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“The People in my Government have had the Same Experience as I did!” Jewish Artists and Shoah Memory in the GDR between Anti-Fascism and Self-Assertion

Mon, December 17, 1:15 to 2:45pm, Seaport Hotel & World Trade Center, Cambridge 1

Abstract

After the war, the GDR’s regime was trying to square the circle in building an allegedly anti-fascist state with a population which had, for the most part, supported National Socialism. While the majority had to be integrated into that attempt, a minority of formerly persecuted émigrés returned to the country in order to support that project, including a considerable amount of Jewish communists, firmly believing in the possibility of a better Germany, and the re-evaluation of German-Jewish relationships. Commemorating the Second World War was of particular importance to the regime since it served as a foundation of its legitimacy to rule. The predominant narrative of heroic (Communist) resistance fighters allowed only little space for deviating stories, and the Shoah was hardly considered to be an experience that truly mattered. Yet, while research on the GDR’s culture of remembrance has mostly denied or ignored any deviations from this practice, there were manifold attempts to broaden this boundary.

The paper will discuss how artists of Jewish origin kept opting for a more diverse narrative of the Second World War. The main reason for their more nuanced narratives were their experiences of persecution which differed significantly from those of the non-Jewish Communist elite. Yet, these artists were not dismantling the anti-fascist myth. On the contrary, they appropriated the party’s memory politics, its rhetoric and the political scapegoats for their criticism, but added a Jewish perspective to it. In doing so, they stressed the singularity of the Shoah, and fostered the recognition of that fact within the population. Although there were limits to what they could (and would) say, censorship was hardly pressured upon them. Given their seemingly loyal stance on the party’s views, these artist’s works were considered to be fostering the anti-fascist project while the distinct Jewish focus was duly noted by the audience. Thus, these artists combined their Jewish experience with their communist belief, resulting in works with a Jewish anti-fascist dedication.

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