Publisher's Synopsis
The Western understanding of the West as the democratic "Free World" and the East as totalitarian and repressive continues to impact how scholars evaluate efforts to commemorate the Holocaust in East and West.
This book discusses the emergence and development of Holocaust memory during the Cold War looking at both sides of the Iron Curtain. It brings together contributions focusing on different parts of the world, from the Soviet Union to Europe, Israel, and the US, that reveal commonalities, differences and entanglements between Eastern and Western memories of the Holocaust. While some of the case studies analyze the impact of the Cold War divide on national societies, others show how Holocaust memory became a battlefield of the bloc confrontation, but also how efforts to commemorate the Shoah enabled transnational cooperation across the Iron Curtain.
Drawing from a wide range of sources and methodological approaches, the articles in this book will enhance our understanding of the construction of Holocaust memories and at the same time add to our knowledge of the far-reaching and long-lasting impact of the Cold War.
