The Europeanization of Holocaust Memory and Eastern Europe

Introduction

More than seventy years since it happened, the Holocaust—“the state-sponsored persecution and murder of European Jews by Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945” ¹ —has undergone a remarkable development in collective memory. ² Shortly after the Second World War, it was hardly distinguishable among Nazi crimes. In the late 1940s and 1950s, it was shrouded in silence, or even faded into oblivion. Since the 1960s, however, it has gradually become an ever more important object of national memory in Israel, the USA, West Germany, and other (West) European countries. Meanwhile, in Eastern Europe, where the persecution and murder of Jews had largely taken place, there was little, hardly any, or no public memory of the Holocaust, as the countries of the region were under communist rule between the late 1940s and 1989–1991. ³ Isolated by the “Iron Curtain,” the nations of Eastern Europe were also barely confronted with the Holocaust memory that was developing in the West—Western Europe, North America, and Israel. The Western memory of the Holocaust did not arrive in Eastern Europe until the nations of the region began liberating themselves from communism and opened themselves to the world. ⁴ Around that time, new developments in Holocaust memory occurred. Since the early 1990s, the Holocaust, an important object of national memories in the West, has also become an object of transnational global/cosmopolitan memory. ⁵ In (Western) Europe, a transnational European memory has developed making the Holocaust a cornerstone of the new European identity. ⁶

The process of developing a transnational European memory of the Holocaust can be best rendered as the Europeanization of Holocaust memory. ⁷ In general terms, as “Europeanization” commonly refers to the growth of a European polity and identity over and above national polities and identities on the continent in the course of development of the European Union (EU), the “Europeanization of Holocaust memory” may also be understood in this context as the process of constructing a European memory of the persecution and murder of Jews during the Second World War over and above the national memories of that event. ⁸ This article, however, will employ a different and more specific concept of Europeanization. Drawing upon a prominent definition proposed by the political scientist Claudio M. Radaelli, ⁹ the Europeanization of Holocaust memory will be understood here as the process of construction, institutionalization, and diffusion of beliefs regarding the Holocaust as well as formal and informal norms and rules regarding Holocaust remembrance and education that have been first defined and consolidated at a European level and then incorporated into the practices of European countries. The theories of Europeanization indicate the EU, with its institutions, as the agent of that process. The article will show that the European Parliament (EP) was the EU institution that launched the Europeanization of Holocaust memory and was its first transnational agent, ¹⁰ which contributed to the development and, at the same time, Europeanization of Holocaust memory in Eastern Europe. But, as will be shown, the Europeanization of Holocaust memory was also contributed to by other transnational agents—international organizations active in Europe and consisting mostly or solely of European states: mainly by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), formerly called the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research (ITF), as well as by the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and its Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). The involvement of these agents meant that the Europeanization of Holocaust memory became a process transcending the EU and covering Eastern Europe as well. Even the United Nations (UN), which, as will be shown, engaged in the promotion of Holocaust memory worldwide, may also be considered a transnational agent contributing to the Europeanization of this memory, particularly in Eastern Europe.

The Europeanization of Holocaust memory began in Western Europe shortly after the countries of Eastern Europe had liberated themselves from communism and while they were (re-) establishing closer links with Western states and seeking membership in Western organizations—the Council of Europe, the EU, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It unfolded as most of the East European countries were preparing for entry into these organizations, and continued after many of these countries had become members of them. In this context, the Europeanization of Holocaust memory posed a double challenge to the post-communist nations of Eastern Europe—to develop their own Holocaust memories and to join in the European (and global/cosmopolitan) memory of the Holocaust. ¹¹ At the same time, the Europeanization of Holocaust memory by the EU, the ITF/IHRA, and the Council of Europe—the organizations that most of the East European states joined or aimed to join—has been a factor in the development and Europeanization of Holocaust memory in Eastern Europe. Hence, the objective of this article will be to examine the nature and scope of the Europeanization of Holocaust memory by various transnational agents and of the impact of this process upon the memory of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe since 1989. ¹² In order to attain this objective, the article will take two steps. First, it will diachronically analyze the process of Europeanization of Holocaust memory, focusing on construction, institutionalization, and diffusion of this memory by the transnational agents. Conducting this analysis, the article will also highlight the varied and changing position of East European countries vis-à-vis those agents during the various stages of the process in order to determine since when and with what strength the agents have been able to impact Holocaust memory in Eastern Europe. Second, the article will synchronically examine the outcome of the process—a European memory of the Holocaust—identifying its main components. It will discuss the key aspects of this memory and illustrate the impact of this process and outcome upon the memory of the Holocaust in the East European countries.

“Eastern Europe” is understood in this article as the part of Europe where the communists ruled from after the Second World War until 1989–1991. At present, the region defined in this way comprises twenty states: (1) six former satellites of the Soviet Union: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia; (2) six former Soviet republics: Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, and Ukraine; (3) seven successor states of communist Yugoslavia: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, (the former Yugoslav Republic of) Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia; and (4) Albania. ¹³ Ever since the demise of communism, the countries of the region have undergone democratization, built market economies, developed pluralist societies and cultures, and integrated into the EU and other Western organizations, albeit at different speeds and to varying degrees. Nearly all (with the exception of Belarus) have aspired to enter into association with the EU and/or to become EU member states, most of them successfully, and have thus undergone or continue to undergo “Europeanization through conditionality,” that is, adopting EU law and fulfilling formal membership criteria. ¹⁴ Yet Eastern Europe is not only defined by communism, transformation, and Europeanization. What is important for the topic of this article is that Eastern Europe is also defined by the Holocaust. It was in this region, annexed to, occupied by, or allied with Nazi Germany in 1939–1945, that the ghettos established to isolate Jews were located, that random shootings and mass executions of Jews took place, and that most concentration camps and all death camps where Jews were murdered were operated. It was East European Jews that constituted 90 percent of the nearly 6 million victims of the Holocaust. ¹⁵ It was Eastern Europe that West European Jews were deported to and murdered in. It was among (non-Jewish) East Europeans—witnesses, bystanders, collaborators, accomplices, or even perpetrators, but also rescuers—that Nazi Germany committed the crimes of the Holocaust. It was in what Timothy Snyder called the “bloodlands” ¹⁶ of Eastern Europe—where also millions of non-Jews fell victim to the Second World War, Nazism, and Stalinism—that the Holocaust took place. All these are the characteristics of the “East Europeanness” of the Holocaust that has made and still makes Holocaust memory in Eastern Europe highly difficult to develop.

“Memory” is the key concept in this article. It is understood here as in the field of cultural and social memory studies. ¹⁷ The notion derives from Maurice Halbwachs’s classic concept of “collective memory” that refers to beliefs, feelings, moral judgments, and knowledge about the past distributed throughout society, and his study of commemorative symbols, rituals, and representations. ¹⁸ Analyzing the Europeanization of Holocaust memory, the article draws upon Jeffrey K. Olick’s developments of Halbwachs’s classic conceptions—the historical sociology of mnemonic practices and products. ¹⁹ Thus the analysis concerns remembrance understood as institutionalized, official, and public collective memory. It deals with such practices as adopting Holocaust memory documents, conducting Holocaust commemorations, and deciding on and implementing Holocaust education. It discusses such Holocaust memory products as the EP’s resolutions and declarations, monuments and memorial plaques, museums and exhibitions, school curricula, and textbooks. These processes and products of Holocaust memory are subjected to institutional and content analysis, respectively.

So far, few authors have addressed the issues that will be dealt with in this article. The existing publications may be divided into four categories. The first comprises the seminal works of Daniel Levy and Nathan Sznaider ²⁰ as well as Tony Judt ²¹ on Holocaust memory. Levy and Sznaider remarked that “[national] memories of the Holocaust contribute[d] to the creation of a common European cultural memory.” ²² They wrote about the role of the Stockholm Forum—the founding meeting of the IHRA—for “the institutionalization of an emerging European cosmopolitan memory.” ²³ They failed, however, to recognize the role of the EU and its institutions, primarily the EP, in that process. They noticed that “the Holocaust ha[d] been inscribed in the historical awareness of West European nations (and increasingly also in Eastern Europe).” ²⁴ The analysis of developments in Eastern Europe was, alas, beyond the ambit of their project. Judt stressed “the centrality of the Holocaust in Western European identity and memory” and wrote about “Holocaust recognition” in Eastern Europe. ²⁵ He did not, however, provide an analysis of these processes or deal with the role of European and other international organizations.

The second category of existing literature comprises studies of Holocaust memory in various countries. This literature includes the volumes edited by Klas-Göran Karlsson and Ulf Zander ²⁶ as well as Jean-Paul Himka and Joanna B. Michlic. ²⁷ Contributions to Karlsson and Zander’s volumes analyzed various aspects of the Holocaust in the “historical cultures” of selected East European and Western countries, highlighting the underdevelopment of Holocaust memories in the East before 1989 and their development thereafter. Contributors to Himka and Michlic’s volume ventured extensive overviews of “the reception of the Holocaust” in all post-communist countries of Eastern Europe. The volumes provide much material for comparison, but do not contain many comparisons themselves. Although the introductory or concluding remarks to these volumes mentioned the role of international organizations such as the IHRA and the EU in forging Holocaust memory in Eastern Europe, this role was not analyzed.

The third category of literature consists of studies of the politics and policies of memory, particularly Holocaust memory, in the united Europe that enlarged to the East. This category includes the works of Emmanuel Droit, ²⁸ Maria Mälksoo, ²⁹ Carlos Closa Montero, ³⁰ Anne Wæhrens, ³¹ and Annabelle Littoz-Monnet. ³² Droit took the broadest perspective, covering various East European countries and their different memories. Mälksoo dealt with Poland and the Baltic states. All but her highlighted the role of the EU, particularly the EP, in the construction of a European Holocaust memory. Wæhrens’s study was the most elaborate in this regard. Closa and Littoz-Monnet also analyzed the role of the EU’s Council of Ministers. Although those authors dealt with the Europeanization of Holocaust memory (without using this term), their focus was not on this process and its impact on Eastern Europe. They were all concerned primarily with what Droit called “the Holocaust and the Gulag in opposition” and Closa considered “the object of a political conflict in the enlarged EU,” ³³ that is, the opposition or conflict between the memory of the destruction of Jews being central to West Europeans and the memory of communist crimes being important for East Europeans.

The fourth category of literature comprises such items as Carlos Closa Montero’s edited volume providing a comprehensive review of the national and international measures and practices of dealing with the memory of crimes committed by all totalitarian regimes in Europe, ³⁴ and the OSCE’s specific overview of Holocaust Memorial Days in its member countries. ³⁵ These pieces provide extensive, almost exhaustive factual material, but by definition do not contain a discussion of it.

All in all, the existing literature offers numerous insights into what has been called here the Europeanization of Holocaust memory, the role of the most important agents in this process, and the developments of Holocaust memory in Eastern Europe. However, none of the pieces reviewed gives an exhaustive analysis of the process of the Europeanization of Holocaust memory, its various agents, its outcome, and its impact upon Eastern Europe, and that is what this article will undertake.

Europeanizing Holocaust Memory: An Analysis of the Process

The Europeanization of Holocaust memory was begun by the EP, which was also the major agent of that process. The EP adopted resolutions and declarations that, although not legally binding, have been the formal expressions and statements of the parliament’s opinions or intentions addressed to other EU institutions (notably the Council of Ministers and the European Commission), the governments and citizens of EU member states, and often also to the governments of non-member states and other European organizations. During five consecutive terms between 1989 and 2014, the EP adopted a total of twelve documents—nine resolutions and three declarations—that may be considered constitutive for the Europeanization of Holocaust memory. ³⁶ Additionally, the EP adopted numerous resolutions on combating racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism that may be regarded as constituting a broader context for the Europeanization of Holocaust memory.

The document of the EP that may be considered the first step toward the Europeanization of Holocaust memory was the “Resolution on European and international protection for Nazi concentration camps as historical monuments” of 11 February 1993. Technically, the document did not contain the word “Holocaust” or “Jews,” and seemed to deal solely with the concentration camps, not the death camps where the Holocaust largely took place. It also took a broad perspective on the camp’s victims, calling for “informing visitors of the widely differing origins of the people imprisoned in these camps and the reasons for their deportation.” However, the document referring to “the millions of people who died in Nazi concentration camps” indeed concerned all kinds of Nazi camps—the concentration camps proper, death camps, and others—and did concern the Holocaust and Jews. When the EP adopted this document, the EU comprised 12 Western European member states, four more were negotiating their entry, and the EU was soon to take a decision on its eastern enlargement. The EP addressed its resolution to other EU institutions and the member state governments only. However, the document that referred to the millions of victims of the Nazi camps indeed concerned the former camps both within and outside of the then EU, that is, mostly in Eastern Europe, primarily in Poland. Thus, from its very outset, the Europeanization of Holocaust memory was a process transcending the then EU and reaching out to Eastern Europe.

The process gathered momentum between 1995 and 2000, when the EP adopted six more of its twelve Holocaust-related documents: (1) the “Resolution on a day to commemorate the Holocaust” of 15 June 1995, (2) the “Resolution on the return of plundered property to Jewish communities” of 14 December 1995, (3) the “Resolution on Auschwitz” of 18 April 1996, (4) the “Resolution on restitution of the possessions of Holocaust victims” of 16 July 1998, (5) the “Resolution on countering racism and xenophobia in the European Union” of 16 March 2000, and (6) the “Declaration on the remembrance of the Holocaust” of 7 June 2000. These documents made the Holocaust the central topic on the EP’s memory agenda. ³⁷

As the Europeanization of Holocaust memory by the EP was gaining impetus between 1995 and 2000, the EU consisted of 15 member states, while ten of the countries of Eastern Europe—the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia—were candidates for EU membership. In that period, the EP addressed its documents not only to the EU institutions, member state governments, and citizens but also to other European nations, particularly the EU candidates from Eastern Europe, either indirectly—as members of other organizations called on in the documents—or directly. Thus, the Europeanization of Holocaust memory was a process transcending the EU institutionally and geographically to cover the whole continent, particularly Eastern Europe.

The EP’s document that had the widest array of direct and indirect addressees was the 1995 “Resolution on a day to commemorate the Holocaust.” The document called for “an annual European Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust to be instituted in all the Member States of the Union,” which defined the most specific aspect and the main objective of the Europeanization of Holocaust memory. The EP reiterated and specified its call in its two documents of 2000. In the “Resolution on countering racism and xenophobia in the European Union,” it “encourage[d] the Member States and EU institutions to mark Shoah Day [on] 27 January (anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, 1945).” In the “Declaration on the remembrance of the Holocaust,” the EP “call[ed] on the Council and the Commission to encourage appropriate forms of Holocaust remembrance, including an annual European Day of Holocaust Remembrance.” The 1995 “Resolution on a day to commemorate the Holocaust,” however, also included an appeal to “the member states of the Council of Europe to back this initiative,” which gave the EP’s initiative a broader, trans-EU dimension. At that time, the Council of Europe—an organization established in 1949 to promote democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and political liberty—comprised thirty-four states, including all EU members, other West European states, and the ten East European countries that were then candidates for EU membership.

The EP’s document on the Holocaust that addressed directly the countries from Eastern Europe that had applied and would apply to join the EU was the 1995 “Resolution on the return of plundered property to Jewish communities.” In the document, the EP (1) “welcome[d] the fact that certain Central and Eastern European states, notably Hungary and Romania, have accepted the principle of justice and morality by agreeing to return the property of Jewish communities to its rightful owners.” Moreover, it (2) “welcome[d] the fact that certain Central and Eastern European countries have apologized publicly for the crimes committed against Jews during the Second World War and have recognized their responsibilities in respect of these crimes.” The EP also (3) “call[ed] on all countries of Central and Eastern Europe which have not already done so to adopt appropriate legislation regarding the return of plundered property so that the property of Jewish communities may be returned to Jewish institutions, in accordance with the principles of justice and morality.” ³⁸ Although the document referred explicitly to Hungary and Romania, which, like Croatia and Slovakia, had been East European allies of Nazi Germany during (the most part of) the Second World War, its appeal was broader, to all “Central and East European states,” as the candidates from Eastern Europe were called by the EU. Although the EP did not explicitly call on other East European countries to publically apologize for the Holocaust and to recognize their responsibilities for the crimes against the Jews, the parliament’s expectation in these regards was evident. No other EU document on the Holocaust included such direct and strong references to East European countries. Nor did any other EU document contain more explicit expectations regarding Holocaust apologies and recognition of responsibilities.

One EP Holocaust-related document—the 1996 “Resolution on Auschwitz”—was addressed to one East European country—Poland, on whose present-day territory this former Nazi German camp is located. The resolution was prompted by a “neo-Nazi demonstration,” that is, a march of Polish skinheads on the site of the former Auschwitz camp. The march was a protest at the halting by the Polish authorities of construction work on a supermarket and restaurant in the environs of the former camp—a development that met with protests from Jewish organizations. ³⁹ The EP “condemn[ed] strongly” this development as “the outrageous attempt to destroy the unique character of the concentration camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau” and “deplore[d]” the march as “the renewed sign of racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism in Poland.” It also “condemn[ed] the attitude” of the Polish regional and local authorities that authorized the march. At the same time, the EP “approve[d] the condemnation” of the march and of the commercial development by the Polish president and government. It also “invite[d] the Polish authorities in conjunction with the [European] Commission to submit proposals for a centre for European cultural activities at Auschwitz-Birkenau.” The “Resolution on Auschwitz” was the most specific Holocaust-related document of the EP. At the same time, the document was full of general references, such as to the camp’s being a “lesson . . . for the whole of humanity,” combating of “racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism,” and cherishing “the memory of the millions of people murdered in concentration camps.” What made the resolution a Holocaust memory document, however, was the “historical fact that most of the victims of Auschwitz were Jews.”

While the EP was Europeanizing Holocaust memory within the EU and the process was reaching out to Eastern Europe, in 1998 Sweden initiated the ITF/IHRA, ⁴⁰ which in the following years became the major international organization promoting Holocaust education, remembrance, and research among its member countries and beyond. On 27–29 January 2000, the Swedish government staged the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust—an event to propagate the goals of the ITF. The forum, attended by representatives of forty-six states, adopted a declaration ⁴¹ that became the mission statement of the ITF/IHRA. This Stockholm Declaration is, arguably, the most important document constructing and institutionalizing transnational Holocaust memory and diffusing it, particularly in Europe. It may therefore be regarded as a major contribution to the Europeanization of Holocaust memory, adding an intergovernmental dimension to what the EP—a supranational institution of the EU—was doing.

The ITF/IHRA, originally an informal initiative, took the form of an intergovernmental organization, consisting of senior representatives of governments and experts nominated by the governments. This has proven to be instrumental in diffusing Holocaust memory among the organization’s member and candidate countries and prompting incorporation of the memory within them. The ITF/IHRA’s membership has grown slowly but steadily, becoming both an indicator of and a factor in the Europeanization of Holocaust memory. In 2014, the organization had thirty-one member countries, eleven of them from Eastern Europe—Poland since 1999; the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Lithuania since 2002; Latvia and Romania since 2004; Croatia and Slovakia since 2005; Estonia since 2007; Serbia and Slovenia since 2011. ⁴² Four other East European countries declared their intentions to join the IHRA—Macedonia in 2009, Bulgaria in 2012, and Albania and Moldova in 2014. ⁴³ Thus, only seven countries of the region—Albania, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, and Ukraine—have so far not been involved.

Although the ITF/IHRA has been an organization involving several non-European states, notably Israel and the USA, its activities focused on Europe, particularly on Eastern Europe, where the Holocaust largely took place. With mostly European countries among its members, sharing the goals of Holocaust memory with the EU, and acting mostly in Europe, the ITF/IHRA became the major intergovernmental partner of the supranational EP in its efforts to Europeanize Holocaust memory. Given the role the organization played in constructing and institutionalizing those goals and in diffusing and prompting their incorporation among its candidates and members, it may then be regarded as an important agent reinforcing the Europeanization of Holocaust memory, particularly in the East European member and candidate countries whose Holocaust memory had been underdeveloped as a result of communism.

In the early 2000s, as the ITF was developing its activities, the EP did not adopt any resolution or declaration regarding the Holocaust. At that time, however, three established international organizations—the Council of Europe, the OSCE, and the UN—became involved in promoting Holocaust memory, thus reinforcing its Europeanization. The Council of Europe and the governments of its member states backed the EP’s initiative of a Holocaust Remembrance Day. On 18 October 2002, the ministers of education of all then 44 member countries of the Council, including nearly all East European states, ⁴⁴ adopted a declaration to the institution by each country of an annual “Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust and for the Prevention of Crimes against Humanity” to be observed in schools. ⁴⁵ In 2004, the representatives of all 57 participating states of the OSCE from Europe, North America, and Asia, including all East European countries considered in this article (except for Kosovo), committed themselves to “promote remembrance of and, as appropriate, education about the tragedy of the Holocaust” in the context of combating anti-Semitism, xenophobia, and racism and promoting tolerance, nondiscrimination, mutual respect, and understanding. ⁴⁶ The ODIHR of the OSCE has been instrumental in sharing good practices in Holocaust remembrance and education. It has also provided an overview of governmental practices. In 2005 the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution committing the organization’s member states across the globe to designate 27 January—the day Auschwitz was liberated in 1945—as “an annual International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.” ⁴⁷

In 2005 came the height of international interest in the Holocaust and of the Europeanization of its memory by the EP. On 27 January, while a record number of heads of state and government from Europe and the wider world gathered at the site of the former Auschwitz-Birkenau camp for commemorations, the EP adopted its most important “Resolution on remembrance of the Holocaust, anti-semitism and racism.” The resolution, which combined the EP’s concern with the Holocaust and combating anti-Semitism and racism, reiterated the call to “encourage[e] Holocaust remembrance, including making 27 January “European Holocaust Memorial Day across the whole of the EU” and to “reinforce Holocaust education.” The call, like the whole document, was addressed to the Council of the EU, the European Commission, and the governments of member and candidate states. Throughout 2005, the term “Holocaust” was used the most frequently in all the EP’s documents produced so far. ⁴⁸ At that time, the EU comprised twenty-five member states, following the accession of eight East European countries—the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia—and two Mediterranean countries—Cyprus and Malta—on 1 May 2004. The 2005 resolution and other EP documents also applied to Bulgaria and Romania, which joined the EU on 1 January 2007; Croatia, which acceded on 1 July 2013; and the remaining East European countries that had applied and would apply to become Member States of the EU.

Since 2005, the Holocaust has ceased to be the main memory topic of interest of the EP. The main reason for this change was, arguably, that the Europeanization of Holocaust memory reached its culmination. The change, however, coincided with and was partly caused by the Eastern enlargement of the EU in 2004 and 2007, which extended the EP’s memory agenda including the fate of Eastern Europe under communism. The 2005 resolution was the last major EP memory document in which the Holocaust was the central notion. The following “Resolution on the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe on 8 May 1945” was the first EP memory document where the Holocaust victims were not referred to by themselves or first but in the context of “all the victims of Nazi tyranny.” This comprehensive document, also dealing with manifold developments after the war, included references to the negative consequences of the war for Eastern Europe, mainly “decades under Soviet domination or occupation or other communist dictatorships,” and recent positive developments, including “the democratic revolutions in which they overthrew the communist regimes and liberated themselves.” The following two documents—the “Declaration on the proclamation of 23 August as European day of remembrance for victims of Stalinism and Nazism” adopted on 23 September 2008 and the “Resolution on European conscience and totalitarianism” adopted on 2 April 2009—placed the Holocaust and the Nazi crimes in general besides the communist, particularly Stalinist crimes. The adoption of these documents occurred amidst political struggles in the EP for what may be called the recognition of the Eastern European past that was mostly unknown or forgotten in Western Europe. Although this process can best be analyzed in terms of mnemonic and/or political conflict and, indeed, was analyzed in this way, ⁴⁹ the product of the process—the new European memory contained in the EP’s documents that encompasses the Holocaust, other Nazi crimes, the communist crimes, and other negative as well as positive developments of the twentieth century—may be interpreted as inclusive and complementary. The last Holocaust-related document—the “Declaration of the European Parliament of 10 May 2012 on support for the establishment of a European Day of Remembrance for the Righteous”—included the rescuers in the scope of Europeanizing Holocaust memory. The inclusive and reconciliatory tenet of European memory will be manifested in the House of European History—a cultural institution and exhibition center initiated by the European Parliament in 2007 and planned to open in Brussels in 2016. ⁵⁰

Europeanized Holocaust Memory: An Analysis of the Outcome

The Europeanization of Holocaust memory by the transnational agents—the EP, the ITF/IHRA, the Council of Europe, the OSCE, and the UN—resulted in the definition and consolidation of the following key beliefs regarding the Holocaust. (1) The Holocaust (Shoah) was (essentially) the persecution and annihilation of European Jews by Nazi Germany, its allies, and collaborators. (2) The Holocaust has had a universal meaning for all humanity because it fundamentally challenged the foundations of civilization. (3) The Holocaust has to be remembered in order to prevent genocide and ethnic cleansing; to combat anti-Semitism, racism, and xenophobia; and to promote tolerance, nondiscrimination, mutual respect, and understanding. The process also produced the following key norms and rules for states regarding the Holocaust. (1) Remember, educate about, and research the Holocaust, in particular: (a) institute a Holocaust Remembrance Day for public commemorations and educational activities and (b) join the IFT/IHRA. (2) Preserve and commemorate Holocaust sites—former camps, deportation sites, execution sites, and ghettos. (3) Restitute the property of Holocaust victims to its owners or their heirs. (4) Recognize your country’s and/or your fellow-nationals’ responsibility for the Holocaust crimes and apologize publicly for these crimes. These beliefs, norms, and rules constituted a European Holocaust memory, impacting national (and sub-national) Holocaust memories. Four aspects of this Europeanized Holocaust memory and its impact upon Eastern Europe are worthy of closer examination.

First, in dealing with the Holocaust, all the analyzed organizations focused on its Jewish victims. However, while some dealt with the Jews alone, others also included other victim groups of Nazi Germany in the Holocaust concept. Thus, the EP (as well as other institutions of the EU) has consistently understood the Holocaust as Jewish only, occasionally using the Hebrew word “Shoah.” Other victim groups of Nazi Germany—Roma, Slavic peoples such as Poles and Russians, people of other nationalities, and homosexuals and the handicapped—were not included in the EU’s concept of the Holocaust, although these groups and the atrocities committed upon them were referred to in the EP’s documents on the Holocaust, notably in the two resolutions of 2005. The OSCE took a similar stance. Although the organization’s decision of 2004 to promote Holocaust remembrance and education did not specify who the victims of the Holocaust had been, the decision’s title, “Combating anti-Semitism,” implied that they had been Jews. The educational materials produced by the OSCE ODIHR (in cooperation with Yad Vashem) were more elaborate, quoting the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s definition of the Holocaust, which specifies its victims as “six million Jews” and adds: “During the Holocaust, the Nazis also targeted other groups because of their perceived ‘racial inferiority’: Roma/Sinti (Gypsies), the handicapped, and some of the Slavic peoples (Poles, Russians, and others). Other groups were persecuted on political and behavioral grounds, among them Communists, Socialists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and homosexuals.” ⁵¹ The Council of Europe and the UN adopted broader notions of the Holocaust. For the UN, the Holocaust meant “the murder of one third of the Jewish people, along with countless members of other minorities,” as the General Assembly stated in its 2005 resolution. The “other minorities” were specified as “Gypsies, mentally and physically disabled people, and homosexual men.” ⁵² The Council of Europe took the broadest approach, specifying in its resolution on a Holocaust Remembrance Day that “all victims are taken into consideration—Jews, Roma, Resistance members, politicians, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, disabled persons.” The educational materials sponsored by the Council also included civilians of various nationalities and prisoners of war among the Holocaust victims. ⁵³ The ITF/IHRA has developed a different stance still. It began and has continued with the concept of the Holocaust as Jewish only. It dealt solely with this topic until 2007, when it expanded its thematic mandate to include the genocide of Roma and other topics, such as genocide prevention and combating anti-Semitism. These varied approaches of the international agents of Holocaust memory supported a variety of concepts of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe. For example, in Poland, the word “Holocaust” (spelt with a capital “H”) has referred only to Jews, as has the Polish word “Zagłada.” These words, spelt with lower-case letters, however, can refer to the Jewish and non-Jewish victims of the Second World War. In Hungary, “Holocaust” has concerned Jews, and the genocide of Roma has been recognized on its own. In Slovakia, the word “Holocaust” has referred to both Jews and Roma. In Ukraine, “Holocaust” is often used in reference to all victims of the Nazi German occupation—Ukrainians and other non-Jews, along with Jews.

Second, European Holocaust memory, while centered on Jews as victims, has also been concerned with perpetrators. In the EP documents and elsewhere, the perpetrators were referred to as the Nazis or Nazi Germany. Yet the Europeanizing memory of the Holocaust also included East European perpetrators of and accomplices in the Holocaust. This was evident in the 1995 “Resolution on the return of plundered property to Jewish communities,” welcoming public apologies for involvement in the Holocaust and recognition of responsibilities for it by certain (unnamed) countries of Eastern Europe. Strikingly, in no EU document on the Holocaust has there been a reference to West European perpetrators other than Nazi Germany or to West European accomplices. Nor has there been an encouragement to West European nations (other than Germany) to apologize for the crimes against Jews and to recognize responsibility for those crimes. The 1995 resolution also implicitly referred to those who gained from the Holocaust. This was also the case in the 1998 “Resolution on the restitution of the possessions of Holocaust victims.” As for other agents involved in the Holocaust, European Holocaust memory included the rescuers of Jews only at the latest stage—in the 2012 declaration supporting the establishment of a “European Day of Remembrance for the Righteous.” Remarkably, in no analyzed Holocaust memory document produced by the EP or the international organizations concerned has there been a reference to onlookers or bystanders and to the passivity of governments vis-à-vis the Holocaust, while lessons from their attitudes also need to be learnt.

As in Western Europe, in Eastern Europe too developing Holocaust memory has centered on Jews as victims, and it has also been concerned with the perpetrators. However, most East Europeans have been keener than West Europeans to refer to the perpetrators as “Germans” rather than “Nazis.” The cause of this is primarily the way in which East Europeans referred to the invaders of some of their nations or allies of others during the Second World War, and what they continue to call them. ⁵⁴ It is also caused by the prevalence of ethnic categorizations rather than political ones in the region, ⁵⁵ and by the reluctance of most East Europeans to deal with the complicity in or perpetration of the Holocaust by many of their predecessors and/or the predecessors of some contemporary East European states. ⁵⁶ However, the encouragements of the EP to apologize and take responsibility for the Holocaust and, more importantly, the ITF/IHRA requirement for candidate states to examine their past in relation to the Holocaust, ⁵⁷ contributed to developments in these regards. Notable examples included investigations into the Holocaust crimes committed by Poles in Jedwabne and by Romania, resulting in the publication of reports and acts of public regret by the Polish and Romanian presidents in 2001 and 2004, respectively. ⁵⁸ However, dealing with the past during the Holocaust did not take place in all East European countries. Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine are among the countries where the least has been done. ⁵⁹ Where dealing with this past was undertaken, the process was not universal or its effects were not profound enough. Thus, there was no wider public debate on the Holocaust in Romania. In Poland, where there was an extensive public debate on the Jedwabne massacre, many believe that the crime was perpetrated by Germans rather than Poles. ⁶⁰

Third, the main facet of European Holocaust memory has been remembrance, and the main objective of the Europeanization of Holocaust memory was the instituting of “an annual European Day of Remembrance of the Holocaust,” as the EP put it in its 1995 “Resolution on a day to commemorate the Holocaust.” In the resolutions adopted in 2000 and 2005, the EP designated 27 January—the day Auschwitz was liberated in 1945. Moreover, as indicated in the 2000 resolution, the EP meant the day to commemorate the Jews only. As decision making on remembrance was not (and still is not) a competence of the EU institutions, but rather one of the member states’ of the Union, the EP could only call on the national authorities to take appropriate decisions. The backing of the EP initiative by the Council of Europe and the UN, the activities of the ITF, and, most importantly, the decisions taken at a national level, resulted in the development of Holocaust remembrance and instituting of Holocaust remembrance days across Europe, Western and Eastern. ⁶¹ The EP, however, failed to reach its objective of instituting one annual European Holocaust Remembrance Day commemorating Jews only in all member states of the Union on the same day of 27 January. No European country has instituted a specifically European Holocaust Remembrance Day. Legislated by the national authorities, the Remembrance Days in all countries have had a national character, which is often reflected in the day’s formal names. Some countries, however, refer to the Remembrance Days instituted by the international organizations—the Council of Europe and the UN. ⁶² 27 January was legislated by twelve of fifteen West European member states of the EU—Germany in 1996, followed by Sweden (1999), Italy (2000), Finland and the United Kingdom (2001), Denmark (2002), Ireland (2003), Belgium and Spain (2004), Greece (2005), Luxembourg (2009), and Portugal (2010). Three West European EU member states legislated different days that reflect their respective historical experience. The Netherlands has since 1946 observed 4 May, the eve of the country’s liberation in 1945, as Remembrance Day. France, which in 1993 became the first country to institute a specific Holocaust Remembrance Day, chose the Sunday closest to 16 July, the day in 1942 when the first round-up of Jews took place in Paris. Austria has observed 5 May, the day on which the Mauthausen camp was liberated in 1945, since 1997. In nearly all West European EU member states, the Holocaust Remembrance Days commemorate Jews and other victims of the Holocaust era. In some countries, they also concern victims of other wars and genocides. Only in Greece and France do the Holocaust Remembrance Days commemorate Jews alone.

In Eastern Europe, diversity in Holocaust Remembrance Days is much greater than in Western Europe, and more countries commemorate only Jews on those days. 27 January was legislated in four of eleven East European member states of the EU—Estonia (2002), Croatia (2003), the Czech Republic (2004), and Slovenia (2008)—and in two other countries—Albania (2004) and Ukraine (2011). Five East European EU member states chose different days reflecting respective significant events related to the Holocaust in those countries. Latvia chose 4 July, the day in 1941 when Jews were burnt alive in a synagogue in Riga, and has celebrated this day since 1990. In 1994, Lithuania instituted 23 September, marking the liquidation of the ghetto of Vilnius in 1943. In 2000, Hungary legislated 16 April, the day in 1944 of the establishment of the first ghetto in wartime Hungary (in Munkács [Мукачеве] in present-day Ukraine), and the start of the deportation of Hungarian Jewry. Since 2002, Bulgaria has observed 10 March, the day in 1943 when the government and the public of the country prevented the deportations of its Jews. In 2004, Romania instituted 9 October, marking the beginning of deportations of Jews to Transnistria by the Romanian authorities in 1941. In 2011 (the Former Yugoslav Republic of) Macedonia, a EU candidate, legislated 11 March, the day in 1943 when the country’s Jews were deported to the death camp of Treblinka. Two other East European member states of the EU—Poland and Slovakia—and one EU candidate—Serbia—observe both 27 January and a day of national Holocaust significance. Poland has commemorated 27 January and 19 April, the day in 1943 when the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising broke out, since 1946. These days were legislated as official Holocaust Remembrance Days in 2004 and 2005, respectively, following the Council of Europe’s and the UN’s decisions. Since 2000 Slovakia has celebrated 9 September, the day in 1941 when the anti-Jewish laws were adopted by the wartime government. Since 1992, Serbia has observed 22 April, the day in 1945 when a group of inmates attempted to break out of the Ustaše-operated Jasenovac concentration camp in Croatia. In 2006 it legislated 27 January. Two countries of Eastern Europe—Belarus and Bosnia and Herzegovina—report that they do not have an official Holocaust Remembrance Day, although they observe 27 January as International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust. Three other countries—Kosovo, Moldova, and Montenegro—had not instituted a Holocaust Remembrance Day by 2014. Among the 17 countries of Eastern Europe analyzed in this article for which data are available, six—Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, and Romania—commemorate only Jews on their Holocaust Remembrance Days, while others pay homage to Jewish and non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust era.

Fourth, although the EP began Europeanizing Holocaust memory with a concern with the concentration and death camps, it has not dealt with these and other physical sites of the Holocaust since the adoption of the 1993 resolution and the 1996 resolution on Auschwitz. Surprisingly, the EP has not concerned itself at all with the Holocaust memorials and museums, except when referring to the educational function of the museum at Auschwitz. The physical sites, memorials, and museums of the Holocaust also remained beyond the scope of the Holocaust memory activities and documents of the Council of Europe, the OSCE, and the UN. The sites of the Holocaust and its memorials and museums, however, have been at the top of the agenda of the ITF/IHRA since its inception and the Stockholm Declaration. Since 2002, the ITF/IHRA has operated its Memorials and Museums Working Group to mobilize support and expertise for Holocaust memorialization. This activity has proven instrumental for many Holocaust memorialization projects carried out in Eastern Europe by various agents—governmental (of various levels and kinds) and non-governmental, domestic and international, between the late 1990s and early 2010s. Thus, the national authorities of Poland reinforced legal protection of the sites of the former Nazi German concentration and death camps. Holocaust memorials were erected in Bratislava, Budapest, Bucharest, and dozens of other locations. Memorial plaques were placed at numerous sites of deportation, ghettoes, and executions. The existing state museums of former camps or ghettoes, such as those at Auschwitz, Majdanek, and Terezín (Theresienstadt), had new Holocaust exhibits added or old ones developed. At the Auschwitz museum, the new Czech, Hungarian, and Slovak national exhibitions on the Holocaust were opened (as were the new Holocaust exhibitions of Belgium, France, Israel, and the Netherlands). New state-sponsored Holocaust memorial museums or Holocaust exhibits were established in Budapest, Riga, Skopje, and other cities. Existing Jewish museums, such as those in Bratislava, Bucharest, Prague, and Riga, developed Holocaust sections. New Jewish museums, such as those in Kraków and Warsaw, were established. Thus, Eastern Europe—the area where the Holocaust had largely taken place—became marked by tangible products of Holocaust memory.

Conclusions

The Europeanization of Holocaust memory—the process of construction, institutionalization, and diffusion of beliefs regarding the Holocaust as well as formal and informal norms and rules regarding Holocaust remembrance and education first defined and consolidated at a European level and then incorporated in the practices of European countries—was induced by multiple agents acting at various levels. The agents identified and discussed in this article played various roles in the process. At a transnational, European level, the EP, which began and championed the process, primarily constructed the norms and rules of Holocaust remembrance. These norms and rules concerned mainly a Holocaust Remembrance Day and protection of the former Nazi camps. Holocaust education was of lesser concern for the EP. The EP also diffused the norms and rules that it constructed within and beyond the enlarging EU. However, it did not play a major role in the institutionalization of Holocaust memory. The norms and rules that it constructed through resolutions and declarations were not formal “hard law,” but informal “soft law.” The ITF/IHRA, which became the international organization dealing with Holocaust memory, an organization comprising mostly European states, contributed to the Europeanization of that memory. The ITF/IHRA’s role in the process was mainly the diffusion and prompting of incorporation of beliefs and norms regarding primarily Holocaust education and also Holocaust remembrance, including Holocaust memorialization. The Council of Europe, which contributed to the Europeanization of Holocaust memory through the declaration of the ministers of education of its member states on a Holocaust Remembrance Day, played a different role. It institutionalized, diffused, and prompted incorporation of the main remembrance rule of Holocaust memory in education. Similarly, the OSCE and the UN further institutionalized and contributed to the incorporation of the rule of Holocaust Remembrance Day. However, their focus was not on education, but on acts of remembrance. At a country level, governments were naturally the key agents—although not the only ones—of the incorporation of Holocaust memory consolidated by the nationally elected members of the EP and the representatives of the national governments in the international organizations. Other agents that incorporated transnational Holocaust memory and developed Holocaust memory within states that were not discussed in this article but whose role needs to be acknowledged included domestic and foreign governmental agencies, nongovernmental and religious organizations, corporations, and private individuals.

The transnational agents and the process discussed in this article made a varied but significant contribution to the development of Holocaust memory in the countries of Eastern Europe. Based upon the evidence provided, one may distinguish four tiers of East European countries according to the length and strength of impact and the amount of development of Holocaust memory. The first tier comprises ten countries—Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. They acceded to the EU in 2004 or 2007, having been in accession negotiations since 1998 or 2000, candidates for EU entry since the mid-1990s, and in association with the EU since the early 1990s. Nine of them belong to the IHRA; the tenth—Bulgaria—is a candidate. Croatia, which joined the ITF/IHRA in 2005 and entered the EU in 2013, may be regarded as the eleventh member of this tier. The national memories of the Holocaust in the first-tier countries are the most developed in the region, although there are some disparities among them. The second tier consists of two candidates for EU entry from the “Western Balkans”—(the Former Yugoslav Republic of) Macedonia and Serbia. Serbia is an IHRA member, and Macedonia is a candidate. Both countries have considerably developed their Holocaust memories. The third tier is the actual or potential EU candidates from the “Western Balkans” that are not IHRA members or candidates, with relatively little Holocaust history and barely developed Holocaust memory—Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo. The fourth tier is made up of the three former Soviet republics—Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine—which are neither EU nor IHRA candidates. These countries have a long way ahead to develop their national memories of the Holocaust—an event much involved in their histories.

There were several differences between the Europeanization of Holocaust memory in the West and the East. We can identify four that seem to be the most important. The first concerned the timing. The process had begun in Western Europe before it reached Eastern Europe. The second concerned the differences in the relationship between European and national Holocaust memory as well as between European and national identity. In the West, the Europeanization of Holocaust memory, being part of the construction of European identity that added to national identities, followed the development of national Holocaust memories. In the East, Europeanization prompted the development of scant national Holocaust memories. These memories unfolded alongside and often in competition with the memories of national suffering and losses inflicted by Nazism and, particularly, communism, thus contributing to the development of national identities. The third difference referred to the relationship between Holocaust memory and Gulag memory, that is, the memory of the communist crimes. When Holocaust memory was developing in Eastern Europe, it did not only often stand in opposition to but also frequently became less important than Gulag memory. This was not the case in Western Europe, where Holocaust memory had become a cornerstone of European memory and identity before the memory of the communist crimes in Eastern Europe became an issue. Fourth, after Holocaust memory had grown in Eastern Europe, it became more diverse and more national—that is, concerning primarily various Holocaust events of national importance—than Holocaust memory in the West, which was by and large more homogenous and transnational, meaning primarily concerned with the Holocaust as the ultimate breach of human rights. How can these differences in the Europeanization of Holocaust memory in the East and the West be explained?

It seems that the most important cause of all the above differences lies in the different historical experiences of the two parts of Europe. Three facts are essential in this regard. Firstly, the Holocaust took place largely in Eastern Europe and comprised the destruction of mostly East European Jews. These aspects of the “East-Europeanness” of the Holocaust are the main explanation of why Holocaust memory in Eastern Europe is apparently more diverse and national than seemingly more homogenous and transnational Holocaust memory in the West. Secondly, communism, the ruling system in Eastern Europe from the late 1940s until 1989–1991, was repressing the development of national Holocaust memories in the region while democracy was enabling the development of national and transnational Holocaust memory in the West. This is the major reason why Eastern Europe generally lagged behind the West in the development of national Holocaust memories and in the Europeanization of Holocaust memory, and why Europeanization resulted in the growth of national Holocaust memories in the East. Thirdly, the amount of human suffering and the scale of human losses of (non-Jewish) East Europeans during the Second World War (as well as before and after) were felt by many people in the region to be much larger than was the case for West Europeans, and also for the Jews. This explains why national memories in Eastern Europe centered on the nations’ own suffering and losses rather than on the Holocaust. Some kinds of this suffering and these losses, particularly at the hands of the Soviets and indigenous communists, were not experienced in the West. The Soviet and other communist crimes (as well as some other wartime sufferings and losses) could not be dealt with by East Europeans during communism. These two factors explain why Gulag memory (and the memories of some other sufferings and losses) competed with Holocaust memory both within (some) East European countries and in the European forums.

The Holocaust is an event that is becoming increasingly distant in time. Despite this fact, its memory has developed immensely in Europe, particularly in Eastern Europe, over the past two decades. Has this development reached its limits? It appears to have as far as the memory’s intensity is concerned. Whatever else might be established alongside the existing Holocaust Remembrance Days, Holocaust education, and Holocaust memorials and museums? It seems, however, that one could organize more moving commemorations and design better educational programs and exhibits. It is also necessary to develop Holocaust memory in the aspects that are underdeveloped nationally and transnationally, especially in respect of coming to terms with the Holocaust past for the sake of the present and the future. Will the European memory of the Holocaust last? The dense network of transnational organizations that sustain the national memories of the Holocaust that constitute European Holocaust memory and highly institutionalized national Holocaust memories allow one to predict that it will.