Distorting Holocaust Memorialisation – the IHRA while Gaza is bombed
JVL Introduction
This important read highlights how the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Association) so called “working” definition is having a devastating impact on freedom of speech and of expression. The article focuses on the situation in Germany where, for example, protests in support of Palestinian rights, or to call for a ceasefire have been banned and artists and others who have expressed such views have had shows cancelled, prizes withdrawn or at least presented in a much less high profile way than originally planned. The author of the essay is among those affected.
Germany seems to have learned the wrong lesson from its ghastly history, which is to support the State of Israel rather than to rid itself of antisemitism. It is misusing memorialisation of the Nazi era perhaps just to place it firmly in the past, rather than learning the necessity of addressing racism in all its forms as well as nationalism and imperialism. Those who dare to draw links between the actions of the Israeli State and those of the Nazis are silenced, sometimes by officers in posts that have been created to combat antisemitism. One result has been the spectacle of non-Jews telling Jewish writers, artists and activists that they are antisemitic. And, of course, those most affected are Palestinians who are unable to use terms such as apartheid and racism that can give some expression to their own lived experience and history. And all this while the State of Israel is pulverising people and places in the Gaza Strip to an unprecedented degree.
Just as I was about to post this, we were asked to sign a letter to support artists being held to the strictures of the IHRA “definition” in Germany who are being silenced, refused platforms and funding; we encourage you to add your signatures here in German and English.
LL
This article was originally published by The New Yorker on Wed 6 Dec 2023. Read the original here.
In the Shadow of the Holocaust
How the politics of memory in Europe obscures what we see in Israel and Gaza today.
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“Germany seems to have learned the wrong lesson from its ghastly history.”
Exactly.
Germany seems to believe that it can atone for Lebensraum in Europe by supporting Lebensraum in the Middle East.
The link to the letter doesn’t seem to work, but I suspect that it may be directed at the Culture Senator (minister) of the Berlin city state government who has just made adherence to the IHRA definition a condition for funding. The definition has been further amended by the Federal government with the additional sentence: “Furthermore, the state of Israel, which is thereby understood as a Jewish collective, can also be a target of such attacks.”
Unfortunately, the protest letter seems to have been mismanaged and may have been withdrawn. It is reported to have received many spoof signatures including among others Adolf Hitler.
Even before the latest edict, the Senator had withdrawn funding from Oyoun, a Berlin institution which describes itself as a BIPOC-led cultural hub with a queer-feminist, decolonial and migrant focus. The reason: in November it hosted the 20th anniversary event for the group Jüdische Stimme – Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East.
It is no surprise that an institution like Oyoun is like a red rag to a bull for Berlin’s recently elected city government led by the conservative Christian Democrats with the centrist Social Democrats. Association with an event critical of the Israeli government gives them the ideal excuse to close it down, even if that event is held by Jewish people.
In a double irony, the Senator’s portfolio is actually called Culture and Social Cohesion, and he himself is black and was born into a family from Tanzania. But as we know all too well in the UK, an ethnic minority origin and migration history do not in themselves make a politician any more progressive.