This semester I am teaching “Memorializing Trauma: Engraving the Mind and Remembrance,” a course focused on the scope and character of Holocaust remembrance from 1945 to the present day. A few weeks ago, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, I sat down and looked at my lesson plan for the current week. I came across the same question that I asked when I decided to teach this course: 80 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, what does Holocaust memory look like today? I frequently tell my students that memory is a dynamic and evolving aspect of Holocaust discourse, prone to new forms and methods as we continue to ask what remembering the Holocaust means in the present. However, despite these changes, there are also certain rituals that we all associate with memorializing the Holocaust: we visit historical sites, mark significant anniversaries, engage with museums, and walk through memorials like the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin. Some who are fortunate will also meet a Holocaust survivor or listen to survivor testimonies. My aim in this course is to expose students to the full spectrum of these varied forms of remembrance while making them aware of how Holocaust memory has taken the concrete forms that we see today. Reflecting on the 80th anniversary brought both aspects into focus: the ways in which we currently commemorate the Holocaust, and how these forms of Holocaust remembrance will continue to evolve in the future.
I decided to ask my students to grapple with the present character of Holocaust remembrance by identifying where their exposure to the Holocaust began. Some students mention reading a book such as the Diary of Anne Frank or Number the Stars in their grade school classroom, while others tell me about a school or family trip to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. When I asked them to reflect on why the Holocaust is part of their education, a couple of them shrugged, saying that it makes sense to study such a large and impactful event. In response I asked them to consider that the Holocaust was not always seen to be worthy of our focus or study, highlighting how in the decade following the postwar it was hardly discussed at all. The reasons for this are multiple, ranging from a focus on prosecuting for Nazi leaders for the crime of aggression, to the trauma experienced by the Holocaust’s survivors. The point, I emphasized, was that our knowledge of the historical event we call the Holocaust has been passed on to us through certain historical and cultural artifacts, ranging from the archival documents from which I wrote my dissertation to books such as The Diary of Anne Frank or Elie Wiesel’s Night. It is the impact and popularity of these artifacts that has made the Holocaust a focus of study today, and many of them will continue to dictate how we remember the Holocaust in the future.
I ended class this week by assuring my students that though there is value in Night and Anne Frank’s diary, we need to also recognize the limits of any one artifact or form of remembrance. The evolution of Holocaust remembrance happens when we seek out other sources, such as other children’s diaries, or develop new ways of recording and preserving survivor testimony. It is the nature of memory to be in flux, and it is through recognizing the forms through which Holocaust memory is passed on to us that we become conscious of how we want to remember it in the future. Situated between the last 80 years of remembrance and the ways in which Holocaust memory will evolve in the future, we have the ability to expand what has been given to us in order to shape the next phase of Holocaust remembrance. I hope that this course will teach my students how to be active participants in this process.
Dr. Sarah Crane is a visiting professor of Holocaust & Genocide Studies at the University of Cincinnati and the Holocaust & Humanity Center’s Scholar-in-Residence.
