The International Relations of Holocaust Memory

Abstract

This chapter illustrates how Holocaust remembrance practices serve various state international reputational needs, drawing on, among other ideas, the concepts of “collective psychology,” “ontological security,” and other elements from psychoanalysis. It brings international relations (IR) back into dialogue with other social scientific approaches to the Holocaust. Indeed, the chapter demonstrates how a focus on states' international relations—their relations with other states and actors in the international system—can help illuminate some of the puzzling features of contemporary Holocaust remembrance. Specifically, the chapter discusses the international politics of Holocaust memory in post-Communist Eastern Europe. The chapter elucidates ways in which an IR perspective on state memory, identity, international status, and reputation seeking can explain why the Holocaust remains ignored, appropriated, and obfuscated in much of the region that was the central location of the genocide.