Photo: Peter Hapak (2021)

Jun 09–12, 2022

Hijacking Memory

The Holocaust and the New Right

Conference
Talks, panels, performances, screenings

June 9–12, 2022
Auditorium

Free admission

In German and English with simultaneous translation in each language

Who remembers and why? An international conference on right-wing appropriation of Holocaust memory.

Holocaust commemoration is commonly seen as a crucial way to prevent the resurgence of nationalism and the persecution of minorities anywhere. In the course of the postwar era, remembering the genocide of European Jews became a standard for a politics of universal human rights. In recent years, however, a troubling development has taken place: platitudes of remembrance are uttered by the very same actors who espouse anti-democratic, xenophobic and often antisemitic agendas. At first, this process has been most visible in Trump’s America, today Putin’s call for the “Denazification of Ukraine” is the latest example. But this process is also evident in Hungary, Poland, Israel, England, France, Austria and in Germany. What is the relationship between the ritualization of Holocaust remembrance and the rise of the far-right? This conference will explore the hijacking of Holocaust memory by right-wing forces and examine ways to confront it.

Conceived by Emily Dische-Becker, Susan Neiman and Stefanie Schüler-Springorum

An event by Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Einstein Forum and the ZfA Center for Research on Antisemitism at the TU Berlin

With contributions by:

Gilbert Achcar
Tareq Baconi
Omer Bartov
Peter Beinart
Hannah Black
Omri Boehm
Avraham Burg
Daniel Cohn-Bendit
Mykola Borovyk
Joseph Croitoru
David Feldman
Alexander Friedman
Konstanty Gebert
Sander L. Gilman
Jane Gordon
Lewis R. Gordon
Philip Gorski
Jan Grabowski
Lutz Hachmeister
Daniel Kahn
Volkhard Knigge
Nikolay Koposov
Hanno Loewy
Eva Menasse
Andrea Pető
Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern
Diana Pinto
Valentina Pisanty
Ben Ratskoff
Susanne Rohr
Eran Schaerf
Rachel Shabi
Jelena Subotić
Ksenia Svetlova
Hannah Tzuberi
Alexander Verkhovsky