Stated Memory: East Germany and the Holocaust

Abstract

Stated Memory: East Germany and the Holocaust investigates communist Germany's attempt to explain the Holocaust within a framework that was at once German and Marxist. The book probes the contradictions and self-deceptions arising from East Germany's official self-understanding as an enlightened, modern society in which Jewishness did not constitute difference or otherness. The study examines East German historiography of the Holocaust, including its reflection in schoolbooks; analyzes East German concentration camp memorials; discusses the situation of Jews who remained in East Germany; and surveys East German cinematic and literary responses to the Nazi murder of the Jews. The book shows that regardless of the sincerity of the individuals involved in constructing these various forms of memory, the state attempted to orchestrate Holocaust discourse for its own purposes. Thomas C. Fox is professor of German at the University of Alabama. He has written extensively on East German literature and the Holocaust.