Annihilating—Preserving—Remembering: The “Aryanization” of Jewish History and Memory During the Holocaust

Abstract

Since the end of World War II, but especially over the last 20 years of debate about memory and representation, there has been suspicion that Germany’s National Socialists had planned not only to annihilate the Jewish people physically but also to obliterate them from history and memory–together with the traces of the persecution and the mass murder they had to suffer. Thus, the notion of genocide was occasionally modified and reinforced byconcepts intended to describe an alleged obliteration of memory and “murder of memory.” In contrast, projects and phenomena openly countering efforts to render the victims totally forgotten have received only isolated and inadequate attention. These projects are aimed instead at achieving a more advanced functionalization of the victims, one that goes even beyond extermination.