Holocaust Studies: A Journal of Culture and History
Abstracts of articles in Issue 10.1
- Responses of Exiled German Socialists in the USA and the UK to the
Holocaust by David Bankier
- German social democrats exiled
in England and in the United States evaded the topic of the Holocaust.
Firstly, they feared that accounts of
unique Jewish victimisation would distract public opinion from
the Nazi persecution of the political opposition. Secondly, faced by
the dissonance
between the news about the extermination and their resolve to
absolve the Germans from complicity in Hitler’s crimes, they developed
an exoneration strategy which even tried to defend the moral integrity
of the Wehrmacht.
- Emigration and Jewish Identity – ‘An
Enormous Heartbreak’ by Susanne Heim
- On the basis of written memoirs
and interviews with Jewish emigrants who left Germany after 1933, this
article deals with the question of
what influence emigration had on the identity of the emigrants.
For Jewish youngsters Zionism played an important role in saving their
self-esteem in a
hostile environment, as did religion or the reference to cultural
Jewish traditions for others. Family networks and the Jewish community
in the
receiving country helped the emigrants to overcome the most urgent
problems in the context of their emigration. Nevertheless, for all of
them emigration meant
a – more or less traumatic – rupture in their biographies.
- The Second Time Around: Re-Acculturation of German-Jewish Refugees
in Australia by Konrad Kwiet
- Some 10,000 German-speaking
Jews found refuge in Australia. Most of them decided after the Holocaust
to remain at the ‘edge of
diaspora’. After their expulsion and exile they experienced a long process
of social re-integration and re-acculturation, developing firm ties with
Australia as their newly adopted home country and identifying themselves as
Australians and Jews. This process has been successfully completed, dissolving
– as everywhere – the existence of a small German-Jewish diaspora
community. This article attempts to shed light on the various
processes of transformation.
- Subtle Exclusions: Postwar Jewish Emigration to Australia and the
Impact of the IRO Scheme by Suzanne D. Rutland
- In December 1946 the United Nations General Assembly ratified the
establishment of the International Refugee Organisation (IRO) to deal with the
problem of displaced persons (DPs) in Europe. From 1947 to 1950 a total of
200,000 DPs were admitted into Australia under the IRO, making the Australian
intake the fourth largest, after the United States, Canada and Israel. However,
Jews were excluded initially and when some were finally admitted, they had to
be young, single and willing to sign a special work contract. Only about 500
Jews came to Australia sponsored through the IRO. This article explores the
various bureaucratic measures introduced to discriminate against Jews and the
reactions of the Jewish leadership.
- Holocaust Museums in Australia: The Impact of Holocaust Denial and
the Role of Survivors by Judith E. Berman
- Over the past decade, increased
academic attention has been focused on postwar responses to the Holocaust,
with scholars asking how and why
that event has moved from the margins of public consciousness
to occupy a central place in Western culture. Peter Novick’s The Holocaust in
American Life argues that Holocaust programming was initiated and
manipulated by Jewish leaders and organisations in response to a variety of
Jewish community needs. In contrast, Holocaust awareness in Australia was
principally promoted by Holocaust survivors who from the late 1970s conceived,
established and participated in a range of Holocaust remembrance activities
which culminated in the establishment of Holocaust museums in Melbourne (1984),
Perth (1990) and Sydney (1992). The museums and their related activities
conveyed knowledge of the Holocaust to the wider Australian society and thus
constituted the single most significant force behind the raising of Holocaust
awareness in Australia. The Jewish community leadership played only a marginal
role in this process. Indeed, survivors have often lamented the fact that they
received little support in their endeavours from the Jewish community,
including its leadership.
- Book Reviews