor camps (Gemeinschaftslager) and death camps, 7 policy of, 8 Gierowski, Józef Andrzej, 198–199 Gil, Zvi, 226 Godfrey, Mark, 123 Goebbels, Josef, 114, 117 Golden Dawn neo-Nazi movement, 173 Grass, Günter, 117 Gräterhouse Museum, 143–144 Greece, neo-Nazi Golden Dawn movement of, 173–174 H Haidu, Andre, 226 Hällisch Fränkischen Museum. see Fränkischen Museum-Hällisch Hänlein, Nathan, 143 Hartmann, Jeffrey, 82 Haskel, Amir, 27 Hausner, Attorney General Gideon, 220 von Hauswolff, Carl Michael, 187 Hazan, Yoram, 79 Heydrich, Reinhard, 213 Hollande, President François, 169

231

Holocaust attitudes of movements in the Islamic world, 176 and bravery, 216–219 central position in European public discourse, 172–173 deflection and whitewashing, 178– 180 de-Judaization, 182 denial, 76–77, 177–178 distortion, 174, 178–181, xix educators, xvii equivalence, 182–184 experience, xvii fatigue, 168 historical research about Holocaust, 170–171 inversion, 184–185 media reports and curiosity about, 171–172 memorials or commemorative sites, 84, xix myths of, 71–72 neo-fascist and neo-Nazi characteristics in parties in European countries, 173–175 programs, xvii promotion and justification, 175–177 reasons for increasing interest in Holocaust, 168–169 trivialization, 185–186 Yishuv’s knowledge of, 212–215 “Holocaust and Heroism,” 2 Holocaust education, 2–3, xvii critical thinking, 64, 69 cultural and social changes in teaching about Holocaust, 59–63 ethnocentric Jewish values, 3–4 ethos-oriented discourse, 66–68 experiential learning, 3 Holocaust as a term and metaphor, 64–65 Jewish-Israeli identity, 4

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232

logos-oriented discourses, 57–59, 63, 66 model of complementary discourse of education, 56–68 pathos-oriented discourse, 63–64 systems of teaching, 58 traditional, 57, 59–60, 62, 67 trip to Poland, 3–5 Zionist-national values, 4 Holocaust Memorial Day, 76 Holocaust survivors, 2, 72, 211–212, 215–216, xviii–xix and commemoration of the Holocaust, 77–79 distribution of suffering and traumatization experienced by, 77 as “fighters,” 220–223 historians’ attitude toward, 219–220 influence of the trauma, 72 “next/future generations,” 79–80 as “phoenix,” 223–227 prevalence of psychiatric symptoms among, 72–76 revival of, 223–227 Second Generation, 72–76 Third Generation, 73–74 “transgenerational transmission” of Holocaust survivor syndrome, 74–76 Hooper, Linda, 88 Horn, Maurycy, 197 Hugo Boss, 171 Humboldt University, Faculty of Law at, 116 Humlegaard, Odd Reidar, 172 I International Holocaust Remembrance Day, 181 inversion of Holocaust, 184–185 Irving, David, 177 Islamic world

Index

attitudes of movements in, 176 Holocaust denial in, 178 Israel Defense Force (IDF) project. see “Witnesses in Uniform” project Israeli-Polish relations, 9–12 apologetics, 10–11 business or trade, 10 condemnation, 10 Israeli visits to Poland, 11 Israeli students’ attitude to Poland and the Poles, study of attitudes of state secular schools’ students, 18 discussion and conclusion, 18–22 findings, 13 results, 13–18 revival of Jewish culture in Poland, 21–22 sample, 12–13 J Jaeger, Hugo, 171 Jagiellonian University, 200–201, 206 Jewish community of Unterlimpurg and Hall, 137–139 Johnsen, B., 36 K Kadishman, Menashe, 104 Keckenburg Museum, 144 Keshet, Sasi, 214 kibbutzniks images, 97. see also Warsaw Ghetto Monument, Nathan Rapoport, 1948 Klein, Hillel, 73–74, 79 Kloch, Zbigniew, 54 Konstein, Otto, 90 Kost, Wolfgang, 144 Krakow Ghetto Memorial, Piotr Lewicki and Kazimierz Latak, Krakow, 2005, 108–110 Krakow Square, 108–110, 125 Kristallnacht memorial, 181

Shoa and Experience : A Journey in Time, Academic Studies Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central,

 Index

L Larsson, G., 38 Latak, Kazimierz, 108–110 leadership and its processes, 31–36 charismatic leadership, 34 concept of professional socialization, 38 correlation between values and passive-avoidant leadership, 36 development of good leadership, 37–38 efficient leadership, 33 military leadership training, 37–38 personality dimension, 33 as a set of dialectical relationships, 33 significance of, 36 transformative leadership (“formative leadership”), 34–36, 38 visionary leadership, 34 Lev, Eleonora, 134 Levav, Itzhak, 75 Leviatan, V., 34 Lewicki, Piotr, 108–110 living memorials, 81 Lodz Ghetto, 213 Lohamei Hagetaot Museum, 29

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M Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin, 200, 202 Márques, Gabriel García, 81 Marx, Karl, 116 Memorial Day for the Fallen Soldiers of the IDF, 76 Metonymy, 106 “Mifgashim” (Encounters) program, 20–21 Miami Beach, Florida, Love and Anguish monument, 125–133 Miłosz, Czesław, 82 Mitterrand, François, 169

233

Mofaz, Shaul, 27 Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement, 7 monuments, 84–86. see also commemoration of the Holocaust Agam’s, 111–114 Anne Frank’s diary as, 86–88 distinction between a “memorial” and a “monument,” 88 Monument at the Dachau Work Camp, Glid Nandor, 1968, 103–104 Monument to the Six Million, Herman Wald, South Africa, 1959, 101–102 new, 169–170 stamps, 86 Moon, Ban Ki, UN Secretary General, 168 Morejno, Rabbi Zew Wawa, 196 Munch, Edvard, The Scream, 106 Munich Agreement, 6 N Nanus, B., 35 The Netherlands, Holocaust whitewashing in, 180–181 New Orleans, Louisiana, Holocaust Memorial Monument, 111–114 Nikitin, Evgeny, 174 Nyiro, Jozsef, 179 O obliterating Holocaust memory, 188 “Ofot Hahol” association, 225–226 Olsen, O., 36 P Paper Clip Project, Whitwell, Tennessee, 88–90 “The Pedagogy of Commonness,” xviii as an autonomous “generator” of meanings, values, and knowledge, 53–54, 57–58

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234

as an instrument of discourses of power, 55 Anne Frank’s identity and diary, 61–62, 66 arbitrariness aspect, 56 in communicative context, 55 in context of dichotomy between popular and high culture, 56 cultural and social changes in teaching about Holocaust, 59–63 cultural centers, 57 as a cultural experience, 54 ethos-oriented discourse, 66–68 forms of change, 61 as a guide, 67–68 high culture and its respect for knowledge, 53 Holocaust as a term and metaphor, 64–65 and influence of the Internet on daily life, 68–69 logos-oriented discourses, 57–59, 63, 66 model of complementary discourse of education, 56–68 official discourses, 57 pathos-oriented discourse, 63–64 problem of commonness, 52 reception of Holocaust, 60–61, 63 reversal of the order of discourse, 62 “suspension of differences,” 54 systems of teaching, 58 three-step method for, 65–67 Pederzoli, Catherine, 88 perpetrators, 58 Pezzana, Angelo, 181 Picasso, Pablo, Guernica, 99 Poland historical background, 5–9 as victim of German Blitzkrieg, 6–7 Warsaw city, 6 Jewish culture in, 10 Poland, Jewish studies in, xx Center for Jewish Studies, 202

Index

Department of Hebrew Studies, 202 European Association for Jewish Studies, 203–204 growing interest in Jewish studies, 209 Institute of Judaic Studies (Instytut Nauk Judaistycznych), 194, 201 Jewish Flying University, 197–198 Jewish Historical Institute, 196–197 “Jewish topics,” 195 main universities, 200 Mordechai Anielewicz Center for the Study and Teaching of the History and Culture of Jews, 201 Polish Association of Jewish Studies, 205 Polish Association of Yiddish Studies, 205 popularity of, 207 reason for, 207–209 Research Center for Jewish History and Culture, 199 special programs, 200–201 Talmud Torah schools, 196 Polish narrative of the Holocaust, 10 Polonsky, Antony, 198 Prasquier, Richard, 176 R Rapoport, Nathan, 92 Rauff, Walther, 171 Roberts, Sandra, 88 Rodin, Auguste, 99, 130 Gates of Hell, 130 Hand from the Tomb, 130 Hand of God, 95, 130 The Prodigal Son, 100–101 Roman Koester’s Hugo Boss 1924-1945, 172 Ronen, Shoshana, 202 Rothmund, Albert, 144 Rude, François, 95

Shoa and Experience : A Journey in Time, Academic Studies Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central,

 Index

S Safdie, Moshe, 90–93 Samuels, Simon, 187 Schiper, Ignacy, 195 Schmeruk, Chone, 198 Schorr, Mojżesz, 195 Schwartz, Sharon, 75 “Sefer Yizker,” 82 Segev, Tom, 5 Shalev, Gabriella, 117 Shermeister, Eli, 28 The Shoa, 71 shofar, 101–102. Simon Wiesenthal Center, 187 Sinai, Mario, 27 Stangneth, Bettina, 171 Stern, Elazar, 27 Sternfeld, Yehuda, 223 Stogdill, 33 Stoltenberg, Jens, 172 Sussmann, Eliezer, 136, 139–140, 148, 151, 154–155, 157–159, 163 Suzin, Mark Leo, 92

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T Talmud Torah schools, 196 Teitelbaum, Raul, 226 Temple Emanuel of Greater Miami Beach, 133 Thon, Ozjasz, 195 Treister, Kenneth, 125–133 trips to Poland, 3–5 death camps, 76–77 “Witnesses in Uniform” project, 30 trivialization of the Holocaust, 185–186 in arts and sports, 187 for commercial purposes, 186–187 trustees, 29 Tych, Feliks, 197 Tyger, Jussi, 181 U Ullman, Micha, 114, 116

235

Unterlimpurg synagogue and murals, 139–143 decorated panels, 143–150 depiction of city of Jerusalem, 156–157 direction of the decorated ceiling panels, 155–156 eastern wall panel order, 159–163 inaccuracies in synagogue display, 150–155 northern wall panel order, 163–164 panel Sha’al Zal, 157–159 Unterlimpurg prayer room, 143–145 western wall panel order, 156–159 US Military Academy (USMA), 30, 37 V Versailles Treaty, 5 Veteran Israelis, 72, 219, 222 Vilna Ghetto, 213 W Waldheim, President Kurt, 179 Warsaw Ghetto, 3, 19, 171, 195, 196n6, 212–213, 218 Warsaw Ghetto Monument, Nathan Rapoport, 1948, 92–98, 101, 113 Warsaw University, 200 Warsaw Uprising Memorial, 29 Wiesel, Elie, 82, 179 Williamson, Richard, 178 Willoch, Kåre, 182 Wistrich, Robert, 176 “Witnesses in Uniform” project, 26, xviii ceremonies held, 29–30 correlation between leadership style and moral behavior of officers, 36–39 data analysis and methodological notes, 41–42 educational endeavors, 45–46 essence of leadership and its processes, 31–36 findings, 42–45 IDF treatment of the Holocaust, 45

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236

Y Ya’ari, Meir, 214 Yad Vashem, 29, 93, 103, 221, 224–225 Yad Vashem Cattle Car, 90–93 Yam, Glil, 215 Yom Kippur War, 2, 72 Young, James, 85, 88, 97 YouTube, Holocaust on, 54 Z Zadkine, Ossip, 98–101 Zanbar, Moshe, 226 Zimmerman, Joshua, 10 Contested Memories, 10 Zionism, 29 Zweig, Stefan, 116

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imparting values, 26–27, 30–31 instilling leadership qualities, 30–31, 45–46 method, 40–41 military standards, 30 official IDF delegations, 27–30 purpose, 31, 39–40, 45–46 trip itinerary, 30 trip participants’ profile, 41 Wodziñski, Marcin, 202, 206 wooden synagogues of Eastern Europe, 136 Woronczak, Jerzy, 201 Wrocław University, 200–201 Württemberg, Historical Society of (Historischen Verien für Württembergisch Franken), 143

Index

Shoa and Experience : A Journey in Time, Academic Studies Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central,