From “Double Genocide” to “the New Jews”: Holocaust, Genocide and Mass Violence in Post-Communist Memorial Museums

The Holocaust Museum of Greece, Thessaloniki: In Whose Memory?

“…Although specific Greek public bodies and organizations could still impose conditions in terms of content, the public statements of national representatives suggest that it may eventually lead to promoting the dominant Greek narrative, at least on the discursive level. This works both ways: first, by externalizing guilt and sneaking in the notion of either the national “double genocide,” thereby supporting the myth of shared suffering as is the case in Baltic and other countries (Radonić 2018, 510–529); second, by promoting the harmonious coexistence of ethnic communities and the exceptional compassion and bravery of Greeks, which would correspond to recent developments in Poland, such as the turn toward rescuers of Jews (Wóycicka 2019) and the de-Holocaustization of the Holocaust (Janicka 2016).…”

Victimhood and the transnationalization of Croatian memory politics

“…For example, since 1991, a great deal of critical scholarly attention has been devoted to Croatian memory politics, most recently reflected in controversies over the fascist Croatian Ustaša during World War II and the atrocities committed at the Jasenovac concentration camp (the largest of several such camps) in Croatia, the war's aftermath and 45 years of socialist Yugoslavia (e.g. Banjeglav, 2012;Đurašković, 2016;Gagnon, 2004;Goldstein and Goldstein, 2016;Pavlaković, 2008Pavlaković, , 2010Pavlaković and Pauković, 2019;Radonić, 2018;Sindbaek Andersen, 2012;Subotić, 2019aSubotić, , 2019bYeomans, 2012Yeomans, , 2015. 6 The transnational manifestations of Croatian victimhood narratives and their contemporary representation in diasporic imaginaries and commemorative practices, though, have been under-researched.…”

“…10 The use of the historical experience of Jews and the Holocaust as trope and symbol to reinforce the legitimacy of grievances focused on victimhood in the former Yugoslavia has garnered considerable scholarly attention (cf. Assman, 2016;David, 2013;Levy and Sznaider, 2006: 183;Radonić, 2012Radonić, , 2018Subotić, 2019a;Subotić, 2020;Živković, 2000). 11 Radonić (2018), for example, argues that Croatians who proclaim themselves to be the 'new Jews' appropriate the Holocaust trope in efforts to assert and to validate their status as victims (p. 510).…”

“…Assman, 2016;David, 2013;Levy and Sznaider, 2006: 183;Radonić, 2012Radonić, , 2018Subotić, 2019a;Subotić, 2020;Živković, 2000). 11 Radonić (2018), for example, argues that Croatians who proclaim themselves to be the 'new Jews' appropriate the Holocaust trope in efforts to assert and to validate their status as victims (p. 510). 12 The philosemitism of those who claim to share suffering during socialist Yugoslavia similar to that of Jews during the Holocaust, though, is disrupted by the contentious legacy of Croatian wartime complicity with Nazis during World War II.…”

“… 11. For example, on a 2005 visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, then Croatian Prime Minister, Ivo Sanader, in an ill-received effort to assert the moral equivalence of the experiences of Croatians and Jews, stated that during the Homeland War of the 1990s, the Croatians were victims of the ‘same kind of evil as Nazism and Fascism, and that no one knows better than the Croats what it means to be a victim of aggression’ (quoted in Radonić, 2018: 526). …”